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.
