ABSTRACT

The historical marginalization and appropriation of female spiritual wisdom extends over millennia and geographies and culture worldwide. It is important to note that the shamanic tradition is always deeply rooted in being called by a community into the role. One does not appoint oneself to the role of shaman. The practice of shamanism cannot be easily separated from the lineages of shamans who have come before or the unique historical and geographical coordinates of the community. Female shamans historically and contemporaneously have engaged in practices including healing, invoking, serving as oracles, shapeshifters, priestesses, ecstatic dancers, and prophets. The question of consciousness as an integral element of spirituality is key to an understanding of how shamanism might inform a political praxis of 21st-century feminist spirituality. Cultures and modes of life that value shamanism as a mode of perception and practice are therefore at profound variance with the modes of capitalist machinic enslavement and subjugation.