From Miko to Spiritual Therapist : Shamanistic Initiations in Contemporary Japan
From Miko to Spiritual Therapist : Shamanistic Initiations in Contemporary Japan
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从巫女到精神治疗师：当代日本的萨满教启蒙
DOI：
10.1163/22118349-00301001
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发表时间：
2014
影响因子：
0.3
通讯作者：
Ioannis Gaitanidis & Murakami Aki
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
山本晃平;石井宏幸;小林伸彦;広瀬賢二;山本晃平;山本晃平;Kohei Yamamoto;Ioannis Gaitanidis & Murakami Aki
Studies of Japanese shamanism are on the decline while neo-shamanistic practitioners thrive in Japan’s large cities. Based on this observation, the authors of this paper put forward two arguments. First, we claim that a rhetorical approach to the development of scholarly interest in Japanese shamanism reveals the existence of a rigid definitional framework that either ignores or undervalues new types of shamanistic practitioners. Nevertheless, certain theories stemming out of ethnographic work by Japanese researchers, such as the classifications of shamanistic initiations, could be adapted to the analysis of today’s Japanese neo-shamanism. We demonstrate our first argument by dividing a sample of “spiritual therapists” according to the most commonly used Japanese scholarly typology of “hereditary” (seshūgata世襲型), “calling” (shōmeigata召命型), and “quest (training)” (tankyū探求 [shugyō修行]gata型) types of shamanistic initiations, and by comparing their experiences with those of ‘traditional’ shamans. Our second argument concerns the basis for such comparison. In this respect, we join recent debates that put classic explanatory models of New Age individualized eclectism in doubt, and argue that, like ‘traditional’ shamans, contemporary Japanese spiritual therapists choose their profession and legitimize their role in constant interaction with, and often under the pressure of their environment. We conclude that, despite differences in content, forms of older and newer practices of shamanism resemble to such a degree that a revival of the academic field of Japanese shamanism may be in order.