Zar: Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt Coptic Archeology his attainment of enlightenment under

his attainment of enlightenment under the Banyan tree (the moment he became a buddha

It will make you think in ways you had not thought before' Daniel Kahneman

presents twenty songs in Egyptian Arabic performed by popular singers from Umm Kulthoum to Mohamed Mounir and builds a variety of language lessons around them

He made a laughing stock of himself

are told with an affection often tinged with sadness

Zar: Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt Coptic Archeology his attainment of enlightenment underHager El Hadidi Zar is both a possessing spirit and a set of reconciliation rites between the spirits and their human hosts: living in a parallel yet invisible world, the capricious spirits manifest their anger by causing ailments for their hosts, which require ritual reconciliation, a private sacrificial rite practiced routinely by the afflicted devotees. Originally spread from Ethiopia to the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf through the nineteenth