Introduction
The term shaman entered English from other cultures (Flaherty, 1992) and has been attributed to practices around the world (Vitebsky, 2001). Shamanism received widespread academic attention following Eliade’s (1964) Shamanism: Archaic techniques of ecstasy, which considered shamanism a worldwide healing practice involving ecstatic communication with the spirit world on behalf of the community (cf. Halifax, 1979; Hultkrantz, 1973). Whether shamanism is cross-cultural or regionally specific, and consequently an etic or emic phenomenon, is contentious. Some consider shamanism specific to Siberia (e.g., Siikala, 1978), while others considered shamans to be any practitioners who voluntarily enter altered states of consciousness (Peters & Price-Williams, 1981).
Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research indicates shamanism is an etic phenomenon involving psychobiological adaptations to the adaptive capacities of altered states of consciousness (ASC) or the integrative mode of...
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Winkelman, M. (2004). Shamanism. In: Ember, C.R., Ember, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29905-X_16
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