Where Spirits Still Speak: Chinese Mass Shamanism and the Unfinished Project of Modernity
Yiming Sun
Highlights in Art and Design May 28, 2026 DOI: 10.54097/682wz346 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Qualitative study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Chinese popular culture and social media discourse |
| Topics | Shamanism |
| Keywords | Instrumentalism Underpinning Late modernity State computer science Chinese literature Mass media Aesthetics Gender studies Cultural phenomenon Anthropology Social dynamics |
| Key findings | Chinese mass shamanism is a cultural response to contemporary China's structural and affective predicaments and a hybrid formation born of modernity's failure to achieve complete disenchantment. |
Abstract
Although the Chinese state is officially secular, practices and beliefs often labeled as spiritual or religious have never disappeared from everyday life. In recent years, shamanism, frequently framed as distant, mysterious, and archaic, has attracted growing popular attention in China. Through an analysis of literary works, documentaries, social media discourse, and interview data, the paper first examines how artistic representations aestheticize and simplify shamanism. It then explores the social and cultural conditions underpinning the rise of Chinese mass shamanism, arguing that this phenomenon is a cultural response to contemporary China’s structural and affective predicaments, including the instrumentalism of diffused religion, social atomization, and the erosion of "the nearby". Finally, the paper situates Chinese mass shamanism within the broader framework of modernity’s entanglement with occultism, contending that it is a hybrid formation born of modernity’s failure to achieve complete disenchantment.
Comparable studies
Other qualitative studies on shamanism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Plantas con madre": plants that teach and guide in the shamanic initiation process in the East-Central Peruvian Amazon. Curanderos, apprentices, and herbalists in East-Central Peru, including Mestizo,... | 2011 | Qualitative study | n = 36 |
| Purging and the body in the therapeutic use of ayahuasca Healers and participants in shamanic tourism contexts of the Peruvian Amazon and... | 2019 | Ethnography with literature review | n = 227 |
| The Globalization of Ayahuasca Shamanism and the Erasure of Indigenous Shamanism Western tourists and indigenous peoples in Iquitos, Peru | 2016 | Ethnography | |
| Shamanism and Rock Art in Far Western North America Historic hunter-gatherer cultures of California and the Great Basin | 1992 | Ethnographic review and analysis | |
| Working with “La Medicina”: Elements of Healing in Contemporary Ayahuasca Rituals Ayahuasqueros and Western participants in shamanic tourism in Iquitos, Peru | 2012 | Ethnography |