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Widdess, ‘Rāga Knowledge in the Kathmandu Valley’ (2011)

Widdess, Richard. ‘Implicit Rāga Knowledge in the Kathmandu Valley.’ Analytical Approaches to World Music 1 (1), 2011, pp.73-92. [abstract / PDF (11 MB)]

Abstract extract

The term rāga is current not only in the classical traditions of North and South Indian music, where it is the subject of an extensive written and oral theory, but also in many non-classical traditions especially of religious music in South Asia. For example, devotional songs (dāphā) sung by groups of Newar farmers in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, are regularly attributed to rāgas; but there is little explicit (i.e. verbally expressed) knowledge about rāga among the performers. […] The present study suggests that rāga-preludes sung before each dāphā song constitute melodic models that underlie song melodies. […]

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Ohkado et al, ‘Xenoglossy in Hypnosis’ (2010)

Inexplicable irruptions.
Inexplicable irruptions.
Xenoglossy, ‘speaking in tongues’, a phenomenon considered by some to offer evidence for reincarnation, is not widely discussed — because not widely accepted — in the scientific literature. Nonetheless, articles have recently been published on the case of a Japanese woman who converses in Nepali, a language that she has (apparently) not learned, while under hypnosis. Here’s one:

大門 正幸, 稲垣 勝巳, 末武 信宏, 岡本 聡 「退行催眠時に生じる異言とそれが示唆するもの(第29回生命情報科学シンポジウム」 (OHKADO Masayuki, INAGAKI Katsumi, SUETAKE Nobuhiro, and OKAMOTO Satoshi. On Xenoglossy Occurring in Hypnosis and What It Suggests (The 29th Symposium on Life Information Science).) Journal of International Society of Life Information Science 28 (1), 128–139, 2010.
[link]