Religious specialists

Types of specialists

Across the societies

• Prophet• Priest• Shaman• Medicine Men and women• Gurus ( God men and women)• Saints (other worldly)

Max Weber’s Ideal Types of Authority based on legitimacy

• Rational – legal ( is based on written rules or laws and is linked to explicit forms of justification like in govt, judiciary, private corporations and

• Traditional based on passage of time as tradition, heritage

• Charismatic authority, a divine gift leads to a change, movement or revolution in the field

Saints : charismatic authority

• Sorcerers, messiahs, Healers, Diviners, Shamans etc (examples)

• Practical help and moral examples to the community

• Saints as ascetic and “renouncers” can cause tension.

• As exemplars and helpers• Example: Satya Sai Baba,His Holiness Dalai

Lama among others

Prophet

Prophet- receiver of “a persona call” revelation & a divine gift• Achieve ecstatic state, healing, divination &

telepathy.Max Weber (1978): exemplary and ethical

prophet The problem of the prophet’s continuity with

routinization of the movement“Routinize” authority with firm rules to preserve

the changeExamples: Buddha, Gandhi, Prophet in Sudan,

Mormons

Priests

“..functioning of a regularly organized & permanent enterprise concerned with influencing the gods.”• Specialized training• Permanently associated with norm, places, &

time

Shaman and Priest• Shaman– Personal communication with supernatural being– Get powers by “divine stroke”

• Present in many foraging, pastoral as well as in agricultural cultures

• Priests– Trained specialist– Power from codified rituals– Agricultural/industrial societies

Anthropological understanding of Shaman

Present across cultures as a form of spiritual practice

Shaman & Medium– Shaman as a medium between the spirits who

CONTROLS the spirits.

• saman – an Evenk (Tungus) word meaning one who is excited, moved, raised”

• a Siberian or Mongolian spiritual practitioner

The Shaman: a Siberian Spiritualist

• Psychological benefits• Publicly recognized men and women• Duties• Most important person of the community, center of

religion• 3 realms of nature ( underground and the world

beyond)• Hmong Shamans• Shamans as medicine men, healer, diviner, elder

Shamanism: universal science

• What are the core functions of a shaman?• What are they trying to control and why?• What are the human needs they are

addressing?• How are they healing disease? What

mediums?• Why it is called a science?