Divided between historical anthropology and extensive ethnography, this short book focuses on a specific problem to clarify the political meaning of a shamanic culture and a mythical-ritual complex based on a cosmocentric relationship with the territory and on thea specific problem to clarify the political meaning of a shamanic culture and a mythical-ritual complex based on a cosmocentric...
Like many other non-Russian peoples, the Indigenous Siberian Sakha community was engulfed in a movement for national revival from the late 1980s: this was their contribution to the “parade of nationalities” that eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet state. A key feature of the Sakha national revival was the revitalization of the Yhyakh, a shamanic ritual and festival that in previous...
This book reflects on a journey as a shamanic healer and a psychotherapist, and how the integration of psychotherapy and traditional healing methods emerged. It explores an initial training in cognitive behavioural psychotherapy, to gestalt therapy, to body therapy, to energy healing and shamanism, to develop a unified theory. It explores the process by means of a dialogue between a...
The ancient religion of the tuvans is shamanism. The Tuvans have kept the practice of shamanism alive. Tuvan shamans practice in the Tuvan language and every shaman has his unique calling and invocation. So the invocation for the ongod or spirit vary from shaman to shaman. There are many types of invocations in the Tuvan shamanism because of the origin. Therefore, tuvan shamans are divided into...
This chapter explores the hidden but universal societal enigmas that have existed since the beginning of civilization and are in fact wired into our very biology, and that have a huge impact on our physical, mental and spiritual health. Healers, or shamans, have existed since the Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic era, and they played a pivotal role in cognitive and social evolution through...
The articles in this issue reflect an important paradox. The ethnographic research presented in these articles suggest that consciousness is formed socially and in interaction with environmental factors and, to some extent, is a learned attribute. In that sense, it would be fluid, malleable, and processual. On the other hand, there is evidence that it has some intrinsic boundaries, such that...
Ayahuasca appeared in Uruguay in the 1990s through different groups such as Santo Daime church and different neo-shamanic and holistic centers. Since then, different legal cases and public discussions arose, in a debate where drug policies and religious rights were involved. The current chapter describes and analyzes some cases that recently emerged in the public scenario. First, we will...
The outcomes of recent psychedelic research have been attracting more public attention in the media along with more private funding. This research is primarily being conducted in a clinically administered setting while attention to context has largely been ignored. Entheogens have been used by indigenous peoples in ritual settings as far as recorded history can be found. Modern clinical use has...
The potential benefits and deficits of the chemical compound psilocybin, particularly when paired with psychotherapeutic interventions, have been increasingly apparent topics of interest in social, academic, and scientific circles. The unusual nature of psilocybin poses many questions in Western culture. Three of them, which will be discussed in the following review, are (1) What is...
This paper explores the problem of truth in the study of traditional ways of knowing, which implies two main philosophical issues: how to understand the epistemic value of social theories, and how to treat the truth-claims constitutive of alien knowing practices. The second question, it is argued, has priority over the first and may lead toward its resolution. To present the problem of truth,...