ABSTRACT This article contributes to sociological and anthropological discussions of contemporary religious forms and lifestyles within a globalised market-driven society, examining how alternative spirituality reconfigures the Self through embodied practices and heightened sensitivity. It argues that the Self in alternative spirituality is reconfigured as permeable—challenging Taylor’s notion...
Contemporary shamanism, often referred to as neo-shamanism, is a popular spiritual practice within the modern landscape of non-institutionalized religiosity. This paper explores the relationship between contemporary shamanism and alternative spirituality (formerly also labelled as the New Age) in depth, underlining that contemporary shamanism owes much of its success to its compatibility with...
The article presents an overview of contemporary Czech shamanism based on field research into Czech shamanic communities that the author has been conducting since 2017. Despite the specific Czech distrust of ‘religion’ and ‘formalized ritualization’ in general, shamanism enjoys considerable popularity. Particular attention is paid to the concept of illnesses and shamanic treatment. It is argued...