Haunted by the Archaic Shaman

Download or read book Haunted by the Archaic Shaman written by H. Sidky and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Haunted by the Archaic Shaman critically engages the general discourse on shamanism by using ethnographic data gathered among different ethnic groups in the Nepal Himalayas to address several key conceptual issues and problems in the scholarly field of shamanic studies. Sidky not only tackles topics that appear beyond resolution to many, such as defining shamanism and delimiting its geographical scope, but also challenges on empirical and theoretical grounds several widely held ideas that have assumed the status of incontrovertible facts, such as the antiquity of shamanism and its place in the rise of human religiosity. This book makes a significant theoretical contribution to the field of shamanic studies and the anthropology of religion.