Introduction

Religious Specialists
-typology?
-"priest thinkers"
-connections with social structure

Early Anthropology of Religion
-animism
-magic versus religion
-function

Definition and Categorization
-problematic
-needed for cross-cultural comparison
-insight into societal structure

Realm of the Religious
-definitional problem
-Western approach/assumptions
-anthropological concept of the "religious"

Investigating Religious Specialists
-insight into other elements of culture
-making distinctions
-articles included on specialists

Article: Religious Specialists by Victor Turner

Religious Specialists
-definition
-multivocality of religion

Priest and Prophet
-Weber's contrast
-"charisma"

Priest and Shaman
-commonly contrasted by anthropologists
-divine stroke versus inherited
-correlation to structural complexity
-shaman and medium

Religious Functionaries
-institutional
-inspirational

Sociocultural Correlates
-priest
-shaman
-prophet
-"mechanical" and "organic" solidarity

Divination and Religious Specialists
-definition
-analysis of past "untoward" events
-overlapping practices
-examples

Diviner and Doctor
-often specialized roles
-psychosomatic/sociologic factors in illness
-soul/life force under attack
-"diagnostician" and the "therapist"

Modes of Religious Specialization
-factors of scale and complexity
-simple societies
-complex societies
         --example: Catholic Church
-medium-scale societies

Religious and Political Specialization
-often connected
-example: Bakabilo among the Bemba
-reducing societal conflict

Article: The Shaman: A Siberian Spiritualist by William Howells

Shamans
-status and ability
-geographic/cultural range
-medium and diviner
-witch-like
-absolute faith from practitioner and public

Duties
-ride herd on the souls of the departed
-ascertain the position of other spirits in relation to people
-varying degrees of occupational specialization
-not a magician; not a priest
-brave negotiator

Background
-reindeer herders and fishers of northeast Asia
-groups on the Western shore of the Bering Sea
-bleak environment
-cosmology/worldview: three realms of nature
-traveling between realms

Familiar Spirits
-associated animal souls
-emekht, yekyua

Shamanic Appearance
-dressing the part
         --cap, mask, coat with tails, metal plates
         --highly decorated

The Practice
-a typical séance/calling the spirits
         --expert showmanship
         --autohypnosis
-shaman traveling to the spirits
-Mongolian "purification" ritual

Outsider Perspective
-extremely exciting melodrama
-ventriloquism, prestidigitation
-end justifying the means
-intelligent and earnest practitioners helping people

Recruitment
-hereditary or chosen by spirits
-usually avoided if possible
-assimilation of male and female
-psychological type/"artistic temperament"
-socially useful exhibitionist release
-diviners of South Africa

An Adapted Cultural Practice
-"Arctic hysteria" tendencies
         --Eskimo wildness
         --startled Siberians
-driving off the cultural hysteria
-somewhat incompatible with tightly organized religion
-examples

A Real Emotional Exercise
-psychological and social benefits
-fewer drawbacks than witchcraft
-artistic and dramatic release of tension

Article: Dark Side of the Shaman by Michael Fobes Brown

"New Age" Thought
-Santa Fe
-alternative healing methods/non-Western tribal traditions
-interest in shamanism

Shamanism
-anthropological definition
-romantic appeal and approach
-the practice in context

Aguarana People of Peru
-history and environment
-Yankush the iwishín
-the sorcerer and the practice of sorcery
-shaman/sorcerer connection
-feared and believed tradition

Ambiguity
-power source
-private/public realm
-potentially indistinct boundaries
-ambiguity and ambivalence: a healing session
-a prestigious burden

Violent Undercurrents
-don't cancel out the benefits of shamanism
         --shamans integrate many types of "medication"
-sustain a belief in sorcery with a "negative current"
-anthropological perspective on the function of the practice

Unsettling New Age Embrace
-little to no appreciation of the cultural context
-tribal lore supermarket
-pushing aside stark truths
-shamanism as a powerful whole

Article: Training for the Priesthood Among the Kogi of Columbia by Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff

The Kogi of Northeastern Columbia
-preservation of traditions
-rigid gender roles
-economic hardship
-rich spiritual life

Kogi Spirituality
-cosmology a model for survival
-four cardinal directions
-Kogi descent
-macrocosmic structure; Divine Egg
-bilateral division of the universe

Kogi Society
-Kogi ethics
-spiritual knowledge
-Aluna
-sexual repression
-anti-femininity
-influence of the priesthood
-importance of confession

Training for Priesthood
-selection of male children
-removal from society
-behavioral restrictions
-relationship between teacher and student
-regularized schedule
-field of learning
-physical dimensions
-performance training
-language

Priests and Kogi society
-limited socialization
-no economic activity
-counsels
-primacy of daily life
-hallucinations
-priesthood serves adaptive function

Article: Reflections After Waco: Millennialists and the State by Michael Barkun

What Happened at Waco
-three questions
-failure to take into account beliefs
-approached as psychopathic and delusional

Branch Davidian Belief System
-three implications of the belief system
-Koresh as authoritative interpreter
-millenarian rejection dynamic

The Federal Reaction
-unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation
-attempt to assimilate into hijacker model
-led astray by the "cult concept"

Cascading Misunderstandings
-led to violence
-assumptions about the effect of the use of force
-the "script" and the struggle: a prophecy come true
-premise of cost/benefit model and "increased pressure"

Charismatic Leadership
-transcends law and custom
-major factor in federal frustration
-the limits
-complex relation/situational matter
-inadvertently validated

What Ought to Have Been Done?
-given retrospect
-patience and restraint
-an informed approach

Communal Groups and Government Forces
-other examples
-Weaver affair as a microcosm
-new form and the previous models
-future of the phenomenon?

Posttribulationist Millenarians
-beliefs
-survivalist lifestyle
-Christian Identity Movement
-defensive withdrawal from society
-probable future clashes

The Future of Millennial Groups?
-the turn of the millennium
-government policy and approach?
-understanding groups vs. categorizing "cults"
-order and free exercise of religion: issues with "insight"
-questions that need to be addressed