The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western ImaginationOxford University Press, 2007 M07 16 - 464 páginas For the past forty years shamanism has drawn increasing attention among the general public and academics. There is an enormous literature on shamanism, but no one has tried to understand why and how Western intellectual and popular culture became so fascinated with the topic. Behind fictional and non-fictional works on shamanism, Andrei A. Znamenski uncovers an exciting story that mirrors changing Western attitudes toward the primitive. The Beauty of the Primitive explores how shamanism, an obscure word introduced by the eighteenth-century German explorers of Siberia, entered Western humanities and social sciences, and has now become a powerful idiom used by nature and pagan communities to situate their spiritual quests and anti-modernity sentiments. The major characters of The Beauty of the Primitive are past and present Western scholars, writers, explorers, and spiritual seekers with a variety of views on shamanism. Moving from Enlightenment and Romantic writers and Russian exile ethnographers to the anthropology of Franz Boas to Mircea Eliade and Carlos Castaneda, Znamenski details how the shamanism idiom was gradually transplanted from Siberia to the Native American scene and beyond. He also looks into the circumstances that prompted scholars and writers at first to marginalize shamanism as a mental disorder and then to recast it as high spiritual wisdom in the 1960s and the 1970s. Linking the growing interest in shamanism to the rise of anti-modernism in Western culture and intellectual life, Znamenski examines the role that anthropology, psychology, environmentalism, and Native Americana have played in the emergence of neo-shamanism. He discusses the sources that inspire Western neo-shamans and seeks to explain why lately many of these spiritual seekers have increasingly moved away from non-Western tradition to European folklore. A work of intellectual discovery, The Beauty of the Primitive shows how scholars, writers, and spiritual seekers shape their writings and experiences to suit contemporary cultural, ideological, and spiritual needs. With its interdisciplinary approach and engaging style, it promises to be the definitive account of this neglected strand of intellectual history. |
Dentro del libro
Resultados 1-5 de 65
Página viii
... Eliade, a historian of religion and the author of a book considered to be a shamanology classic, described shamanism as ''archaic techniques of ecstasy'' and viewed it as the earliest form of religion.1 Although many scholars now ...
... Eliade, a historian of religion and the author of a book considered to be a shamanology classic, described shamanism as ''archaic techniques of ecstasy'' and viewed it as the earliest form of religion.1 Although many scholars now ...
Página ix
... spiritual life in general from their contexts, or what Eliade called the ''terror of history.'' Although our spiritualities ''conjurer,'' ''magician,'' and beliefs do acquire lives of their own, they carry preface ix.
... spiritual life in general from their contexts, or what Eliade called the ''terror of history.'' Although our spiritualities ''conjurer,'' ''magician,'' and beliefs do acquire lives of their own, they carry preface ix.
Página xvii
... Eliade and Carlos Castaneda, 165 6. Anthropology, Castaneda's Healing Fiction, and Neo-shamanism Print Culture, 205 7. Toward the Ancient Future: Shamanism in the Modern West, 233 8. Sources of Inspiration: From Native Americana to ...
... Eliade and Carlos Castaneda, 165 6. Anthropology, Castaneda's Healing Fiction, and Neo-shamanism Print Culture, 205 7. Toward the Ancient Future: Shamanism in the Modern West, 233 8. Sources of Inspiration: From Native Americana to ...
Página 29
... Eliade heavily drew on their data, observations, and conclusions in building their archetypes of universal shamanism. Like their contemporary German and Russian colleagues, the Finnish ethnographers did not always think highly about the ...
... Eliade heavily drew on their data, observations, and conclusions in building their archetypes of universal shamanism. Like their contemporary German and Russian colleagues, the Finnish ethnographers did not always think highly about the ...
Página 30
... Eliade, who drew not only on their field materials but also on their comparative crosscultural methodology. To better illustrate how the Finnish ethnographers worked in the field, let me detail the experiences of Donner, one of those ...
... Eliade, who drew not only on their field materials but also on their comparative crosscultural methodology. To better illustrate how the Finnish ethnographers worked in the field, let me detail the experiences of Donner, one of those ...
Contenido
3 | |
Regionalists Anthropologists and Exiled Ethnographers | 39 |
Shamans through the Eyes of Psychology | 79 |
Psychedelic Culture Meets Tribal Spirituality | 121 |
Mircea Eliade and Carlos Castaneda | 165 |
6 Anthropology Castanedas Healing Fiction and Neoshamanism Print Culture | 205 |
Shamanism in the Modern West | 233 |
From Native Americana to European Pagan Folklore | 273 |
Adventures of the Metaphor in Its Motherland | 321 |
Epilogue | 363 |
Notes | 371 |
Bibliographical Essay | 417 |
Index | 425 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination Andrei A. Znamenski Vista previa limitada - 2007 |
The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination Andrei A. Znamenski Vista previa limitada - 2007 |
The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination Andrei A. Znamenski Vista previa limitada - 2007 |
Términos y frases comunes
academic American Indian ancient anthropologist archaic arctic hysteria ayahuasca became began behavior beliefs Black Elk Bogoras Buryat Carlos Castaneda Celtic ceremonies Christian classic contemporary core shamanism countercultural cultural Czaplicka Don Juan ecstasy edited Eliade Eliade’s esotericism ethnographic European Evenki eventually example experiences explorers famous fly agaric folklore Furst Gordon Wasson hallucinogens Harner healers healing Huichol human Ibid indigenous spirituality intellectual journey Lakota magic manism medicine Michael Harner Mircea Eliade modern mushroom Native American spirituality native spiritual nature neo-shamanism non-Western Nordic North America northern person peyote plastic shamans popular Potanin primitive psychedelic Radloff reality regionalists religion ritual Romantic Russian sacred Sakha scholar scholarship session Shaman’s Drum shamanism practitioners Shirokogoroff Siberian shamanism social society Soviet spir spiritual practices spiritual practitioners spiritual seekers stressed Sun Bear Sun Dance symbolism techniques tradition tribal spiritual Tungus turned Tuva Tuvan University vision Wasson Western seekers woman writer wrote York