Towards a Post-colonial Reflection on Shaman and Shamanism as Conceptual Tools in Biblical Studies

Biblical scholarship has largely avoided the terms shaman and shamanism due to historical prejudice rooted in colonial ethnocentrism and Christian superiority. Yet shamanism—defined as a practice where a practitioner alters ordinary consciousness to serve a community—is one of humanity's oldest religious patterns, now widely studied across disciplines. Applying shamanic analytical models to biblical texts can explain anomalous features such as prophecy, divination, healing, exorcism, heavenly journeys, and spirit possession, which comparative research in shamanism illuminates.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The almost complete absence of any reference to the terms shaman and shamanism in Biblical Studies has its roots in the historical prejudice in Western scholarship against them, and originated from colonial ethnocentrism and Christian notions of superiority. However, the shaman, defined as a practitioner who based on the alteration of ordinary consciousness serves a community with particular functions, represents a recognisable pattern in numerous cultural settings while the growth in the multidisciplinary study of shamanism in recent decades shows a growth in one of the oldest patterns of religious activities in human history. The study of shamanism does not only provide a body of comparative research but analytical models for explaining the most extraordinary and anomalous aspects found also in biblical texts, namely, prophesy, divination, healing and exorcism as well as heavenly journeys and spirit possession.