Shamans/Neo-Shamans
Ecstasies, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans
By Robert J. Wallis
Price: $41.95
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- ISBN: 978-0-415-30203-6
- Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
- Published by: Routledge
- Publication Date: 20th February 2003
- Pages: 320
- Illustrations: 22 b+w photos and 3 line drawings
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About the Book
In popular culture, such diverse characters as occultist Aleister Crowley, Doors musician Jim Morrison, and performance artist Joseph Beuys have been called shamans. In anthropology, on the other hand, shamanism has associations with sorcery, witchcraft and healing, and archaeologists have suggested the meaning of prehistoric cave art lies with shamans and altered consciousness. Robert J. Wallis explores the interface between 'new' and prehistoric shamans. The book draws on interviews with a variety of practitioners, particularly contemporary pagans in Britain and north America. Wallis looks at historical and archaeological sources to explore contemporary pagan engagements with prehistoric sacred sites such as Stonehenge and Avebury, and discusses the controversial use by neo-Shamans of indigenous (particularly native American) shamanism.
Table of Contents
List of illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Introduction A Native at Home: Producing Ethnographic Fragments of Neo-Shamanisms 1. 'White-Shamans': Sources for Neo-Shamans 2. Plastic Medicine Men? Appraising the 'Great Pretenders' 3. Taliesin's Trip, Wyrd Woden: Druid and Heathen Neo-Shamans 4. 'Celtic' and 'Northern' Shamanisms? Contesting the Past 5. 'Sacred' Sites? Neo-Shamans and Prehistoric Heritage 6. Waking Neolithic Ancestors: Further Controversies and 'Reburial' 7. Invading Anthros, Thieving Archos, Wannabe Indians: Academics, Neo-Shamans and Indigenous Communities Conclusion: Neo-Shamans in Post-modernity Appendix Resolution of the 5th Annual Meeting of the Tradition Elders Circle & AIM Resolution References Index
