Description
With their ability to enter trances, to change into the bodies of other creatures, and to fly through the northern skies, shamans are the subject of both popular and scholarly fascination. In Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination Ronald Hutton looks at what is really known about both the shamans of Siberia and about others spread throughout the world. He traces the growth of knowledge of shamans in Imperial and Stalinist Russia, descibes local variations and different types of shamanism, and explores more recent western influences on its history and modern practice. This is a challenging book by one of the world's leading authorities on Paganism.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part One: Why We Think We Know about Shamans
1. The Creation of Siberia
2. The Creation of Siberians
3. The Transformation of Siberians
4. The Records of Shamanism
Part Two: What We Think We Know about Shamans
5. What Shamans Did
6. Shamanic Cosmologies
7. Shamanic Apprenticeship and Equipment
8. Shamanic Performance
9 Knots and Loose Ends
Part Three: Siberia in the Shamanic World
10. The Discovery of a Shamanic World
11. The Discovery of a Shamanic Past
12. The Discovery of a Shamanic Future
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Author(s)
Ronald Hutton, Ronald Hutton is Professor of History at the University of Bristol. As well as several major works on the British Civil War and seventeenth century history he is also the author of the Stations of the Sun, The Triumph of the Moon (Oxford University Press), Shamans and Witches, Druids and King Arthur (Hambledon/Continuum).