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Shamanism or samanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman or saman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance.
- Overview
- Classic shamanism
shamanism, religious phenomenon centred on the shaman, a person believed to achieve various powers through trance or ecstatic religious experience. Although shamans’ repertoires vary from one culture to the next, they are typically thought to have the ability to heal the sick, to communicate with the otherworld, and often to escort the souls of the dead to that otherworld.
The term shamanism comes from the Manchu-Tungus word šaman. The noun is formed from the verb ša- ‘to know’; thus, a shaman is literally “one who knows.” The shamans recorded in historical ethnographies have included women, men, and transgender individuals of every age from middle childhood onward.
As its etymology implies, the term applies in the strictest sense only to the religious systems and phenomena of the peoples of northern Asia and the Ural-Altaic, such as the Khanty and Mansi, Samoyed, Tungus, Yukaghir, Chukchi, and Koryak. However, shamanism is also used more generally to describe indigenous groups in which roles such as healer, religious leader, counselor, and councillor are combined. In this sense, shamans are particularly common among other Arctic peoples, American Indians, Australian Aborigines, and those African groups, such as the San, that retained their traditional cultures well into the 20th century.
It is generally agreed that shamanism originated among hunting-and-gathering cultures, and that it persisted within some herding and farming societies after the origins of agriculture. It is often found in conjunction with animism, a belief system in which the world is home to a plethora of spirit-beings that may help or hinder human endeavours.
Shamanism as practiced in northern Asia is distinguished by its special clothing, accessories, and rites as well as by the specific worldview connected with them. North Asiatic shamanism in the 19th century, which is generally taken as the classical form, was characterized by the following traits:
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1.A society accepts that there are specialists who are able to communicate directly with the transcendent world and who are thereby also possessed of the ability to heal and to divine; such individuals, or shamans, are held to be of great use to society in dealing with the spirit world.
2.A given shaman is usually known for certain mental characteristics, such as an intuitive, sensitive, mercurial, or eccentric personality, which may be accompanied by some physical defect, such as lameness, an extra finger or toe, or more than the normal complement of teeth.
3.Shamans are believed to be assisted by an active spirit-being or group thereof; they may also have a passive guardian spirit present in the form of an animal or a person of another sex—possibly as a sexual partner.
Jan 5, 2023 · According to the latest census, an unlikely “religion” is growing in popularity across England and Wales: shamanism. Just 650 people said they subscribed to the belief system in 2011, but that ...
Mar 10, 2023 · Shamanism is the fastest-growing religious group in England and Wales, increasing from 650 people in 2011 to 8,000 identified in the 2021 Census. This represents the largest increase in membership of any group labelled ‘other religious groups’ on the census form. What is Shamanism?
Jun 25, 2019 · Evidence of shamanic practices has been found in Scandinavia, Siberia, and other parts of Europe, as well as Mongolia, Korea, Japan, China and Australia. Inuit and First Nations tribes of North America utilized shamanic spirituality, as did groups in South America, Mesoamerica, and Africa.
- Patti Wigington
Feb 2, 2024 · According to the most recent census for England and Wales, Shamanism is expanding faster than any other belief system, with its numbers growing from 650 in 2011 to 8,000 in 2021. But this modern Shamanism is different to its prehistoric counterpart.
Shamanism is the world’s oldest problem-solving and healing tradition. For at least 40,000 years, shamans have been mediating between the worlds of humans and spirits. On their journeys to other realities, they gain power and knowledge for the benefit of their community.
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