Lux Ferre

Caroline Humphrey (1943– ) – Professor of anthropology at Cambridge University. Humphrey has carried out research in Siberia and Mongolia in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, as well as in India, Nepal,

Humor – Shamanic initiation and work can be deadly serious, but it can also employ considerable humor. Elements of bear ceremonialism and of sexual encounters within shamanic performance illustrate this. Some shamanic

Huichol – The Mara’akate (sing. mara’akame) of the Huichol (Wixárika, pl. Wixáritari), in the central Mexican Sierra Madre Occidental, make an annual pilgrimage of hundreds of miles into the Wirikùta Desert, the

Høst, Annette – Neo-shamanic practitioner operating with Jonathan Horwitz at the Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies (founded in 1986), which offers a variety of workshops. Høst’s work focuses on Nordic (Northern European)

Horwitz, Jonathan – Neo-shamanic practitioner who founded the Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies in 1986, and with Annette Høst offers such basic and advanced workshops as “The Shaman’s Journey,” “Shamanic Counselling Training,”

Hoppál, Mihály – Hungarian ethnographer with wide interests in the shamanisms of Eurasia, particularly those of Siberia and Hungary. In addition to important ethnographic publications, Hoppál has surveyed ethnographic films about shamans

Holy People – A term for religious leaders among many Native American nations, who may be comparable with shamans elsewhere. Medicine people is a similar term, emphasizing the healing abilities and sacred

Hoffman, Albert (1906– ) – Swiss chemist who synthesized the hallucinogen LSD (d-lysergic acid diethylamide), a chemical derived from the ergot fungus he had been working on in order to develop new

Hmong – Southeast Asian people originating in Laos; many now live in North America. Traditionally an animist culture, the Hmong employ shamans as healers and mediators in disruptive situations. Illnesses and other

Heusch, Luc de (1927– ) – Professor of anthropology at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. Following Mircea Eliade’s categorical distinction between shamanism as “mastery of spirits” and possession as “being controlled