About the Authors

   Graham Harvey is a lecturer in religious studies at the Open University in Great Britain. His research interests include discourses and performances of identity creation and maintenance among Jews, Pagans, and indigenous peoples. Some of his publications also engage with shamanisms of various kinds or discuss the contexts in which shamans are needed, valued, or understandable. These include Listening People, Speaking Earth: Contemporary Paganism (1997; 2nd ed., 2006), Indigenous Religions: A Companion (2000), Readings in Indigenous Religions (2002), Indigenous Religious Musics (coedited with Karen Ralls, 2001), The Paganism Reader (coedited with Chas S. Clifton, 2004), and Indigenous Diasporas and Dislocations (coedited with Charles D. Thompson, 2005). His edited Ritual and Religious Belief: A Reader (2005) invites a reconsideration of the importance of ritual in religious and cultural life. Two of his books have an even closer relationship with shamans and their activities and worldviews than these. Shamanism: A Reader (2003) brings together significant writings about shamans and the study of shamanism. Most recently, Animism: Respecting the Living World (2005) focuses on the cultural context of shamans and argues that animism could make significant contributions to some of the major issues of concern today.

   Robert J. Wallis is associate professor of visual culture at Richmond University, London, where he is associate director of the master’s program in art history. He is also an associate lecturer in the humanities with the Open University. His research interests include archaeological and anthropological approaches to art, especially prehistoric and indigenous art in (perceived) shamanistic and animistic contexts, as well as the representation of the past in the present, principally with regard to the engagements of contemporary Pagans with the ancient past and archaeological sites. Many of his publications examine shamans and neo-shamans in various ways, from altered consciousness in rock art and the discourse on modern artists as “shamans” to negotiations over various forms of access to Stonehenge and other “sacred sites.” His books include A Permeability of Boundaries: New Approaches to the Archaeology of Art, Religion and Folklore (2001, coedited with Kenneth Lymer) and Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans (2003). With Jenny Blain, he codirects the Sacred Sites, Contested Rites/Rights: Contemporary Pagan Engagements with the Past project, and their volume of the same title will be published by Sussex Academic Press in 2007. He is currently working on a book critically examining the discourse on shamans and image making, ranging from prehistoric cave paintings to contemporary art.