Shamanism, Pagan studies, Animism

For the past forty years shamanism has drawn increasing attention among the general public and academics. There is an enormous literature on shamanism, but no one has tried to understand why and how Western intellectual and popular culture became so fascinated with the topic. Behind fictional and non-fictional works on shamanism, Andrei A. Znamenski uncovers an exciting story that mirrors changing Western attitudes toward the primitive. The Beauty of the Primitive explores how shamanism, an obscure word introduced by the eighteenth-century German explorers of Siberia, entered Western humanities and social sciences, and has now become a powerful idiom used by nature and pagan communities to situate their spiritual quests and anti-modernity sentiments. The major characters of The Beauty of the Primitive are past and present Western scholars, writers, explorers, and spiritual seekers with a variety of views on shamanism. Moving from Enlightenment and Romantic writers and Russian exile ethnographers to the anthropology of Franz Boas to Mircea Eliade and Carlos Castaneda, Znamenski details how the shamanism idiom was gradually transplanted from Siberia to the Native American scene and beyond. He also looks into the circumstances that prompted scholars and writers at first to marginalize shamanism as a mental disorder and then to recast it as high spiritual wisdom in the 1960s and the 1970s. Linking the growing interest in shamanism to the rise of anti-modernism in Western culture and intellectual life, Znamenski examines the role that anthropology, psychology, environmentalism, and Native Americana have played in the emergence of neo-shamanism. He discusses the sources that inspire Western neo-shamans and seeks to explain why lately many of these spiritual seekers have increasingly moved away from non-Western tradition to European folklore. A work of intellectual discovery, The Beauty of the Primitive shows how scholars, writers, and spiritual seekers shape their writings and experiences to suit contemporary cultural, ideological, and spiritual needs. With its interdisciplinary approach and engaging style, it promises to be the definitive account of this neglected strand of intellectual history.

ТОЛЬКО ОЗНАКОМИТЕЛЬНЫЙ ФРАГМЕНТ, электронная версия не распространяется.

Гальцин Д. Д. Лики Протея: история современного язычества как религиозной идентичности / под общ. ред. Д. М. Ильиной. — СПб.: Издательство РХГА, 2020. — 296 с. — (Серия «Ариадна». Научные исследования эзотеризма и мистицизма. Вып. 5). ISBN 978-5-907309-10-4

Ответственный редактор Двинянинов Б. К.

В книге прослеживается история такой религиозной идентичности, как «язычество». На протяжении веков в различных культурах Евразии бытовали различные наименования чужой религиозности, которые могут быть переведены термином «язычество». ВM XX в. на Западе впервые появляются группы, принимающие этот термин в качестве определения собственной религии. Такие новые религиозные движения, как викка, асатру, друидизм, духовность Богини, родноверие, ромува, диевтуриба, гетанизм, элленизм и многочисленные этнические реконструкционизмы сегодня вM большей или меньшей степени используют религионим «язычество» для самоописания. Также к началу XXI в. окончательно складывается область исследований современного язычества, или «неоязычества» (так называемых Pagan Studies), где языческие религии исследуются с позиций религиоведения, социологии, антропологии, культурологии.

Dmitry, Galtsin. Faces of Proteus: A History of Modern Paganism as a Religious Identity. — SPb.: Publisher RHGA, 2020, 296 p.

The book dwells upon the history of “Paganism” as a religious identity. For centuries various cultures of Eurasia used different monikers for alien religiosity (exonymes) which can be translated into modern languages as “Pagan/Heathen”. In the 20th century first groups appeared in the West which accepted this term as a self-designation (endonyme), a name for one’s own religion. Such new religions as Wicca, Asatru, Druidism, Goddess spirituality, Rodnoverie, Romuva, Dievturiba, Hellenismos and many ethnic reconstructionisms today more or less use the appellation “Paganism” for self-description. By the early 21st century an academic field of Pagan Studies emerged, exploring the existing Pagan religions from the vantage points of religious studies, sociology, anthropology, culture studies etc.

This research is the objective: 1. to study the wisdom and the integration of beliefs in the rituals of the four tribes in Sisaket Province, 2. to study the integration of the beliefs of the community and the Buddhist principles of rituals of the community of the tribes in Sisaket Province, 3. to analyze the wisdom and integration of beliefs in self-management of four tribal communities of the tribes in Sisaket Province. This research is integrated qualitative research, is qualitative research by studying the scriptures, related the documents throughout the research of the people who have learned,  Including operational information such as in-depth interviews, Subgroup meetings and to organize the academic community, and related sectors also known as field data collection. The details are as follows; The results of the research: Buddhism’s Tradition is the foundation of Thai culture because Thai people respect Buddhism for a long time, the Buddhism has influenced the Thai people, in terms of morality, ethics, morality, and objectivity, which are conveyed in the form of festivals and rituals, they are: (1 ) make to live in the framework of good traditions (2) to create local pride (4) to create the love and unity among the group (5) to be the benefit of the economy and (6) to contribute to support the nation of the town’s community to develop the ideology of the community in Sisaket province. It is the result of a combination of belief systems about Buddhism, Brahmanism, and ghost worship which expressed in the rituals and traditions of the community.
The integration of faith is in the rituals of the four tribal communities, It is a ritual of the combination of beliefs of the villagers. It is a ploy to keep members of society under good social order, By the Buddhist faith and Brahmanism are combined with local beliefs. It is a pattern of human-made social activities. These may be due to religious beliefs, customary customs, which result in coexistence. The tradition also
teaches people to respect the senior system. The expression in the form of ritual. The four-tribal faith mix. It has developed into a traditional form that combines four tribes to perform rituals together, expression of harmony, and uniting through rituals that convey the wisdom and beliefs of the community.Based on an analysis of the wisdom, integration, beliefs, and rituals of the four tribes in Sisaket province, the "community wisdom" was instrumental in resolving family problems, Economic problems. Therefore, the researcher analyzed the heart of the culture from the wisdom of the area, that the researcher has studied four areas.1.to find the importance of the wisdom culture through beliefs, prohibitions, and practices 2.to compare the phenomena with the community to set up the principles for development.
3.to analyze the linking brainstorming activities to create an activity plan by introducing the beliefs, prohibition, and applying it as a development activity. so faith is important to the context, to connect with the context of the community. to see the solution to the problem of how to take care of cherished as a unique identity.
(1) the bowing up the Sa-nai is to take care of the community in terms of sacred energy, to take care of themselves, their families, and to make good deeds for the children. (2) Memad dance is to take care of the community in order to strengthen the spirit of the spirit that must be given to each other to encourage parents to get close to their children.(3) The Santhanta ritual is the care of the community in relation to kinship, family and children.(4)The twelfth traditions are the care of the community independence to make love to the community. Because of the inheritance of the belief tradition in the twelfth heat that has been practiced since the past to the present time.

This comprehensive introduction to the three-volume anthology Shamanism: Critical Concepts (RoutledgeCurzon, 2004) provides an overview of the state of shamanism studies in Western humanities and social sciences from the 1700s to the present.  Particulalry, it examines how different branches of social scholarship appraoched shamanism beginning from from Enlightenment explorers and ninteenth-century Romantic observers to psychoanalysts, Marxists, post-modernist scholars, and spirituality writers.  It also shows how and why a parochial metaphor of shamanism eventually gained popularity in Western humanities and counterculture

Exploring the intra-actions of new animist and new materialist movements within the environmental (post)humanities, this paper argues for transductive methods in-between the disciplines of the sciences and humanities and Western, Eastern, and Indigenous disciplines beyond the academy. Following such feminist technoscience scholars as Karen Barad and Donna Haraway down one outgrowth of trails and animist environmental educators like Priscilla Stuckey and M.J. Barrett  and Robin Kimmerer and Winona LaDuke down others, we observe different sets of subjects and objects. Yet each scholar shares an open attentiveness to the liveliness and relational reciprocity of the more-than-human. Being present on the margins of any bounded field or at the crossroads where a pattern of intersecting lines of flight has been seen, it is advantageous to present a gift. In this way, the researcher is not only open to receiving gifts but to the habituation of a transductive relational patterning which allows for the emergence of more expansive becomings.

Presented at the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture conference on Religion and Science at the University of Florida on January 17, 2016

Mara’akame Paritema (Don Santos) (17th July, 2013) - Huichol cosmology: A mara'akame shares Wirraritari cosmovision and mythology. The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness Salon, The Institute of Ecotechnics, October Gallery, Bloomsbury, London. (Host and compère)

The origins of the Wirraritari or Huichol people are uncertain: are they an Aztec tribe or were they independent of the pre-Hispanic Aztec empire? In any case it is know that they resisted the Spanish throughout the conquest of Mexico and still remain independent. The Wirraritari cosmovision is full of myths, gods, and legends, and this cosmovision is embodied and experienced directly during the practice of their many ceremonies, which take place throughout the year. In Wirraritari society the Mara’akames are medicine-men and leaders. There are different types of Mara’akame; those who simply sing and communicate with the spirits, those who do treatments with energy, extracting disease and materialising it as it is sucked out by the mouth, and those who sing and heal as Mara’akame Santos does. Mara’akame Santos is going to share some of the Wirraritari myths of Creation, the origins of the people and their cosmovision. He will also share a sacred ceremonial song.

Die altnordische Praktik des seiðr wird heutzutage in der Regel den Bereichen Schamanismus, Magie oder Hexerei zugeordnet und immer noch als ambivalentes Phänomen betrachtet (Gründer 2008: 64). Sie erlebt im gegenwärtigen (Neu-)Heidentum zwar eine Renaissance auf
Grund der problematischen, spärlichen Quellenlage werden im gegenwärtigen Gebrauch die altnordischen Quellen jedoch frei interpretiert und Lücken durch „schamanische“ Praktiken ergänzt. Welche Schlussfolgerungen durch altnordische Quellen belegt werden können und wie diese von den Praktizierenden rezipiert und verändert werden, erlaubt Rückschlüsse auf das Rezeptionsverhalten der Anwender und die gegenwärtige seiðr-Praxis im Allgemeinen. Daher widmet sich die vorliegende Arbeit der Frage, wie und in welchem Zusammenhang Textstellen mit seiðr-Bezug in altnordischen Sagas in der gegenwärtigen praxisorientierten Literatur rezipiert und interpretiert werden bzw. welche Dimensionen dabei in den Vordergrund gestellt, welche vernachlässigt und in welcher Form werden sie pragmatisch ergänzt werden.

Bei die Verwendung von Sagas und anderer Quellen lassen durch gegenwärtige Praktizierende lassen sich sich drei Vorgehensweisen identifizieren: Rezeption, Transformation und Synkretismus. Die Rezeption widmet sich allein der mehr oder weniger unveränderten Zitation bestimmter Primärquellen, während Transformation bezeichnet, dass die Quellen zwar zitiert aber nicht in ihrer ursprünglichen Bedeutung übernommen wurden. Letztlich beschreibt Synkretismus die Verschmelzung verschiedener Informationsquellen und Neukreierung von Topoi. Je nach Dichte der historischen Quellenlage und Seriosität der Belege und kultureller/ideengeschichtlicher Prägung tritt eine andere Vorgehensweise in den Vordergrund.

This paper provides a brief introductory interpretation of some key archetypal motifs in the Celtic mythology of Tristan and Isolde.  The interpretation is based on elements taken from numerous interpreters of the myth, from Thomas of Brittany and Gottfried von Strassburg to the contemporary retelling by the French scholar, Joseph Bedier, from which the current author’s narrative is largely derived.  An archetypal tale of forbidden love, the story of Tristan and Isolde is one of the most profound and thoroughly developed archetypal stories of the hero journey, utilizing more than 60 archetypal symbols and motifs, rich with metaphorical imagery closely corresponding to the images found abundantly in the world’s myths, rites, shamanic initiations and Jung’s individuation process.  The narrative is augmented with amplification by archetypal images appearing in the Celtic tale that are also found in mythopoeic narratives of the ancient Greeks, Hebrews and other cultures.  Possible psychological meanings of the images are indicated, and a bibliography is provided for further research.

By digging deep into our knowledge of the past, I present an archaeological and anthropological investigation: Understanding Religion Evolution: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, Paganism, & Progressed Organized Religion The above picture is my art and I am going to explain some of its imagery. The Interconnectedness of Religious Thinking? " Religion is an Evolved Product " In a general way, it all starts with Animism (a theoretical belief in supernatural powers/spirits) and this is physically expressed in or with Totemism (a theoretical belief in a mythical relationship with powers/spirits through a totem item), which then enlists a full-time specific person to perform this worship and believed interaction as Shamanism (a theoretical belief in access and influence with spirits through rituals). In addition, there is the further employment of myths and gods added to all the above, which is Paganism and is often a lot more nature-based than most current top world religions, thus hinting to their close link to more ancient religious thinking from which it stems. My hypothesis is expressed with an explanation of the building of a theoretical house (modern religions development). It seems ancient peoples had to survived amazing threats in a " dangerous universe by superstition perceived as good and evil " , and human " immorality or imperfection of the soul " , which was thought to affect the still living and led to ancestor worship. Presumably, this ancestor worship led to the belief in supernatural beings, which some of these were turned into the belief in gods. This feeble myth called gods were just a human conceived idea that was " made from nothing into something over and over, changing again and again, taking on more as they evolve, and all the while, they are thought to be special. " However, it is just supernatural animistic spirit-belief perceived as sacred.

Il s'agit dans cet article de remonter l’histoire radiophonique des « montreurs d’avenir » - c’est-à-dire l’histoire de la médiatisation des « montreurs d’avenir » (médiums, taratologues, géomanciens, chiromanciens, astrologues, voyants, devins, futurologues, prophètes, prospectivistes, augures, oracles, diseurs de bonne aventure, shamans…) - pour montrer que l’« avenir » n’appartient ni au passé – les soi-disant temps obscurs moyenâgeux - ni à l’ailleurs - les soi-disant peuples non occidentalisés – mais qu’il cohabite bien, sans conflit majeur, avec la « modernité » ou « postmodernité » médiatique.
« Retour vers le futur ou l'ascendance radiophonique de Madame Soleil », Radiography, 21 juin 2014, http://radiography.hypotheses.org/1312« Retour vers le futur ou l'ascendance radiophonique de Madame Soleil », Radiography, 21 juin 2014, http://radiography.hypotheses.org/1312

ABSTRACT
The Jacobean era's infamous witchcraft trials are recalled after reservoir repairs close to Pendle Hill reveal a buried cottage with bricked‐up cat. Interpretations of the building as the site of Malkin Tower, recorded in court records as the venue of a witches coven are critically evaluated in the light of archaeological and historical evidence.

KEYWORDS
WITCH, PENDLE WITCH TRIALS, PENDLE HILL, MALKIN TOWER, FOLK BELIEF, MAGIC, LANCASTER ASSIZES, WISE WOMEN, CUNNING FOLK, ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, SEVENTEENTHCENTURY, ALIZON DEVICE, SALEM WITCHES, THOMAS POTTS, LOWER BLACK MOSS, ELIZABETH SOUTHERNS, DEMDIKE, ELIZABETH DEVICE, JAMES DEVICE, ANNE WHITTLE, CHATTOX, ANNE REDFERNE, JANE BULCOCK, JOHN BULCOCK, ALICE NUTTER, KATHERINE HEWITT, ALICE GRAY, JENNET PRESTON, GUNPOWDER PLOT, CAT

Based in the tenets of Jungian depth-psychology and theory of the collective unconscious, this discussion explains how and why active imagination can be used as a tool for engaging the transpersonal domain for the purpose of psychological healing, and the ways in which core-shamanism can be complimentary to this practice. Evidence for the existence of and contents of the collective unconscious is presented based on psychological and anthropological empirical precedents. The comparison between Jung's active imagination technique and shamanic journeying has been made before by Ryan (2002) and Thomason (2010), however, this analysis offers an in depth examination of the theory and practice of active imagination and how it corresponds to the methods inherent to shamanism.

From the Janare in Campania to the Masche in Piemonte, the Italian regions have a long history of local healers and folk witches, also known as Segnatori. Shrouded in folklore and secrecy, these traditions are still alive and practised across the country, especially in the countryside. Data collected during two years of fieldwork between 2016 and 2018 suggest that the sole way to engage with these local healers is through either being part of the community or their family. There is also a firm reticence on the part of the witches and their community members to talk about the practice and the rituals involved. By analysing how folk magic has been concealed within and reshaped by the boundaries dictated by the dominant religious system and the cultural framework, I will argue that this practice is ingrained in the life of local Italian communities, somehow framing the way people explain their sense of religiosity or lack thereof. The matter of an evolving syncretism-from Catholicism to Paganism-will also be addressed as a key element to confirm the resilience of such traditions. Lastly, I will analyse the significance of their enduring core for the conceptualisation of magic found in the cultural fabric.

The inhabitants of the Pre-Columbian world created numerous religious belief systems, many of which included huge pantheons of deities, human sacrifice, and state controlled worship.  The Andeans, and the Incas in particular, had a unique world view in which natural features -- mountains, springs, rivers, and hills -- were sacred.  The entire universe was considered "an animate being, a living entity," created by higher powers that exercised continual control. (Jones, p.124, 2010)
The Inca "worshiped their ancestors and features of the landscape;" weather and natural phenomena were logical foci of prayers and offerings.

The interpretation of depictions in petroglyphs belonging to the Bronze Age in South Siberia as shamanic ones is debatable. Obviously, cultic attributes belonging to men were not removed from barrows 2 and 5 in Pazyryk. Their series can be compared with complexes (known to ethnologists) belonging to shamans of Iranian peoples. Such elements of practicing sequential shamanic rituals as divination, use of musical instruments, entering into a trance state, summoning patron spirits and their “feeding”, exorcism of evil spirits can be reconstructed. 

Keywords: Indo-Iranian shamanism, Pazyryk culture shamans, shamans images, South Siberia, material culture

Using a multidisciplinary lens of exploration, the themes of healing (mind, body, spirit) are discussed in detail with the purpose of furthering the understanding of Shamanic Therapy and how the application of shamanic practice has as much relevance today as it's inception more than a thousand years ago. Disciplines such as Psychology, Anthropology, Archaeological and Ethnological Spirituality are used and cited to better construct a holistic view of cross-cultural shamanic practices that posses both a transformative effect upon spiritual and psychological growth and a restorative effect when used as a healing modality.

The focus of this paper is to examine the legacy of San pygmy spiritual journeys through a three-tiered cosmos of sky, earth, and underworld as they are consciously danced and reinforced by rock paintings, which seem to be the oldest and purest forms of known spiritual connection.

These are material gateways to spirit dimensions entered into through altered states. Images gleaned from past shamanic visions are vivified with countless overlays of fresh revelations, further enhancing this interface. Under the laws of quantum physics, a particle can act on another across time as well as space. This may explain how templates retrieved from timeless dimensions are brought into vivid manifestation through the trance dances and supportive rock images of the San.

Facets of this energetically potent storehouse are expressed on varying levels as dancing shamans, graphic images, mineral components, and spiritual realms. This vast undertaking spans at least 35,000 continuous years, still enacted in ritual trance dances by small groups of pygmy in southern Africa. The San pygmy honors small but significant 'first things of life'. They merge with Source through circular absorption or revelation to achieve understanding, rather than utilizing linear thinking, our commonly accepted learning filter. In this distinction lies the San quest for meaning, to be found in the deeper, unseen layers of living experience. Their awareness of unending change and inevitable renewal challenges our current world paradigm and deserves complete attention if we are to evolve.

Controversy over the origin of Japanese kami-whether they began as na ture deities or as ancestors-has continued in religious and cultural studies both in Japan and in the West for over a hundred years. Here I contend that research data on the death rites, ancestor worship, and concept of deities found in the Ryukyus should be given more consideration in the debate. This essay deals with the recent (mainly twentieth-century) dis course on postmortem ritual deification in the Ryukyus, where the newly dead are elevated to the status of ancestors and deities. It also reexamines investigations into the nature of these ancestral deities. After reviewing different views expressed in this discourse, I conclude that the standard theory about deification of the dead in the Ryukyus is invalid. That theory proposes that the ancestral spirits who have passed through the final thirtythird-year memorial ceremony lose their personalities and become deified, and eventually they come to be worshiped at the utaki-type shrines in the communal agrarian rituals for the whole village or island. I argue that the ancestors deified at the last memorial service within the household ances tor worship paradigm and the deities of the village shrine worship (deities who are often called "ancestor deities") represent two different concepts. An old form of the Ryukyuan ancestor cult is more likely to be represented by such festivals as shinugu, unjami/ungami, arasachi, shibasashi, dunga, tuurumi, hamaori, umiri, and uyaan/uyagan or by other traditional rites that reveal the indigenous ritual elevation of the dead spirit to the status of ancestral deity.

Psychedelic shamanism might be thought of primarily as a communication with Nature, for instance by asking the plants directly which ones can heal a particular illness, or by asking the plant spirit to teach them, or by using the plant in aiding the psychological metamorphosis into a plant or animal “allies.” Given that shamans have most likely been communicating with Nature in this way for thousands of years, it might well be asked what can be gained for humanity’s relationship with the ecosystem from such a dialogue and, perhaps more importantly, how can Nature benefit from this relationship?

Nella sua umiltà, questo mio elaborato analizza ciò che la magia – concetto non certo sconosciuto alle epoche precedenti – significò per la cultura medievale ponendo al centro dell’indagine l’attività di un personaggio che giocò un ruolo importante nel mutamento della concezione del magico dal pieno Medioevo agli ultimi secoli di quest’epoca. Costui è Jaques Duèse, meglio noto con il nome di Giovanni XXII: papa in Avignone dal 1316 al 1334, fu il responsabile della prima equiparazione delle pratiche magiche all’eresia, un passo fondante per l’intensificarsi della persecuzione. Spinto da un timore personale e restando fedele alla sua formazione di giurista, questo pontefice cercò una soluzione attraverso una consultazione di esperti teologi e vescovi nel 1320. Tra questi, Enrico del Carretto, vescovo di Lucca, elaborò il concetto di «fatto ereticale» attribuibile alle operazioni magiche, una legittimazione teorica che avrebbe aperto la strada a quei fenomeni di persecuzione di cui abbiamo detto prima ma con tempi tutt’altro che immediati. Vedremo anche se o quanto gli esiti concettuali di questa consultazione – confluiti nella bolla papale Super illius specula – influiranno sui processi per magia durante il pontificato di Giovanni XXII, prendendo in esame il caso di Cecco d’Ascoli, bruciato sul rogo a Firenze nel 1327.

Rock art, once an often-neglected subject, is increasingly considered a meaningful social practice among past and present communities. This thesis adds to a growing body of research that regards rock art as more than art or ideation, but as a means for establishing one’s identity in relation to their physical and social worlds. To demonstrate this, I focus on a corpus of Hohokam petroglyphs in the South Mountains, near the center of the Phoenix Basin in south-central Arizona. I make the case that these petroglyphs were instrumental in ritual practices that displayed and conveyed religious knowledge between performers and audiences. Rock art therefore positioned people in relationships of power with other people, as well as other-than-human agents, regarding the control and distribution of religious knowledge.
I rely on contextual factors throughout this thesis to investigate the nuances of petroglyph-related ritualism. Hohokam rock art was created and used on at least seven types of stage, each varying in ritual depth and entailing different performers and audiences. This shows that rock art, although uncommon, cross-cut social identities, and the religious knowledge involved was not institutionalized within a select few social positions, such as shamans or similar politico-religious offices.
Hohokam rock art is relatively visible and accessible; this “openness” paralleled the fluidity of religious knowledge within the larger Hohokam world and complements what we know from village settings. My chronological assessment nevertheless shows that this was not always the case. I use four relative-dating techniques—proximity analysis, cross-media design correlation, repatination, and artifact associations—to argue petroglyph-related ritualism in the South Mountains was performed mostly during the Preclassic era (~A.D. 500-1100). A cessation in rock art by the onset of the Classic period (~A.D. 1100-1400) resulted from an usurpation of religious knowledge by emerging leaders in the wake of a fracturing ritual system. This social transformation met little resistance, in part because the new religious order maintained qualities of the previous ritual system, yet emerging leaders reconfigured it in ways to justify and substantiate their new authority.

The ritual to communicate with god of Thai – Khmer group, Joal Mamuad was
believed as the way to connect to supernatural power, god or spirits. The Thai-
Khmer had belief and practiced this ritual since long time ago from generation. This
study was aimed to study belief of Thai-Khmer people on their god and spirits based
on their traditional belief and to study their rituals in order to connect to their god.
The result of study was found that the ritual was practiced and believed by Thai
Khmer people long years but no evident showed the exact time of beginning. This
area was influenced from Brahmanism and Hinduism since 1500 years ago and
they have believed in spirituality before that. The evidences of Brahmanism and
Hinduism were sanctuaries, religious building and idols which were over thousand
years old. Those objects were indicated that they were built to worship their
gods.The ritual to communicate with god of Thai Khmer was Joal Mamuad ritual.
The propose of ritual was to invite respected spirits or god to imbed in human
body. Then, people can ask for their problem solution, fortune, illness treatment
and protection. Thai Khmer people have believed in deity from the past. So the
ritual has been arranged in order to communicate with spiritual dimension. The
components of ritual were offerings, good smell objects, flowers, light and music.
People who took part in the ritual would clean their body and dress up with nice
dresses, then, all components will be offered together with music and chanting.
After the deity came to imbed or take mediumship in human, the selected human
will dances accorded with music. All presented in this ritual Joal Mamuad, was
one of Thai Khmer people belief in order to communicate with their sacred

Giriş Məni Şamanizm haqqında araşdırma aparmağa sövq edən əsas cəhətlər mövzunun Azərbaycanlı tədqiqatçıların əsərlərində və azərbaycan dilli mənbələrdə araşdırılma səviyyəsi ilə bağlıdır. Azərbaycan dilli mənbələrdə şamanizm Cavad Heyət, Füzulu Bayat, Allahmanlı Mahmud-un əsərlərində araşdırılmışdır. Müəlliflərdən Füzuli Bayat "Şamandan səmazənə, oyun və oyunçu" adlı əsərində daha çox şamanizmi "oyun" anlayışı üzərindən dəyərləndirmiş, şamanizmin tarixi haqqında ətraflı məlumat verməmiş, şaman oyununun dini xarakter daşımasını, şamanizmi "heyvan dünyasının təqlidi" formasında nəzərdən keçirmişdir.[21, səh 202] Allahmanlı Mahmud isə öz "Şaman, ozan və aşıq" adlı əsərində, Füzuli Bayata nisbətən daha geniş formada şamanizm haqqında məlumat vermiş, şamanizmin tarixi ilə bağlı C.Heyət, A.İnan, İ.Kafesoğlu, L.Qumilyov kimi müəlliflərin əsərlərinə istinadlar vermişdir. A.Mahmud şamanizmi Füzuli Bayatın əsərində də qeyd olunduğu kimi, "şaman" anlayışını türklərin dini ruhaniləri adlandırmaq üçün istifadə etdiyi "kam" anlayışı ilə eyniləşdirir və "kamlıq" mövqeyindən yanaşma sərgiləyir. O, eyni zamanda şamanizmlə bağlı olan məsələləri tam olaraq nəzərdən keçirmir, özünün də qeyd etdiyi kimi, ancaq

This chapter is based on fieldwork carried out in Spain and Portugal among different spiritual groups that were influenced by the international Pagan movement. The women (and few men) I encountered did not feel at ease with the term “Pagan” and preferred to refer to a “Goddess spirituality”. They held that British and American forms of Paganism needed to be transformed and adapted in order to be successfully imported into traditionally Catholic countries. Analyzing the transplantation process of the Glastonbury Goddess Conference to the Iberian Peninsula I will try to explain while it failed and why it was perceived by some of my interlocutors as a sort of religious colonialism. An important number of the Iberian followers of the Goddess I encountered refused the Anglo-imperialism they saw as inherent to established international Pagan traditions and were looking instead for more “authentic” rituals and theories that could take into account local specificities. The controversies I describe offer a privileged window upon the peculiarities of Pagan movements in Southern Europe and on the processes of resistance to religious forms of colonialism

In the ancient sources, Druids are presented both as philosophers and sages who “likewise discuss and impart to the youth many things respecting the stars and their motion, respecting the extent of the world and of our earth, respecting the nature of things, respecting the power and the majesty of the immortal gods.” (Caesar, De bel. Gal., VI, 14), and on the other hand, as blood sacrifcers of a religion in which „to murder a man was to do an act of the greatest devoutness, and to eat his flesh was to secure the highest blessings of health.” (Plinius Secundus, Nat. Hist., XXX, 4). Throughout its history, the Druid myth has undergone many transformations; the information on the alleged blood sacrifices passed by the ancients authors with time became forgotten, and the image of a Druid as a philosopher and expert on nature and its secrets stepped to the foreground.

The aim of “The Golden Sickle",is to present the history of Druidism, from the ancient Roman and Greek testimonies on the Druids, to the revival of the Druidic myth in English literature and 19th-century British paramasonic Druidic orders, to the core issue of the book – presenting a panorama of modern Druidic movements, and, therefore, answering the question of “who modern Druids are and what do they believe”.

From the reviews:
"Znamenski set out to provide for readers of English a wealth of sources that will be utterly new even to most experts in the field. He recognises the value of all of his chosen texts, whatever their viewpoints, and demonstrates it to others. His introduction is the best concise summary yet made of the history of research into Siberian shamanism, from the earliest times to the present, and outstandingly valuable in its range and perception."
(Professor Ronald Hutton, Dept. of Historical Studies, The University of Bristol, UK)
"This volume is a fascinating … summary of Russian-language sources of Siberian ritual practitioners (‘shamans’). … the book is interesting and useful both for students and specialists. … The book is particularly noteworthy for the fact that it records the variety of local terms that are used for ‘shamans’. I have already recommended the book to postgraduate students … . the volume is well-edited. … This book is a welcome addition to a new generation of analytical work on forms of indigenous spirituality." (David G. Anderson, Polar Record, Vol. 41 (4), 2005)


Table of contents :
Front Matter....Pages i-viii
Russian and Soviet Perceptions of Siberian Shamanism: An Introduction....Pages 1-42
Recording Shamanism in Old Russia....Pages 43-130
Siberian Shamanism in Soviet Imagination....Pages 131-278
Records of Siberian Spirituality in Present-Day Russia....Pages 279-358
Back Matter....Pages 359-371

Preface
Throughout all of Europe we find examples of folk-belief assigning special qualities to the seventh-born son or daughter of a family. At times these attributes were positive, at times negative. However, they always had a magical aura about them (Bloch [1924] 1983). For the most part, these beliefs have been written off as superstitious residue from times past and as a result little attention has been paid to documenting the concrete social practices associated with them. An exception to this tendency is the work of Marc Bloch, who in 1924, called attention to the supernatural powers attributed to the seventh son and at times, to the seventh daughter, born after an uninterrupted series of the same sex, remarking that seventh-born children were credited with a “particular supernatural power” (Bloch [1924] 1983: 293, 296). Writing in 1924, Bloch observed that “La croyance sous cette forme a été et est sans doute encore très largement répandue dans l’Europe occidentale et centrale: on l’a signalée en Allemagne, en Biscaye, en Catalogne, dans presque toute la France, dans les Pays-Bas, en Angleterre, en Escosse, en Irlande […]”  (Bloch [1924] 1983: 294-295).

Specifically, Bloch noted that from at least the 16th century onwards, children born into a seventh position in their family supposedly had the power to heal by touch. Such extraordinary people, often deemed sorcerers, even devils, were also referred to by a variety of expressions such as mahr (German) or murawa (Polish) and consequently they had the ambivalent privilege of tapping into powers that were inaccessible to normal humans. Specifically, they were viewed as having healing and divinatory powers, which could entail shape-shifting (Vaz da Silva 2003). That is, those individuals were endowed with the ability to take the form of an animal. From the point of view of modern Western thought this belief causes the dividing line between humans and animals to become blurred. Nonetheless, that blurring or fusion of two natures would be in accordance with the cosmology of native peoples in other parts of the world, especially contemporary hunter-gatherers, where such animistic beliefs also prevail (Bird-David 1999; Brightman 2002; Ingold 2000; Willerslev 2007).

It is quite clear that the qualities assigned to the seventh-son or daughter harken back to an earlier animistic mindset, notions of nonhuman personhood and social practices that in turn connect back to shamanic modes of healing. At the same time, as noted in the earlier chapters of this study, the fused nature of the Bear Son, the half-human, half-bear being known as Hamalau “Fourteen” in Basque, reflects a similar blurring of the Western human-animal divide and related cultural conceptualizations.

And as Bertolotti has demonstrated in his detailed and extraordinarily well researched study Carnevale di Massa 1950 (1992), European versions of the Bear Son folktales, e.g., Giovanni l’Orso, may well reproduce much earlier beliefs, more in consonance with the cosmovision of hunter-gatherers who inhabited these zones in times past. More concretely, the fact that the figure of Hamalau is grounded in the belief that humans descended from bears allows us to consider the significance and symbolism of this character’s own genesis: he is born of a human female, but his father is a bear. In this sense, he is a double-natured intermediary occupying the ontological ground between humans and bears.

Stories of pagan redemption. Guardians of the land, loss of powers, and human disrespect. Exile of the faery folk under capitalist privatization of the commons, industrialization,  christianization and war. Longing for deliverance. Animist sanctuaries. The vestigial goddess. Survival of holydays, libations, and rites of the stones.

Denita Benyshek, a professional visionary artist and cross-disciplinary scholar, explores the relationship between shamanism and artistic creativity through visions, dreams, artwork, and autobiographical stories. Using the definition of shaman constructed by anthropologist Ruth-Inge Heinze, Benyshek demonstrates how artists shamanically journey to other realms, undergo destruction and rebirth, unite opposites, and receive inspiration from nonordinary states of mind, anomalous experiences, transcendent consciousness, and sacred spirits. Painter Paul Cezanne, choreographer Martha Graham, sculptor Constantin Brancusi, and Mande blacksmiths provide examples of shamanic creative processes. This article may support future studies that find shamanic artists contribute to individual, societal, and planetary healing.

Benyshek, D.M. (2015). The contemporary artist as shaman. ReVision, vol. 32, nos. 2&3, 54-60.

Contents (chapters and authors):

The shamanic-ecstatic hypothesis for the Alpine rock art of Valcomonica, Umberto Sansoni.

Sensuous visions: Encountering the shamanistic rock art of the Bayan Jurek Mountains, Kazakhstan, Kenneth Lymer.

Depictions in Sami rock art of the Mother Earth figure, Inga-Maria Mulk.

Argimpasa - Scythia goddess, patroness of shamans, Zaur Hasanov.

The bear and the plough: Shamanism in the Neolithic, Giovanni Kezich.

From shamanic rituals to theatre and cultural industry: The state, shamanism and gender among the Kavalan (Taiwan), Pi-Chen Liu.

Mongolian shamanism envisaged, embodied, Eva Jane Neumann Fridman.

Women shamans and their portrayal in the Olonkho Sakha epic poems, Lia Zola.

The poetics of healing: Shamanic rituals in Central Nepal, Dagmar Eigner.

Inadvertent art. Icons, music and dance in Chepang (Nepal) and Semang-Negrito (Peninsular Malaysia) shamanism, Diana Riboli.

Artistic expressions of the visual language on Sami ritual drums, Hee Sook Lee-Niinioja.

The ritual art and paraphernalia of the Nepalese jhankris and Tamang bombo, Vesa Matteo Piludu.

Artists as shamans: Historical review and recent theoretical model, Denita Benyshek.

Perspectives on the arts of Parbati, Barbara Wilhelmi.

Shamanic artistry in a French Absurdist play, Daniel A. Kister.

The shamanic works of Minsalim Timergazeev and other artists of the First International Woodcarving Festival of Uvat, Carla Corradi Musi.

Norval Morrisseau - Shaman-Artist, Jurgen Werner Kremer.

The hand on the wall of the cave. Exploring connections between shamanism and the visual arts, Susan Michaelson.

Artist as shaman, Gilah Yelin Hirsch.


Edited by Elvira Eevr Djaltchinova-Malec. Published by Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary, Polish Institute of World Art Studies, Warsaw, and Tako Publishing House, Toruń, Poland.

This book can be ordered by mail:
Polish Institute of World Art Studies: [email protected]
Tako Publishing House: [email protected]

From the very birth of the term, Strega (‘Witch’) has been used with a negative connotation to describe women with powers aimed at harming people. Strega has its etymological origin in the Latin Strix, the owl believed to feed on human blood. Pop culture, books and media alike, also portrayed the witch as an evil character to the point where it became common parlance to address a person deemed evil as a witch.
In the last three decades, with the popularisation of paganism and Wicca, the term has been reclaimed and somehow sanitised by Pagans who neutrally describe this figure as someone who has the ability to change reality in accordance with the will. In more recent years, with the spread of shamanism, more practitioners start to either renounce the term ‘witch’ in favour of Sciamano/sciamana (‘Shaman’) or use them both to define themselves.
By analysing the discourses that practitioners create around the terms ‘witch’ and ‘shaman’ by means of Paul Johnson’s categories, I will illustrate how both terms manifest a form of indigenization and extending. In conclusion, I will argue that indigenizing and extending may be seen as two aspects of the same phenomenon entailing the opening of cultural borders to the outside, reshaping both the imported and exported cultural elements.