Category: Shamanism

Plastic Medicine People – A term applied to Native Americans who perform ceremonies or teach traditional knowledge to Euro-Americans or anyone else who is willing…

Piya – Various similar and related words in diverse Amazonian languages refer to the kind of shamans who have the ability to heal illnesses or…

Pilch, John J. – Biblical scholar at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and the University of Pretoria, South Africa, who argues that Jesus Christ was a…

Peyote – Name derived from the Nahuatl word peyotl for the buttons of a cactus indigenous to Mexico and the southwestern United States. Its ingestion…

Peters, Larry G. (1942– ) – Peters is one of a number of scholarsturned- shamans, such as Michael Harner, who have undertaken anthropological fieldwork with…

Perspectivism – A central theme of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s writing about Amazonian shamans and their wider societies puts the ability to see from another’s…

James W. Perkinson (1951– ) – Professor of philosophy and religious studies at Ecumenical Theological College, Detroit. Perkinson is the author of Shamanism, Racism, and…

Performance – Shamans are people who perform particular roles in communities. They are recognized and valued by those communities precisely for their abilities to perform…

Pentikäinen, Juha (1940– ) – Professor of religious studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland, who has devoted a lifetime’s research to Finnish folk and…

Paxson, Diana – Contemporary Heathen whose Hrafnar group in San Francisco was one of the first to reconstruct seidr. The practice has taken on a…