Definition
A comparative category from the term evenki šaman, applied to ritual specialists who travel, care, guess or negotiate with spirits in specific traditions.
The ritual specialists can be recognized by a community after a long training. Western neo-chamanism often combines drum, psychotherapy, esotericism and Aboriginal borrowing without a community mandate.
To be retained
- Use local names when known
- Checking Community recognition
- Distinguish tradition and neo-chamanism
- Name risks and legislation
Origin of the term and context
The word comes from the Tungrous languages of Siberia and has been generalized by researchers. This extension allows comparisons, but can mask very different functions, names and cosmologies.
Why does it matter?
The trance states and their contexts can be studied. This does not confirm travels to spiritual worlds. The intense psychoactive substances, deprivations and rituals involve medical, psychic and legal risks.
- Use local names when known
- Checking Community recognition
- Distinguish tradition and neo-chamanism
- Name risks and legislation
How can it be explored or practised?
- Read an ethnography and an Aboriginal voice
- Ask who authorizes the transmission
- Avoiding substances and deprivation without a medical and legal framework
- Refusing promises of guaranteed healing
Misconceptions and points of caution
- A weekend does not make a person a traditional shaman.
- Psychoactive plants can be dangerous and illegal.
- The staging of Aboriginal ceremonies can be an appropriation.
Perspectives from different traditions
- Siberia: ritual specialists enrolled in specific peoples and languages.
- Amazonia: various functions that it is misleading to merge.
- Neo-Shamamanism: modern movement to be evaluated separately.
To go further
- Shamanism and Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy — Mircea Eliade, to be read critically
- Shamans and Religion — Alice Beck Kehoe