timboucher

It took documentary film-maker Sandeep Singh three months to gain their trust, but it finally paid off. According to the AZ Central, Singh has completed a compelling documentary about the religious cannibalism practiced by Hindu ascetics or sadhu, known as the Aghori sect.

The not-so-subtly titled “Feeding on the Dead” is unfortunately only a 10 minute documentary, but according to this, it manages to capture one such feeding on camera.

Singh and three cameramen waited with an Aghori sadhu - whose name is not mentioned in the film - for 10 days in June before finding a floating corpse. Hindus generally cremate the dead, but bodies are sometimes ceremonially disposed of in the Ganges.

“The body was decomposed and bluish in color, but the sadhu was not afraid about falling sick,” Singh told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. “He sat on the corpse, prayed to a goddess of crematoriums and offered some flesh to the goddess before eating it.”

Singh said the sadhu ate part of the corpse’s elbow, believing the flesh would stop him from aging and give him special powers, like the ability to levitate or control the weather.

Feeding on the Dead is nominated for Best Documentary in the Asian Festival of First Films.

Here are some other interesting items I found related ot the Aghori:

- An American author named Mike Yon followed around an Aghori sadhu named Kapalnath who eventually confessed to having stalked and shot hikers in San Francisco and Hawaii. Maybe he was just pulling Yon’s leg though, as police have looked at their records and not found any possible matches.

- A little more online probing reveals that Kapalnath (or Kapal Nath) is actually an American turned Hindu. His name is Gary Stevenson and he’s from Texas. He’s known lovingly as the American Aghori. According to that author who also met Nath and conversed with him, she did some research online and Nath/Stevenson

“had previously been locked up in a secure psychiatric unit in America. Nath is currently wanted by the FBI for questioning in connection with several missing backpackers whom the government suspect may have been ritually sacrificed and consumed by cannibals in India.”

- This just gets weirder… remember that American writer, Mike Yon? Well, he used to be a Green Beret and - get this - Michael Jackson’s personal bodyguard. I can’t substantiate this, but it makes me wonder if perhaps he wasn’t following up on some of Michael Jackson’s alleged occult interests. In any event, this article on Yon has some really wild sections in it:

As they sat in the restaurant, Nath talked of how humans should be prepared.

“I like to take a fresh body, you know, maybe even an Israeli, cook ‘em barbecue,” Nath spoke into Yon’s tape recorder.

Nath described his technique, using a “big, big bucket of barbecue sauce, paintbrush, roller, you know.”

Yon spent the next 11 days with Nath. Cannibalism, Yon said, was taken as a part of Indian culture.

“The amazing thing is they are doing it there in the open,” Yon said. “A policeman was burning the body of his neighbour and cracked open the skull to release the soul. The policeman gave Nath some of the brains to eat.”

Definitely worth reading in full - assuming you have a strong stomach and morbid fascination with this type of stuff. Few other items worth checking out about the Aghori:

1. Western Tourists and Indian Culture of “Cannibalism”?
2. Cannibalism still exists in Modern India!
3. Voyage Into Hindu Madness of Cannibalism (scroll down the page for where this is posted)
4. Basic religious information on the Aghori sect, their practices and beliefs

Other blogs that mention this documentary or the Aghori recently:

1. Mystery News
2. Constant Inanity
3. Horrified Onlooker
4. Shantidove

No word anywhere on if and when Singh’s documentary on the Aghoris will be available here in the States.

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