3. What is Shamanism?
• The word “shamanism” was introduced by eighteenth-
century German Explorers of Siberia to describe tribal
spiritual practitioners in Siberia who worked in state of a
trance (ecstasy)
• “Classical” areas of shamanism: northern Asia and
Northwestern North America; the shaman enters the state of
trance (altered state, trance) and seeks spirits’ help to
resolve various problems in his or her community
• The word “shaman” is now used loosely to describe all
spiritual practitioners (medicine men/women) in all tribal
societies from Siberia to Africa
8. The major tools shamans use to enter a trance
• A prolonged drum
beats and chanting
• Hallucinogens:
– cactus peyote
– cactus San Pedro
– fly mushrooms
– psylocibe
mushrooms
– tobacco
9. Western Science About Shamanism:
Hysteria Cum Demonomania
• “The shaman is abnormal, neurotic, and epileptic; his functions are based on his
abnormal qualities and aggravate these in turn” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics
(1920)
10. Why hysterics and neurotics? “Arctic
Hysteria” into Shamanism
• Severe northern environment perpetuates neurotic
behavior (geographical determinism)
• Polar societies are haunted by hysteria
(generalization on the basis of limited facts)
• Females are especially prone to hysteria (a tribute
to Victorian psychology/medical science)
• Shamans manifest hysteria in its extreme (to a
superficial view, “hysterics” and shamans show the
same “bizarre” behavior; therefore they are linked
to each other).
11. Shamanism Goes Global: Mircea Eliade’s “Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of
Ecstasy” (1951)
• Shamanism as primal mysticism,
longing for paradise
• Shamans are not neurotics
• Economic, social and cultural
contexts are “parasites of religious
phenomena”
• Extended the expression of
shamanism to South America,
Australia, pre-Christian Europe
12. The Rise of Interest in Shamanism
• Until the 1960s, except anthropologists and psychiatrists,
shamanism was of little interest to people
• Shamans had been viewed either as a fraud or as mentally
unstable people (see next slide)
• The 1960s: Western civilization with its technology and
reason loses its appeal in the eyes of people
• counterculture, interests in non-western cultures and
religions, drugs and altered states; interest in shamanism
grows in academia and beyond
• Since the end of the 1960s to the present: shamans are
viewed as people of incredible ecological and spiritual
wisdom, will help to heal Western society (1960s to
present)
14. Michael Harner: from Anthropologist
to Shamanism Teacher
• Field work among the Conibo
Indians in South America
• Ayahuasca (mind-altering
herb drink) experience
• The Way of the Shaman
(1980), an attempt to digest
various tribal shamanisms into
the healing “core” technique
for Western audiences.
• Neo-shamanism: spiritual but
not religious
15. Harner: Shamanism as Spiritual Therapy
• He argues that drum beats have healing
effect on the mind and body
• Shamanic journeying for resolution of
various problems
• Each person can learn quickly and safely
enter altered states (expansion of personal
consciousness)
• Power animal as a virtual confidant
17. Now: to learn from the “tribal”
and “ancient ones”
• away from the Western
Civilization
• shamanism as philosophy
of nature
• shamanism as flexible and
democratic spirituality
• shamanism as primal
feminism
• Neo-shamanism is part of
modern New Age/nature
spirituality
18. Heavy presence of Native Americana in neo-
shamanism New Age/nature spirituality, 1960s-1990s
• The American Indian as an
antidote to modernity and
Western Civilization
• Joseph Campbell:
American Indians are “the
most spiritual people on
earth”
• Native Americans as the
archetype of the ancient,
ecological and spiritual
19. From the United States to Europe
•
• United States is the motherland of
the New Age/neo-shamanism
• Dominant position of English
language
• American “flood of printed
matter” and “Native American”
traveling “shamans” as inspirations
for European spiritual seekers
20. Merlin’s call: from Native Americana to
ancient European folklore
• Many New Age/nature communities are
sensitive to Native American criticism
• A growing realization that Native
Americana cannot make Western seekers
more indigenous
• A current movement toward European pre-
Christian folklore (Nordic and Celtic
spiritualities)
24. Why is the word “shaman” popular?
• Old expressions used to describe tribal and ancient
spiritual practitioners (wizard, witch doctor,
sorcerer, and magician) are viewed as offensive,
culturally biased and Eurocentric
• Words “medicine man/women” are too gender
specific
• Gender neutral “shaman” is devoid of all those
characteristics
• Additional attraction: the word shaman comes
from native Siberia, which means it is non-Western
25. Is neo-shamanism “genuine” or “flaky”?
Things to remember
• Imagined neo-shamanism communities are
not necessarily imaginary communities
• If a religious path is a new, invented from
books, or replicated from another culture, it
does not mean that this path is less valid
than “traditional” religions
• Religion is not less valid even if it contains
elements of deceit
26. Conclusions
• neo-shamanism became an integral part of Western
landscape of new religious movements
• As such, neo-shamanism is authentic and
“traditional”
• In matters of religion/spirituality, such verdicts as
“authentic” and “non-authentic,” “traditional” and
“non-traditional” do not make sense.
27. • Go to Andrei Znamenski web
page that includes a link to The
Beauty of the Primitive web page
• Go to Andrei
Znamenski
amazon web
author’s page
Hinweis der Redaktion
I became interested in the topic in 1998 when I was doing research in Alaska. I was going to board a hydroplane to fly to a remote Athabaskan Indian community in south-central Alaska. I was approached by two persons, who found out from my friend that I would be going there. One was a real estate agent, another one was a health worker from the University of Alaska Health Center. During the conversation the real estate egent told me that he healed himself with the shamanic therapy. They several times alerted me that they would be very interested that I retrieve information on shamanism. When I informed them that I was going to study the Native American community that long time ago came to consider Russian Orthodox Church their indigenous church, they seemed to be disappointed. The woman lamented that Western civilization made such powerful inroads in native society that they forgot their native traditions. At the end of the talk, the woman invited me to a local Unitarian church where they had a shamanic drumming session. Since at that day I was to take that plane, I could not use her invitation. Next year, during my trip to the Altai in southwestern Siberia, I was sitting and waiting for my train at a small railroad station. Suddenly my eye caught a toilet water called “Shaman” that was on sale in a local kiosk. The water turned out to be a Chinese remake of the French brand name. The list of examples can be continued. I can name the recent album of Sansana “Shaman.” To make the long story short, I became interested in exploring why and how the idiom of shamanism became so popular in Western culture. Concluded the contract with a publisher, and now I am writing a book on the same topic.
First, let me to briefly give you a generic description what in literature they mead by shamans and shamanism. At first, the phenomenon was applied only to indigenous spiritual practitioners in Siberia and northwest coast of North America. Then it became expanded to other tribal people (South America, Africa, Australia, and even to pre-Christian Europe). Now the word is frequently used to replace such old expressions as “medicine man” or “medicine woman,” “sorcerer,” “witch,” “seer,” “prophet.”
To show the students a replica of a Siberian drum.
The shamans as “creative madman,” “wounded healer.” To mention Africa (I. Lewis, shamanism and possession). “We forgot about Africa.” The attractiveness of the shamanism concept – the shaman is not a slave possessed by spirits, but the master of these spirits.
The books became adopt more often than not the titles “shaman” Examples: M. McDonald “Witchdoctor” (1959) into “Shaman” (1972). A 1929 book titled as “Medicine Men” was reissued as “Shamans” and so forth. It seems that the expression allowed to avoid the negative value and gender connotations. Although some radical feminists say prefer to use the word “shamanka” to avoid as they think the “shaman” although in the Tungus language the root has nothing to do with the word “man.”