Author: Lux Ferre

Merete Demant Jakobsen- Jakobsen’s volume Shamanism: Traditional and Contemporary Approaches to the Mastery of Spirits and Healing (1999) reviews previous work on the Greenlandic angakkoq…

Jaguars – A number of Amazonian peoples identify shamans as jaguars. Usually this is stated strongly (“shamans are jaguars”), not metaphorically (“shamans are like jaguars”).…

Islam – Some varieties of Islam have been labeled shamanic or shamanistic. Ioan Lewis discusses possession cults called Sar or Zar in North and East…

Inuit – Indigenous communities of the Arctic coasts of Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland (formerly known as Eskimos), well known for their hunter-fisher lifestyle and…

Intrusions – Illnesses are often thought to be caused by the intrusion of artifacts (e.g., darts) or predatory beings into a body. A significant part…

International School of Shamanism – A school based in Atlanta that offers individual and group seminars and workshops, consultations, healing, rites of passage, and other…

Initiation – Shamans are sometimes distinguished from other religious or cultural leaders by a particular style of initiation. In contrast with priests, who are normally…

Ingerman, Sandra – Neo-shamanic practitioner and author. Ingerman’s most well-known book is Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self (1991), outlining the practice of soul retrieval…

Individuation – Under the influence of modernism, the stress on individual, “inner” experience and reality has been significant both in studies of shamanic/altered states of…

India – Piers Vitebsky argues that “shamanism [in India and widely throughout South and East Asia] is often the religion of earlier, aboriginal tribes” but…