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Description
The Orcish Shaman peforming Deep Ritual.

Shamanism ( /ˈʃɑːmən/ SHAH-mən or /ˈʃeɪmən/ SHAY-mən) is a term used in a variety of anthropological, historical and popular contexts to refer to certain magico-religious practices that involve a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to encounter and interact with the spirit world. A shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing.

Of particular interest to anthropologists has been the role of ritual in structuring life crises, human development, religious enactment and entertainment.

Among anthropologists, and other ethnographers, who have contributed to ritual theory are Victor Turner, Ronald Grimes, Mary Douglas, and the biogenetic structuralists. Anthropologists from Émile Durkheim through Turner and contemporary theorists like Michael Silverstein (2004) treat ritual as social action aimed at particular transformations often conceived in cosmic terms. Though the transformations can also be thought of as personal (e.g. the fertility and healing rituals Turner describes), they become a sort of cosmic event, one stretching into "eternity."

Description
The Orcish Shaman peforming Deep Ritual.

Shamanism ( /ˈʃɑːmən/ SHAH-mən or /ˈʃeɪmən/ SHAY-mən) is a term used in a variety of anthropological, historical and popular contexts to refer to certain magico-religious practices that involve a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to encounter and interact with the spirit world. A shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing.

Of particular interest to anthropologists has been the role of ritual in structuring life crises, human development, religious enactment and entertainment.

Among anthropologists, and other ethnographers, who have contributed to ritual theory are Victor Turner, Ronald Grimes, Mary Douglas, and the biogenetic structuralists. Anthropologists from Émile Durkheim through Turner and contemporary theorists like Michael Silverstein (2004) treat ritual as social action aimed at particular transformations often conceived in cosmic terms. Though the transformations can also be thought of as personal (e.g. the fertility and healing rituals Turner describes), they become a sort of cosmic event, one stretching into "eternity."