SUPERNATURAL IDEAS IN THE PRACTICE OF NEO-SHAMANIST SPIRITUAL HEALING: CHARACTERIZATION OF ANTI-INTUITIVE QUALITITES (Nadprirodzene predstavy v neo-samanskej praxi: charakteristika anti-intuitivnych vlastnosti)

• Authors: Durcova Alexandra
• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

The article is concerned with spiritual healing in neo-shamanism. The presented materials were gathered during research in the Bratislava neo-shamanist group, led by the teacher from the Harner Foundation. Spiritual healing is the most important activity in the practice of neo-shamanism and faith in its success contributes to making neo-shamanism a successful movement. The article aims to show which cognitive factors can contribute to producing ideas of the efficacy of healing among the movement's adherents. Principally, attention is focused on analysis of the cognitive qualities of supernatural ideas which are activated during the rituals of the shamanist passage, and their connection with the idea of the efficacy of healing in neo-shamanism. The author bases her analysis of supernatural ideas on the theories of the French anthropologist Pascal Boyer. She shows that ideas are represented as agents with aims and with access to strategic information, on which the healing of the 'illness' depends. Her argument is that these qualities contribute to the faith of adherents in the success of neo-shamanist healing.

Keywords

EN

ANTI-INUITIVE BELIEFS; COGNITIVE ANTHROPOLOGY; NEO-SHAMANISM; SPIRITUAL HEALING

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Ethnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 58
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 24-40
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Durcova Alexandra

• Mgr. Alexandra Durcova, Ustav socialnej antropologie, Fakulta socialnych a ekonomickych vied UK, Odbojarov 10/A, 820 05 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

11SKAAAA10092