Ben Joffe is an anthropologist, diviner, translator, and editor currently based in Cape Town, South Africa. He holds a PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a specialization in the anthropology of Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism, religion, magic, Tantra and the globalization of esoteric traditions. His doctoral dissertation fieldwork in India, Nepal, Tibet, and the United States focused on Tibetan Buddhist ngakpa – non-celibate, non-monastic sorcerer-yogis – and the ways in which their knowledge and practices have been circulated, mediated, appropriated and contested as part of increasingly transnational networks and economies. As a scholar and practitioner of Tibetan Vajrayana with a long history of involvement in Western magical and esoteric traditions, Ben is especially interested in overlaps and divergences between Indo-Tibetan and Western esoteric traditions and the messy exchanges and blurry divisions that have arisen in interactions between so-called Western and so-called non-Western occultists.
Ben has read tarot cards for clients since the age of eleven and he continues to offer divinatory services in between his full-time work as a translator, editor and educator. He serves as head Tibetan translator and editor at Sky Press Books and works as a curriculum developer and teaching assistant for Sowa Rigpa Institute (https://www.sowarigpainstitute.org/). Through publishing texts and developing educational programs, these organizations seek to make Tibetan medical, magical and yogic traditions accessible to a broad array of students worldwide. More information about Ben’s interests, research and activities can be found at his blog A Perfumed Skull (www.perfumedskull.com).