Some Observations on European Witchcraft

Éliade, Mircéa

doi:10.1086/462721

Cited by 37 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…6.2), whereas an ethnographer noted that members of another (the Mbuti) visited “the local witch doctor” of nearby farmers (Putnam 1948, p. 340). Importantly, shamanism is not restricted to small-scale societies; see, for example, the benandati cult of medieval Italy (Eliade 1975); Romanian folkloric traditions (Eliade 1975); Neolithic China (Chang 1999); Tibetan Buddhism (Samuel 1993); contemporary Korea (Kendall 1985); founders of religious sects in 20th-century Japan (Blacker 1975); trance channeling in the contemporary United States (Hughes 1991); Hebrew prophets (Newsom 1984); early religious leaders of the Camisards (Knox 1950), Quakers (Thomas 1971a), and American spiritualists (Albanese 1992); and neo-shamans in Sweden (Lindquist 1997) and the United States (Braun 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The cultural evolution of shamanism

2017

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Shamans, including medicine men, mediums, and the prophets of religious movements, recur across human societies. Shamanism also existed among nearly all documented hunter-gatherers, likely characterized the religious lives of many ancestral humans, and is often proposed by anthropologists to be the "first profession," representing the first institutionalized division of labor beyond age and sex. In this article, I propose a cultural evolutionary theory to explain why shamanism consistently develops and, in particular, (1) why shamanic traditions exhibit recurrent features around the world; (2) why shamanism professionalizes early, often in the absence of other specialization; and (3) how shifting social conditions affect the form or existence of shamanism. According to this theory, shamanism is a set of traditions developed through cultural evolution that adapts to people's intuitions to convince observers that a practitioner can influence otherwise unpredictable, significant events. The shaman does this by ostensibly transforming during initiation and trance, violating folk intuitions of humanness to assure group members that he or she can interact with the invisible forces that control uncertain outcomes. Entry requirements for becoming a shaman persist because the practitioner's credibility depends on his or her "transforming." This contrasts with dealing with problems that have identifiable solutions (such as building a canoe), in which credibility hinges on showing results and outsiders can invade the jurisdiction by producing the outcome. Shamanism is an ancient human institution that recurs because of the capacity of cultural evolution to produce practices adapted to innate psychological tendencies.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The cultural evolution of shamanism

2017

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“…La actividad del chamán inuit -hoy casi inexistente por la influencia de la cristianización y de la modernidad-consistía en "mantener la armonía del mundo que pudiese verse alterada por la ofensa hecha a un alma. Velaba por el respeto de las reglas estrictas que permiten a las diversas almas participar, mediante la reencarnación, en el ciclo continuo de la vida, curaba las enfermedades, con su videncia localizaba a los animales de cacería, calmaba la tempestad, viajaba por los mundos celeste, marino y subterráneo para salir al encuentro de las fuerzas auxiliares de los animales de cacería" 10 .…”

Section: Las Máscaras Inuitunclassified

Chamanismo Tiempo y lugares sagrados

Tovar¹

2020

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En este libro, el lector encontrará una serie de artículos que dan a conocer distintas reflexiones sobre el chamanismo desde distintos campos del conocimiento. El carácter multidisciplinar de sus contenidos posibilita una mirada enriquecida con la que, tanto iniciados en el tema como los que no lo son, podrán decidir sus puntos de acuerdo o desacuerdo en relación con lo que cada autor ha afirmado o negado. La etnología, la antropología, la arqueología, el psicoanálisis y la psicología se han dado cita en esta publicación entorno del chamanismo. Fernando Barona Tovar, sugiere, una reflexión sobre las similitudes que se presentan entre el chamanismo y la hipnosis, como prácticas terapéuticas. El interés de este artículo es mostrar que estas prácticas se suceden indistintamente en lugares diversos desde tiempos remotos.

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“…6.2), whereas an ethnographer noted that members of another (the Mbuti) visited "the local witch doctor" of nearby farmers (Putnam 1948, p. 340). Importantly, shamanism is not restricted to small-scale societies; see, for example, the benandati cult of medieval Italy (Eliade 1975); Romanian folkloric traditions (Eliade 1975); Neolithic China (Chang 1999); Tibetan Buddhism (Samuel 1993); contemporary Korea (Kendall 1985); founders of religious sects in 20th-century Japan (Blacker 1975); trance channeling in the contemporary United States (Hughes 1991); Hebrew prophets (Newsom 1984); early religious leaders of the Camisards (Knox 1950), Quakers (Thomas 1971a), and American spiritualists (Albanese 1992); and neo-shamans in Sweden (Lindquist 1997) and the United States (Braun 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%