Shamanic Materialities in Nordic Climates

This Element explores expressions and the lives of shamanic materialities in contemporary Finland and Norway.Throughout its sections, the authors inquire into how shamanic materialities form shamanism and facilitate constantly formative exchanges and dynamics between the local and global, past and present, secular and spiritual, time and space.

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This Element takes its starting point in shamanism in the Nordic countries and explores expressions and the lives of shamanic materialities in contemporary Finland and Norway. Shamans interact with spiritual powers and beings, but their religious practices unfold in a material reality. In this Element, then, we begin with the materiality of shamanism and focus on how the drum, the sacrificial site, the power animal, and a mushroom bridge the gap between the profane and the divine and create networks and dynamics in a shamanic worldview as well as in the wider society. Throughout its sections, the authors inquire into the ways the construction of the category shamanism makes shamanic materialities come to life. And, in contrast, how shamanic materialities form shamanism and facilitate constantly formative exchanges and dynamics between the local and global, past and present, secular and spiritual, time and space.