Mar 11 2025 57 mins 4
In this episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David’s most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and their associated rituals across Eurasia. Along the way, we dive into an intellectual conversation about dog-headed men, angry goddesses, alchemical mercury, body-snatching yogis, the origins of Dracula, and much, much more.
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Resources mentioned
- David Gordon White, Daemons are Forever (2021)
- David Gordon White, Myths of the Dog-Man (1991)
- David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body (1997)
- David Gordon White, Kiss of the Yogini (2006)
- David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (2011)
- Michel Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine (2002)
- Michel Strickmann, Mantras et Mandarins (1996)
- David Gordon White, “Three Shades of Tantric Yoga,” in Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies (2024)
- David Gordon White, "Were-Creatures of the Eurasian Ecumene," Journal Asiatique(2020)
- David Gordon White, "Dracula’s Family Tree," Gothic Studies (2021)
Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com.
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