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 90
Página viii
... Russian tsars treated shamans as exotic clowns, whom they added to the throng of court jesters. The Enlightenment explorers of Siberia considered shamans to be jugglers who duped their communities and who should be exposed. If one had ...
... Russian tsars treated shamans as exotic clowns, whom they added to the throng of court jesters. The Enlightenment explorers of Siberia considered shamans to be jugglers who duped their communities and who should be exposed. If one had ...
Página ix
... Russian writings on Siberian indigenous spirituality and then on a reader of major Western writings on shamanism2 helped me to place the literature on shamanism and the popular interest in this phenomenon in the context of Western ...
... Russian writings on Siberian indigenous spirituality and then on a reader of major Western writings on shamanism2 helped me to place the literature on shamanism and the popular interest in this phenomenon in the context of Western ...
Página 3
... Russian-German explorer (1841) As I mentioned in the preface, the word shaman originated from the language of the Tungus (Evenki), one of the Siberian indigenous groups. Russian settlers in Siberia chose this expression and eventually ...
... Russian-German explorer (1841) As I mentioned in the preface, the word shaman originated from the language of the Tungus (Evenki), one of the Siberian indigenous groups. Russian settlers in Siberia chose this expression and eventually ...
Página 5
... Russians were the first to use the word shaman to generalize about Siberian spiritual practitioners, some writers mistakenly assume that Russian authors introduced this expression into Western literature and scholarship. In reality, the ...
... Russians were the first to use the word shaman to generalize about Siberian spiritual practitioners, some writers mistakenly assume that Russian authors introduced this expression into Western literature and scholarship. In reality, the ...
Página 6
... Russian but Western explorers who were the first to reflect in print on Siberian spiritual practitioners? Since the times of tsar Peter the Great, Russia, a European peripheral nation that lacked an educated cadre, sought to hire people ...
... Russian but Western explorers who were the first to reflect in print on Siberian spiritual practitioners? Since the times of tsar Peter the Great, Russia, a European peripheral nation that lacked an educated cadre, sought to hire people ...
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