In a strange update to the medical field, the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India is beginning a new six-month certification program in this new year; it’s called Bhoot Vidya, Ghost Studies. The course plans on focusing on healing certain aspects of mental health and mental illness via the Ayurveda system of traditional Hindu medicine and healing.
However, there are slightly conflicting reports for what this course and its knowledge will actually be for. Indian officials have a very cut and dry definition of the new course, with the Dean of the school stating that “Bhoot Vidya mainly deals with psychosomatic disorders, diseases caused by unknown reasons and diseases of mind or psychic conditions.” Under this definition, the course will be teaching traditional methods of treating people who think that their issues could be created by curses, hauntings, possession, etc. but which are actually standard medical issues with a paranormal cause being projected onto them.
But in a different statement, she said something a bit more unclear. In relation to the treatments that will be taught to the medical students, the Dean said that the Ayruvedic remedies would specifically be “to treat ghost-related ailments.” No mention of psychosomatic disorders, no reference to mental health; straight up ghosts.
In a country where mental health and mental illness are already barely dealt with in what many may consider a proper fashion, perhaps this is a smoke screen statement to be able to make those who may have more shame admitting to, say, bi-polar disorder over being cursed or haunted. Or, maybe in this case the spirituality has awkwardly mixed with the medical field and we are genuinely going to see new people being trained in treating ghosts with diet change, herbal medicine, and other such things.
Either way, the first graduates of the program in the next six months will likely be fascinating to listen to and watch, for skeptics and believers alike.