Journeys into the Invisible: Shamanic Technologies of the Imagination - Softcover

Stepanoff, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1912808900 ISBN 13: 9781912808908

Publisher: HAU Books, 2025

Synopsis

A lively exploration of the Indigenous traditions of shamanism in the Far North of Eurasia and North America.

In this book, Charles Stepanoff 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 can travel in spirit in ways that appear mysterious to Westerners but 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.

About this title

About the Author

Charles Stepanoff is director of studies and professor in the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Social at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has done ethnographic research in Siberia and France on human relations with the nonhuman, including animals, spirits, and plants.

Edition details

• Publisher: HAU Books
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1912808900
• ISBN 13: 9781912808908
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400