Shamanisms and the authenticity of religious experience
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v12i2.139Keywords:
Shamanism, Experience, AuthenticityAbstract
Shamanic practices and practitioners in western countries are often derided as 'inauthentic' by both scholars and members of indigenous communities. The experience derived from such practices is therefore also implied to be contrived. This paper analyses shamanism in the UK as part of 'western shamanism' rather than 'neo-shamanism'. Western shamanism is understood to be a valid religious tradition found in Europe and America that is based on western cultural and religious traditions. The concept of authenticity is critically examined as a cultural construct, and the validity of a religious experience is located subjectively.References
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von Stuckrad, Kocku. “Reenchanting Nature: Modern Western Shamanism and Nineteenth Century Thought.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70, no. 4 (2002): 771-99. doi:10.1093/jaar/70.4.771
———. Schamanismus und Esoterik: Kultur- und Wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Betrachtungen. Leuwen: Peeters, 2003.
———. “Utopian Landscapes and Ecstatic Journeys: Friedrich Nietzsche, Hermann Hesse, and Mircea Eliade on the Terror of Modernity.” Numen 57 (2010): 78-102. doi:10.1163/156852710X12551326520571
Wallis, Robert. “Queer Shamans: Autoarchaeology and Neo-shamanism,” World Archaeology, 2000, 32:2, 252-262. doi:10.1080/00438240050131225
———. Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans. London: Routledge, 2003.
Welch, Christina. “Complicating Spiritual Appropriation: North American Indian Agency in Western Alternative Spiritual Practice.” Journal of Alternative Spiritualities and New Age Studies 3 (2007): 97-117.
Znamenski, Andrei A. The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the Western Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Benavides, Gustavo. “Western Religion and the Self-Cancelling of Modernity.” Journal of Religion in Europe 1 (2008): 86-110. doi:10.1163/187489208X285486
Berman, Marshall. All That is Solid Melts into Air : The Experience of Modernity. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982.
Blain, Jenny. Nine-Worlds of Seid-Magic: Ecstasy and Neo-shamanism in North European Paganism. London: Routledge, 2002.
Blain, Jenny and Robert Wallis. “Beyond Sacred: Recent Pagan Engagements with Archaeological monuments—Current Findings of the Sacred Sites Project.” The Pomegranate 11, no. 1 (2009): 97-123.
———. Sacred Sites—Contested Rites/Rights. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2007.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003 [1977].
Brown, Terence, ed. Celticism. Amsterdam: Rodolpi, 1994.
Cowan, Douglas. Bearing False Witness: An Introduction to the Christian Countercult. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003.
Cowan, Tom. Fire in the Head: Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1993.
DuBois, Thomas A. An Introduction to Shamanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Deloria, Philip. Playing Indian. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998.
Deloria, Vine, Jr. God is Red: A Native View of Religion. Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum, 1993.
Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Translated by Willard R. Trask. London: Arkana Penguin, 1989 [1964].
Giddens, Anthony. “Modernity and Self-Identity: Tribulations of the Self.” In The Discourse Reader, edited by Nikolas Coupland and Adam Jaworski, 415-425. London: Routledge, 1999.
Hammer, Olav. Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age. Leiden: Brill, 2001.
Hanegraaff, Wouter. New Age Religion and Western Culture. Leiden: Brill, 1996.
Harner, Michael. The Way of the Shaman. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985.
Heffner, Robert. “Multiple Modernities: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in a Globalizing Age.” Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998): 83-104. doi:10.1146/ annurev.anthro.27.1.83
Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, eds. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Hutton, Ronald. The Druids. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007.
———. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Jakobsen, Merete Demant. Shamanism: Traditional and Contemporary Approaches to the Mastery of Spirits and Healing. New York: Berghahn, 1999.
Jespers, Frans P.M. “Longing for Authenticity: Religious Transformations in Late Modern Europe,” International Journal in Philosophy and Theology 67, no. 4 (2006): 369-90.
Johnson, Paul C. “Shamanism from Ecuador to Chicago: A Case Study in New Age Ritual Appropriation.” In Shamanism: A Reader, edited by Graham Harvey, 335-54. London: Routledge, 2003.
Kehoe, Alice Beck. Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 2000.
Kottler, Jeffrey A., and Jon Carlson with Bradford P. Keeney. American Shaman: An Odyssey of Global Healing Traditions. New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2004.
Krasskova, Galina. Exploring the Northern Tradition. Franklin Lakes, N.J.: New Page Books, 2005.
Lewis, Ioan M. Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession. London: Routledge, 1989 [1971].
Lewis, James R., and Olav Hammer. The Invention of Sacred Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511488450
Lindquist, Galina. Shamanic Performances on the Urban Scene: Neo-Shamanism in Contemporary Sweden. Stockholm: Stockholm Studies in Anthropology, 1997.
Loftin, John. Religion and Hopi Life. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.
Ludwig, Arnold. “Altered States of Consciousness.” In Altered States of Consciousness: A Book of Readings, edited by Charles Tart, 18-36. New York: Wiley, 1969.
MacLellan, Gordon. “Dancing on the Edge: Shamanism in Modern Britain,”In Shamanism: A Reader, edited by Graham Harvey, 365-374. London: Routledge, 2003.
Mesteth, Wilmer Stampede, Standing Elk, Darrell, and Swift Hawk, Phyllis, “Declaration of War against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality,” http://www.aics.org/ war.html. 1993. Minkjan, Hanneke. “Seeking Guidance from the Spirits: Neo-Shamanic Divination in Modern Dutch Society.” Social Compass 55, no. 1 (2008): 54-65.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life.” In Untimely Meditations, edited by Daniel Breazeale, translated by R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997 [1893].
Noel, Daniel. The Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal Realities. New York: Continuum, 1998.
Rösing, Ina. “Lies and Amnesia in Anthropological Research: Recycling the Waste,” Anthropology of Consciousness 10, nos. 2-3 (1999): 13-34.
Shusterman, Richard, ed. Bourdieu: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
Stark, Rodney. One True God: Historical Consequences Of Monotheism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
The Sacred Trust. Shamanism 2010: Workshops, Teaching Events & Trainings. Wimbourne: The Sacred Trust, 2009.
Taylor, Charles. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991.
van de Port, Matthijs, ed. Authenticity. Münster: Lit Verlag Münster, 2004.
Vitebsky, Piers. “Shamanism,” In Indigenous Religions: A Companion, edited by Graham Harvey. London: Cassell, 2000.
von Stuckrad, Kocku. “Reenchanting Nature: Modern Western Shamanism and Nineteenth Century Thought.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70, no. 4 (2002): 771-99. doi:10.1093/jaar/70.4.771
———. Schamanismus und Esoterik: Kultur- und Wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Betrachtungen. Leuwen: Peeters, 2003.
———. “Utopian Landscapes and Ecstatic Journeys: Friedrich Nietzsche, Hermann Hesse, and Mircea Eliade on the Terror of Modernity.” Numen 57 (2010): 78-102. doi:10.1163/156852710X12551326520571
Wallis, Robert. “Queer Shamans: Autoarchaeology and Neo-shamanism,” World Archaeology, 2000, 32:2, 252-262. doi:10.1080/00438240050131225
———. Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans. London: Routledge, 2003.
Welch, Christina. “Complicating Spiritual Appropriation: North American Indian Agency in Western Alternative Spiritual Practice.” Journal of Alternative Spiritualities and New Age Studies 3 (2007): 97-117.
Znamenski, Andrei A. The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the Western Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Published
2011-06-05
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Crockford, S. (2011). Shamanisms and the authenticity of religious experience. Pomegranate, 12(2), 139-158. https://doi.org/10.1558/pome.v12i2.139
