Following cultural anthropological inquiry, this dissertation examines the adoption of shamanic healing techniques into Western medicine and the resultant hybrid modality of health care fostered by two disparate healing traditions. As the U.S. populace increasingly turns to alternative forms of healing in conjunction with, or in lieu of, conventional Western medicine, shamanic healing has been added to the list of recognized non-conventional therapies. Shamanism, once prevalent throughout most of the world in various cultural forms, is purported to be the oldest healing modality, dating back to the Upper Paleolithic in Siberia. Historical excoriation and extermination from religious and political dogma have plagued shamanic cultures for centuries while their healing practices have been rebuked by Western concepts emergent from the Scientific Revolution--whereupon the Cartesian Split and a corporeal view of the body transformed the field of medicine. In the United States, over the last decade, a new and growing subculture of health care practitioners, including "Western" educated medical practitioners, is seeking out shamanic training for personal and professional development. This study examines how the adoption of a healing paradigm borne out of indigenous cultures oriented toward communal living and local economies is adapted to a Western culture steeped in individualism, commercialization, and commodification. Through surveys, interviews, and ethnographic research, the investigator provides numerous examples and analysis of the practice of shamanic healing techniques in medical clinics, health care centers, and hospitals. In particular, this study will focus on the shamanic training of health care practitioners, their motivations, the manner in which they incorporate shamanic healing techniques into their treatment protocols, as well as patient/colleague/administrative responses and institutional barriers. A comparative analysis provides discussion on both the metamorphosis of shamanic healing traditions appropriated within a biomedical framework as well as the influence of spiritually-based healing practices upon the established medical culture in the United States today. Through the lens of highlighted individual experiences, the investigator offers insight into an emerging hybrid healing modality embedded in cultural contrasts that also serves as a catalyst for the renegotiation of the meaning of healing.

As the era of Christianity is taking a firm foothold of Europe and Scandinavia during the late 1500s and early 1600s. The prosecution, accusations, and pure terror against anyone who did not fit the mold of a true Christian was faced with doubt, suspicion, and allegations of being in a pact with the Devil. Even if Christianity was becoming the main religion in the regions. It was common among townsfolk when in great doubt, sickness and worries to pay a visit to the old lady, the shaman, or the local healer. Some of these shamans depending on where you lived could also be a part of the Indigenous people of Scandinavia, the Sami. Whether you where that local old lady, that local shaman or one of the many regional Sami’s roaming the north of Scandinavia during this period of history, it was extremely dangerous to express local beliefs, superstitions, and an alternative faith then Christianity. The goal of this essay is to take a closer look at some of these cases, analyze the trials and prosecutions of these witches and Sami Shamans within Swedish courts, to see the similarities and discuss six cases in greater details. The conclusion of this essay is that we see some similarities between Swedish witches and Sami people who used magic, however the use and/or blame off alcohol may vary, the methods on how these witches would inflict “hurtful magic” was different and so too the trials. There is a “clearer mentioning” of torture on “Swedish witches” then Sami witches. The Swedish witches would use “totems” and items to cast spells, while Sami witches would use vocal incantations to hurt their victims.

This dissertation concerns the socio-cultural politics expressed in the performances of Matthew Barney, Steven Cohen, Marina Abramovic, and the ‘Pop’ artist Madonna. The contention is that these artists mirror and dramatize marginalization and seem to reflect a desire to resolve conflicts experienced between social and psychological identities in contemporary society. The premise of this study is that these performers engage in a ‘dialogue’ with viewers as a form of self-preservation and self-healing. The Performance artists’ measure of socio-cultural tensions suggests the merging of mass media entertainment, theatrical devices and other cultural practices such as fetishism and rituals involving altered states of consciousness, props and allusions to shamanism. An ancient modality of healing, such as shamanism, when appropriated by artists, seems to reflect an urgent phenomenological need of the individual within Western society for overcoming feelings of powerlessness as a type of therapeutic practice. The Performance artists’ Othering is acted out as a survival mechanism addressing and questioning the ‘degradation’ imposed on marginalized individuals who challenge the traditional notion of authentic identity and the ‘classic’ body. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

This study is an account of the development of a personal, intuitive epistemology for psychotherapy, and an exploration of some possible implications thereof for a general professional epistemology. Initial analysis of the author's problematic clinical cases revealed that assumptions regarding the nature and process of therapy predisposed the author to a reliance on rational, theoretically founded therapeutic praxis. When rationality was perceived not to be achieving the desired ends in therapy, the author experienced escalating, critical self-consciousness, and worked ever harder at improved rational problem-solving. This constituted a self-reinforcing problem cycle during 'stuck' consultations. The premise that effective action is rational was seen to constitute a weltanschauung of the therapist, and understood to be inconsistent with the postmodern frame of ecosystemic theory. A hermeneutic .action research process was initiated, its concern to accommodate spontaneity as an antidote to rigidifying rationality in the author's clinical and academic praxis. The exploration of spontaneity and intuition was massively influenced by the author's unexpected immersion in shamanic tradition, itself predicated on mythological and intuitive construction of "a" world, rather than denotive description of 'the' world, as is the case in logocentric practice. i'he social disjunction and existential challenge occasioned by immersion in such tradition occasioned angst in the author, and it took years to find an uneasy rapprochement between the different contexts of the author's life. Nonetheless, a change in the author's epistemology and clinical praxis were effected, and the initial problematic clinical situation - partly a consequence of a relational stance entailed in notions of objectivity, a hidden concomitant of logocentrism - has not recurred. A case which evokes the revised epistemology and cognitive-affectiverelational stance of the author is presented. The possibility of an intuitive psychotherapy and its coherence with ecological thought and the tenets of postmodernism and narrative therapy are explored. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

Thesis (PhD)-- Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation examines the idea of apocalypse through the lens of science fiction (sf) written during the current fin de siècle period. I have dated this epoch, known as the information era, as starting in 1980 with the advent of personal computing and ending in approximately 2020 when the functional limits of silicon-based digital manufacturing and production are expected to be reached. By surveying the field of contemporary sf, I identify certain trends and subgenres that relate to particular aspects of apocalyptic thought, namely, conceptions of the ‘terror of history,’ the sublimity of accelerated techno-scientific advance, the ‘affective turn’ in media-culture and posthuman philosophy. My principal method of inquiry into how the apocalypse is imagined or ‘figured’ in sf is the concept of hyperstition – a neologism (combining the words ‘hyper’ and ‘superstition’) coined by the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU). Hyperstition describes an aesthetic response whereby cultural fictions – principally, ideas relating to apocalypse – are imagined as transmuting into material realities. I begin by scrutinizing two posthumanist works of theory-fiction (theory written in the mode of sf) by the CCRU and 0rphan Drift which anticipate immanent human extinction and imagine the inception of a new evolutionary cycle of machine-augmented evolution This sensibility is premised on the sociallydestabilising cycles of exponential growth that characterise information-era technological developments, particularly in the digital industries, as well as the accelerated human impact on the natural environment. Central to my argument is the romantic materialist philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari and their concepts of accelerationism, schizoanalysis and Bodies without Organs (BwO’s). Their ontology is constructed around the idea that exponential rates of development necessitate a new aesthetic paradigm that ventures beyond philosophies of human access. The narrative of apocalypse, approached from this perspective, can be interpreted in catastrophic or anastrophic terms; either as a permanent ending or as the beginning of something radically new. Using hyperstition, I also investigate the sf of Russell Hoban, Michael Swanwick, Brian Stableford, Charles Stross, Dan Simmons, M. John Harrison and Paul McAuley to see not only how these authors interpret the concept of cultural acceleration, but also to identify common threads. Countering the catastrophic ‘death of affect’ postulated by theorists such as Jean Baudrillard and Paul Virilio with the anastrophic rejoinder of cyberdelic information-era countercultures, I conclude by investigating the new ‘affective turn’ in contemporary media theory. The works of theoretical fiction and sf that I investigate are informed, as I demonstrate, by the Situationist techniques of psychogeography, dérive and detournement, as well as by the literary tropes of 18th and 19th century fin de siècle Gothic and dark Romantic fiction. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie proefskrif ondersoek die idee van apokalips deur die oogpunt van wetenskap fiksie (wf) soos geskryf gedurende die huidige ‘fin de siècle’ tydperk. Ek dateer hierdie epog, bekend as die inligtings-era, as die tydperk wat in 1980 begin met die koms van persoonlike rekenaars en nagenoeg eindig in 2020, wanneer die funksionele limiete van silikon gebaseerde digitale vervaardiging en produksie na verwagting bereik sal word. Deur die veld van kontemporêre wf in oënskou te neem, identifiseer ek sekere neigings en sub-genres wat vergelyk met sekere kenmerke van apokaliptiese denke, naamlik: begrippe soos die ‘verskrikking van geskiedenis’, die verhewendheid van versnelde tegno-wetenskaplike vooruitgang, die ‘emosionele omkeer’ in media-kultuur en post-humanistiese filosofie. My primêre metode van ondersoek van hoe die apokalips voorgestel of ‘beskryf’ kan word in wf, is die begrip van hiper-bygelowigheid - ‘n neologisme (samevoeging van die woorde ‘hiper’ en ‘bygeloof’) soos geskep deur die Kubernetiese Kultuur Navorsings-Eenheid (KKNE) en Nick Land, medestigter van die KKNE. Hiper-bygelowigheid beskryf die proses waarvolgens kulturele versinsels - hoofsaaklik opvattings met betrekking tot apokalips – in materiële realiteite omgeskakel kan word. Ek ondersoek ek twee post-humanistiese werke van teorie-fiksie (teorie geskryf volgens die wf metode) deur KKNE en 0rphan Drift, wat inherente menslike uitwissing verwag en die ontstaan van ‘n nuwe evolusionêre siklus van masjien-toename voorstel. Hierdie proses is gebaseer op die sosiaal-destabiliserende siklus van eksponensiële groei wat kenmerkend is van die inligtings-era se tegnologiese ontwikkelinge, veral in die digitale industrie, sowel as versnelde menslike impak op die natuurlike omgewing. Die kern van my beredenering is die goties-materialisties-teoriese standpunt soos deur Land ingeneem, sowel as die romanties-materialistiese filosofie van Deleuze en Guattari. Hierdie gevalle van neo-materialistiese (of objek-georiënteerde) filosofië word toegelig deur ‘n apokalipties-teoretiese basis bekend as akseleerasionisme. Hierdie uitgangspunt is ontwikkel rondom die idee dat die eksponensiële tempo van ontwikkeling ‘n klimaks sal bereik in ‘n evolusionêre ‘wipplank punt’ en dat ‘n nuwe estetiese paradigma nodig is wat dit bokant die filosofie van menslike vermoë kan waag sodat daar oor hierdie waarskynlikheid geteoretiseer kan word. Die beskrywing van apokalips, soos vanuit hierdie oogpunt beskou, kan vertolk word in beide katastrofiese of anastrofiese terme of as ‘n permanente einde of as die begin van iets wat radikaal nuut sal wees. Deur gebruik te maak van die hiperbygelowigheidsteorie, wat ‘n onderafdeling is van akseleerasionisme, ondersoek ek WF van Russell Hoban, Michael Swanwick, Brian Stableford, Charles Stross, Dan Simmons, M. John Harrison and Paul McAuley ten einde vas te stel hoe hierdie skrywers die konsep van kulturele akseleerasie interpreteer, maar ook om gemeenskaplike leidrade te identifiseer. Met teenargumentering ten opsigte van die katastrofiese ‘dood van affek’ gepostuleer deur teoretici soos Jean Baudrillard en Paul Virillio met die anastrofiese samevoeging van kuberdeliese inligtings-era-kontra-kulture, ondersoek ek die nuwe ‘gemoedsomkeer’ in kontemporêre mediateorie. Die werke van teoretiese fiksie, sowel as baie van die ander gevalle van wf wat ek ondersoek en soos deur my gedemonstreer, word toegelig deur Situasienistiese tegnieke van psigo-geografie, dérive en detournement, sowel as deur die literêre menigtes van die 19de eeu ‘fin de siècle’ donker Romantiese en Gotiese fiksie.

L'univers de la métamorphose se signalait par de multiples manifestations intellectuelles, culturelles et sociales en Grèce ancienne. De nombreux mythes, des pratiques rituelles diverses circonscrivaient un monde quotidien de la transformation. Apparitions ou métamorphoses divines, fables ou légendes de héros transformés, danses masquées, farces costumées, etc., constituèrent autant d'éléments et de motifs qui participaient à la construction de l'identité de l'Homme grec et de son imaginaire. Il est notable que les mythes de métamorphoses dont la Littérature et les Arts figurés se sont abondamment faits l'écho, aient tenu dans ce processus une part importante compte tenu de leur grande élasticité depuis au moins l'époque mycénienne. Cet ensemble mythologique accompagnait l'Homme grec tout au long de son existence et pendant le dur exercice de la quotidienneté en introduisant à la réflexion sur le monde du caché et du dissimulé. Il témoigne aussi des efforts constants de placer une réflexion sur le corps au cœur de la pensée et de l'imaginaire des hommes au cours de la longue période de l'histoire grecque antique. / The universe of the metamorphosis recovers multiple fields of the thought and the social reality of the ancient Greece. Numerous myths, diverse ritual practices confine a daily world of the transformation. Apparitions or divine metamorphosis, fables or legends of transformed heroes, dance masked, stuffings, etc., establish so many elements and motives which participate in the elaboration of the identity of the Man and his imaginery. It is considerable that the myths of metamorphosis among which the Literature and the Figurative Arts abundantly made the echo, held in this process an important part considering their big elasticity since at least the mycenaenan period. The universe of the metamorphosis confers a part of sense on the hard exercise of the everyday nature by introducing on second thought on the world of the hidden but also shows of constant efforts to think the body during the long period of the antique Greek history.

Partimos de um contexto tecnológico-comunicativo marcado, especialmente, pela ubiquidade, pela pervasividade, pela comunicação das coisas (LEMOS), por eventos e existências que transcorrem em metaterritorialidades informativas (DI FELICE) e pela enorme quantidade de dados gerados por tecnologias móveis, tais como smartphones, sensores, e etiquetas RFID. Tal situação tecnológica aponta para a possibilidade sempre presente de qualquer entidade, humana ou não (geleiras, animais, árvores, alimentos, embalagens etc.), assumir a qualidade informativo-digital, ou a metalinguagem do código, experienciar perspectivas outras e entrar em agenciamentos que a transformam ontologicamente. Essa \"ecologia digital\", ao trazer à tona a constituição reticular dos seres e ambientes, tornando transponíveis as fronteiras e experienciáveis as diferenças, inaugura uma condição habitativa atópica (DI FELICE) que reúne corpos, tecnologias, naturezas em uma relação simbiótica e dinâmica. Esses processos inéditos engendrados pelas novas tecnologias de comunicação e informação nos impõem a necessidade de buscar alternativas teóricas e conceituais aos dualismos derivados da Grande Divisão (LATOUR) entre Natureza e Sociedade que fundou o pensamento moderno ocidental e fundamentou as próprias concepções predominantes no campo científico da comunicação. O contexto latino-americano em que esta pesquisa se insere representa uma oportunidade para o estabelecimento de \"alianças perturbadoras\" (STENGERS) com práticas não-científicas e pensamentos não (somente) europeus, entre os quais destacamos o xamanismo e o perspectivismo ameríndio (VIVEIROS DE CASTRO), que, além de se mostrarem reticulares e ecológicos em sua constituição, engendrando desde sempre outros tipos de relação (não-instrumentais e nem dialógicas ou separatistas) com não-humanos, considerados todos sujeitos potenciais e parte de seu \"social\", revelam também sua dimensão comunicativa quando seus próprios praticantes, os xamãs, comparam-se às tecnologias comunicativas dos \"brancos\" (FERREIRA). Desse encontro, apresentamos uma possível ideia xamânica de redes comunicativas que, ao ultrapassar a dimensão somente humana, hermenêutica e a interação dialógica e conceber a relação com a terra-floresta (ALBERT e KOPENAWA) e suas agências emaranhadas a partir de uma \"anarquia ontológica\" (VIVEIROS DE CASTRO), do trânsito e da conexão entre mundos, torna-se uma chave conceitual fértil para pensar a comunicação digital e suas potencialidades. / We start from a technological communicative context marked especially by ubiquity, pervasiveness, the communication of things (LEMOS), events and beings that flow in information metaterritorialidades (DI FELICE) and by a huge amount of data generated by mobile technologies such as smartphones, sensors, and RFID tags. Such technological situation points to the ever-present possibility of any entity, human or not (glaciers, animals, trees, food, packaging, etc..), take digital-informative qualities, or meta code, experience other perspectives and enter into assemblages that transform them ontologically. This \"digital ecology\", bringing up the reticular formation of beings and environments, making transposable borders and diferences graspable, inaugurates an \"atopic dwelling condition\" (DI FELICE) which brings together bodies, technologies, still in a symbiotic and dynamic relationship. These novel processes engendered by new communication and information technologies impose on us the need to seek theoretical and conceptual alternatives for the dualisms derived from Great Divide (LATOUR) between Nature and Society, which founded the Modern Western thought and grounded the predominant conceptions in the scientific field of communication. The Latin American context in which this research is part represents an opportunity to establish not (only) European \"disturbing alliances\" (STENGERS) with non-scientific practices and thoughts, among which include Shamanism and Amerindian Perspectivism (VIVEIROS DE CASTRO), which , showed to reticular and ecological in its constitution, always engendering other types of relationship (or non-instrumental and dialogical or separatists) with nonhumans, considering all potential subjects, and part of his \"social\" also reveal their size communicative when their own practitioners, shamans, we compare the communication technologies of the \"whites\" (FERREIRA). From this contact, we present a possible shamanic idea of communicative networks, which, including not only the human dimension, the hermeneutics and the dialogical interaction, and understanding the relationship with the forest-land (ALBERT and KOPENAWA) and its entangled agents from an \"ontological anarchy\" (VIVEIROS DE CASTRO), a transit and a conection between worlds, becomes a fertile key concept to think digital communication and its potential

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:37:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Emerson Pingarilho Martins.pdf: 24622601 bytes, checksum: 80b6fee67687f864f29b6332d142dafe (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-06-06 / Visual dissertation as objective to draw the lines of strength that permeate the subjectivity registered in cultural phenomena that influence my own visual work, photographic researches that register acts from completely different places, but that have a shared line considering all paintings and drawings presented here. Afro-brazilian rituals, vodu, african hunters, artists and people coming from the subcultures. Multiplicity in brute and random elements, graphics, the recombination of what is directly found in nature and the streets of the metropolis as ac-tive expression. The term Urban Shamanism refers to the aesthetics, to the visual and actions registered on the photographs. Actions meaning to affirm an aesthetics, of aiming to live and create a visual style that can be understood as a poetic line like they are showed up on the documented photographs. The act of drawing was like to land in an enigmatic field that by the time has became the essence of my blood through the ink witch I ve been feed, in the simplicity of the feeling s flow / Dissertação visual poética sobre as linhas de força que permeiam a subjetividade que influênciaram meu trabalho visual, pesquisas fotográficas registrando atitudes em rituais afro-brasileiros, vodus, caçadores africanos, artistas e pessoas de rua. Multiplicidade em elementos aleatórios brutos e toscos, o grafismo, a padronagem desdobrada em camuflagem, a atitude estética, recombinação do que é diretamente achado na natureza e nas ruas de uma metrópole como expressão ativada. O termo Xamanismo Urbano remete a estética, ao visual e as ações que as fotografias registram. Ações no sentido de afirmar uma estética, de querer viver e criar um estilo visual que seja o lastro poético tal qual registrado nas fotografias documentadas. Uma pesquisa de cartografia lançando os olhos em figuras recombinadas e resistentes para criar uma obra flexível em processo

This dissertation explores entanglements of body, national identity and nature in contemporary Mongolia. The project is situated within the rising popularity of natural remedies and alternative medicine during a time described as disorganized (zambaraagui) and disorderly. Data was collected from 33 months of fieldwork in Ulaanbaatar and elsewhere, focused on non-biomedical practices and therapeutic landscapes, especially medicinal springs (arshaan) and their sanatoria. This work contributes to studies of post-socialist Mongolia in a few ways. The methodological decision to engage in interview and participant observation of fortunetellers (üzmerch), practitioners of Buddhist and traditional medicine (otoch, ardiin emch), astrologists (zurhaich), energy healers (bio energich), shamans (böö, zairan, udgan), enlightened lamas (huvilgaan) and massage therapists (bariach) was driven by the fluid approach with which patients approach fulfilling the needs of their health and wellbeing. Such fluidity was also echoed in healing practice; as opposed to bounded by strict conceptual distinctions, healers re-purposed personally and culturally-familiar techniques, ranging from biomedical to those of Buddhist medicine (sowa rigpa) to occult practices. Many of the same techniques were practiced by a range of practitioners. The term orthopraxy, commonality of practice across conceptual difference, is used to address this phenomena. Such pairing together of different kinds of therapies – biomedical or otherwise – calls into question a “traditional” vs. modern or neo-spiritual framework within which such practices are often cast. I employ Robbin’s anthropology of discontinuity (2003), suggesting that Soviet influences represented “hard” cultural forms that provided a partial rupture in cultural knowledge between pre-revolutionary society and 1990. Nature (baigal) and natural surroundings (baigal orchin) were concepts often raised when discussing health and wellbeing. “Spiritual” earth and mountain masters (gazariin/uuliin ezed) of estranged homelands (nutag) that cause illness in families relocated to Ulaanbaatar; the water, flora, and mutton from one’s homeland as especially medicinally-suited to the body; shamans empowered to heal by appropriating into their practices the worship of nationally-significant mountains: territorialized national identity represented a prominent trend in healing practices. The revering of a nation through natural landmarks I call national nature, and suggest it be seen both with respect to romantic and utilitarian conceptions of a therapeutic nature that underpinned Soviet medicine, and Soviet indigenization campaigns and the ethnonationalism that was encouraged to flourish in borderland republics. Affective rooting to natural landmarks to maintain or restore wellbeing was also a way to enact Mongol-ness, rendering healing the body at once a practice of national subject-making.

Esta tese é uma cartografia do dispositivo do neoxamanismo. Nela se mostra o processo de chegada de três diferentes tradições de neoxamanismo no Uruguai, que provém do Peru, Brasil e México: o vegetalismo amazônico, o Santo Daime e o Caminho Vermelho, respectivamente. Também descreve um quarto grupo neoxamânico uruguaio, independente dessas tradições, que toma elementos das mesmas. Analisa-se o neoxamanismo como um dispositivo, isto é, como um conjunto de discursos associados a uma imaginada espiritualidade indígena e umas práticas que giram em torno do uso de plantas de poder e da realização de rituais de busca espiritual e de cura. A cura é entendida enquanto expansão da consciência e “reconexão” com outras formas de estar no mundo, diferentes das modernas hegemônicas. Esta diferença se articula através da colocação em circulação de epistemologias outras, “nativas” do continente americano. O conjunto da tese levanta uma tensão, no marco do paradigma da modernidade/colonialidade, em torno da imbricação dos processos de (des)colonialidade que convergem no dispositivo do neoxamanismo. Observam-se alguns efeitos que o neoxamanismo produz e se propõe as ideias de amazonismo e de neo-orientalidade (para o Uruguai) para compreendê-los. / This thesis proposes a cartography of the neo-shamanism dispositif. It describes the process of arrival of three different neo-shamanic traditions in Uruguay: Amazonian vegetalismo, Santo Daime and Red Path, originating from Peru, Brazil and Mexico respectively. Furthermore it describes a Uruguayan neo-shamanic group, independent from these traditions, but which has adapted elements from them. The study analyses neo-shamanism as a dispositif, understood as a set of discourses, associated to an imagined indigenous spirituality, and practices relating to the use of power plants and the performing of rituals for spiritual quest and healing. The cure is understood as an Expansion of Consciousness and "reconnection" with other ways of being in the world, different from those of the modern hegemonic. That difference is articulated through the circulation of Other epistemologies, considered to be "native" originating from the American Continent. The overall thesis presents a tension, within the paradigm of modernity/coloniality, around the interweaving of processes of (de)coloniality converging on the neo-shamanism dispositif. Finally, it observes some effects produced by neo-shamanism and proposes understating these through the perspective of Amazonism and neo-orientalidad (in Uruguay). / Esta tesis es una cartografía del dispositivo del neochamanismo. En ella se muestra el proceso de llegada de tres tradiciones diferentes de neochamanismo al Uruguay, que provienen de Perú, Brasil y México: el vegetalismo amazónico, el Santo Daime y el Camino Rojo, respectivamente. Asimismo, describe un grupo neochamánico uruguayo, independiente de esas tradiciones, que toma elementos de ellas. Se analiza el neochamanismo como un dispositivo, es decir, un conjunto de discursos asociados a una imaginada espiritualidad indígena y unas prácticas que giran en torno al uso de plantas de poder y la realización de rituales de búsqueda espiritual y cura. La cura es entendida en tanto expansión de la conciencia y “reconexión” con otras formas de estar en el mundo, diferentes a las modernas hegemónicas. Esa diferencia se articula a través de la puesta en circulación de epistemologías otras, “nativas” del continente americano. El conjunto de la tesis plantea una tensión, en el marco del paradigma de la modernidad/colonialidad, en torno a la imbricación de los procesos de (de)colonialidad que convergen en el dispositivo del neochamanismo. Se observan algunos efectos que el neochamanismo produce y se proponen las ideas de amazonismo y de neo-orientalidad (por el Uruguay) para comprenderlos.