Museum Anthropology
October 15, 2025
István Sántha
1 citation
ABSTRACT This commentary introduces the reader to the Siberian audio collection of the Hungarian ethnologist and researcher of shamanism Vilmos Diószegi (1923–1972). Diószegi conducted four research expeditions to southern Siberia and northern Mongolia, in 1957, 1958, 1960, and 1964, to study the shamanic traditions of Indigenous populations in these regions. During these expeditions, he...
October 14, 2025
Steven Herrmann
Stein explores a vast array of world mythologies, religious traditions, and folk imagery to explore humanity’s enduring quest for completion and arrives at a vision of the dream of wholeness. To ground his theory, Stein recounts the dream of a retired psychotherapist. Here, Stein positions vocation at the center of his spiritual quest for meaning. Stein seamlessly integrates Jungian...
Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine
October 6, 2025
Kan Feng, Mingyu Yang
BACKGROUND: In recent years, the renewal of soul-centred shamanic soul retrieval theories has provided various theoretical interpretations of the shamanic soul retrieval phenomenon and has exacerbated the "explanatory gap" found in "mind-mater" dualism. However, these theories cannot explain the body-centred turn of modern Chinese shamans under the influence of the body revitalization movement...
Folklore
October 2, 2025
James Andrew Whitaker, Lewis Daly
This article examines pathogenic projectiles among the Makushi people in Guyana. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Makushi in North Rupununi, the ‘magical’ darts known as waawî are described and contrasted with accounts of similar phenomena across Amazonia. For the Makushi, waawî seem to hold an ambiguous existence as both entities and objects. As embodiments of spirit-helpers, these...
Tamaddun nuri
September 30, 2025
Azizbek Ungalov
This article examines the spread of Islam in Transoxiana during the 9th–12th centuries, focusing on the incorporation of Buddhist and shamanic practices into Islamic rituals, as evidenced by historical sources. Within the framework of acculturation and cultural transformation, these traditions were gradually adapted to Islamic festivals, Sufi practices, and popular customs. The findings...
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research
September 24, 2025
James Houran
This research explored whether anomalous ‘dimensional-slip’ experiences—reported by an allegedly haunted woman named “Nell”—would systematically map to distinctive features of various transcendental spaces discussed in spiritual and psychological traditions. A two-part content analysis using ChatGPT-4o compared the phenomenology of Nell’s written accounts (n = 4) to an inventory of 32 classic...
September 18, 2025
Herlinda Flores Badillo
María Sabina became well known around the world for her great shamanic power and because people were intrigued by her and her relationship with hallucinogenic mushrooms, or niños santos (saint children), as she called them. The present chapter analyzes María Sabina’s prayers/chants – nijmi – in her mother tongue, Mazatec. Their anaphoric structure, commonly used by poets of this tradition, was...
Fourth World Journal
August 13, 2025
Tony B. Benning
3 citations
This paper attempts to characterize the key stages in the evolution of Western academia’s construction of shamans and shamanism as well as elucidate those factors that have underpinned particular constructions. In doing so, it draws on the writings of the late French philosopher Michel Foucault, and particularly on such Foucauldian motifs as episteme, knowledge, and power. A central argument...
Nepalese Culture
May 7, 2025
Uttam Paudel
This article explores the social and therapeutic roles of banjhakri, a supernatural shamanic entity whose presence extends from West Central Nepal to parts of North Eastern India. It draws exclusively upon a rich cross section of extant scholarship to offer a composite assessment of folklores and symbolism surrounding banjhakri. As such, the article discusses his physical and behavioural...
Cahiers des Amériques Latines
March 5, 2025
Magali Demanget
In contemporary Mexico, the new relationships established between the Indian populations and the State encourage ethnic productions. Beyond the elaboration of ethnicity as «substance», its deconstruction opens up on a plural phenomenon which expresses itself, among others, through various emblems put forward by the actors. The Massatecs of the High lands of Sierra Madre oriental (Oaxaca) have...