Neo-sciamanesimo & New age. Il “contributo” di Mircea Eliade
Neo-sciamanesimo & New age. Il “contributo” di Mircea Eliade

Summary/Abstract: Shamanism is in vogue at present. Before the mid-1970’s, shamanism interested only a few anthropologists and historians. Now travel agents are booking “shamanic tours” and alternative healers advertise “shamanic counselling”. Meanwhile, a walk through any large bookstore will produce scores of titles with “shaman”, “shamanic”, and “shamanism” in them. In popular culture «various figures from Socrates and Shakespeare to Aleister Crowley, from Jim Morrison and Michael Jackson to the Pope too, have been labelled “shamans”». Moreover, recent years witnessed a growth in “New Age”, “neo-“, “new” or “modern” (and/or “post-modern”) shamanisms, a wide variety of “spiritual” practices for personal and communal empowerment among Western peoples. So, in this work, we’ll try of analyzing the interrelations between shamanism, neo-shamanism, and New Age and some thoughts and reflections of Mircea Eliade. In particular, in some his books and articles, Romanian historian of religions Mircea Eliade presaged – according to us – the explosion of interest in shamanism (and neo-shamanism) and inner conceptions of the man that would reach their peaks in the New Age, and Occultist, and Neo-pagan Movements.

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