Neoshamanism

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Neoshamanism, or Neo-Shamanism is a term signaling a "new" form or a revival of an old form of "Shamanism", a system that comprises a range of beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spiritual world.

Neoshamanism is sometimes used as a disclaimer or qualifier, where revivalists are trying to piece back together shattered systems that no longer exists as a whole due to significant changes in the original culture, often as the result of colonisation, globalisation, or genocide. Neoshamanism is not a single, cohesive belief system, but a collective term for many such philosophies. However, certain generalities may be drawn between neoshamans. Most believe in spirits and pursue contact with the "spirit-world" in altered states of consciousness which they achieve through drumming, dance, or the use of entheogens. Most systems might be described as existing somewhere on the animism/pantheism spectrum.^[1]

Many members of traditional, indignenous cultures and religions are suspicious of neoshamanism, believing it to rely too heavily on cultural appropriation, or that it is an excuse by fraudulent shamans to cover up inconsistencies in their ceremonies.^[2][3]. According to York (2001) one difference between neoshamanism and traditional shamanism is the role of fear ^[4]. Neoshamanism and its new age relations tends to dismiss the existence of evil, fear, and failure. "In traditional shamanism, the shaman’s initiation is an ordeal involving pain, hardship and terror. New Age, by contrast is a religious perspective that denies the ultimately [sic] reality of the negative, and this would devalue the role of fear as well"[1].

See also

• Core Shamanism
• Neopaganism
• Michael Harner
• Carlos Castaneda
• Noble savage
• Sacred Hoop Magazine

References

1. ^ Karlsson, Thomas (2002). Uthark - Nightside of the Runes. Ouroboros. ISBN 91-974102-1-7. 
2. ^ Hagan, Helene E. (September 1992). "The Plastic Medicine People Circle". Sonoma County Free Press. http://www.sonomacountyfreepress.com/features/spirg-hagan.html. 
3. ^ Hobson, G. (1978). The Remembered Earth. Red Earth Press. 
4. ^ Shaman on the Stage (Shamanism and Northern Identity) by Tatyana Bulgakova

Further reading

• Kira Salak, "Hell and Back: Ayahuasca Shamanism", National Geographic Adventure,"Hell and Back: Ayahuasca Shamanism" for National Geographic Adventure
• Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. 1959; reprint, New York and London: Penguin Books, 1976. ISBN 0-14-019443-6
• Thomas Dale Cowan, Shamanism: As a Spiritual Practice for Daily Life. San Francisco: Ten Speed / Crossing Press, 1996. ISBN 0-89-594838-9
• Thomas Dale Cowan and Sandra Ingerman, Yearning for the Wind: Celtic Reflections on Nature and the Soul. New World Library, 2003. ISBN 1-57-731411-5
• Richard de Mille, ed. The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies. Santa Barbara, CA: Ross-Erikson, 1980.
• George Devereux, "Shamans as Neurotics", American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 63, No. 5, Part 1. (Oct., 1961), pp. 1088–1090.
• Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. 1964; reprint, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-691-11942-2
• Jay Courtney Fikes, Carlos Castaneda: Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties,Millennia Press, Canada, 1993ISBN 0-9696960-0-0
• Joan Halifax, ed. Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives. 1979; reprint, New York and London: Penguin, 1991. ISBN 0-14-019348-0
• Michael Harner: The Way of the Shaman. 1980, new edition, HarperSanFrancisco, 1990, ISBN 0-06-250373-1
• Graham Harvey, ed. Shamanism: A Reader. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0-415-25330-6.
• 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 0-19-516115-7
• Holger Kalweit, Shamans, Healers, and Medicine Men. Shambala, 2000. ISBN 1-570-62712-6
• Alice Kehoe, Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. 2000. London: Waveland Press. ISBN 1-57766-162-1
• Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley, eds. Shamans Through Time: 500 Years- on the Path to Knowledge. 2001; reprint, New York: Tarcher, 2004. ISBN 0-500-28327-3
• Daniel C. Noel. Soul Of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal Realities.Continuum, 1997. ISBN 0-8264-1081-2
• Åke Ohlmarks 1939: Studien zum Problem des Schamanismus. Gleerup, Lund.
• Alberto Villoldo, PhD: Shaman, Healer, Sage. New York: Harmony Books, 2000. ISBN 0-609-60544-5.
• Alberto Villoldo, PhD: Mending the Past and Healing the Future with Soul Retrieval. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, Inc. ISBN 978-1-4019-0625-2
• Piers Vitebsky, The Shaman: Voyages of the Soul - Trance, Ecstasy and Healing from Siberia to the Amazon, Duncan Baird, 2001. ISBN 1-903296-18-8
• Michael Winkelman, (2000) Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
• Andrei Znamenski, ed. Shamanism: Critical Concepts, 3 vols. London: Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0-415-31192-6
• Andrei Znamenski, Shamanism in Siberia: Russian Records of Siberian Spirituality. Dordrech and Boston: Kluwer/Springer, 2003. ISBN 1-4020-1740-5
• Andrei Znamenski, The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 0195172310
• Hank Wesselman, PhD & Jill Kuykendall, RPT: Spirit Medicine: Healing in the Sacred Realms. Hay House, 2004 ISBN 978-1401902919

• Nicholas Wood, 'Voices From The Earth,' Godsfield Press, 2000, ISBN 1-84181-015-0
• Sacred Hoop Magazine - a leading international magazine on the subject of shamanism link

External links

• Society for Shamanic Practitioners (organization supporting the re-emergence of shamanism into modern, western culture)
• http://www.krupar.com/index.php?file=www/en/gallery/gallery.html&cat=21 Photos by Stanislav Krupar
• Andrei Znamenski, Cultural History of Shamanism in the West(in English, German and Russian)
• The Foundation for Shamanic Studies (Michael Harner)
• Michael Harner's Foundation for Shamanic Studies (in French)
• The Four Winds Society (Alberto Villoldo's school rooted in Peruvian shamanism and wisdom teachings)
• Institute for Contemporary Shamanic Studies (Sweet Medicine Sundance, Canada)
• Shaman Portal (the resource for all things shamanic)
• Scandinavian Center For Shamanic Studies (Jonathan Horwitz & Annette Høst)
• Francesca Dubie's 3rd Road (Wicca)
• Swedish forum on shamanism (Trolltrumman, Sweden's biggest forum on shamanism)
• Shaman on the Stage (Shamanism and Northern Identity) by Tatyana Bulgakova, writing about some Nanai shamans who experienced performances on the stage as dangerous, believing that inappropriate (untimely, superfluous) invocation of the helping spirits can raise their anger.
• Sacred Hoop Magazine a leading international magazine for those involved in shamanism and neoshamanism