Month: March 2022

Sedna – Inuit otherworld, underwater Mistress of Animals. Part of the job of Inuit shamans, angakkut (See Angakkoq), is to mediate between their communities and…

Secunda, Brant – Founder of the Dance of the Deer Center for Shamanic Studies and apprentice to the Huichol shaman Don José Matsuwa. Secunda promotes…

Secrecy – Initiation as a shaman often entails the learning of knowledge, practices, and skills that are unknown to other people and are not meant…

Schultes, Richard Evans (1915–2001) – The founder of ethnobotany as a scientific discipline. Much of Schultes’s work was devoted to the discovery of the active…

Schaefer, Stacy B. – Cultural anthropologist specializing in Mesoamerica, focusing on Huichol (Wixáritari) shamanism, art, and weaving (and the interface of these). Schaefer’s doctoral research…

Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies – Neoshamanic organization founded in 1986 by Jonathan Horwitz. With Annette Høst, Horwitz teaches core shamanism and other neoshamanic practices,…

Sar – A“possession cult” discussed by Ioan Lewis that particularly attracts women in East Africa, giving them a religious role unavailable in locally dominant forms…

Santo Daime – A movement that began in Brazil and spread in various organizations to many other countries during the 1990s. Creatively fusing indigenous Amazonian,…

Santería – A ceremonial and trance or possession complex that evolved from the interaction of African- and European-derived religious traditions in Cuba. It is sometimes…

Santa Claus – Also known as Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, or Saint Nick. A popular myth asserts that Santa Claus was originally a shaman among…