India / Banaras Hindu University to offer 'Bhoot Vidya' course

We’re a strange and wonderful country where tradition and science often co-exist. But how far can this go?

Banaras Hindu University (BHU) has taken this a step further with the introduction of their new course: Bhoot Vidya or the science of paranormal.

For now it is a six-month certificate course, taught under the purview of the faculty of Ayurveda.

The remedies to psychosomatic disorders and ailments that are caused by unknown reasons that some may consider 'ghosts' will be taught to doctors holding Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) and Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree holders.

This new development has left many in the mental health profession wondering: will this legitimise superstition or expand the reach of mental health services? Will it harm or help mental healthcare in India?

Expert Speak: Decoding Bhoot Vidya

Yamini Bhushan Tripathi, the Ayurveda faculty dean said of the motication to introduce the course,

“A separate unit of Bhoot Vidya has been created in the faculty of Ayurveda for imparting formal education to doctors about the branch. It deals with the Ayurvedic remedies of treating ghost-related ailments and psychosomatic disorders.”

What exactly is Bhoot Vidya?

Tripathi says that it is one of the eight branches of Ashtanga Ayurveda. “It mainly deals with psychosomatic disorders, diseases caused by unknown reasons and diseases of mind or psychic conditions. Faculty of Ayurveda at the BHU is the first in the country to create a separate unit of Bhoot Vidya and design a certificate course on the subject.”

So far, BHU has only said that the course is focussing on psychosomatic illnesses by an Ayurvedic lens. A psychosomatic illness looks at the relation between the body and the mind: so physical ailments can cause mental distress, and your mental state can worsen the physical disease.

Tarun Vohra, currently pursuing his MPhil psychoanalytical psychotherapy from Ambedkar University in Delhi says, “I feel it's a good start. Though I don't know what the course would include, the idea seems to be a good one. In psychology, psychosomatic illness has its roots in repression, experiences which have been repressed long ago take a form of a ghost and come to the forefront later. It all depends on what is being taken up in the course.”

He added that the time frame of six months seemed too short, and wondered why it was not taught to psychology students.

“It is taught only to doctors, hence I'm assuming there would a biomedical model used which might see the human as a body with illness and not concentrate on the psyche”

Mumbai-based psychiatrist Dr Rusheeda Syed feels that this may help spread misinformation and further stigmatise mental disorders.

“I don’t know the details of this course or of Ayurveda but I worry that this may lead to a skewed understanding of mental illness. Modern medicine relies on science and reason, and reducing these evidence-based theories to ghosts and superstitions is problematic. This is a free country, but if the course uses the language of psychiatry and ghosts together it is confusing and will lead to a lot of misunderstanding.”