Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T11:39:01.117Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

34 - Consciousness, wights and ancestors

from Part VI - CONSCIOUSNESS AND WAYS OF KNOWING

Jenny Blain
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University
Graham Harvey
Affiliation:
Open University, UK
Get access

Summary

The “new animism” is influencing not only many directions within religious practice, notably Paganisms, but interpretations (of these and other practices) within religious studies and anthropology. This chapter has, therefore, a dual focus. Historically within social sciences, “animism” has been used to signal otherness, a “superstitious” belief or faith in directive or authoritarian non-human entities. If, rather, “animism” is interpreted to mean the possibility of relationships between human and other-than-human people, within a “living landscape”, in which all players, be they stones, sparrows or social scientists, have their part, how does this influence both spiritual practices and the anthropological or sociological theories which attempt to account for those practices?

This chapter explores some dimensions of how relationships are constructed and reported in practitioner discourse, as engagements in altered consciousness states or “trance”, with examples from contemporary seidr as a “Western shamanism”. It interrogates meanings constructed within the seidr ritual and in discussions with practitioners and audience. It deals also with the interactions with landscape and with “wights” (beings, people) which are implicit within place and movement in the spaces in which today's animic practitioners sojourn, and hence with importances of ancestors and landscape for identities for today. And it deals with how we, as reflexive practitioners of social research, can reflect, theorize and learn from these happenings.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×