Circumpolar shamanic traditions
Explanation
Circumpolar shamanism encompasses the spiritual traditions of the peoples of northern Eurasia and America (Sami in Scandinavia, Samoyed, Tungus, Yakut, Chukchi, Koryak in Siberia; Inuit, Yup'ik, Aleut, Athabaskan in North America; Ainu in Japan). In fact, the word "shaman" (saman) comes from the Tungus language of Siberia, brought to the West by 19th-century Russian anthropologists. Mircea Eliade in his classic work Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1951) systematised these materials.
The shaman is a religious specialist who, through ecstasy (altered states of consciousness), travels to other worlds (upper, underworld) to diagnose illnesses, cure them, intervene in the weather, find game, conduct the souls of the dead, communicate with helping spirits. Methods to induce trance vary: drum (especially important: the "shaman's horse"), monotone chant, dance, fasting, isolation, psychoactive substances (Amanita muscaria among Koryak, ayahuasca in Amazonia, peyote among Huichol, etc.).
Shamanic initiation is typically a traumatic experience: serious illness, encounters with spirits, symbolic dismemberment (the apprentice sees themselves quartered, their flesh devoured, their bones counted, and then reconstituted with new spiritual organs), reception of helping spirits (typically animal: bear, wolf, eagle, elk). The shaman emerges transformed: dead and reborn, member of two worlds, mediator between the human community and the spiritual cosmos.
Circumpolar shamanic cosmology usually has three vertically organised worlds (sky, earth, underworld), connected by an axis (axis mundi: cosmic tree, mountain, post). The shaman travels to these worlds in their trances. The earth is inhabited by spirits of animals, plants, mountains, lakes and rivers. There are masters of animals (lord or lady of the bears, of the reindeer, of the fish) with whom the shaman negotiates to obtain game.
For the theory of consciousness, shamanism is of enormous interest. Shamanic states of consciousness have been studied by cognitive anthropologists (Michael Harner: "shamanic states of consciousness"), by neuroscientists (EEG studies during drum trance), by transpersonal psychologists (Roger Walsh). The experiences of out-of-body travel, encounters with entities and shamanic identity transformations raise serious questions about the nature of consciousness and its possible modulations.
Shamanism has also been the object of revival in the West: Carlos Castaneda, Michael Harner (Foundation for Shamanic Studies), Sandra Ingerman have popularised "neo-shamanisms" that adapt traditional techniques to contemporary urban contexts. There is debate about the cultural legitimacy of these adaptations and the risk of appropriation. Serious scholars such as Roberte Hamayon, Manuela Carneiro da Cunha and Marie-José Gauthier have contributed to rigorous anthropological study. As a millennial tradition of conscious and therapeutic exploration of non-ordinary states, circumpolar shamanism is one of the great chapters in the history of human consciousness.
Strengths
- Millennia of documented practical experience.
- Detailed cartography of altered states.
- Surprising cross-cultural convergence.
- Growing interest from contemplative neuroscience.
Main critiques
- Eliadian generalisations sometimes forced.
- Decontextualised neo-shamanic appropriation.
- Ontological status of 'spirits' not scientifically verified.
- Risk of primitivist romanticisation.