Ayahuasca Calling: Sacredness and the Emergence of Shamanic Vocations in Denmark and Peru

TY - JOUR

T1 - Ayahuasca Calling

T2 - Sacredness and the Emergence of Shamanic Vocations in Denmark and Peru

AU - Petersen, Margit Anne

AU - Feldes, Sarah

AU - Cova, Victor Sacha

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Anthropology of Consciousness published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Anthropological Association.

PY - 2022/9/1

Y1 - 2022/9/1

N2 - This article addresses the sacredness of Ayahuasca from the perspective of the global shamanic vocation. If encounters with Ayahuasca are said to revitalize forms of sacredness in contemporary societies, this is perhaps clearest in cases where individuals understand themselves to be called to lead ceremonies. Recognizing the global scale of Ayahuasca shamanism, we compare facilitators of ceremonies in two societies to discern differences and similarities in how Ayahuasca vocations exist in differently modernized societies: Peru, a predominantly Catholic society with a substantial Indigenous Amazonian population and an active Ayahuasca shamanism tourism sector, and Denmark, a secular society in Northern Europe, where Ayahuasca is illegal. Building on recent reappraisals of Weber’s reflection on vocation and Durkheim’s theory of the sacred, we argue that being called by Ayahuasca to follow shamanic vocations in contemporary societies leads to tensions around the need to both justify and resist the rationalization of Ayahuasca.

AB - This article addresses the sacredness of Ayahuasca from the perspective of the global shamanic vocation. If encounters with Ayahuasca are said to revitalize forms of sacredness in contemporary societies, this is perhaps clearest in cases where individuals understand themselves to be called to lead ceremonies. Recognizing the global scale of Ayahuasca shamanism, we compare facilitators of ceremonies in two societies to discern differences and similarities in how Ayahuasca vocations exist in differently modernized societies: Peru, a predominantly Catholic society with a substantial Indigenous Amazonian population and an active Ayahuasca shamanism tourism sector, and Denmark, a secular society in Northern Europe, where Ayahuasca is illegal. Building on recent reappraisals of Weber’s reflection on vocation and Durkheim’s theory of the sacred, we argue that being called by Ayahuasca to follow shamanic vocations in contemporary societies leads to tensions around the need to both justify and resist the rationalization of Ayahuasca.

KW - Ayahuasca

KW - sacredness

KW - secularism

KW - shamanism

KW - vocation

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85135555052&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/anoc.12165

DO - 10.1111/anoc.12165

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85135555052

SN - 1053-4202

VL - 33

SP - 255

EP - 278

JO - Anthropology of Consciousness

JF - Anthropology of Consciousness

IS - 2

ER -