From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press

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.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract In the 1960s a shift occured in how shamanism was represented in Soviet anti-religious journals, in which shamanism was transformed from an ethnographically documented cultural practice peculiar to Siberian indigenous populations, into an – albeit ‘primitive’ – form of a universal human capacity for altered states of consciousness and a precursor of various forms of mysticism. The article argues that this shift coincided with a shift in the Soviet atheist project, as well as a point of comparison that reveals similarities and differences between Soviet and Western modernist projects.