Trude Fonneland

One of the fastest growing religious movements in the Western world, neo-shamanism embraces notions and techniques borrowed from various tribal peoples and adapted to the life of contemporary urban dwellers. Until the twenty-first century, the neo-shamanism found in northern Europe differed little from neo-shamanism elsewhere in the Western world. In the new millennium, a Sámi and Nordic version of neo-shamanism came into being, along with a new focus on the uniqueness of the arctic north, expressed through New Age courses and events. The Norwegian New Age scene is increasingly overrun with Sámi and Nordic shamans, symbols, and traditions. Contemporary Shamanisms in Norway examines the construction of this Sámi neo-shamanistic movement and argues that it fits into the broader ethno-political search for a Sami identity. Drawing on ten years of ethnographic research, Trude Fonneland highlights the values important to neo-shamans' self-development and their marketing of shamanistic products and services. She explores Sáami and Nordic neo-shamans' promotion of Arctic nature, their negotiations of gender in neo-shamanism, and their ritual inventions. Focusing on contemporary shamanism in Norway and Nordic contexts, Fonneland argues that the spiritual quest in Nordic countries has developed surprising and innovative forms of spirituality that call for a reevaluation of the relationship between religion and the secular world.

Religion, Entrepreneurship, and Politics

Contemporary Shamanisms in Norway

James R. Lewis

Siv Ellen Kraft

Nordic Neoshamanisms proposes that the drive for religiosity and experiences of the sacred are far from lost in contemporary western societies. However, the spiritual quest in Nordic countries comes in some very surprising and innovative forms which make it necessary to rethink the relationship between the religious and the secular world. The contributors do just this by focusing on the mechanisms of contemporary shamanism in these contexts. The contributors' objective is to explore the myriad of ways late modern shamanism is becoming more vital and personally significant to people, communities, and economies in Nordic countries. This book intends to survey how the field of modern shamanism is entwined with the political, the social and the popular in this area of the world. Drawing on case studies of particular persons, groups and institutions, well-known historians of religion and folklorists discuss how modern shamanism can be said to contribute to self-knowledge, identity, and community life in Northern European countries.

Nordic Neoshamanisms

This book examines Sami shamanism in Norway as a uniquely distinctive local manifestation of a global new religious phenomenon. It takes the diversity and hybridity within shamanic practices seriously through case studies from a Norwegian setting and highlights the ethnic dimension of thesecurrents, through a particular focus on Sami versions of shamanism. The book's thesis is that the construction of a Sami shamanistic movement makes sense from the perspective of the broader ethno-political search for a Sami identity, with respect to connections to indigenous peoples worldwide andtrans-historically. It also makes sense in economic and marketing terms.Based on more than ten years of ethnographic research, the book paints a picture of contemporary shamanism in Norway in its cultural context, relating it both to the local mainstream cultures in which it is situated and to global networks. By this, the book provides the basis for a study revealingthe development of inventiveness, nuances and polyphony that occur when a global religion of shamanism is merged in a Norwegian setting, colored by its own political and cultural circumstances.

Trude Fonneland

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