How Do Shamans Encounter Spirits? : Trance and Possession among Okinawan Yuta Reconsidered
Japanese review of cultural anthropology 2004 DOI: 10.14890/jrca.5.0_29 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that the reality shamans ascribe to supernatural beings is grounded conceptually, not psychologically, and that trance-based explanations do violence to shamans' own reports of their experiences. |
Abstract
This article examines how a shamanistic worldview is constructed and sustained in Okinawa despite the near lack of the occurrence of trance state among shamans. Observers have typically explained the strong reality that shamans ascribe to supernatural beings by referring to their altered states of consciousness. Such a psychologizing perspective, however, does violence to the distinctive ways in which shamans themselves report their experiences. Drawing on self-commentaries by shamans in the Miyako Islands on the immediacy of their communications with spirits, this article argues that grounds for the existence of supernatural beings are not so much psychological as conceptual.