"Neoshamanism as a cultural practice and a means of forming of the post-ethnic identity"

Student: Ivanova Mariya

Educational Programme: Bachelor

Year of Graduation: 2014

The subject of my research is to analyse the role shamanism plays in forming neopaganism. Shamanic techniques with their practical side have become extremely popular recently. Nowadays many people consider shamanism to be a kind of wonder, growing out of the experience, which was available separately to a particular range of people of different ages. The same thing happened with yoga (previously it was practised in various schools of Buddhism), and breathing practices that were known only to the Taoists (Qigong).In this project the difference between shamanism and neoshamanism will be discussed.So, in our century shamans technics are actively used, in untraditional and irreligious context, it is a question of decline of authentic shamanism. Such books as "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge " (1968) from Carlos Castaneda, or «Medicine Woman» (1981) from Lynn Andrew caused great excitement among the writers who decided to train people shamanic healing techniques, etc. At present, this peculiar genre includes more than one hundred experimental novels that serve some inspiration for many seekers of wisdom in the traditions of the tribe. While many of these texts usually serve as a model of non-Western archaic spiritual techniques, such work should be added to this list spiritualist novels, for example, work by Brian Bates «The Way of Wyrd: Tales of an Anglo-Saxon Sorcerer» (1983), which aims are to create spiritual programs of western indigenous shamanism through the reconstruction of pre-Christian European cultural environment.Shamanism and neoshamanism are compared in order to identify these differences: shamanism as an authentic phenomenon, and neoshamanism as a «new» form or a revival of an old form of «shamanism». It can help us to see and describe shamanism as factor of forming of the post-ethnic identity and to explain specificity of new phenomenon.

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