Shamanism: A Reader

Shamanism has been practised amongst communities all over the world for millennia, and continues to survive today in both modern and ancient forms. Shamanism: A Reader unites perspectives from disciplines including anthropology, psychology, musicology, and botany to provide an unique overview of modern writing on shamanism. Juxtaposing the traditional practices of indigenous peoples with their new and often radically urban reinterpretations, experts including Michael Harner, Milh?ly Hopp?l, Majorie M Balzer and Piers Vitebsky raise questions about constructions of shamanism, its efficacy, its use and misuse as a cultural symbol, and its real nature.

Locating its material in the encounter between traditional and contemporary, and within many forms of response to the image of the shaman, Shamanism: A Reader is an essential tribute to the vitality and breadth of shamanic tradition both among its original practitioners of Europe, tribes of America and Asia, and within seemingly familiar aspects of the modern west. Representing the best of classic and current scholarship, and highlighting the diversity of approaches to shamanism in an accessible and user-friendly way, this clearly introduced and organized collection sets a new standard for shamanic study in terms of the breadth and depth of its coverage.

Shamanism has been practised amongst communities all over the world for millennia and as one of the world's most universal and enduring spiritual traditions, it continues to survive today in both modern and ancient forms. Ideal for students of religion and anthropology.

"Shamanism: A Reader" unites perspectives from disciplines including anthropology, psychology, musicology, botany to provide a unique overview of modern writing on shamanism. From grassroots political writing to classical ethnographies, and imaginative narratives to detailed case studies, the 25 articles and short extracts presented here cover topics including gender, initiation, hallucinogenic consciousness and political protest. Juxtaposing the traditional practices of indigenous peoples with their new and often radically urban reinterpretations, experts including Michael Harner, Milhaly Hoppal, Majorie M Balzer and Piers Vitebsky raise questions about constructions of shamanism, its efficacy, its use and misuse as a cultural symbol, and its real nature.

Pt. 1. Initiation. How Sereptie Djarvoskin of the Nganasans (Tavgi Samoyeds) became a shaman / Sereptie Djarvoskin, transcribed by Popov — Discovering the way / Michael Harner. Pt. 2. Shamanising. Game and games, fortune and dualism in Siberian shamanism / Roberte N. Hamayon — Possession and public morality: 11 other cosmological systems / Ioan M. Lewis — Ojibway shamanism / John A. Grim — The new anthropology of dreaming / Barbara Tedlock — Submitting / Alan T. Campbell — The reality of spirits / Edith Turner. Pt. 3. Aesthetics. Like people in prehistory / Thomas A. Dowson — The artistry and ritual aesthetics of urban Korean shamans / Chungmoo Choi — Remembering to forget: the aesthetics of longing / Marina Roseman — Ethnographic films on shamanism / Mihâaly Hoppâal. Pt. 4. Context. Urunge's way / Caroline Humphrey and Urgunge Onon — Rethinking Induit shamanism through the concept of "Third gender" / Bernard Saladin d'Anglure — Sacred genders in Siberia: shamans, bear festivals, and androgyny / Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer — Toughness and tenderness in the wild man's lair: the everyday as impenetrable, the impenetrable as everyday / Michael Taussig — From cosmology to environmentalism: shamanism as local knowledge in a global setting / Piers Vitebsky. Pt. 5. New developments. The poetry of shamanism / Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer — Spiritual hucksterism: the rise of the plastic medicine men / Ward Churchill — Shamanism from Ecuador to Chicago: a case study in new age ritual appropriation / Paul C. Johnson — Tracking lost souls / Sandra Ingerman — Dancing on the edge: shamanism in modern Britain / Gordon MacLellan — The tree, the tower and the shaman: the material culture of resistance of the no M11 link roads protest of Wanstead and Leytonstone, London / Beverley Butler — Waking ancestor spirits: neo-shamanic engagements with archaeology / Robert J. Wallis — A brief history of psychedelics / Terence McKenna.