June 3, 2026
Khachülo Zehol Kevekha, Lucy Zehol
This chapter explores the cosmological continuities between traditional Naga shamanic practices and Christian faith healing in Nagaland, challenging dominant narratives of rupture and religious transformation in the wake of Christian conversion. While missionary accounts and contemporary church discourses often depict Christianity as a radical break from Indigenous spiritual systems, this...
International Journal of Advanced Research
May 31, 2026
Elizabeth Okon John, Patrick O. Odey, Joseph Okuta Ajor
This study examines the complex interplay between ecology and spirituality in Africana Indigenous Religions (AIRs), emphasising the influence of sacred worldview on environmental ethics and practices. The main aim is to investigate how AIRs perceive nature as a living, sacred entity, and how this worldview influences ecological stewardship, biodiversity preservation, and sustainable practices....
Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies
May 16, 2026
D. J. Moores
Abstract: Like the body, the drum, with its immense somatic power, is colonized in Western culture, the complex cause of which is directly tied to colonialist and missionary efforts to save African slaves from the perils of their so-called demonic religious practices, which involved cultivating possession states through drum and dance rituals. Yet, there is a much better view of drummers, one...
Open Mind
April 26, 2026
Madison Knight
Both *Ceremony* and *Storyteller* serve as important written works that demonstrate the relationship between medicine ritual in the work of healing and harm for the Laguna Pueblo people. Author Leslie Marmon Silko demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between these two elements while creating parallels to time immemorial and the present. This paper seeks to analyze the presence and connection...
April 23, 2026
Eli Stark-Elster, Mamosebetsi Sethathi, Breyten Van der Merwe et al.
Reliable documentation of the traditional use of serotonergic psychedelics has long been confined to the Americas. Prevailing narratives often overstate the global prevalence and uniformity of traditional psychedelic use, extrapolating from a limited set of well-documented cases. Here, we report evidence of psilocybin mushroom use among Basotho traditional healers and non-healers in Lesotho and...
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
April 10, 2026
Nicola Strizzolo, Nico Bortoletto
This paper examines how lifestyle sport practitioners experience forms of transcendence, altered perception, and connection with nature, and considers whether these experiences can be meaningfully interpreted through concepts associated with shamanic practice. Drawing on Roger Caillois’ taxonomy, it explores how elements of ritual, ecstasy, and symbolic imagination appear within contemporary...
Общество философия история культура
March 18, 2026
Vladislava S. Tyutyunnik
The article is devoted to the study of the mythopoetic foundations of dance as a stable cultural code linking ar-chaic ritual practices with modern choreographic forms. The paper considers dance as a dynamic system rep-resenting universal mythologems through plastic vocabulary, choreographic drama and space-time organiza-tion. The author applies a mythopoetic approach synthesizing the methods...
Arts
March 17, 2026
Zhilong Yan, Manyi Pei
Daoism is an important indigenous religion of China that emerged from ancient totemic worship and shamanic practices, encompassing mysterious ritual arts known as fulu (talismans and registers). Daoist fulu writing constitutes an important content and manifestation of Daoist spiritual calligraphy, representing a significant embodiment of Daoist sacred knowledge and mystical power. This paper...
International Journal of History and Archaeology Research Studies
March 16, 2026
S Sajeer
This article examines the encounter between Tibetan Buddhist monastic traditions and indigenous animist cosmologies in the hill societies of present-day Arunachal Pradesh between the eighth and early nineteenth centuries. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork by Verrier Elwin, Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, and Niranjan Sarkar, alongside material and archival evidence, the study traces how the...
Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities
March 10, 2026
Ya Yambao Yang, Mandy Yang, Tiffany Wing Lam Yip et al.
BACKGROUND: Hmong people experience a disproportionate burden of mental health challenges. While prior studies have examined mental health within Hmong communities, no study has focused on Hmong shamans’ experiences with depression. This study explores how Hmong shamans understand, experience, and respond to depression. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 12 Hmong...