Overview

A lively exploration of the Indigenous traditions of shamanism in the Far North of Eurasia and North America. In this book, Charles Stépanoff draws on ethnographic literature and his fieldwork in Siberia to reveal the immense contribution to human imagination made by shamans and the cognitive techniques they developed over the centuries. Indigenous shamans are certain men and women who are able to travel in spirit in ways that appear mysterious to Westerners but which rely on the human capacity of imagination. They perceive themselves simultaneously in two types of space—one visible, the other virtual—putting them in contact and establishing links with nonhuman beings in their surroundings. Shamans share their experience of spirit travel with their patients, families, or the wider community, allowing them to experience this odyssey through the invisible together. This work will appeal to anthropologists and to anyone with an interest in learning about the power of imagination from the masters of the invisible, the shamans of the Far North.

Full Product Details

9781912808908

Table of Contents

Reviews

""It is safe to bet that Journeys into the Invisible will be a landmark work. First of all, because it manages to be both a scholarly and an accessible account of the various kinds of shamanism to have developed in that part of the world where Westerners first discovered the practice. It is a work that happily combines the analysis of what shamans say with that of the conditions in which they speak, the analysis of their actions with that of the social circumstances in which they act, the analysis of the material devices they employ with that of the pragmatic modalities of their effectiveness. But also because, in the best tradition of ethnography, this book draws on a body of extremely specific and meticulously described facts in order to propose theoretical reflections of a much more general scope on problems as central to human experience as the relationship between physical and mental images, the complementarity of linguistic and iconic signs, and the use of the human body in action as a support for conjectures."" -- Philippe Descola, author of Beyond Nature and Culture

Author Information

Charles Stepanoff is director of studies and professor in the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Social at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has done ethnographic research in Siberia and France on human relations with the nonhuman, including animals, spirits, and plants.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available