Category: Shamanism

Blain, Jenny (1949– ) – Senior lecturer in applied social sciences in the Faculty of Development and Society at Sheffield Hallam University, where she leads…

Black Shamanism – Caroline Humphrey cites the 19th-century Buryat scholar Dorji Banzarov as saying that there was no indigenous term for shamanism, but that a…

Black Elk, Wallace (1921–2004) – An Oglala Lakota who conducted healing and shamanic rituals both for Native and non-Native Americans. His conversations with William Lyon…

Black Elk, Nicholas (1863–1950) Also known as Hehaka Sapa. An Oglala Lakota whose childhood visions and training enabled him to work as a holy man…

Bird-David, Nurit (1951– ) Anthropologist at the University of Haifa, Israel, whose article “Animism Revisited” is of considerable importance in understanding animism, the worldview and…

Beuys, Joseph (1921–1986) – German artist who termed himself a shaman. Tartars allegedly rescued Beuys after the Stuka plane in which he was the radio…

Becoming-Animal – In 1980 French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) and psychoanalyst Félix Guttari (1930–1992) published A Thousand Plateaus, the second part of Capitalism and Schizophrenia…

Bear ceremonialism – Among many Native American, Northern European, and Siberian communities, many rituals form part of a complex of “bear ceremonialism.” Marjorie Balzer, for…

Bates, Brian – Professor of psychology at the University of Brighton and director of the Shaman Research Program at the University of Sussex. Bates is…

Batak – Indigenous people from the remaining forests of Palawan, the Philippines. Their shamans share many of the functions of shamans elsewhere, but a principal…