Sky Shamans of Mongolia: Meetings with Remarkable Healers

(Paperback)

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This astounding, inspiring book by American shaman Kevin Turner captures the beliefs and practices of the growing world of Mongolian shamans and will appeal to shamans and shamanic therapists, students of Mongolian culture and comparative religion, and fans of gritty travel memoirs in the vein of Paul Theroux. Part spiritual travelogue, part participant-observer anthropological essay, this book takes the reader to visit with authentic shamans in the steppes and Stalinist-era housing projects of modern-day Mongolia. Along the way the author tells us the history of Mongolian shamanism and its unique features- a mix of direct experience of other realities with religious belief systems known as Tengerism--a belief in sky gods or heaven. Turner tells of spontaneous medical diagnoses, all-night shamanic ceremonies, and miraculous healings, all welling from a rich culture in which divination, soul-retrieval, and spirit depossession are practiced as part of everyday life.

Reviews

Sky Shamans of Mongolia is a fascinating and serious work that is an important contribution to shamanic knowledge. A mustread for anyone wishing to learn about Mongolian shamanism and to understand its place in the world.Michael Harner, PhD, author of The Way of the Shaman and Cave and Cosmos: Shamanic Encounters with Another Reality

As one who has worked and taught alongside Mongolian shamans, I find this book by Kevin Turner has illuminated much about this stunningly powerful and mysterious form of shamanism. He shares what he has learned firsthand, and he frames it in a rich context of multiple dimensions of shamanism, including neuroscience, and rolls it into a vision of shamanism as personal evolution with a vision of the future. Read this book!C. Michael Smith, PhD, clinical psychologist and author of Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue and Psychotherapy and the Sacred

Kevin Turners marvelous fieldwork describes shamanism and shamanic knowledge as it really is in Mongolia.L. Chuluunbaatar, PhD, professor of linguistics at National University of Mongolia

Kevin Turners Sky Shamans of Mongolia covers a subject few authors have investigated in depth. In this wonderful and well-written text, Turner explores shamanism in the kind of detail only an initiate could communicate. Not only does Turner speak to the cultural role of shamans, but he reveals the experiential cosmos in which they journey for the benefit of community. I recommend this book for anyone interested in Asian shamanism.Larry Peters, PhD, author of Tibetan Shamanism: Ecstasy and Healing

Turners unique qualifications make this book an immensely valuable resource for Westerners interested in Mongolian shamanism, or shamanism wherever practiced. An American living in Asia, speaking several Asian tongues, himself a shamanic practitioner, Turner possesses not only the gift of understanding but the gift of putting that understanding into clear, readable language. Unlike academics attempting to describe shamanism from the outside, Turner knows it from the inside, and the same familiarity that gained him the confidence of the shamans enables him to be a sure-footed interpreter for the reader.Frank DeMarco, author of The Sphere and the Hologram

A fascinating and compelling account of contemporary shamanic practice, based on firsthand experience and simultaneously an exercise in religious anthropology and cultural ethnography, this work explores a sacred tradition whose deep impact on the West is gradually being rediscovered and interpreted anew.Paul Bishop, PhD, author of The Archaic: The Past in the Present

Kevin Turner is an explorer of the inner worlds, a researcher of the deep meaning of life. His book, in addition to being an anthropological text, is also a travel story, full of surprises, between blue skies and green landscapes without boundaries, the songs and costumes of the shamans, their miraculous healings and visions, and the sterile discussions among academic scholars described with fine irony. [A] trip to real but extraordinary experiences.GuidoFerrari, journalist and director ofTao: The Watercourse Way at Wu Yi Mountain

Sky Shamans of Mongolia is an invaluable guide for anyone interested in understanding one of the worlds oldest shamanic traditions with an abundance of detail to satisfy a curious reader or a serious student of global shamanism.Robert Th, medical anthropologist

Kevin Turner brings a rare combination of skills and tools to the table, which in Mongolia opened doors and hearts normally closed to Western researchers of shamanism. He is a linguist, a teacher, and a practicing shaman. As a Western shaman, he had to endure much skeptical probing before being accepted by the Mongolian shamanic community and invited to their gatherings and healing ceremonies. Writing Sky Shamans of Mongolia from the perspective of a shamanic practitioner himself, Kevin Turner offers his readers a rare in-depth overview of the history and current practices of Mongolian shamanism, which after a period of persecution and decline is experiencing a revival of astonishing proportions.SabineLucas, PhD, Jungian analyst, and author ofPast Life Dreamwork

Sky Shamans of Mongolia provides authoritative and extensive coverage of a little-known tradition. The writers personal encounters enliven the account, furthered by his position as a practitioner of universal shamanism which enables him to enjoy privileged access. There are moments when the reader is so drawn in by the firsthand descriptions that it feels as if one were actually there.John Dougill, author of Shinto Shrines: A Guide to the Sacred Sites of Japans Ancient Religion

The dramatic resurgence of shamanism in Mongolia, as detailed in this beautifully written study, is testament to the indomitable nature of the souls healing powers. Kevin Turner gives us both a window into shamanism as a worldwide phenomenon and a detailed account of ancestral Mongolian shamanic practices. Most interesting of all, Sky Shamans is that rare glimpse into the shamanic psyche, transmitted through these accounts.Jeremiah Abrams, author of Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature

An enjoyably written introduction to Mongolian and Inner Asian shamanisms that is based in experience and filled with knowledge. Recommended.Jeremy Narby, author of Shamans through Time and The Cosmic Serpent

Author Kevin Turner has brought something of great importance to those seeking to understand and practice shamanism: a valuable contribution to the understanding and practice of shamanism in the West and a richly rewarding, fascinating study of Mongolian shamanism. The authors adventures in the land of the shamans brings much food for thought and great insight.Nicholas Breeze Wood, editor of Sacred Hoop magazine

Author Bio

Kevin B. Turner is the director for Asia and faculty member of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies founded by Michael Harner. After years of study with yogis, monks, and lamas in India, Nepal, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Japan, Kevin met Michael Harner in 1997 and trained in core shamanism, an integrative, nontraditional approach to shamanism. He teaches Core Shamanism internationally, offering several workshops a year. Turner is also a full trainer at the Monroe Institute, which offers programs and training in the out-of-body experience, clairvoyance, remote viewing, psychokinesis, and psychopomp work.