In the 1960s, Soviet anti-religious journals changed how they depicted shamanism: it shifted from being presented as a specific ethnographic practice of Siberian indigenous peoples to being portrayed as a universal human capacity for altered states of consciousness and a precursor of mysticism, albeit a 'primitive' one. The article argues that this transformation coincided with changes in the Soviet atheist project and serves as a point of comparison highlighting similarities and differences between Soviet and Western modernist projects.
Spirituality as practices and beliefs seeking a closer connection with the divine experienced a multifaceted renaissance in the countercultures of West Germany during the long 1960s. Contemporary explorations in the expansion of consciousness and increasing interest in meditation were pivotal practices. The essay reflects the international exchange of knowledge about body-mind practices from Amazonia and Mexico to the United States, India, and West Germany, showing how actors were influenced by international and national connections. Practitioners found spirituality not in Christian contemplative traditions or Jewish versions, but in various forms of what seekers received and practised as Hinduism or Buddhism, which gave followers a means of connecting to higher truths—to God—without God.