"PLAY THE TAMBOURINE"-- RUSSIAN SHAMANS POSE CHALLENGE TO ORTHODOXY
by Anton Skripunov
Russian shamans have written a letter to the president requesting the recognition of shamanism as the "fifth traditional confession" and they plan to create a centralized organization. What prompted them to unite and how great is the demand for the services they provide is the subject of a RIA Novosti article.
Without a schedule of prices
"I think the organization is needed so that there will be definite rules, a procedure for conducting rituals, and the like. It has become a fad: take a tambourine and beat it yourself. That's enough. We have devoted our whole life to this and now a certain type appears with a shout: 'I am a shaman!' And all of my ten years of practice go down the drain," shamaness Oksana Kim complains. She has already been practicing several years in St. Petersburg and she assures that many people turn to her.
"In the main they are women from 20 to 55 years of age, with personal requests: they have become ill, they are hard put after divorce, they cannot marry, there are problems with children or husbands. They are mostly Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainians, Tatars. Few Buryat women and Buryat men turn to her, although it is to the Buryat-Mongol branch of shamanism that I belong (Oksana herself is from Ulan-Ude—ed. note)."
The shamans conduct prayers to their deities, appeal to dead ancestors for help, and evoke the spirits of nature or certain places. The necessary minimum for rituals, Kim explains, is offerings for supernatural forces; most often these are milk, vodka, pastries, and candy. There also are payments for the shaman herself, but there are no fees, only donations.
The abundance of personal websites of shamans boggles the mind. As does the spectrum of "services" offered. There are rituals for "love spells," "weight-loss" plans, "purification of energies," and "protection from courts and prisons."
The price is most often not indicated, so in order to learn it one must make direct contact. But there are sites where everything is immediately visible. For example, the cost of "individual rituals," according to the information on one of the shaman websites, is from ten thousand rubles. It depends on the "complexity of the case."
There are various assessments of the work of shamans. Some say that their rituals really help. Some, on the other hand, regret having turned to a shaman.
"My sister became seriously ill and she got worse and worse. To whom would we take her? Some said that it was a generic curse and others said that a demon was acting," Ulan-Ude resident Marina explained.
She found a shaman on the internet. He said that the sister "had been to some kind of healer" and now she is sick because of this. In order to be healed, she must be taken to a "shaman leader," which Marina did. There a ritual was conducted on the sister and she was told to buy a certain bunch of products "for donations." And so Marina paid the shamans for the "job."
"They said that in time my sister will become like before. But no changes happened," Marina assures. Several months later she called up that shaman who had taken her to the "leader," and she said that the ritual had not worked. He hung up and did not answer any more calls.
Tens of thousands of adherents
"There are several hundred shamans in Russia. And those who turn to them number tens of thousands," a senior instructor at Moscow State University, religious studies scholar Pavel Kostylev, noted.
Shamanism is professed primarily in Siberia. There are also adherents of "non-classical shamanism," or neo-shamanism, for example, in the style of Carlos Castaneda or other writers of the mystical genre, primarily English and American, the expert says.
In June, Russian shamans of the traditional type elected for themselves for the first time in history a supreme leader. He was the chief shaman of Tuva, Kara-Ool Dopchun-Ool. And this, according to the deputy of the supreme shaman, Artur Tsybikov, was only the start of a process of unification.
"Our goal is to make shamanism the fifth confession in Russia. We are trying to help people and we are counting on their giving us attention," Tsybikov declared at a press conference in Irkutsk. He had in mind that shamans want to become one of the traditional religious denominations along with Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism.
He explained that a centralized organization will permit the creation of shaman centers and the conducting of rituals in cities. In addition, shamans have, as they say, "places of strength," like the island of Olkhon in Baikal. But construction of a liturgical building is impossible there, Tsybikov clarified.
And to combat fraudsters it is planed to make a website with information about each "official" shaman.
Dubious idea
By no means does everybody believe that Russian shamans really will be able to become the "fifth traditional confessions."
"'Traditional religions' is a relative term. In my opinion, such a declaration (by shamans—ed. note) bears more of an emotional character rather than practical. Frankly, I do not see a serious problem in this," Dmitry Viatkin, the vice-chairman of the duma Committee for Development of Civil Society and Matters of Public and Religious Associations, commented for RIA Novosti on the shamans' appeal to the president.
According to the deputy, in Russia shamans perform their rituals without difficulty and authorities "treat them with respect," like representatives of other religious denominations. And "nobody is impeding" their unification.
Nevertheless, in the expert community it is doubted that shamans will succeed in doing this. Shamanism is painfully diverse in the country, notes religion scholar Pavel Kostylev.
"Different spirits are named differently. They are responsible for different things. Each group has its own notions about them. This is approximately the same as if we invited Russian Catholics, Orthodox, Old Believers, and protestants to unify on the grounds that they all are Russian Christians. And whereas the Christian confessions still have fundamental similarities, it is entirely different with shamanism," he emphasized.
Even if one speaks about Siberian shamanism as a separate phenomenon, even here one can see not variations of something unitary but many, many of the most diverse kinds of shamans. Therefore, the expert suggests, the shamans' initiative is rather like an attempt to announce themselves and not a really serious intention. (tr. by PDS, posted 27 June 2018)
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