Shamanism

Religious practice

"Shaman" and "Shamans" redirect here. For other uses, see Shaman (disambiguation).

Part of a series on

Anthropology of religion

File:Khagdaev1.JPG

Buryat shaman on Olkhon Island, Siberia

Basic concepts

* Afterlife
* Animism
* Augury
* Communitas
* Comparative religion
* Divination
* Divine language
* Evolutionary origin of religions
* Fetishism
* Great Spirit
* Henotheism
* Initiation
* Liminality
* Magic (supernatural)
* Mana
* Monotheism
* Nympholepsy
* Oracle
* Polytheism
* Rite of passage
* Ritual
* Sacred language
* Sacred–profane dichotomy
* Sacred site
* Shamanism
* Soul dualism
* Superstition
* Theories about religions
* Totem
* Transtheism
* Veneration of the dead

Case studies

Magic

* Coral Gardens and Their Magic
* Treatise on the Apparitions of
Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants
* Neo-Paganism

Ritual

* Angakkuq
* Babaylan
* Bobohizan
* Bomoh
* Bora
* Dukun
* Miko
* Jhākri
* Pawang
* Slametan
* Wu

Revitalization movements

* Cargo cult
* Ghost Dance
* Handsome Lake

Related articles

* The Elementary Forms
of the Religious Life
* Purity and Danger
* Myth and ritual
* Archaeology of religion and ritual
* Poles in mythology

Major theorists

* Augustin Calmet
* Akbar S. Ahmed
* Talal Asad
* Joseph Campbell
* Mary Douglas
* Émile Durkheim
* Arnold van Gennep
* E. E. Evans-Pritchard
* James Frazer
* Clifford Geertz
* Robin Horton
* Claude Lévi-Strauss
* Robert Marett
* Roy Rappaport
* Saba Mahmood
* Marshall Sahlins
* Melford Spiro
* Stanley Tambiah
* Victor Turner
* Edward Burnett Tylor
* Daniel Martin Varisco
* Anthony F. C. Wallace

Journals

* Anthropological Perspectives on Religion
* Folklore
* The Hibbert Journal
* The Journal of Religion
* Oceania

Religions

Ethnic and folk religions

* Afro-American religion
* Alaska Native religion
* Anito
* Atua
* Böö mörgöl
* Chinese folk religion
* Hanitu
* Hausa
* Kejawèn
* Native American religion
* Noaidi
* Shindo
* Shamanism in Siberia
* Shinto
* Tengrism
* Traditional African religions

Buddhism

* Mahayana
* Nichiren
* Pure Land
* Shingon
* Theravada
* Tiantai
* Tibetan
* Vajrayana
* Zen

Christianity

* Adventism
* Anglicanism
* Armenian Apostolic Church
* Baptists
* Calvinism
* Catholic Church
* Coptic Orthodoxy
* Eastern Orthodoxy
* Ethiopian Orthodoxy
* Greek Orthodoxy
* Lutheranism
* Methodism
* Nestorianism
* Oriental Orthodoxy
* Pentecostalism
* Protestantism
* Quakers
* Russian Orthodoxy

Hinduism

* Hindu denominations
* Shaivism
* Shaktism
* Smartism
* Vaishnavism
* Ayyavazhi

Islam

* Ahmadiyya
* Ibadi
* Mahdavia
* Non-denominational
* Quranists
* Shia
* Sufism
* Sunni
* Yazdânism

Judaism

* Conservative
* Hasidic
* Karaite
* Orthodox
* Reform

Jainism

* Digambara
* Śvētāmbara

Sikhism

Social and cultural anthropology

* v
* t
* e

This article is part of a series on

Alternative medicine
File:Outline-body-aura.svg

General information

* Alternative medicine
* History
* Terminology
* Alternative veterinary medicine
* Quackery (health fraud)
* Rise of modern medicine
* Pseudoscience
* Antiscience
* Skepticism
* Scientific
* Therapeutic nihilism

Fringe medicine and science

* Acupressure
* Acupuncture
* Alkaline diet
* Anthroposophic medicine
* Apitherapy
* Applied kinesiology
* Aromatherapy
* Association for Research and Enlightenment
* Auriculotherapy
* Bates method
* Black salve
* Bodywork
* Bone-setting
* Bowen technique
* Breathwork
* Camel urine
* Fake COVID-19 treatments
* Cancer treatments
* Charcoal cleanse
* Chelation therapy
* Chiropractic
* Chiropractic treatment techniques
* Vertebral subluxation
* Christian Science
* Chromotherapy
* Colon cleansing
* Coffee enema
* Colorpuncture
* Colloidal silver
* Craniosacral therapy
* Crystal healing
* Cupping therapy
* Dental amalgam controversy
* Detoxification
* Foot detox
* Dry needling
* Ear candling
* Energy medicine
* Correactology
* Esoteric energy
* Therapeutic touch
* Estrogen dominance
* Fabunan Antiviral Injection
* Facilitated communication
* Feldenkrais Method
* Functional medicine
* Hair analysis
* Herbal medicine
* Holistic dentistry
* Hologram bracelet
* Homeopathy
* Bach flower remedies
* Biological terrain assessment
* Hydrotherapy
* Hypnotherapy
* Iridology
* Ionized jewelry
* Jilly Juice
* Lightning Process
* Lymphotherapy
* Medical intuitive
* Mesmerism
* Magnet therapy
* Manual therapy
* Megavitamin therapy
* Mind–body interventions
* MMS
* Myofascial release
* NAET
* Naturopathy
* Oil pulling
* Orgone
* Orthomolecular medicine
* Orthopathy
* Osteomyology
* Osteopathy
* Ozone therapy
* Parapsychology
* Phrenology
* Postural Integration
* Psychic surgery
* Psychodermatology
* Quantum healing
* Radionics
* Rapid prompting method
* RBOP
* Reiki
* Reflexology
* Rolfing
* Scientific racism
* ThetaHealing
* Thought Field Therapy
* Urophagia
* Vaginal steaming
* Vision therapy
* Vitalism
* Vegetotherapy
* Young blood transfusion
* Zero balancing

Conspiracy theories

* Big Pharma conspiracy theories
* HIV/AIDS denialism
* OPV AIDS hypothesis
* Anti-vaccinationism
* in chiropractic
* Vaccines and autism
* MMR vaccine and autism
* Water fluoridation controversy
* COVID-19 misinformation

Classifications

* Alternative medical systems
* Mind–body intervention
* Biologically-based therapy
* Manipulative methods
* Energy therapy

Traditional medicine

* African
* Muti
* Southern Africa
* Ayurveda
* Dosha
* MVAH
* Balneotherapy
* Brazilian
* Bush medicine
* Cambodian
* Chinese
* Blood stasis
* Chinese herbology
* Dit da
* Gua sha
* Gill plate trade
* Meridian
* Moxibustion
* Pressure point
* Qi
* San Jiao
* Tui na
* Zang-fu
* Chumash
* Curandero
* Faith healing
* Hilot
* Iranian
* Jamu
* Kambo
* Japanese
* Korean
* Mien Shiang
* Mongolian
* Prophetic medicine
* Shamanism
* Shiatsu
* Siddha
* Sri Lankan
* Thai massage
* Tibetan
* Unani
* Vietnamese

Diagnoses

* Adrenal fatigue
* Aerotoxic syndrome
* Candida hypersensitivity
* Chronic Lyme disease
* Electromagnetic hypersensitivity
* Heavy legs
* Leaky gut syndrome
* Multiple chemical sensitivity
* Wilson's temperature syndrome

* v
* t
* e

Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance.[1][2] The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into the physical world for the purpose of healing, divination, or to aid human beings in some other way.[1]

Beliefs and practices categorized as "shamanic" have attracted the interest of scholars from a variety of disciplines, including anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, religious studies scholars, philosophers and psychologists. Hundreds of books and academic papers on the subject have been produced, with a peer-reviewed academic journal being devoted to the study of shamanism.

In the 20th century, non-Indigenous Westerners involved in counter-cultural movements, such as hippies and the New Age created modern magico-religious practices influenced by their ideas of various Indigenous religions, creating what has been termed neoshamanism or the neoshamanic movement.[3] It has affected the development of many neopagan practices, as well as faced a backlash and accusations of cultural appropriation,[4] exploitation and misrepresentation when outside observers have tried to practice the ceremonies of, or represent, centuries-old cultures to which they do not belong.[5]

## Contents

* 1 Terminology
* 1.1 Etymology
* 1.2 Definitions
* 1.3 Criticism of the term
* 2 History
* 3 Beliefs
* 3.1 Soul and spirit concepts
* 4 Practice
* 4.1 Entheogens
* 4.2 Music and songs
* 4.3 Initiation and learning
* 4.4 Other practices
* 4.5 Items used in spiritual practice
* 5 Roles
* 6 Ecological aspect
* 7 Economics
* 8 Academic study
* 8.1 Cognitive and evolutionary approaches
* 8.2 Ecological approaches and systems theory
* 8.3 Historical origins
* 8.4 Semiotic and hermeneutic approaches
* 9 Decline and revitalization and tradition-preserving movements
* 10 Regional variations
* 11 See also
* 12 References
* 12.1 Citations
* 12.2 Sources
* 13 Further reading
* 14 External links

## Terminology[edit | edit source]

### Etymology[edit | edit source]

File:Witsen's Shaman.JPG

The earliest known depiction of a Siberian shaman, by the Dutch Nicolaes Witsen, 17th century. Witsen called him a "priest of the Devil" and drew clawed feet for the supposed demonic qualities.[6]

The Modern English word shamanism derives from the Russian word šamán, which itself comes from the word samān from a Tungusic language[7] – possibly from the southwestern dialect of the Evenki spoken by the Sym Evenki peoples,[8] or from the Manchu language.[9] The etymology of the word is sometimes connected to the Tungus root sā-, meaning "to know".[10][11] However, Finnish ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen questions this connection on linguistic grounds: "The possibility cannot be completely rejected, but neither should it be accepted without reservation since the assumed derivational relationship is phonologically irregular (note especially the vowel quantities)."[12]

Mircea Eliade noted that the Sanskrit word śramaṇa, designating a wandering monastic or holy figure, has spread to many Central Asian languages along with Buddhism and could be the ultimate origin of the word shaman.[13]

The term was adopted by Russians interacting with the indigenous peoples in Siberia. It is found in the memoirs of the exiled Russian churchman Avvakum.[14] It was brought to Western Europe twenty years later by the Dutch traveler Nicolaes Witsen, who reported his stay and journeys among the Tungusic- and Samoyedic-speaking indigenous peoples of Siberia in his book Noord en Oost Tataryen (1692).[15] Adam Brand, a merchant from Lübeck, published in 1698 his account of a Russian embassy to China; a translation of his book, published the same year, introduced the word shaman to English speakers.[16]

Anthropologist and archaeologist Silvia Tomaskova argued that by the mid-1600s, many Europeans applied the Arabic term shaitan (meaning "devil") to the non-Christian practices and beliefs of indigenous peoples beyond the Ural Mountains.[17] She suggests that shaman may have entered the various Tungus dialects as a corruption of this term, and then been told to Christian missionaries, explorers, soldiers and colonial administrators with whom the people had increasing contact for centuries.

A female shaman is sometimes called a shamanka, which is not an actual Tungus term but simply shaman plus the Russian suffix -ka (for feminine nouns).[18]

### Definitions[edit | edit source]

File:SB - Altay shaman with drum.jpg

A shaman, probably Khakas, Russian Empire, 1908[19]

There is no single agreed-upon definition for the word "shamanism" among anthropologists. Thomas Downson suggests three shared elements of shamanism: practitioners consistently alter consciousness, the community regards altering consciousness as an important ritual practice, and the knowledge about the practice is controlled.

The English historian Ronald Hutton noted that by the dawn of the 21st century, there were four separate definitions of the term which appeared to be in use:

* The first of these uses the term to refer to "anybody who contacts a spirit world while in an altered state of consciousness".
* The second definition limits the term to refer to those who contact a spirit world while in an altered state of consciousness at the behest of others.
* The third definition attempts to distinguish shamans from other magico-religious specialists who are believed to contact spirits, such as "mediums", "witch doctors", "spiritual healers" or "prophets," by claiming that shamans undertake some particular technique not used by the others. (Problematically, scholars advocating the third view have failed to agree on what the defining technique should be.)
* The fourth definition identified by Hutton uses "shamanism" to refer to the indigenous religions of Siberia and neighboring parts of Asia.[20] According to the Golomt Center for Shamanic Studies, a Mongolian organisation of shamans, the Evenk word shaman would more accurately be translated as "priest".[21]

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a shaman (/ˈʃɑːmən/ SHAH-men, /ˈʃæmən/ or /ˈʃeɪmən/)[22] is someone who is regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters into a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing.[1][22] The word "shaman" probably originates from the Tungusic Evenki language of North Asia. According to Juha Janhunen, "the word is attested in all of the Tungusic idioms" such as Negidal, Lamut, Udehe/Orochi, Nanai, Ilcha, Orok, Manchu and Ulcha, and "nothing seems to contradict the assumption that the meaning 'shaman' also derives from Proto-Tungusic" and may have roots that extend back in time at least two millennia.[23] The term was introduced to the west after Russian forces conquered the shamanistic Khanate of Kazan in 1552.

The term "shamanism" was first applied by Western anthropologists as outside observers of the ancient religion of the Turks and Mongols, as well as those of the neighbouring Tungusic- and Samoyedic-speaking peoples. Upon observing more religious traditions around the world, some Western anthropologists began to also use the term in a very broad sense. The term was used to describe unrelated magico-religious practices found within the ethnic religions of other parts of Asia, Africa, Australasia and even completely unrelated parts of the Americas, as they believed these practices to be similar to one another.[24] While the term has been incorrectly applied by cultural outsiders to many indigenous spiritual practices, the words “shaman” and “shamanism” do not accurately describe the variety and complexity that is indigenous spirituality. Each nation and tribe has its own way of life, and uses terms in their own languages.[25]

Mircea Eliade writes, "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = 'technique of religious ecstasy'."[26] Shamanism encompasses the premise that shamans are intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit worlds. Shamans are said to treat ailments and illnesses by mending the soul. Alleviating traumas affecting the soul or spirit are believed to restore the physical body of the individual to balance and wholeness. Shamans also claim to enter supernatural realms or dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the community. Shamans claim to visit other worlds or dimensions to bring guidance to misguided souls and to ameliorate illnesses of the human soul caused by foreign elements. Shamans operate primarily within the spiritual world, which, they believe, in turn affects the human world. The restoration of balance is said to result in the elimination of the ailment.[26]

### Criticism of the term[edit | edit source]

Further information: Medicine man

File:Shaman tableau.png

A tableau presenting figures of various cultures filling in mediator-like roles, often being termed as "shaman" in the literature. The tableau presents the diversity of this concept.

The anthropologist Alice Kehoe criticizes the term "shaman" in her book Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. Part of this criticism involves the notion of cultural appropriation.[4] This includes criticism of New Age and modern Western forms of shamanism, which, according to Kehoe, misrepresent or dilute indigenous practices. Kehoe also believes that the term reinforces racist ideas such as the noble savage.

Kehoe is highly critical of Mircea Eliade's work on shamanism as an invention synthesized from various sources unsupported by more direct research. To Kehoe, citing that ritualistic practices (most notably drumming, trance, chanting, entheogens and hallucinogens, spirit communication and healing) as being definitive of shamanism is poor practice. Such citations ignore the fact that those practices exist outside of what is defined as shamanism and play similar roles even in non-shamanic cultures (such as the role of chanting in rituals in Abrahamic religions) and that in their expression are unique to each culture that uses them. Such practices cannot be generalized easily, accurately, or usefully into a global religion of shamanism. Because of this, Kehoe is also highly critical of the hypothesis that shamanism is an ancient, unchanged, and surviving religion from the Paleolithic period.[4]

The term has been criticized[by whom?] for its perceived colonial roots, and as a tool to perpetuate perceived contemporary linguistic colonialism. By Western scholars, the term "shamanism" is used to refer to a variety of different cultures and practices around the world, which can vary dramatically and may not be accurately represented by a single concept. Billy-Ray Belcourt, an author and award-winning scholar from the Driftpile Cree Nation in Canada, argues that using language with the intention of simplifying culture that is diverse, such as Shamanism, as it is prevalent in communities around the world and is made up of many complex components, works to conceal the complexities of the social and political violence that indigenous communities have experienced at the hands of settlers.[27] Belcourt argues that language used to imply “simplicity” in regards to indigenous culture, is a tool used to belittle indigenous cultures, as it views indigenous communities solely as a result of a history embroiled in violence, that leaves indigenous communities only capable of simplicity and plainness.

Anthropologist Mihály Hoppál also discusses whether the term "shamanism" is appropriate. He notes that for many readers, "-ism" implies a particular dogma, like Buddhism or Judaism. He recommends using the term "shamanhood"[28] or "shamanship"[29] (a term used in old Russian and German ethnographic reports at the beginning of the 20th century) for stressing the diversity and the specific features of the discussed cultures. He believes that this places more stress on the local variations[10] and emphasizes that shamanism is not a religion of sacred dogmas, but linked to the everyday life in a practical way.[30] Following similar thoughts, he also conjectures a contemporary paradigm shift.[28] Piers Vitebsky also mentions that, despite really astonishing similarities, there is no unity in shamanism. The various, fragmented shamanistic practices and beliefs coexist with other beliefs everywhere. There is no record of pure shamanistic societies (although their existence is not impossible).[31] Norwegian social anthropologist Hakan Rydving has likewise argued for the abandonment of the terms "shaman" and "shamanism" as "scientific illusions."[32]

Dulam Bumochir has affirmed the above critiques of "shamanism" as a Western construct created for comparative purposes and, in an extensive article, has documented the role of Mongols themselves, particularly "the partnership of scholars and shamans in the reconstruction of shamanism" in post-1990/post-communist Mongolia.[33] This process has also been documented by Swiss anthropologist Judith Hangartner in her landmark study of Darhad shamans in Mongolia.[34] Historian Karena Kollmar-Polenz argues that the social construction and reification of shamanism as a religious "other" actually began with the 18th-century writings of Tibetan Buddhist monks in Mongolia and later "probably influenced the formation of European discourse on Shamanism".[35]

## History[edit | edit source]

Shamanism is a system of religious practice.[36] Historically, it is often associated with indigenous and tribal societies, and involves belief that shamans, with a connection to the otherworld, have the power to heal the sick, communicate with spirits, and escort souls of the dead to the afterlife. The origins of Shamanism stem from indigenous peoples of far northern Europe and Siberia.[37]

Despite structural implications of colonialism and imperialism that have limited the ability of indigenous peoples to practice traditional spiritualities, many communities are undergoing resurgence through self-determination[38] and the reclamation of dynamic traditions.[39] Other groups have been able to avoid some of these structural impediments by virtue of their isolation, such as the nomadic Tuvan (with an estimated population of 3000 people surviving from this tribe).[40] Tuva is one of the most isolated Asiatic tribes in Russia where the art of shamanism has been preserved until today due to its isolated existence, allowing it to be free from the influences of other major religions.[41]

## Beliefs[edit | edit source]

There are many variations of shamanism throughout the world, but several common beliefs are shared by all forms of shamanism. Common beliefs identified by Eliade (1972)[26] are the following:

* Spirits exist and they play important roles both in individual lives and in human society
* The shaman can communicate with the spirit world
* Spirits can be benevolent or malevolent
* The shaman can treat sickness caused by malevolent spirits
* The shaman can employ trances inducing techniques to incite visionary ecstasy and go on vision quests
* The shaman's spirit can leave the body to enter the supernatural world to search for answers
* The shaman evokes animal images as spirit guides, omens, and message-bearers
* The shaman can perform other varied forms of divination, scry, throw bones or runes, and sometimes foretell of future events

As Alice Kehoe[4] notes, Eliade's conceptualization of shamans produces a universalist image of indigenous cultures, which perpetuates notions of the dead (or dying) Indian[42] as well as the noble savage.[43]

Shamanism is based on the premise that the visible world is pervaded by invisible forces or spirits which affect the lives of the living.[44] Although the causes of disease lie in the spiritual realm, inspired by malicious spirits, both spiritual and physical methods are used to heal. Commonly, a shaman "enters the body" of the patient to confront the spiritual infirmity and heals by banishing the infectious spirit.

Many shamans have expert knowledge of medicinal plants native to their area, and an herbal treatment is often prescribed. In many places shamans learn directly from the plants, harnessing their effects and healing properties, after obtaining permission from the indwelling or patron spirits. In the Peruvian Amazon Basin, shamans and curanderos use medicine songs called icaros to evoke spirits. Before a spirit can be summoned it must teach the shaman its song.[44] The use of totemic items such as rocks with special powers and an animating spirit is common.

Such practices are presumably very ancient. Plato wrote in his Phaedrus that the "first prophecies were the words of an oak", and that those who lived at that time found it rewarding enough to "listen to an oak or a stone, so long as it was telling the truth".

Belief in witchcraft and sorcery, known as brujería in Latin America, exists in many societies. Other societies assert all shamans have the power to both cure and kill. Those with shamanic knowledge usually enjoy great power and prestige in the community, but they may also be regarded suspiciously or fearfully as potentially harmful to others.[45]

By engaging in their work, a shaman is exposed to significant personal risk as shamanic plant materials can be toxic or fatal if misused. Spells are commonly used in an attempt to protect against these dangers, and the use of more dangerous plants is often very highly ritualized.

### Soul and spirit concepts[edit | edit source]

See also: Soul dualism

Soul
Soul can generally explain more, seemingly unassociated phenomena in shamanism:[46][47][48]

Healing
Healing may be based closely on the soul concepts of the belief system of the people served by the shaman.[49] It may consist of the supposed retrieving the lost soul of the ill person.[50]

Scarcity of hunted game
Scarcity of hunted game can be solved by "releasing" the souls of the animals from their hidden abodes. Besides that, many taboos may prescribe the behavior of people towards game, so that the souls of the animals do not feel angry or hurt, or the pleased soul of the already killed prey can tell the other, still living animals, that they can allow themselves to be caught and killed.[51][52]

Infertility of women
Infertility of women is thought to be cured by obtaining the soul of the expected child[citation needed]

Spirits
Spirits are invisible entities that only shamans can see. They are seen as persons that can assume a human or animal body.[53] Some animals in their physical forms are also seen as spirits such as the case of the eagle, snake, jaguar, and rat.[53] Beliefs related to spirits can explain many different phenomena.[54] For example, the importance of storytelling, or acting as a singer, can be understood better if the whole belief system is examined. A person who can memorize long texts or songs, and play an instrument, may be regarded as the beneficiary of contact with the spirits (e.g. Khanty people).[55]

## Practice[edit | edit source]

See also: Religious ecstasy

Generally, shamans traverse the axis mundi and enter the "spirit world" by effecting a transition of consciousness, entering into an ecstatic trance, either autohypnotically or through the use of entheogens or ritual performances.[56][57] The methods employed are diverse, and are often used together.

### Entheogens[edit | edit source]

File:Flowering San Pedro cactus.jpg

Flowering San Pedro, an entheogenic cactus that has been used for over 3,000 years.[58] Today the vast majority of extracted mescaline is from columnar cacti, not vulnerable peyote.[59]

An entheogen ("generating the divine within")[60] is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic, or spiritual context.[61] Entheogens have been used in a ritualized context, in a number of different cultures, possibly for thousands of years. Examples of substances used by some cultures as entheogens include: peyote,[62] psilocybin and Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) mushrooms,[63] uncured tobacco,[64] cannabis,[65] ayahuasca,[66] Salvia divinorum,[67] and iboga.[68]

Entheogens also have a substantial history of commodification, especially in the realm of spiritual tourism. For instance, countries such as Brazil and Peru have faced an influx of tourists since the psychedelic era beginning in the late 1960s, initiating what has been termed "ayahuasca tourism."[69]

### Music and songs[edit | edit source]

See also: Shamanic music and Imitation of sounds in shamanism

Just like shamanism itself,[10] music and songs related to it in various cultures are diverse. In several instances, songs related to shamanism are intended to imitate natural sounds, via onomatopoeia.[70]

Sound mimesis in various cultures may serve other functions not necessarily related to shamanism: practical goals such as luring game in the hunt;[71] or entertainment (Inuit throat singing).[71][72]

### Initiation and learning[edit | edit source]

Shamans often claim to have been called through dreams or signs. However, some say their powers are inherited. In traditional societies shamanic training varies in length, but generally takes years.

Turner and colleagues[73] mention a phenomenon called "shamanistic initiatory crisis", a rite of passage for shamans-to-be, commonly involving physical illness or psychological crisis. The significant role of initiatory illnesses in the calling of a shaman can be found in the case history of Chuonnasuan, who was one of the last shamans among the Tungus peoples in Northeast China.[74]

The wounded healer is an archetype for a shamanic trial and journey. This process is important to young shamans. They undergo a type of sickness that pushes them to the brink of death. This is said to happen for two reasons:

* The shaman crosses over to the underworld. This happens so the shaman can venture to its depths to bring back vital information for the sick and the tribe.
* The shaman must become sick to understand sickness. When the shaman overcomes their own sickness, they believe that they will hold the cure to heal all that suffer.[75]

### Other practices[edit | edit source]

* Ecstatic dancing
* Icaros / medicine songs[44]
* Vigils
* Fasting
* Mariri
* Ayahuasca ceremonies

### Items used in spiritual practice[edit | edit source]

Shamans may employ varying materials in spiritual practice in different cultures.

File:Goldes shaman priest in his regalia.png

Goldes shaman priest in his regalia

* Drums – The drum is used by shamans of several peoples in Siberia.[76][77] The beating of the drum allows the shaman to achieve an altered state of consciousness or to travel on a journey between the physical and spiritual worlds. Much fascination surrounds the role that the acoustics of the drum play to the shaman. Shaman drums are generally constructed of an animal-skin stretched over a bent wooden hoop, with a handle across the hoop.

## Roles[edit | edit source]

File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Een shamaan op Zuid-Boeroe bezweert boze geesten de kinderen te verlaten waarbij hij een geldstuk en een sirihnoot offert TMnr 10001031.jpg

South Moluccan shaman in an exorcism ritual involving children, Buru, Indonesia (1920)

File:An Itneg shaman renewing an offering to the spirit shield (1922, Philippines).jpg

A shaman of the Itneg people in the Philippines renewing an offering to the spirit (anito) of a warrior's shield (kalasag) (1922)[78]

Shamans have been conceptualized as those who are able to gain knowledge and power to heal in the spiritual world or dimension. Most shamans have dreams or visions that convey certain messages. Shamans may claim to have or have acquired many spirit guides, who they believe guide and direct them in their travels in the spirit world. These spirit guides are always thought to be present within the shaman, although others are said to encounter them only when the shaman is in a trance. The spirit guide energizes the shamans, enabling them to enter the spiritual dimension. Shamans claim to heal within the communities and the spiritual dimension by returning lost parts of the human soul from wherever they have gone. Shamans also claim to cleanse excess negative energies, which are said to confuse or pollute the soul. Shamans act as mediators in their cultures.[79][80] Shamans claim to communicate with the spirits on behalf of the community, including the spirits of the deceased. Shamans believe they can communicate with both living and dead to alleviate unrest, unsettled issues, and to deliver gifts to the spirits.

Among the Selkups, the sea duck is a spirit animal. Ducks fly in the air and dive in the water and are thus believed to belong to both the upper world and the world below.[81] Among other Siberian peoples, these characteristics are attributed to waterfowl in general.[82] The upper world is the afterlife primarily associated with deceased humans and is believed to be accessed by soul journeying through a portal in the sky. The lower world or "world below" is the afterlife primarily associated with animals and is believed to be accessed by soul journeying through a portal in the earth.[83] In shamanic cultures, many animals are regarded as spirit animals.

Shamans perform a variety of functions depending upon their respective cultures;[84] healing,[49][85] leading a sacrifice,[86] preserving traditions by storytelling and songs,[87] fortune-telling,[88] and acting as a psychopomp ("guide of souls").[89] A single shaman may fulfill several of these functions.[84]

The functions of a shaman may include either guiding to their proper abode the souls of the dead (which may be guided either one-at-a-time or in a group, depending on the culture), and the curing of ailments. The ailments may be either purely physical afflictions—such as disease, which are claimed to be cured by gifting, flattering, threatening, or wrestling the disease-spirit (sometimes trying all these, sequentially), and which may be completed by displaying a supposedly extracted token of the disease-spirit (displaying this, even if "fraudulent", is supposed to impress the disease-spirit that it has been, or is in the process of being, defeated so that it will retreat and stay out of the patient's body), or else mental (including psychosomatic) afflictions—such as persistent terror, which is likewise believed to be cured by similar methods. In most languages a different term other than the one translated "shaman" is usually applied to a religious official leading sacrificial rites ("priest"), or to a raconteur ("sage") of traditional lore; there may be more of an overlap in functions (with that of a shaman), however, in the case of an interpreter of omens or of dreams.

There are distinct types of shamans who perform more specialized functions. For example, among the Nani people, a distinct kind of shaman acts as a psychopomp.[90] Other specialized shamans may be distinguished according to the type of spirits, or realms of the spirit world, with which the shaman most commonly interacts. These roles vary among the Nenets, Enets, and Selkup shamans.[91][92]

The assistant of an Oroqen shaman (called jardalanin, or "second spirit") knows many things about the associated beliefs. He or she accompanies the rituals and interprets the behaviors of the shaman.[93] Despite these functions, the jardalanin is not a shaman. For this interpretative assistant, it would be unwelcome to fall into a trance.[94]

## Ecological aspect[edit | edit source]

Among the Tucano people, a sophisticated system exists for environmental resources management and for avoiding resource depletion through overhunting. This system is conceptualized mythologically and symbolically by the belief that breaking hunting restrictions may cause illness. As the primary teacher of tribal symbolism, the shaman may have a leading role in this ecological management, actively restricting hunting and fishing. The shaman is able to "release" game animals, or their souls, from their hidden abodes.[95][96] The Piaroa people have ecological concerns related to shamanism.[97] Among the Inuit the angakkuq (shamans) fetch the souls of game from remote places,[98][99] or soul travel to ask for game from mythological beings like the Sea Woman.[100]

## Economics[edit | edit source]

The way shamans get sustenance and take part in everyday life varies across cultures. In many Inuit groups, they provide services for the community and get a "due payment",[who?] and believe the payment is given to the helping spirits.[101] An account states that the gifts and payments that a shaman receives are given by his partner spirit. Since it obliges the shaman to use his gift and to work regularly in this capacity, the spirit rewards him with the goods that it receives.[102] These goods, however, are only "welcome addenda". They are not enough to enable a full-time shaman. Shamans live like any other member of the group, as a hunter or housewife. Due to the popularity of ayahuasca tourism in South America, there are practitioners in areas frequented by backpackers who make a living from leading ceremonies.[103][101]

## Academic study[edit | edit source]

File:Shaman.jpg

Sámi noaidi with his drum

### Cognitive and evolutionary approaches[edit | edit source]

There are two major frameworks among cognitive and evolutionary scientists for explaining shamanism. The first, proposed by anthropologist Michael Winkelman, is known as the "neurotheological theory".[104][105] According to Winkelman, shamanism develops reliably in human societies because it provides valuable benefits to the practitioner, their group, and individual clients. In particular, the trance states induced by dancing, hallucinogens, and other triggers are hypothesized to have an "integrative" effect on cognition, allowing communication among mental systems that specialize in theory of mind, social intelligence, and natural history.[106] With this cognitive integration, the shaman can better predict the movement of animals, resolve group conflicts, plan migrations, and provide other useful services.

The neurotheological theory contrasts with the "by-product" or "subjective" model of shamanism developed by Harvard anthropologist Manvir Singh.[1][107][108] According to Singh, shamanism is a cultural technology that adapts to (or hacks) our psychological biases to convince us that a specialist can influence important but uncontrollable outcomes.[109] Citing work on the psychology of magic and superstition, Singh argues that humans search for ways of influencing uncertain events, such as healing illness, controlling rain, or attracting animals. As specialists compete to help their clients control these outcomes, they drive the evolution of psychologically compelling magic, producing traditions adapted to people's cognitive biases. Shamanism, Singh argues, is the culmination of this cultural evolutionary process—a psychologically appealing method for controlling uncertainty. For example, some shamanic practices exploit our intuitions about humanness: Practitioners use trance and dramatic initiations to seemingly become entities distinct from normal humans and thus more apparently capable of interacting with the invisible forces believed to oversee important outcomes. Influential cognitive and anthropological scientists such as Pascal Boyer and Nicholas Humphrey have endorsed Singh's approach,[110][111] although other researchers have criticized Singh's dismissal of individual- and group-level benefits.[112]

David Lewis-Williams explains the origins of shamanic practice, and some of its precise forms, through aspects of human consciousness evinced in cave art and LSD experiments alike.[113]

### Ecological approaches and systems theory[edit | edit source]

Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff relates these concepts to developments in the ways that modern science (systems theory, ecology, new approaches in anthropology and archeology) treats causality in a less linear fashion.[95] He also suggests a cooperation of modern science and indigenous lore.[114]

### Historical origins[edit | edit source]

Shamanic practices may originate as early as the Paleolithic, predating all organized religions,[115][116] and certainly as early as the Neolithic period.[116] The earliest known undisputed burial of a shaman (and by extension the earliest undisputed evidence of shamans and shamanic practices) dates back to the early Upper Paleolithic era (c. 30,000 BP) in what is now the Czech Republic.[117]

Sanskrit scholar and comparative mythologist Michael Witzel proposes that all of the world's mythologies, and also the concepts and practices of shamans, can be traced to the migrations of two prehistoric populations: the "Gondwana" type (of circa 65,000 years ago) and the "Laurasian" type (of circa 40,000 years ago).[118]

In November 2008, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced the discovery of a 12,000-year-old site in Israel that is perceived as one of the earliest-known shaman burials. The elderly woman had been arranged on her side, with her legs apart and folded inward at the knee. Ten large stones were placed on the head, pelvis, and arms. Among her unusual grave goods were 50 complete tortoise shells, a human foot, and certain body parts from animals such as a cow tail and eagle wings. Other animal remains came from a boar, leopard, and two martens. "It seems that the woman … was perceived as being in a close relationship with these animal spirits", researchers noted. The grave was one of at least 28 graves at the site, located in a cave in lower Galilee and belonging to the Natufian culture, but is said to be unlike any other among the Epipaleolithic Natufians or in the Paleolithic period.[119]

### Semiotic and hermeneutic approaches[edit | edit source]

A debated etymology of the word "shaman" is "one who knows",[11][120] implying, among other things, that the shaman is an expert in keeping together the multiple codes of the society, and that to be effective, shamans must maintain a comprehensive view in their mind which gives them certainty of knowledge.[10] According to this view, the shaman uses (and the audience understands) multiple codes, expressing meanings in many ways: verbally, musically, artistically, and in dance. Meanings may be manifested in objects such as amulets.[120] If the shaman knows the culture of their community well,[80][121][122] and acts accordingly, their audience will know the used symbols and meanings and therefore trust the shamanic worker.[122][123]

There are also semiotic, theoretical approaches to shamanism,[124][125][126] and examples of "mutually opposing symbols" in academic studies of Siberian lore, distinguishing a "white" shaman who contacts sky spirits for good aims by day, from a "black" shaman who contacts evil spirits for bad aims by night.[127] (Series of such opposing symbols referred to a world-view behind them. Analogously to the way grammar arranges words to express meanings and convey a world, also this formed a cognitive map).[10][128] Shaman's lore is rooted in the folklore of the community, which provides a "mythological mental map".[129][130] Juha Pentikäinen uses the concept "grammar of mind".[130][131]

Armin Geertz coined and introduced the hermeneutics,[132] or "ethnohermeneutics",[128] interpretation. Hoppál extended the term to include not only the interpretation of oral and written texts, but that of "visual texts as well (including motions, gestures and more complex rituals, and ceremonies performed, for instance, by shamans)".[133] Revealing the animistic views in shamanism, but also their relevance to the contemporary world, where ecological problems have validated paradigms of balance and protection.[130]

## Decline and revitalization and tradition-preserving movements[edit | edit source]

Traditional, Indigenous shamanism is believed to be declining around the world. Whalers who frequently interacted with Inuit groups are one source of this decline in that region.[134]

File:Kyzyl Shaman.jpg

A shaman doctor of Kyzyl, 2005. Attempts are being made to preserve and revitalize Tuvan shamanism:[135] former authentic shamans have begun to practice again, and young apprentices are being educated in an organized way.[136]

In many areas, former shamans ceased to fulfill the functions in the community they used to, as they felt mocked by their own community,[137] or regarded their own past as deprecated and were unwilling to talk about it to ethnographers.[138]

Besides personal communications of former shamans, folklore texts may narrate directly about a deterioration process. For example, a Buryat epic text details the wonderful deeds of the ancient "first shaman" Kara-Gürgän:[139] he could even compete with God, create life, steal back the soul of the sick from God without his consent. A subsequent text laments that shamans of older times were stronger, possessing capabilities like omnividence,[140] fortune-telling even for decades in the future, moving as fast as a bullet.[141]

In most affected areas, shamanic practices ceased to exist, with authentic shamans dying and their personal experiences dying with them. The loss of memories is not always lessened by the fact the shaman is not always the only person in a community who knows the beliefs and motives related to the local shaman-hood.[93][94] Although the shaman is often believed and trusted precisely because they "accommodate" to the beliefs of the community,[122] several parts of the knowledge related to the local shamanhood consist of personal experiences of the shaman, or root in their family life,[142] thus, those are lost with their death. Besides that, in many cultures, the entire traditional belief system has become endangered (often together with a partial or total language shift), with the other people of the community remembering the associated beliefs and practices (or the language at all) grew old or died, many folklore memories songs, and texts were forgotten—which may threaten even such peoples who could preserve their isolation until the middle of the 20th century, like the Nganasan.[143]

Some areas could enjoy a prolonged resistance due to their remoteness.

* Variants of shamanism among Inuit were once a widespread (and very diverse) phenomenon, but today is rarely practiced, as well as already having been in decline among many groups, even while the first major ethnological research was being done,[144] e.g. among Inuit, at the end of the 19th century, Sagloq, the last angakkuq who was believed to be able to travel to the sky and under the sea died—and many other former shamanic capacities were lost during that time as well, like ventriloquism and sleight of hand.[145]
* The isolated location of Nganasan people allowed shamanism to be a living phenomenon among them even at the beginning of the 20th century,[146] the last notable Nganasan shaman's ceremonies were recorded on film in the 1970s.[147]

After exemplifying the general decline even in the most remote areas, there are revitalizations or tradition-preserving efforts as a response. Besides collecting the memories,[148] there are also tradition-preserving[149] and even revitalization efforts,[150] led by authentic former shamans (for example among the Sakha people[151] and Tuvans).[136]

Native Americans in the United States do not call their traditional spiritual ways "shamanism". However, according to Richard L. Allen, research and policy analyst for the Cherokee Nation, they are regularly overwhelmed with inquiries by and about fraudulent shamans, aka ("plastic medicine people").[152] He adds, "One may assume that anyone claiming to be a Cherokee 'shaman, spiritual healer, or pipe-carrier', is equivalent to a modern day medicine show and snake-oil vendor."[153]

There are also neoshamanistic movements, which usually differ from traditional shamanistic practice and beliefs in significant ways, and often have more connection to the New Age communities than traditional cultures.[154]

## Regional variations[edit | edit source]

File:Map of Shamanism across the world.svg

Map of shamanism across the world

Main article: Regional forms of shamanism

## See also[edit | edit source]

* Divine madness
* Dukun
* Fashi
* Folk healer
* Folk magic
* Itako
* Mu_(shaman)
* Neuroanthropology
* Pawang
* Prehistoric medicine
* Reincarnation (Ho-Chunk)
* Seiðr
* Shaking Tent Ceremony
* Shaman King
* Soul catcher
* Spirit spouse
* Tangki
* Tlamatini
* Zduhać

## References[edit | edit source]

### Citations[edit | edit source]

1. ^ a b c d Singh, Manvir (2018). "The cultural evolution of shamanism". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 41: e66: 1–61. doi:10.1017/S0140525X17001893. PMID 28679454. S2CID 206264885.
2. ^ Mircea Eliade; Vilmos Diószegi (May 12, 2020). "Shamanism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved May 20, 2020. "Shamanism, religious phenomenon centred on the shaman, a person believed to achieve various powers through trance or ecstatic religious experience. Although shamans’ repertoires vary from one culture to the next, they are typically thought to have the ability to heal the sick, to communicate with the otherworld, and often to escort the souls of the dead to that otherworld."
3. ^ Gredig, Florian (2009). Finding New Cosmologies. Berlin: Lit Verlag Dr. W. Hopf.
4. ^ a b c d Kehoe, Alice Beck (2000). Shamans and religion : an anthropological exploration in critical thinking. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press. ISBN 978-1-57766-162-7.
5. ^ Wernitznig, Dagmar, Europe's Indians, Indians in Europe: European Perceptions and Appropriations of Native American Cultures from Pocahontas to the Present. University Press of America, 2007: p.132. "What happens further in the Plastic Shaman's [fictitious] story is highly irritating from a perspective of cultural hegemony. The Injun elder does not only willingly share their spirituality with the white intruder but, in fact, must come to the conclusion that this intruder is as good an Indian as they are themselves. Regarding Indian spirituality, the Plastic Shaman even out-Indians the actual ones. The messianic element, which Plastic Shamanism financially draws on, is installed in the Yoda-like elder themselves. They are the ones - while melodramatically parting from their spiritual offshoot - who urge the Plastic Shaman to share their gift with the rest of the world. Thus Plastic Shamans wipe their hands clean of any megalomaniac or missionizing undertones. Licensed by the authority of an Indian elder, they now have every right to spread their wisdom, and if they make (quite more than) a buck with it, then so be it.--The neocolonial ideology attached to this scenario leaves less room for cynicism."}}
6. ^ Hutton 2001. p. 32.
7. ^ Hutton, Ronald (2001). Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination. TPB. OCLC 940167815.
8. ^ Juha Janhunan, Siberian shamanistic terminology, Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 1986, 194:97.
9. ^ Crossley, Pamela Kyle (1996). The Manchus. Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 978-1-55786-560-1.
10. ^ a b c d e Hoppál 2005: 15
11. ^ a b Diószegi 1962: 13
12. ^ Januhnan, 1986: 98.
13. ^ Eliade, Mircea (1989). Shamanism. Arkana Books. p. 495.
14. ^ Written before 1676, first printed in 1861; see Hutton 2001. p. vii.
15. ^ Hutton 2001, p. 32.
16. ^ Adam Brand, Driejaarige Reize naar China, Amsterdam 1698; transl. A Journal of an Ambassy, London 1698; see Laufer B., "Origin of the Word Shaman," American Anthropologist, 19 (1917): 361–71 and Bremmer J., "Travelling souls? Greek shamanism reconsidered", in Bremmer J.N. (ed.), The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 7–40. (PDF Archived 2013-12-02 at the Wayback Machine)
17. ^ Tomaskova, 2013, 76–78, 104–105.
18. ^ Chadwick, Hector Munro; Chadwick, Nora Kershaw (1968). The Growth of Literature. The University Press. p. 13\. "The terms shaman and the Russianised feminine form shamanka, 'shamaness', 'seeress', are in general use to denote any persons of the Native professional class among the heathen Siberians and Tatars generally, and there can be no doubt that they have come to be applied to a large number of different classes of people."
19. ^ Hoppál, Mihály (2005). Sámánok Eurázsiában (in Hungarian). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. ISBN 978-963-05-8295-7. pp. 77, 287; Znamensky, Andrei A. (2005). "Az ősiség szépsége: altáji török sámánok a szibériai regionális gondolkodásban (1860–1920)". In Molnár, Ádám (ed.). Csodaszarvas. Őstörténet, vallás és néphagyomány. Vol. I (in Hungarian). Budapest: Molnár Kiadó. pp. 117–34. ISBN 978-963-218-200-1., p. 128
20. ^ Hutton 2001. pp. vii–viii.
21. ^ "Circle of Tengerism". Archived from the original on 2013-01-26.
22. ^ a b "Definition of Shaman by Oxford Dictionaries". Archived from the original on April 2, 2017.
23. ^ Juha Janhunen, Siberian shamanistic terminology, Suomalais-ugrilaisen Seuran toimituksia/ Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne, 1986, 194: 97–98
24. ^ Alberts, Thomas (2015). Shamanism, Discourse, Modernity. Farnham: Ashgate. pp. 73–79. ISBN 978-1-4724-3986-4.
25. ^ "Fatal Naming Rituals". Hazlitt. 2018-07-19. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
26. ^ a b c Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Bollingen Series LXXVI, Princeton University Press 1972, pp. 3–7.
27. ^ Belcourt, Billy-Ray (19 July 2018). "Fatal Naming Rituals". Hazlitt. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
28. ^ a b ISSR, 2001 Summer, abstract online in 2nd half of 2nd paragraph
29. ^ Hoppál & Szathmári & Takács 2006: 14
30. ^ Hoppál 1998: 40
31. ^ Vitebsky 1996: 11
32. ^ Rydving, Hakan (2011). "Le chamanisme aujourd'hui: constructions et deconstructions d'une illusion scientifique". Études Mongoles et Siberiennes, Centrasiatiques et Tibétaines. 42 (42). doi:10.4000/emscat.1815.
33. ^ Bumochir, Dulam (2014). "Institutionalization of Mongolian shamanism: from primitivism to civilization". Asian Ethnicity. 15 (4): 473–491. doi:10.1080/14631369.2014.939331. S2CID 145329835.
34. ^ Hangartner, Judith (2011). The Constitution and Contestation of Darhad Shamans' Power in Contemporary Mongolia. Leiden: Global Oriental. ISBN 978-1-906876-11-1.
35. ^ Kollmar-Paulenz, Karenina (2012). "The Invention of "Shamanism" in 18th Century Mongolian Elite Discourse". Rocznik Orientalistyczny. LXV (1): 90–106.
36. ^ "Shamanism | religion". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
37. ^ "Definition of Shamanism". Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
38. ^ "Using the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Litigation", Reflections on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Hart Publishing, 2011, doi:10.5040/9781472565358.ch-005, ISBN 978-1-84113-878-7
39. ^ Oosten, Jarich; Laugrand, Frédéric; Remie, Cornelius (Summer 2006). "Perceptions of Decline: Inuit Shamanism in the Canadian Arctic". Ethnohistory. 53 (3): 445–447. doi:10.1215/00141801-2006-001.
40. ^ "Mongolia's Lost Secrets in Pictures: The Last Tuvan Shaman". Lonely Planet. 2014-08-21. Retrieved 2018-10-19.
41. ^ Jardine, Bradley; Kupfer, Matthew. "Welcome to the Tuva Republic". The Diplomat. Retrieved 2018-10-19.
42. ^ KING, THOMAS. (2018). INCONVENIENT INDIAN : a curious account of native people in north america. UNIV OF MINNESOTA Press. ISBN 978-1-5179-0446-3. OCLC 1007305354.
43. ^ Ellingson, Ter (2001-01-16), "The Ecologically Noble Savage", The Myth of the Noble Savage, University of California Press, pp. 342–358, doi:10.1525/california/9780520222687.003.0023, ISBN 978-0-520-22268-7
44. ^ a b c Salak, Kira. "Hell and Back". National Geographic Adventure.
45. ^ Wilbert, Johannes; Vidal, Silvia M. (2004). Whitehead, Neil L.; Wright, Robin (eds.). In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. doi:10.1215/9780822385837. ISBN 978-0-8223-3333-3. S2CID 146752685.
46. ^ Merkur 1985: 4
47. ^ Vitebsky 1996: 11–14, 107
48. ^ Hoppál 2005: 27, 30, 36
49. ^ a b Sem, Tatyana. "Shamanic Healing Rituals". Russian Museum of Ethnography.
50. ^ Hoppál 2005: 27
51. ^ Kleivan & Sonne 1985: 7, 19–21
52. ^ Gabus, Jean: A karibu eszkimók. Gondolat Kiadó, Budapest, 1970. (Hungarian translation of the original: Vie et coutumes des Esquimaux Caribous, Libraire Payot Lausanne, 1944.) It describes the life of Caribou Eskimo groups.
53. ^ a b Swancutt, Katherine; Mazard, Mireille (2018). Animism beyond the Soul: Ontology, Reflexivity, and the Making of Anthropological Knowledge. New York: Berghahn Books. p. 102\. ISBN 978-1-78533-865-6.
54. ^ Hoppál 2007c: 18
55. ^ Hoppál 2005: 99
56. ^ McCoy, V. R. (2018-03-30). Shaman-the Dawn's People. BookBaby. ISBN 978-1-7321874-0-5.
57. ^ Buenaflor, Erika (2019-05-28). Curanderismo Soul Retrieval: Ancient Shamanic Wisdom to Restore the Sacred Energy of the Soul. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-59143-341-5.
58. ^ "A Brief History of the San Pedro Cactus". Retrieved 6 June 2015.
59. ^ Terry, M. (2017). "Lophophora williamsii". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2017: e.T151962A121515326. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T151962A121515326.en. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
60. ^ Entheogen, [dictionary.com], retrieved 2012-03-13
61. ^ Souza, Rafael Sampaio Octaviano de; Albuquerque, Ulysses Paulino de; Monteiro, Júlio Marcelino; Amorim, Elba Lúcia Cavalcanti de (2008). "Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology – Jurema-Preta (Mimosa tenuiflora [Willd.] Poir.): a review of its traditional use, phytochemistry and pharmacology". Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology. 51 (5): 937–947. doi:10.1590/S1516-89132008000500010.
62. ^ Voss, Richard W.; Prue (2014). "Peyote Religion". In Leeming, David A. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Boston, MA: Springer. pp. 1330–33. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_506. ISBN 978-1-4614-6085-5.
63. ^ Guzmán, Gastón (2009), "The hallucinogenic mushrooms: diversity, traditions, use and abuse with special reference to the genus Psilocybe", in Misra, J.K.; Deshmukh, S.K. (eds.), Fungi from different environments, Enfield, NH: Science Publishers, pp. 256–77, ISBN 978-1-57808-578-1
64. ^ Wilbert, Johannes (1987). Tobacco and Shamanism in South America. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-05790-4.
65. ^ McClain, Matthew Sean (29 July 2016). Herb & Shaman: Recreating the Cannabis Mythos (PhD). Pacifica Graduate Institute. "This study considers the archetypal role of Cannabis in many agricultural rites and shamanic traditions."
66. ^ Labate, Beatriz Caiuby; Cavnar, Clancy, eds. (2014). Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond. Oxford ritual studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-934119-1.
67. ^ Dalgamo, Phil (June 2007). "Subjective Effects of Salvia Divinorum". Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. 39 (2): 143–49. doi:10.1080/02791072.2007.10399872. PMID 17703708. S2CID 40477640. "Mazatec curanderos use Salvia for divinatory rituals and healing ceremonies."
68. ^ Mahop, Tonye; Uden, Alex; Asaha, Stella; Ndam, Nouhou; Sunderland, Terry (May 2004), "Iboga (Tabernathe iboga)", in Clark, Laurie E.; Sunderland, Terry C.H. (eds.), The Key Non-Timber Forest Products of Central Africa: State of the Knowledge (PDF), Technical Paper no. 22; SD Publication Series, Office of Sustainable Development, Bureau for Africa, U.S. Agency for International Development, p. 166, retrieved 25 January 2018, "The use of T. iboga in Gabonese religious ceremonies has been recorded from an early date."
69. ^ Prayag, Girish; Mura, Paolo; Hall, Michael; Fontaine, Julien (May 2015). "Drug or spirituality seekers? Consuming ayahuasca". Annals of Tourism Research. 52: 175–177. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2015.03.008. ISSN 0160-7383.
70. ^ "healthCheck" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
71. ^ a b Nattiez: 5
72. ^ "Inuit Throat-Singing". Retrieved 6 June 2015.
73. ^ Turner et al., p. 440
74. ^ Noll & Shi 2004 (avail. online: Internet Archive copy)
75. ^ Halifax, Joan (1982). Shaman: The Wounded Healer. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-81029-3. OCLC 8800269.
76. ^ Barüske 1969: 24, 50–51
77. ^ Kleivan & Sonne 1985: 25
78. ^ Fay-Cooper Cole & Albert Gale (1922). "The Tinguian; Social, Religious, and Economic life of a Philippine tribe". Field Museum of Natural History: Anthropological Series. 14 (2): 235–493.
79. ^ Hoppál 2005: 45
80. ^ a b Boglár 2001: 24
81. ^ Hoppál 2005: 94
82. ^ Vitebsky 1996: 46
83. ^ Ingerman, Sandra (2004). Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner's Guide. Sounds True. ISBN 978-1-59179-943-6.
84. ^ a b Hoppál 2005: 25
85. ^ Hoppál 2005: 27–28
86. ^ Hoppál 2005: 28–33
87. ^ Hoppál 2005: 37
88. ^ Hoppál 2005: 34–35
89. ^ Hoppál 2005: 36
90. ^ Hoppál 2005: 61–64
91. ^ Hoppál 2005: 87–95
92. ^ "Shamanism in Siberia: Part III. Religion: Chapter IX. Types of Shamans". Retrieved 6 June 2015.
93. ^ a b Noll & Shi 2004: 10, footnote 10 (see online: Internet Archive copy)
94. ^ a b Noll & Shi 2004: 8–9 (see online: Internet Archive copy)
95. ^ a b Reichel-Dolmatoff 1997
96. ^ Vitebsky 1996: 107
97. ^ Boglár 2001: 26
98. ^ Merkur 1985: 5
99. ^ Vitebsky 1996: 108
100. ^ Kleivan & Sonne: 27–28
101. ^ a b Merkur 1985: 3
102. ^ Oelschlaegel, Anett C. (2016). Plural World Interpretations. Berlin: LIT Verlag Münster. p. 206\. ISBN 978-3-643-90788-2.
103. ^ Kleivan & Sonne 1985: 24
104. ^ Winkelman, Michael (2000). Shamanism : the neural ecology of consciousness and healing. Bergin & Garvey. ISBN 978-0-89789-704-4. OCLC 1026223037.
105. ^ Winkelman, Michael. "Shamanism and cognitive evolution". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 12 (1): 71–101. doi:10.1017/S0959774302000045. S2CID 162355879.
106. ^ Winkelman, Michael (1986). "Trance states: A theoretical model and cross-cultural analysis". Ethos. 14 (2): 174–203. doi:10.1525/eth.1986.14.2.02a00040.
107. ^ Reuell, Peter (2018). "The mystery of the medicine man". Harvard Gazette.
108. ^ Singh, Manvir (2018). "Why is there shamanism? Developing the cultural evolutionary theory and addressing alternative accounts". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 41: e92. doi:10.1017/S0140525X17002230. PMID 31064458. S2CID 147706275.
109. ^ Singh, Manvir. "Modern shamans: Financial managers, political pundits and others who help tame life's uncertainty". The Conversation. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
110. ^ Boyer, Pascal (2018). "Missing links: The psychology and epidemiology of shamanistic beliefs". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 41: e71. doi:10.1017/S0140525X17002023. PMID 31064451. S2CID 147706563.
111. ^ Humphrey, Nicholas (2018). "Shamans as healers: When magical structure becomes practical function". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 41: e77. doi:10.1017/S0140525X17002084. PMID 31064454. S2CID 147706046.
112. ^ Watson-Jones, Rachel E.; Legare (2018). "The social functions of shamanism". Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 41: e88. doi:10.1017/S0140525X17002199. PMID 31064460. S2CID 147706978.
113. ^ David Lewis-Williams, The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 2002)
114. ^ Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff: A View from the Headwaters. The Ecologist, Vol. 29 No. 4, July 1999.
115. ^ Jean Clottes. "Shamanism in Prehistory". Bradshaw foundation. Archived from the original on 2008-04-30. Retrieved 2008-03-11.
116. ^ a b Karl J. Narr. "Prehistoric religion". Britannica online encyclopedia 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-04-09. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
117. ^ Tedlock, Barbara. 2005. The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine. New York: Bantam
118. ^ Witzel, 2011.
119. ^ "Earliest known shaman grave site found: study", reported by Reuters via Yahoo! News, November 4, 2008, archived. see Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
120. ^ a b Hoppál 2005: 14
121. ^ Pentikäinen 1995: 270
122. ^ a b c Hoppál 2005: 25–26,43
123. ^ Hoppál 2004: 14
124. ^ Hoppál 2005: 13–15, 58, 197
125. ^ Hoppál 2006a: 11
126. ^ Hoppál 2006b: 175
127. ^ Hoppál 2007c: 24–25
128. ^ a b Hoppál, Mihály: Nature worship in Siberian shamanism
129. ^ Hoppál 2007b: 12–13
130. ^ a b c Hoppál 2007c: 25
131. ^ Pentikäinen 1995: 270–71
132. ^ Merkur 1985: v
133. ^ Hoppál 2007b: 13
134. ^ Oosten, Jarich; Laugrand, Frederic; Remie, Cornelius (2006). "Perceptions of Decline: Inuit Shamanism in the Canadian Arctic". American Society for Ethnohistory. 53 (3): 445–77. doi:10.1215/00141801-2006-001.
135. ^ Hoppál 2005: 117
136. ^ a b Hoppál 2005: 259
137. ^ Boglár 2001: 19–20
138. ^ Diószegi 1960: 37–39
139. ^ Eliade 2001: 76 (Chpt 3 about obtaining shamanic capabilities)
140. ^ Omnividence: A word created by Edwin A. Abbott in his book titled Flatland
141. ^ Diószegi 1960: 88–89
142. ^ Hoppál 2005: 224
143. ^ Nagy 1998: 232
144. ^ Merkur 1985: 132
145. ^ Merkur 1985: 134
146. ^ Hoppál 2005: 92
147. ^ Hoppál 1994: 62
148. ^ Hoppál 2005: 88
149. ^ Hoppál 2005: 93
150. ^ Hoppál 2005: 111, 117–19, 128, 132, 133–34, 252–63
151. ^ Hoppál 2005: 257–58
152. ^ Hagan, Helene E. "The Plastic Medicine People Circle." Archived 2013-03-05 at the Wayback Machine Sonoma Free County Press. Accessed 31 Jan 2013.
153. ^ "Pseudo Shamans Cherokee Statement". Retrieved 2008-06-23.
154. ^ Vitebsky 1996: 150–53

### Sources[edit | edit source]

* Barüske, Heinz (1969). Eskimo Märchen. Die Märchen der Weltliteratur (in German). Düsseldorf • Köln: Eugen Diederichs Verlag. The title means: "Eskimo tales", the series means: "The tales of world literature".
* Boglár, Lajos (2001). A kultúra arcai. Mozaikok a kulturális antropológia köreiből. TÁRStudomány (in Hungarian). Budapest: Napvilág Kiadó. ISBN 978-963-9082-94-6. The title means "The faces of culture. Mosaics from the area of cultural anthropology".
* Czaplicka, M.A. (1914). "Types of shaman". Shamanism in Siberia. Aboriginal Siberia. A study in social anthropology. preface by Marett, R.R. Somerville College, University of Oxford; Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-1-60506-060-6.
* Deschênes, Bruno (2002). "Inuit Throat-Singing". Musical Traditions. The Magazine for Traditional Music Throughout the World.
* Diószegi, Vilmos (1968). Tracing shamans in Siberia. The story of an ethnographical research expedition. Translated by Anita Rajkay Babó (from Hungarian). Oosterhout: Anthropological Publications.
* Diószegi, Vilmos (1962). Samanizmus. Élet és Tudomány Kiskönyvtár (in Hungarian). Budapest: Gondolat. ISBN 978-963-9147-13-3. The title means: "Shamanism".
* Diószegi, Vilmos (1998) [1958]. A sámánhit emlékei a magyar népi műveltségben (in Hungarian) (1st reprint ed.). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. ISBN 978-963-05-7542-3. The title means: "Remnants of shamanistic beliefs in Hungarian folklore".
* Fienup-Riordan, Ann (1994). Boundaries and Passages: Rule and Ritual in Yup'ik Eskimo Oral Tradition. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-585-12190-1.
* Fock, Niels (1963). Waiwai. Religion and society of an Amazonian tribe. Nationalmuseets skrifter, Etnografisk Række (Ethnographical series), VIII. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark.
* Freuchen, Peter (1961). Book of the Eskimos. Cleveland • New York: The World Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-449-30802-8.
* Hajdú, Péter (1975). "A rokonság nyelvi háttere". In Hajdú, Péter (ed.). Uráli népek. Nyelvrokonaink kultúrája és hagyományai (in Hungarian). Budapest: Corvina Kiadó. ISBN 978-963-13-0900-3. The title means: "Uralic peoples. Culture and traditions of our linguistic relatives"; the chapter means "Linguistical background of the relationship".
* Hoppál, Mihály (1994). Sámánok, lelkek és jelképek (in Hungarian). Budapest: Helikon Kiadó. ISBN 978-963-208-298-1. The title means "Shamans, souls and symbols".
* Hoppál, Mihály (1998). "A honfoglalók hitvilága és a magyar samanizmus". Folklór és közösség (in Hungarian). Budapest: Széphalom Könyvműhely. pp. 40–45. ISBN 978-963-9028-14-2. The title means "The belief system of Hungarians when they entered the Pannonian Basin, and their shamanism".
* Hoppál, Mihály (2005). Sámánok Eurázsiában (in Hungarian). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. ISBN 978-963-05-8295-7. The title means "Shamans in Eurasia", the book is published also in German, Estonian and Finnish. Site of publisher with short description on the book (in Hungarian) Archived 2010-01-02 at the Wayback Machine.
* Hoppál, Mihály (2006a). "Sámánok, kultúrák és kutatók az ezredfordulón". In Hoppál, Mihály; Szathmári, Botond; Takács, András (eds.). Sámánok és kultúrák. Budapest: Gondolat. pp. 9–25. ISBN 978-963-9450-28-8. The chapter title means "Shamans, cultures and researchers in the millenary", the book title means "Shamans and cultures".
* Hoppál, Mihály (2007b). "Is Shamanism a Folk Religion?". Shamans and Traditions (Vol. 13). Bibliotheca Shamanistica. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. pp. 11–16. ISBN 978-963-05-8521-7.
* Hoppál, Mihály (2007c). "Eco-Animism of Siberian Shamanhood". Shamans and Traditions (Vol 13). Bibliotheca Shamanistica. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. pp. 17–26. ISBN 978-963-05-8521-7.
* Janhunen, Juha. Siberian shamanistic terminology. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne, 1986, 194: 97–117.
* Hugh-Jones, Christine (1980). From the Milk River: Spatial and Temporal Processes in Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22544-1.
* Hugh-Jones, Stephen (1980). The Palm and the Pleiades. Initiation and Cosmology in Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-21952-5.
* Kleivan, Inge; B. Sonne (1985). Eskimos: Greenland and Canada. Iconography of religions, section VIII, "Arctic Peoples", fascicle 2. Leiden, The Netherlands: Institute of Religious Iconography • State University Groningen. E.J. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-07160-5.
* Menovščikov, G.A. (= Г. А. Меновщиков) (1968). "Popular Conceptions, Religious Beliefs and Rites of the Asiatic Eskimoes". In Diószegi, Vilmos (ed.). Popular beliefs and folklore tradition in Siberia. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
* Nagy, Beáta Boglárka (1998). "Az északi szamojédok". In Csepregi, Márta (ed.). Finnugor kalauz. Panoráma (in Hungarian). Budapest: Medicina Könyvkiadó. pp. 221–34. ISBN 978-963-243-813-9. The chapter means "Northern Samoyedic peoples", the title means Finno-Ugric guide.
* Nattiez, Jean Jacques. Inuit Games and Songs / Chants et Jeux des Inuit. Musiques & musiciens du monde / Musics & musicians of the world. Montreal: Research Group in Musical Semiotics, Faculty of Music, University of Montreal.. The songs are available online, on the ethnopoetics website curated by Jerome Rothenberg.
* Noll, Richard; Shi, Kun (2004). "Chuonnasuan (Meng Jin Fu), The Last Shaman of the Oroqen of Northeast China" (PDF). 韓國宗敎硏究 (Journal of Korean Religions). Vol. 6\. Seoul KR: 西江大學校. 宗教硏究所 (Sŏgang Taehakkyo. Chonggyo Yŏnʾguso.). pp. 135–62. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-26. Retrieved 2020-05-28.. It describes the life of Chuonnasuan, the last shaman of the Oroqen of Northeast China.
* Reinhard, Johan (1976) "Shamanism and Spirit Possession: The Definition Problem." In Spirit Possession in the Nepal Himalayas, J. Hitchcock & R. Jones (eds.), New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, pp. 12–20.
* Shimamura, Ippei The roots Seekers: Shamanism and Ethnicity Among the Mongol Buryats. Yokohama, Japan: Shumpusha, 2014.
* Singh, Manvir (2018). "The cultural evolution of shamanism". Behavioral & Brain Sciences. 41: e66, 1–61. doi:10.1017/S0140525X17001893. PMID 28679454. S2CID 206264885. Summary of the cultural evolutionary and cognitive foundations of shamanism; published with commentaries by 25 scholars (including anthropologists, philosophers, and psychologists).
* Turner, Robert P.; Lukoff, David; Barnhouse, Ruth Tiffany & Lu, Francis G. (1995) Religious or Spiritual Problem. A Culturally Sensitive Diagnostic Category in the DSM-IV. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol.183, No. 7, pp. 435–44
* Voigt, Miklós (2000). "Sámán – a szó és értelme". Világnak kezdetétől fogva. Történeti folklorisztikai tanulmányok (in Hungarian). Budapest: Universitas Könyvkiadó. pp. 41–45. ISBN 978-963-9104-39-6. The chapter discusses the etymology and meaning of word "shaman".
* Winkelman, Michael (2000). Shamanism: The neural ecology of consciousness and healing. Westport, CT: Bergen & Gavey. ISBN 978-963-9104-39-6. Major work on the evolutionary and psychological origins of shamanism.
* Witzel, Michael (2011). "Shamanism in Northern and Southern Eurasia: their distinctive methods and change of consciousness" (PDF). Social Science Information. 50 (1): 39–61. doi:10.1177/0539018410391044. S2CID 144745844.

## Further reading[edit | edit source]

* Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. 1959; reprint, New York and London: Penguin Books, 1976. ISBN 978-0-14-019443-2
* Harner, Michael, The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing, Harper & Row Publishers, NY 1980
* Richard de Mille, ed. The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies. Santa Barbara, California: Ross-Erikson, 1980.
* George Devereux, "Shamans as Neurotics", American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 63, No. 5, Part 1. (Oct. 1961), pp. 1088–90.
* Jay Courtney Fikes, Carlos Castaneda: Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties, Millennia Press, Canada, 1993 ISBN 978-0-9696960-0-1
* Åke Hultkrantz (Honorary Editor in Chief): Shaman. Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research
* Philip Jenkins, Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0-19-516115-1
* Alice Kehoe, Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. 2000\. London: Waveland Press. ISBN 978-1-57766-162-7
* David Charles Manners, In the Shadow of Crows. (contains first-hand accounts of the Nepalese jhankri tradition) Oxford: Signal Books, 2011. ISBN 978-1-904955-92-4.
* Jordan D. Paper, The Spirits are Drunk: Comparative Approaches to Chinese Religion, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1995. ISBN 978-0-7914-2315-8.
* Smith, Frederick M. (2006). The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature. Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-231-13748-5. pp. 195–202.
* Barbara Tedlock, Time and the Highland Maya, U. of New Mexico Press, 1992. ISBN 978-0-8263-1358-4
* Silvia Tomášková, Wayward Shamans: the prehistory of an idea, University of California Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0-520-27532-4
* Michel Weber, « Shamanism and proto-consciousness », in René Lebrun, Julien De Vos et É. Van Quickelberghe (éds), Deus Unicus. Actes du colloque « Aux origines du monothéisme et du scepticisme religieux » organisé à Louvain-la-Neuve les 7 et 8 juin 2013 par le Centre d'histoire des Religions Cardinal Julien Ries [Cardinalis Julien Ries et Pierre Bordreuil in memoriam], Turnhout, Brepols, coll. Homo Religiosus série II, 14, 2015, pp. 247–60.
* Andrei Znamenski, Shamanism in Siberia: Russian Records of Siberian Spirituality. Dordrech and Boston: Kluwer/Springer, 2003. ISBN 978-1-4020-1740-7
* Andrei Znamenski,The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-1951-7231-7

## External links[edit | edit source]

File:Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg

Look up shamanism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shamanism.

* AFECT A charitable organization protecting traditional cultures in northern Thailand
* Chuonnasuan (Meng Jin Fu), The Last Shaman of the Oroqen of Northeast China, by Richard Noll and Kun Shi (Internet Archive copy from
* New Age Frauds and Plastic Shamans, an organization devoted to alerting seekers about fraudulent teachers, and helping them avoid being exploited or participating in exploitation
* Shamanic Healing Rituals by Tatyana Sem, Russian Museum of Ethnography
* Shamanism and the Image of the Teutonic Deity, Óðinn by A. Asbjorn Jon
* Shamanism in Siberia – photographs by Standa Krupar
* Studies in Siberian Shamanism and Religions of the Finno-Ugrian Peoples by Aado Lintrop, Folk Belief and Media Group of the Estonian Literary Museum
* A View from the Headwaters by Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff Amazonian indigenous oeoples and ecology
* Samgaldai NGO – A charitable, non-for-profit NGO for preserving Mongolian traditional Shamanic practices and rituals, operating in Mongolia.

* v
* t
* e

Philosophy of religion

Concepts in religion|

* Afterlife
* Euthyphro dilemma
* Faith
* or religious belief
* Intelligent design
* Miracle
* Problem of evil
* Soul
* Spirit
* Theodicy
* Theological veto

Conceptions of God|

* Brahman
* Demiurge
* Divine simplicity
* Egoism
* Holy Spirit
* Misotheism
* Pandeism
* Personal god
* Process theology
* Supreme Being
* Unmoved mover

God in|

* Abrahamic religions
* Buddhism
* Christianity
* Hinduism
* Islam
* Jainism
* Judaism
* Mormonism
* Sikhism
* Baháʼí Faith
* Wicca

Existence of God|

| For|

* Beauty
* Christological
* Consciousness
* Cosmological
* Kalam
* Contingency
* Degree
* Desire
* Experience
* Fine-tuning of the universe
* Love
* Miracles
* Morality
* Necessary existent
* Ontological
* Pascal's wager
* Proper basis
* Reason
* Teleological
* Natural law
* Watchmaker analogy
* Transcendental

|

Against|

* 747 gambit
* Atheist's Wager
* Evil
* Free will
* Hell
* Inconsistent revelations
* Nonbelief
* Noncognitivism
* Occam's razor
* Omnipotence
* Poor design
* Russell's teapot

Theology|

* Acosmism
* Agnosticism
* Animism
* Antireligion
* Atheism
* Creationism
* Dharmism
* Deism
* Demonology
* Divine command theory
* Dualism
* Esotericism
* Exclusivism
* Existentialism
* Christian
* Atheistic
* Feminist theology
* Thealogy
* Womanist theology
* Fideism
* Fundamentalism
* Gnosticism
* Henotheism
* Humanism
* Religious
* Secular
* Christian
* Inclusivism
* Theories about religions
* Monism
* Monotheism
* Mysticism
* Naturalism
* Metaphysical
* Religious
* Humanistic
* New Age
* Nondualism
* Nontheism
* Pandeism
* Panentheism
* Pantheism
* Perennialism
* Polytheism
* Possibilianism
* Process theology
* Religious skepticism
* Spiritualism
* Shamanism
* Taoic
* Theism
* Transcendentalism
* more...

Religious language|

* Eschatological verification
* Language game
* Logical positivism
* Apophatic theology
* Verificationism

Problem of evil|

* Augustinian theodicy
* Best of all possible worlds
* Euthyphro dilemma
* Inconsistent triad
* Irenaean theodicy
* Natural evil
* Theodicy

Philosophers
of religion

(by date active)|

| Ancient and
medieval|

* Anselm of Canterbury
* Augustine of Hippo
* Avicenna
* Averroes
* Boethius
* Erasmus
* Gaudapada
* Gaunilo of Marmoutiers
* Pico della Mirandola
* Heraclitus
* King James VI and I
* Marcion of Sinope
* Maimonides
* Adi Shankara
* Thomas Aquinas

|

Early modern|

* Augustin Calmet
* René Descartes
* Blaise Pascal
* Baruch Spinoza
* Nicolas Malebranche
* Gottfried W Leibniz
* William Wollaston
* Thomas Chubb
* David Hume
* Baron d'Holbach
* Immanuel Kant
* Johann G Herder

1800
1850|

* Friedrich Schleiermacher
* Karl C F Krause
* Georg W F Hegel

* Thomas Carlyle
* William Whewell
* Ludwig Feuerbach
* Søren Kierkegaard
* Karl Marx
* Albrecht Ritschl
* Afrikan Spir

1880
1900|

* Ernst Haeckel
* W K Clifford
* Friedrich Nietzsche
* Harald Høffding
* William James

* Vladimir Solovyov
* Ernst Troeltsch
* Rudolf Otto
* Lev Shestov
* Sergei Bulgakov
* Pavel Florensky
* Ernst Cassirer
* Joseph Maréchal

1920
postwar|

* George Santayana
* Bertrand Russell
* Martin Buber
* René Guénon
* Paul Tillich
* Karl Barth
* Emil Brunner
* Rudolf Bultmann
* Gabriel Marcel
* Reinhold Niebuhr

* Charles Hartshorne
* Mircea Eliade
* Frithjof Schuon
* J L Mackie
* Walter Kaufmann
* Martin Lings
* Peter Geach
* George I Mavrodes
* William Alston
* Antony Flew

1970
1990
2010|

* William L Rowe
* Dewi Z Phillips
* Alvin Plantinga
* Anthony Kenny
* Nicholas Wolterstorff
* Richard Swinburne
* Robert Merrihew Adams
* Ravi Zacharias
* Peter van Inwagen
* Daniel Dennett
* Loyal Rue
* Jean-Luc Marion
* William Lane Craig
* Ali Akbar Rashad

* Alexander Pruss

Related topics|

* Criticism of religion
* Desacralization of knowledge
* Ethics in religion
* Exegesis
* History of religion
* Religion
* Religious language
* Religious philosophy
* Relationship between religion and science
* Faith and rationality
* more...

* Portal
* Category

* v
* t
* e

Witchcraft and magic

Types|

| Region|

* Africa
* Witch smeller
* Asia
* Kulam
* Australasia
* Makutu
* Europe
* Akelarre
* Benandanti
* Chaos magic
* Cunning folk
* Greece and Rome
* Medieval
* Renaissance
* Seiðr
* Völva
* White witch
* Witch-cult hypothesis
* Latin America

|

Form|

* Solitary practitioner
* Warlock
* Wicca
* Witch doctor

Practices|

* Animism
* Apotropaic magic
* Black magic
* Ceremonial magic
* Magical formula
* Coven
* Curse
* Anathema
* Damnation
* Jinx
* Demon
* Divination
* Entheogen
* Evocation
* Familiar
* Flying ointment
* Goetia
* Gray magic
* Incantation
* Jinn
* Love magic
* Magic circle
* Mediumship
* Moon magic
* Necromancy
* Occultism
* Poppet
* Potions
* Shamanism
* Black
* Regional
* Yellow
* Sigils
* Spiritism
* Spiritualism
* Sympathetic magic
* Witch ball
* Witch's ladder
* Witches' Sabbath
* White magic

Objects|

* Amulet
* Broom
* besom
* Cloak of invisibility
* Grimoire
* Kitchen witch
* Love charm
* Magic carpet
* Magic ring
* Magical weapons
* Magic sword
* Sator Square
* Talisman
* Wand

Folklore and
mythology|

* Agamede
* Aradia
* Baba Yaga
* Circe
* Dayan
* Drude
* Elbow witch
* Hecate
* Huld
* Kalku
* Medea
* Morgan le Fay
* Muma Pădurii
* Nine sorceresses
* Obayifo
* Pasiphaë
* Sebile
* Sorginak
* Spearfinger
* Three Witches
* Witch of Endor

Regional|

* Anglo-Saxon England
* Britain
* Ghana
* Italy

Major
historic treatises|

* Witchcraft and divination in the Old Testament (8th–2nd centuries BC)
* Directorium Inquisitorum (1376)
* De maleficis mulieribus (1440)
* Formicarius (1475)
* Summis desiderantes affectibus (1484)
* Malleus Maleficarum (1487)
* De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus (1489)
* Laienspiegel (1509)
* De praestigiis daemonum (1563)
* The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584)
* Newes from Scotland (1591)
* A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcrafts (1593)
* Daemonolatreiae libri tres (1595)
* Daemonologie (1597)
* Magical Investigations (1599)
* Compendium Maleficarum (1608)
* A Guide to Grand-Jury Men (1627)
* The Discovery of Witches (1647)
* Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants (1751)

Persecution|

* Witch-hunt
* accusations against children

In popular culture|

* Witches in fiction

Related|

* Witch (word)
* Maleficium
* Left-hand path and right-hand path

* v
* t
* e

Spiritualism and spiritism

History and beliefs|

* Apport
* Automatic writing
* Cross-Correspondences
* Ectoplasm
* Faith healing
* Materialization
* Mediumship
* Séance
* Spirit guides
* Spiritual healing
* Spirit obsession
* Spirit photography
* Spirit possession
* Spirit world
* Table-turning
* Theism

Spiritualists|

* Derek Acorah
* Rosemary Altea
* Dan Aykroyd
* Charles Bailey
* Bangs Sisters
* Ada Besinnet
* Stephen E. Braude
* William Breeze
* Rosemary Brown
* Sylvia Browne
* Eva Carrière
* Doris Collins
* Florence Cook
* Mina Crandon
* William Crookes
* Geraldine Cummins
* Pearl Curran
* Frank Decker
* Arthur Conan Doyle
* Helen Duncan
* Eddy Brothers
* Harry Edwards
* John Edward
* William Eglinton
* Colin Evans
* Fox sisters
* Leslie Flint
* Arthur Ford
* Colin Fry
* Eileen Garrett
* Kathleen Goligher
* Rita Goold
* Jan Guzyk
* Robert Hare
* Alec Harris
* Gordon Higginson
* Richard Hodgson
* Daniel Dunglas Home
* Elizabeth Hope
* William Hope
* Swami Laura Horos
* Cecil Husk
* James H. Hyslop
* Allan Kardec
* Franek Kluski
* Gladys Osborne Leonard
* Oliver Lodge
* Heinrich Melzer
* Carmine Mirabelli
* Francis Ward Monck
* William Usborne Moore
* Lorin Morgan-Richards
* William Stainton Moses
* Einer Nielsen
* Eusapia Palladino
* Leonora Piper
* Ethel Post-Parrish
* James Van Praagh
* Bert Reese
* Estelle Roberts
* Jane Roberts
* William Roy
* Rudi Schneider
* Maria Silbert
* Henry Slade
* Doris Stokes
* Emanuel Swedenborg
* Rosina Thompson
* Stanisława Tomczyk
* Ena Twigg
* George Valiantine
* Jack Webber
* Etta Wriedt
* Chico Xavier

Organizations|

* List of Spiritualist organizations
* Spiritualist churches
* Spiritist centres
* London Spiritualist Alliance
* National Spiritualist Association of Churches
* Spiritualists' National Union
* Spiritualist Association of Great Britain
* Spiritual church movement
* Arthur Findlay College
* International Spiritualist Federation

Skeptics|

* David Abbott
* John Henry Anderson
* George Miller Beard
* Ruth Brandon
* Lionel Branson
* Derren Brown
* William Carpenter
* Milbourne Christopher
* Edward Clodd
* Edmund Smith Conklin
* Millais Culpin
* Stuart Cumberland
* Eric Dingwall
* Joseph Dunninger
* Henry Evans
* Chris French
* Martin Gardner
* G. Stanley Hall
* Trevor H. Hall
* William A. Hammond
* C. E. M. Hansel
* Carlos María de Heredia
* Carl Hertz
* Terence Hines
* Harry Houdini
* Joseph Jastrow
* Stanley LeFevre Krebs
* Rose Mackenberg
* David Marks
* John Nevil Maskelyne
* Henry Maudsley
* Joseph McCabe
* Henry C. McComas
* Georgess McHargue
* Charles Arthur Mercier
* Albert Moll
* John Mulholland
* Fulton Oursler
* Joe Nickell
* E. Clephan Palmer
* Ronald Pearsall
* Frank Podmore
* Massimo Polidoro
* Harry Price
* Julien Proskauer
* James Randi
* Donovan Rawcliffe
* Joseph F. Rinn
* C. E. Bechhofer Roberts
* Chung Ling Soo
* Gordon Stein
* Amy Tanner
* Ivor Lloyd Tuckett
* Lyttelton Winslow
* Richard Wiseman

* v
* t
* e

New Age movement

Culture|

* New Age communities
* New-age music
* Andean
* Biomusic
* Neoclassical
* Progressive electronic
* Space music

* New Age travellers

Groups|

* Association for Research and Enlightenment
* The Family
* New World Alliance
* Regional forms of shamanism
* Rainbow Family

Non-exclusive
themes|

* Age of Aquarius
* Akashic records
* Alternative medicine
* Ancient astronauts
* Angels
* Animism
* Ascended master
* Astral projection
* Astrology
* Astrotheology
* Atlantis
* Aura
* Ceremonial magic
* Conspiracy theories
* Contactee
* Cosmic ordering
* Conscious evolution
* Crystal healing
* Earth Changes
* Earth mysteries
* Ecofeminism
* Energy
* Environmentalism
* Faith healing
* Feng shui
* Gaia hypothesis
* Gaia philosophy
* Gnosis
* Goddess movement
* Higher consciousness
* Idealism
* Indigo children
* Intuition
* Karma
* Law of attraction
* Lemuria
* Magic
* Meditation
* Mediumship
* Michael Teachings
* Odic force
* Paganism
* Pantheism
* Parapsychology
* Perception
* Perennial philosophy
* Quantum mysticism
* Qi
* Reincarnation
* Religious pluralism
* Supernatural
* Tantra
* UFOs
* Veganism
* Vegetarianism
* Visualization
* Wellness
* Yoga

Proponents or
individual
influences|

* José Argüelles
* Richard Bach
* Alice Bailey
* Annie Besant
* Helena Blavatsky
* Gregg Braden
* Rhonda Byrne
* Eileen Caddy
* Marjorie Cameron
* Lee Carroll
* Edgar Cayce
* Deepak Chopra
* Andrew Cohen
* Benjamin Creme
* Aleister Crowley
* Scott Cunningham
* Adi Da
* Wayne Dyer
* Werner Erhard
* Marilyn Ferguson
* Debbie Ford
* Buckminster Fuller
* Gandalf
* Linda Goodman
* Glenda Green
* Alex Grey
* Michael Harner
* Esther Hicks
* Barbara Marx Hubbard
* L. Ron Hubbard
* Óscar Ichazo
* David Icke
* Timothy Leary
* John C. Lilly
* Max Freedom Long
* Shirley MacLaine
* Leon MacLaren
* Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
* Terence McKenna
* Corinne McLaughlin
* Michael Mirdad
* Tony Nader
* Mariam Nour
* Leonard Orr
* Jack Parsons
* Daniel Quinn
* Rajneesh
* Ram Dass
* James Redfield
* Wilhelm Reich
* Jane Roberts
* Helena Roerich
* Walter Russell
* Mark Satin
* Helen Schucman
* John Selby
* Ravi Shankar
* David Spangler
* Joshua David Stone
* Ingo Swann
* Herbert Sutcliffe
* Michael Talbot
* William Thetford
* Eckhart Tolle
* Neale Donald Walsch
* Alan Watts
* Ken Wilber
* Stuart Wilde
* Marianne Williamson
* Robert Anton Wilson
* Oprah Winfrey
* Fred Alan Wolf

Other
influences|

* Advaita Vedanta
* Animism
* Anthroposophy
* Ariosophy
* Ascended Master Teachings
* Astrology
* Beat Generation
* Buddhism
* Cannabis culture
* Cognitive science
* Conspiracy theories
* Discordianism
* Eight-circuit model of consciousness
* English Qaballa
* Entheogens
* Esalen Institute
* Esoteric Christianity
* Esotericism
* Freemasonry
* Fringe science
* Gnosticism
* Hermetic Qabalah
* Hermeticism
* Hinduism
* Hippie subculture
* Human Potential Movement
* Huna
* Integral theory
* Leather subculture
* Metaphysics
* Neuro-linguistic programming
* New Thought
* Nonviolence
* Occultism
* Paganism
* Neo-Druidism
* Neotantra
* Wicca
* Postmodernism
* Pseudoarchaeology
* Pseudoscience
* Psychedelic music
* Quantum mechanics
* Radical Faeries
* Rastafari movement
* Rosicrucianism
* School of Economic Science
* Science fiction
* Seth Material
* Shamanism
* Shinto
* Spiritism
* Spiritualism
* Spirituality
* Sufism
* Taoism
* Thelema
* Theosophy
* Traditionalist School (perennialism)
* Transhumanism
* Transpersonal psychology
* Zen

* v
* t
* e

Fantasy fiction

* History
* Literature
* Magic
* Sources

Subgenres|

* Action-adventure
* Heroic
* Lost world
* Sword-and-sandal
* Sword and sorcery
* Wuxia‎
* Alternate history
* Children's fantasy
* Comedy
* Bangsian
* Contemporary
* Occult detective fiction‎
* Paranormal romance
* Urban fantasy
* Dark fantasy
* Dark romanticism
* Faustian
* Grimdark
* Splatterpunk
* Fairy tale
* Fairy tale parodies‎
* Fairytale fantasy‎
* Fantastique
* Fantasy of manners
* Ghost stories‎
* Gothic fiction
* American
* Southern
* Southern Ontario
* Suburban
* Tasmanian
* Tech noir
* Urban
* Gritty fantasy
* Hard fantasy
* High fantasy
* Historical fantasy
* Isekai
* LitRPG
* Low fantasy
* Magical girl
* Magic realism
* Mythic
* Mythopoeia‎
* Mythpunk
* "Retro"
* Dieselpunk
* Gaslamp fantasy
* Steampunk
* Romantic
* Science fantasy‎
* Dying Earth
* Planetary romance
* Superhero
* Sword and planet
* Shenmo
* Tokusatsu‎
* Weird fiction
* New weird
* Weird menace
* Weird West
* West‎ern fantasy

Media|

| Film and television|

* Anime
* Films
* highest-grossing
* S&S
* Television programs

|

Literature|

* Authors
* Ballantine Adult Fantasy series
* Comics
* list
* The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
* Fantasy Masterworks
* Internet Speculative Fiction Database
* List of novels
* A–H
* I–R
* S–Z
* List of story collections
* Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library
* Publishers

Magazines|

* Fantastic
* Fantastic Adventures
* Locus
* The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
* Science Fantasy
* Unknown
* Weird Tales

* Féeries
* Podcasts

Fandom|

* Art
* Fanspeak
* Filk music
* Harry Potter fandom
* The Inklings
* Mythopoeic Society
* Religion
* Tolkien fandom
* Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien
* World Fantasy Convention

| Awards|

* Balrog
* British Fantasy
* Crawford
* Dragon
* Gandalf
* Gemmell
* Hugo
* International Fantasy
* Japan Fantasy
* Locus
* Méliès d'Or
* Mythopoeic
* Nebula
* Saturn
* Tähtifantasia
* World Fantasy

|

Tropes|

| Creatures|

* Angels
* Demons
* Devils
* Ghouls
* Elementals
* Faeries
* Familiars
* Fire-breathing monsters
* Chimera
* Dragons
* Gargoyle
* Imps
* Jinn
* Kaiju
* Megafauna
* Nymphs
* Skin-walkers
* Spirits
* Therianthropes
* Werecats
* Werewolves
* Undead
* Death
* Ghosts
* Mummies
* Skeletons
* Vampires
* Zombies
* Unicorns
* Yōkai

|

Characters|

* Barbarian
* Caveman
* Damsel in distress
* Dark lord
* Donor
* Dragonslayer
* Fairy godmother
* Heroes
* Magicians
* Occult detective
* list
* Wild man
* Witches

Magic system|

* Hard and soft
* Elements
* Dark / Neutral / Light
* Ceremonial
* Love
* Moon
* Magic item
* Grimoire
* Magic ring
* Magical weapons
* Magic sword
* Runes
* Wand

* Schools
* Alchemy
* Demonology
* Divination
* Egregore
* Evocation
* Incantation
* Necromancy
* Runecraft
* Shamanism
* Shapeshifting
* Thaumaturgy
* Theurgy
* Technomancy
* Witchcraft

Fantasy races|

* Centaurs
* Dwarves
* Elves
* Treants
* Giants
* Gnomes
* Goblins
* Gremlins
* Halflings
* Hobgoblins
* Kobolds
* Leprechauns
* Merfolk
* Mermaids
* Mermen
* Ogres
* Oni
* Orcs
* Trolls

Places and events|

* Quests
* Worlds
* list
* Maps
* Lost city
* Hollow Earth
* Astral plane
* Dreamworld
* Castle
* Enchanted forest
* Thieves' guild
* Magic school

Related|

* Allegory
* Dungeons & Dragons
* Epic poetry
* Fable
* Fantastic
* Horror fiction
* Human–animal hybrid
* LGBT themes in speculative fiction
* Mecha
* Mythology
* Science fiction
* Supernatural fiction
* Urban legend

* Outline Outline
* Category

* v
* t
* e

Parapsychology

Outline

Topics|

* Apparitional experience
* Astral projection
* Auras
* Bilocation
* Clairvoyance
* Deathbed phenomena
* Dermo-optical perception
* Dream telepathy
* Ectoplasm
* Electronic voice phenomenon
* Extrasensory perception
* Ganzfeld experiment
* Ghosts
* Kirlian photography
* Levitation
* Materialization
* Mediumship
* Near-death experience
* Orb
* Out-of-body experience
* Pam Reynolds case
* Paranormal
* Parapsychology research at SRI
* Past life regression
* Plant perception (paranormal)
* Poltergeist
* Precognition
* Psychic
* Psychic detective
* Psychic reading
* Psychic surgery
* Psychokinesis
* Psychometry
* Pyrokinesis
* Reincarnation
* Remote viewing
* Retrocognition
* Second sight
* Sensory leakage
* Spoon bending
* Superconscious
* Telepathy
* Thoughtography
* Xenoglossy
* Zener cards

Active organizations|

* American Society for Psychical Research
* Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena
* College of Psychic Studies
* Institut Métapsychique International
* Institute of Noetic Sciences
* International Association for Near-Death Studies
* Koestler Parapsychology Unit
* Parapsychological Association
* Parapsychology Foundation
* Rhine Research Center
* Society for Psychical Research
* The Ghost Club

Defunct organizations|

* American Psychical Institute
* British College of Psychic Science
* Cambridge Ghost Society
* International Club for Psychical Research
* International Institute for Psychical Research
* London Dialectical Society
* Metropolitan Psychical Society
* National Laboratory of Psychical Research
* Oxford Phasmatological Society
* Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory
* Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures

People|

* List of parapsychologists
* Skeptics of parapsychology

Publications|

* An Experiment with Time
* Extrasensory Perception
* Irreducible Mind
* Journal of Near-Death Studies
* Journal of Parapsychology
* Journal of Scientific Exploration
* Life After Life
* Life Before Life
* Mental Radio
* Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence For Past Lives
* Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind
* The Roots of Coincidence
* Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation
* Varieties of Anomalous Experience

* Category
* Commons

* v
* t
* e

Church of Divine Science

Distinctive doctrines|

* Affirmative prayer
* Meditation
* The Bible
* Presence of God

File:FirstChurchDivineScienceBookplate.jpg

Founders|

* Malinda Cramer
* Nona L. Brooks
* Fannie Brooks

Influences|

* Emma Curtis Hopkins
* Phineas Parkhurst Quimby

Ministers|

* Joseph Murphy
* Ernest Holmes
* Fenwicke Holmes
* Emmet Fox

Largest groups|

* International Divine Science Association

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template