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Shamanic Itineraries, hybridization and Banisteriopsis caapi. Brief ethnographic essay on a post-modern mystic community.


Web link: hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01058...

Pages: 15 – 40

Abstract

Shamanism considered as a psycho-social structure and as an expression of an “anti-modern” Weltanschauung (i.e. a holistic approach repudiating the notion of “absolute individuality”) has caught the interest of a legion of anthropologists and historians of religions, medics and psychologists who are fascinated by such an “exotic and bizarre” scheme to manage relations with the ultra-mundane universe through the performance of an agent, the shaman, who is provided with inborn powers that are generally stimulated by drugs, the entheogens which modify the state of consciousness. Urban shamanism, an emerging social phenomena, appears as a hybrid creation synchronizing forms and contents of the “traditional” shamanic practice with the absolutely post-modern needs of disciples (or clients) looking for their psycho-social balance. This essay describes an ethnographic experience realized in Colombia in an urban context with a shaman of Italian origins.