Month: March 2022

Trance – Shamans are sometimes distinguished from other religious or cultural leaders by their ability to deliberately enter altered states of consciousness. A trance may…

Townsend, Joan – Professor emeritus in anthropology at the University of Manitoba, Canada. Broadly concurring with Michael Harner’s definition of core shamanism as the essential…

Tourism – Shamanic performances and shamanic use of visioninducing plant derivatives have attracted both scholars and enthusiasts seeking initiation, education, and entertainment. While shamanism tourism…

Totemism – Often confused with the exceptionally close or “spiritual” relationship of a shaman with a particular animal or plant, totem derives from an Algonquian…

Tobacco – Indigenous to the Americas, tobacco is a sacred and powerful plant in many indigenous cultures. Its intoxicating effects were well known and rarely…

Tiered Cosmos – Among some, but far from all, societies that employ shamans, the cosmos is understood to be layered, often in three levels: an…

Tibet – Himalayan country with a long historical influence in the region, especially stretching northward into Buryatia and Mongolia and south into Nepal and India.…

Third Gender – Marie Czaplicka, Marjorie Balzer, and Bernard Saladin d’Anglure demonstrate the importance of broadening the notion of gender to include not only male…

Theriomorphism – In animist contexts in which the ability to transform is understood to be a defining characteristic of persons, or specifically of powerful persons,…

Therapy – If therapy is understood broadly as equivalent to healing, the term is certainly applicable to much of what shamans do. This is illustrated…