Shamanism and Possession MICHAEL WINKELMAN Arizona State University, United States Shamanism and possession are central features of religious practices found in pre- modern societies. ey manifest substantial similarities across cultures, suggesting that their basis involves something fundamental to human nature and consciousness. ese terms are applied to a wide range of ritual alterations of consciousness. e variation in these practices has contributed to long-standing questions regarding the precise nature of shamans and whether they are possessed by spirits. Cross-cultural studies reveal the characteristic features of shamans and how their modifications of consciousness are distinguished from the practices of possession that are typical of mediums. The history of shamanism studies For hundreds of years Western scholars have used “shaman” as a cross-cultural concept to represent similar religious practices found in premodern societies worldwide (Flaherty 1992). is modern use of “shaman” to designate religious practitioners derived from Europeans’ contacts with indigenous cultures of Central Asia, where there are widespread cognates of terms such as saman, khaman, and xaman. ere are also Indo-European cognates such as sramana in Pali and Sanskrit. e initial documentation of these practices by people without preparation in anthropology contributed to distortions, including negative characterizations of shamanism pervading anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, and even laws. e dramatic ritual contrasted with Westerners’ idealized rationality and contributed to what was perceived as the irrationality of other cultures. But by the early twentieth century there was a growing body of anthropological literature on shamanism. Although the phenomenon of shamanism was initially perceived as foreign to Europe, in time, evidence of shamanism was also found in Western antiquity. Contemporary understandings recognize shamans as reflecting something fundamental to human nature and consciousness, a significant feature of early human social evolution whose roots are still manifested in ritual healing practices around the world today. Shamanism: Archaic techniques of ecstasy Worldwide similarities in ritual healing practices were disseminated by the renowned scholar of comparative religion Mircea Eliade ([1951] 1964). Eliade characterized the shamanic ritual as the most significant collective social activity of the societies where shamanism was practiced. is ritual typically lasted all night with the entire local e International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Edited by Hilary Callan. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1651