Dr Angela Puca AP: I would say that based on my fieldwork and the interviews and what I heard from my informants I think that there is a point in people’s life where they have an experience that breaks that dominant theoretical framework that tells you that things are separated and isolated because the idea of being this isolated creature that is here to eat, pay taxes and decay and then die is not appealing to most people. Most of those who practice Magic want to explore a different way of interacting with reality, a way that goes beyond that sense of separation and that sense of isolation and makes you have experiences that don’t tell you from a dogmatic point of view or because a sacred book says so but makes you experience deeply and fully that sense of interconnection. They want to experience reality in a less isolated way in a more connected way it’s like why should I not experience that if that’s possible.

Zevi Slaven ZS: Thank you Dr Puca for joining us. What is your preferred title is it Dr Puca is it Angela what can I call you?

AP: You can call me Angela, that’s fine.

ZS: So let me introduce you very briefly and then I’ll tell the audience what we hope to talk about today and I’m very much looking forward to the conversation. Dr Angela Puca has a PhD in religious studies, she’s a University Lecturer in the fields of Witchcraft, Paganism, Esotericism, Folk Magic, Shamanism and related trends around that. And Dr Puca, I know her work from a fantastic YouTube channel that she runs putting out really, really quality scholarly, academic work around these subjects called Angela’s Symposium and I highly recommend checking that out if you don’t already.

You have a really, really fascinating background because you have this academic training in philosophy in eastern philosophy you also studied Latin, ancient Greek, Sanskrit and Tibetan. So you have a whole arsenal of linguistic and methodological and knowledge that you’re bringing to the table and you managed to bring all of those very, very impressive intellectual feats and skills in a way that’s very I find to be very digestible and very entertaining. And I think that’s a real skill of yours of taking the real scholarship and bringing it to the public without watering it down but making it in a way that can be engaging, that doesn’t get lost and doesn’t go right over people’s heads and I think that’s really, really tremendous and I wanted to congratulate you on that great work that you’re doing.

AP: Thank you so much for inviting me and for your patience. I know that it’s taken quite some time for this to happen so I really really thank you for both inviting me and for being very patient and very kind with your introduction. Yeah, I’m really happy that I come across as entertaining and scholarly at the same time. It’s not like I put that on as a persona, it’s just that I think that’s how I am.

ZS: I think these topics are fun topics, right? And they can be done in a way that doesn’t have to be dry. They can be done in a way that’s rigorous but also entertaining and engaging. From what I understand in your master’s research you focused, you moved away from eastern philosophy more to Paganism and Shamanism, which is what we hope to talk about today. You recently completed your PhD, as we’ve been saying, which was on trans-cultural Shamanism in Italy. What we hope to discuss today in this conversation is you really have a really wide range of expertise both in traditional and contemporary Shamanism and Paganism and Neopaganism in the philosophical and religious aspects of Magic, in Buddhism, Indian and Tibetan religions and particularly the methodology and theory, when it comes to the study of religion and comparative religions. So what I wanted to do was, I wanted to take this opportunity to pick your brain around some of these core philosophical underpinnings of the things that you find fascinating, that you’ve been studying. And I think that the core philosophical underpinnings, as you’ve put them, are the two fields of Paganism and Shamanism. And what happens is that we use words in public, in very sloppy ways and we overlap things. But when it comes to academia we have to be very careful with using words carefully and defining terms. My main interest is in Mysticism and that’s a word which also has its own contested, etymologies and definitions and genealogies and usages what I would love to do is I would love to invite you onto this conversation to tell us what these terms mean. What is Paganism and what is Shamanism? How do they relate to each other? How do they relate to other terms in the field? What are some of their genealogy and etymology? What did they mean? How did they come to mean what they mean today? What is the big debate surrounding those terms? And for my interest, how do they relate and perhaps overlap or differ with the category of Mysticism? So we’re going to launch into a real, I think a real like landmine of language because all these terms like Witchcraft and Paganism and Magic and Mysticism and Shamanism they’re all really jumbled together and I hope to, with your help, to carefully come in like a bomb diffuser, to come in and separate the wires and to make clear what these terms may mean, as far as we can understand, for the benefit of us to be able to understand and use these terms intelligently.

AP: I guess, that I’d like to start first with a premise with regards to methodology.

ZS: Please yes, Good, that’s a good start.

AP: Yeah, so one thing that I noticed from what you said, is the idea of finding a core underpinning or core philosophical underpinnings and that could be problematic in that I understand where you’re coming from and that tends to be a perspective that is also adopted within Paganism and Shamanism by Practitioners and that has also been defined in scholarship with a specific term like a, it is a philosophical aspect that you find in western Esotericism and also Paganism and shamanic practices. And that is called perennial philosophy.

So the idea of Perennialism, so quite often you find that Practitioners, Pagans and Magic Practitioners they tend to have this theoretical framework according to which there is a core essence that underlies all the different religions, all the different spiritualities and so when you remove all the structures that have been created by the institutionalised forms of these religions then you are able to detect those core principles that you find all over the place, across history and across the different traditions. Now, this is something that he is held as a belief and as an interpretive lens by Practitioners but it is something that scholars don’t quite adopt. I guess there is a field in academic research which is Comparative Studies but even in that case, academically speaking, we tend to focus more on the distinctive aspects of each and every tradition and even though you may find similarities and parallels, it is also important for us scholars not to flatten the complexity when two things, which have a different name, appear to be the same it means that perhaps you don’t know them all that well. Even two cells when you look at them close enough through a microscope they will present differences and so usually academic scholarship tends to emphasize all the nuances and shades and different ways of understanding a specific religious or spiritual phenomena, in this case, of course, of Religious Studies.

So I just wanted to premise that, that of course there are parallelisms and similarities and comparisons that we can draw but I wouldn’t really endorse that idea – which is more from a practitioner’s point of view of these core elements, these core principles that underlie all the different traditions. And in fact, talking about Shamanism and Paganism, that was the foundation, the core philosophical aspect of the most popular form of transcultural Shamanism, which is the forms of Shamanism that are imported from indigenous cultures and reinterpreted in the western cultural fabric. The most popular of them is called Core Shamanism and it is precisely based on this idea, on the idea that all Shamanisms across the world have a core set of practices and techniques. And so Michael Harner, the founder of Core Shamanism, wanted to distil these techniques and offer them to every person. So that meant that regardless of your cultural background, regardless of whether you have access to being initiated or not you would still be able to practice Shamanism because this tradition offers you the chance to focus on the techniques and therefore to employ them in your daily life, regardless of your cultural background. And these, according to him, and other Core Shamanic Practitioners that is beneficial to westerners because it allows people to reconnect a bit more with their spirituality or entering contact with the mystic aspect of their lives. Sorry, it was a very long premise but academics do like their methodologies.

ZS: Yes, I’m so glad that you began with a point of methodology and I think that’s really important and I really appreciate that. And I’d like to respond to that. I think what we’re talking about here, I think, is the very issue of defining definition, right. I asked you to define Shamanism and Paganism and you rightly responded with, how do we even define defining? And I think the issue here is that when we try to define anything we’re trying to do two things; we’re trying to recognize that it has specificity and individuality that it’s different from other things but yet we’re also looking for something which allows being included in a certain class or genus that we could say there’s a universal category here. So let’s say I have two cups, right. There’s a cup and a cup. There’s the question of definition is, what is it about both of them that makes them a cup? And is that a question of utility, is it a question of perception, is it the question of aesthetics, is it a question of whatever it is. But I think this is a real challenge when it comes to definitions and this issue of lumping everything into one category as if it’s all one thing and not seeing the distinctions is something which plagues my field as well, with Mysticism, where Perennialism was very rampant into Mysticism as well.

Until Stephen Katz came and gave a counter-argument for Contextualism and Constructivism, saying that like no, that this very specific here and the extreme end of that is to say that there is nothing at all that unites all these terms. There is no reason to call them all Mysticism at all and I think that happens at every level. There’s now a new stream of scholarship Boaz Huss, I think, best represents it, he says that even when we’re talking about Jewish Mysticism we can’t even use that term anymore. And even to use the term Kabbalah, which is one of my topics of expertise, even that term doesn’t apply anymore. Like there’s nothing that unites all the Kabbalists across… So, I think there’s kind of two sides of scholarship: one is that we’re so focused on the particularities and the details, on the individualities – which is so important in a way that we cannot even speak about the categories or how the category becomes a very problematic term. Is that your general approach towards the field or do you think that there is a middle balance where we can both see particularity and yet say there’s still something that unites them that allows them to be included in this category? Maybe it’s like some sort of family resemblances. But I do so love that we’ve begun with like this good methodological discussion, of like what is it even to define something? You’re probably involved in that. So thank you for getting us onto that foot.

AP: Yeah, I think that that’s a very good question and my approach is to… I like problems and problem solving and I think that even when it comes to terms like the ones you mentioned, like Paganism and Shamanism or Mysticism or even Magick, there are certain scholars that would say you have to use them very narrowly, you have to be very narrow and very specific about the use of the terms. So Shamanism is only the original form of Shamanism found in Siberia and then you have other scholars that say, since terms such as Magic cannot be defined in any way, we should just abandon them from the academic inquiry. And I disagree with both approaches because I think that when a term or, in this case, a phenomenon because it is not just a term, it is a term that is speaking about a phenomenon but a phenomenon is difficult to define. That doesn’t mean that we should abandon it, it just means that we need to find new ways, better ways, and better methodologies to understand it. So my approach is usually a mixture of contextualisation and contextualising but at the same time defining in a way that can be as accurate as possible. So, for instance, the methodology that I use to define Shamanism, which I find to be very useful for this specific phenomenon and this specific term is a mixture of a deictic approach and discourse analysis.

So the deictic comes from the Latin deiktos (deixis) and it refers to terms that don’t have an inherent meaning. So, for instance, in English terms like ‘here’ and ‘there’ so we know exactly what here and there mean but unless you put them in a context they will not have a precise meaning. They will be very loose and very up in the air and will not really give you a clear sense of what you’re talking about. And then discourse analysis which comes from Foucault is based on analysing how people who are part of that phenomenon, create narratives and discourses and talk about the phenomenon they are part of, they are living, and how they talk about what they are experiencing. Of course, you are not just basing your analysis on what one person says or what one individual or 10 individuals say, it is about identifying patterns of meaning that emerge from the discourses that people create around what they are experiencing and that could also be applied to the scholars and how scholars try and understand a phenomenon. So like the argument that Shamanism, which I think it’s pretty outdated now among scholars that study Shamanism, it was quite an outdated idea that Shamanism should only be used for Siberian Shamanism. However, the term Shamanism was created and invented by Russian Ethnographers of the 19th century and was never a term that was specifically meant to refer to Siberian Shamanism only, in fact, Shamanism comes from the Tungusic language, from the Tungusic region of Siberia and the term Shaman was the native term to refer to their Shamans but even the neighbouring town was using a different term to refer to their Shamans. So it’s just that these Ethnographers, these first Ethnographers found a term, then made it into an ‘ism’ and they started to apply to all the other traditions, similar traditions that presented a common underlying pattern. And so after Siberia then came South America and other indigenous people and other traditions practised by indigenous people. And so the term Shamanism has always worked by superimposition. So it’s not really a term that was defining, that was created by the Siberian people to define what they were doing. In fact, one of the characteristics of indigenous Shamanism is that every tradition has its own term to refer to their Shamans.

I did fieldwork in Argentina with the Mapuche Shamans and they have their own term which is Machi to refer to their female Shamans but they also now use the term Shaman because there is more internationally understood. And in Italy, for instance, in the vernacular healing tradition, every single region had a different term but that is not necessarily because they don’t acknowledge that there is a similarity in some cases and which is like the Italian case, as I was able to prove in my PhD and other peer-reviewed publications, in the case of Italy it was just a lack of communication. So it’s just when different regions started to interact thanks to social media and Facebook groups they started to adopt the same term which emerged from the community and they all were able to easily acknowledge that they were doing the same thing, with very slight variations. And it was a similar case in terms of Shamanism you do find variations which are important to acknowledge across different countries but still it does seem as though you can still look at that and see, that’s a cup that has a different shape but it’s still a cup, that has another, different shape but it’s still a cup. So, as you said, you do have that kind of mould or that underlying pattern.

I usually talk a lot about patterns because I find it to be a helpful term when we talk about these kinds of things because it’s not like they have the same, exact traits but they do present very, very similar patterns and when the pattern is so similar that you are able to look at that phenomenon or experience it and recognise that it is kind of the same or in the same umbrella, at least, in the same group of definition – you can define it in a very similar way. Then it means that as scholars we need to investigate it further and make our methodology better so that we can more accurately define such challenging terms because they are challenging. But there’s no doubt that they are challenging, both Shamanism and Paganism and since they lack the essential authority that makes it more difficult and more malleable. And so and now with the international communication created by the internet these kinds of traditions tend to evolve quicker than they used to and I think that in most of these cases one key element is communication. Because if you were born in a very isolated place and the only thing you knew was what was passed down from your grandmother, that is the only way of interacting with whatever lies beyond or what you perceive to be lying beyond and you don’t have any other options. Whereas now we are so fortunate to have easy access to communication and information and knowledge and so it becomes easier to incorporate and individually tailor your practice based on what resonates with you personally, rather than just what has been passed down within your bloodline or what had been taught to you by your tradition. Now it is more and I found this to be the case, even with indigenous people, it’s not just the westerners that tend to be very eclectic and individually tailor everything. You know, when you see indigenous people when they are not isolated in the countryside or in a secluded village when they are in a state of communication and interaction they usually do the same thing.

ZS: Interesting. Okay, that was a lot. Let me see if I understood what you’re saying. I’m gonna try to repeat back to you. So there were two terms for methodologies that you used. I don’t remember these exact terms but I’ll get them from you soon. One of them was about looking at terms in relation to a specific context, so we can’t just say here and there it needs to be so I’m assuming we can’t just say Shamanism has to be either Siberian Shamanism or transcultural, Italian Shamanism so using these terms in specific contexts to ground them in a specific particularity and then also looking at the way which those terms are being used by the Practitioners themselves, the discourse that’s being evolved around them from within, instead of imposing our own definitions from the outside. And doing that critically and doing that and it’s interesting to have those two methodologies in relation to one another. And then in terms of actually Shamanism which the way you set it out, that it begins in Siberia and the term is being used in one very specific tribe to refer to their Shamans, whatever that term means, we’ll hopefully find out soon. And then that term gets picked up in the 19th century or the 1900s, I forgot which one you said, by Russian Ethnographers and then gets applied as a global category. And then when people that are practising things that have some sort of relationship to Shamanism, aware of that through shared communication, they themselves adopt this term for themselves but initially they really have their own distinct individual terms. So far so good that I understand.

AP: Yes.

ZS: Okay good. So the question then is if these terms do have an indigenous original origin from a specific place, they’ve then been extracted from their place and then they’ve been reapplied broadly on a whole bunch of places. You’re talking about the patterns there’s another term that’s at least used in the field of Mysticism a lot to work with definitions, is Wittgenstein’s idea of family resemblances amongst ideas. That they don’t all share something but like me and my siblings, some of us share the same nose some of us have our mother’s eyebrows some of us have our dad’s ears and you can kind of see they’re not all identical but there’s something that’s uniting them, they all look like a family, within a spectrum. Is there something from the position of methodology that you’re adopting, which is very thought out and very critical and I really appreciate that, is there something that these communities that are re-appropriating, let’s say, this term Shamanism for themselves? Is this something which they all share that legitimatises us calling them and them calling themselves Shaman? And with that in mind, can we come to some sort of definition of what Shamanism may mean, transculturally?

AP: Okay, so I’d say that it depends on what kind of Shamanism we are talking about. I’d say that there is a big difference between transcultural Shamanism and indigenous Shamanism or autochthonous Shamanism. We can also refer to it in some cases as autochthonous Shamanism, which means a Shamanism from the land. Indigenous Shamanism has a bit more conceptualization and a bit more behind it. But when it comes to transcultural Shamanism I’d say that you can identify some core traits that define different forms of transcultural Shamanism because, as I mentioned, they tend to be very standardized, in a way. There are a few characteristics of transcultural Shamanism, as I mentioned earlier, transcultural Shamanism is the kind of Shamanism that is trans-cultural, and is not specific to a culture. And they tend to be indigenous forms of Shamanism that have been imported and reinterpreted in the western context. But now they are also practised in non-western contexts. So that’s why they are called transcultural because they are not linked to one specific culture. So one first element is that they are not linked to a specific culture and everybody from every place on the planet, maybe even beyond the planet, I don’t know, but everybody can practice transcultural Shamanism. In this case, another aspect is universalisation, so the fact that which is linked to this, so the idea that the practice is universalisable. It doesn’t depend on whether you are in Israel or in Italy or the UK you are supposed to get the same exact results provided you use that specific technique. So there is a form of universalisation then you have other elements drawn from the scholarship. Another element is sanitising, the idea that certain elements certain hazardous elements and dangerous aspects of indigenous forms of Shamanism have been removed from transcultural Shamanism.

Then it tends to be very focused on self-improvement, and self-development rather than helping the community or members of the community, although that can be found in some cases more often it tends to be the community of other Practitioners. So you help your fellow trans-cultural Shamans, they wouldn’t call themselves like that but you would help your fellow Practitioners. But if we are to find some core elements that we find across different forms of transcultural Shamanism I’d say that they are based on techniques to access the spirit world, to acquire knowledge and power and healing. Within the realm of power, you have all sorts of different things like healing or improving your life, bringing love to your life and all these kind of things. And knowledge means knowledge of things that you couldn’t acquire otherwise. So it involves altered states of consciousness which, in transcultural Shamanism, tends to be achieved through the use of the monotonous trance or rattles, so for music or dancing rather than by using psychotropic drugs. There are also transcultural shamanic Practitioners that would use such aids but is not really part of the standard teachings of different forms of transcultural Shamanism, the most popular of which are, as I mentioned, Core Shamanism which was founded by Michael Harner. Then we have Carlos Castaneda and the engagement with shamanic practices derived from his writings. I guess that these two tend to be the most common and then you have different interpretations which occur locally and contextually of, for instance, Andean Shamanism.

In my case, I have conducted fieldwork in Italy so I have seen that there are groups that were focused on Andean Shamanism but they, of course, are trying to stay authentic to the tradition but also, inevitably, they are adapting it to a different culture and a different setting. Also, you have Siberian Shamanism which tends to be incorporated and interpreted in the specific cultural fabric. So you have these different forms of indigenous Shamanism which get incorporated and in all of these cases, when we are talking about transcultural Shamanism, then they all have this element of not being connected to one specific culture and often they tend to be eclectic. So a person that has undertaken the workshops by the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, which is the one that divulges the Core Shamanism, might very well also be Practising Andean Shamanism or going on spiritual trips to Peru or engaging with other such experiences and practices. So there is this element of eclecticism as well. When it comes to indigenous Shamanism, in that case, I would say that it is more complicated to find traits that every single indigenous Shamanism has. I’d say that even in this case, in the case of indigenous Shamanism, of course, it will be a whole other topic how we define indigenous. But I do have a video on my channel on establishing the difference between indigenous religions and indigenous traditions. Which is the premise that we need to put upfront in order for us to have a discussion on indigenous Shamanism which is going to be published in a volume on indigenous religious traditions by the end of the year. So that’s also going to be a publication, an upcoming publication of mine. But yeah, when it comes to indigenous Shamanism I’d say that even in that case you do have, as a core element, the idea of entering the spirit world to gain knowledge and power. It’s just that the way you enter the spirit world is not as standardisable as you may think, like with Mircea Eliade. Mircea Eliade popularized the idea that the Shaman is the person expert in trance states and the idea of ecstatic experience. Mircea Eliade is also quite outdated in Religious Studies but he’s still quite influential for Practitioners and Practitioners who will define what the Shaman is by the words of Mircea Eliade. However, defining trance as a core element of Shamanism is problematic because how do you define trance. There are Shamans that interact with the spirit world without having to visibly go into a state of trance. They have a sort of direct communication in a way or they interact with the spirit world even during mundane tasks. So is that not a form of trance? And how much trance is enough trance for you to be a Shaman?

So the idea of trance as a core element of Shamanism is problematic and that has been highlighted by a French Anthropologist called Hamayon, I hope I’m pronouncing her name correctly, but she talks about this idea of trance being problematic in this sense. But I’d say that one thing that you do find across different forms of indigenous Shamanism is the idea of entering in contact with the spirit world and in a relationship with the spirit world it is very common to find the idea of a light spirit that will help you and guide you and even this case, you are obtaining power and knowledge, in a way, perhaps not everybody would define it as power, certainly it’s meant to give you the opportunity to expand your field of agency on the world and help yourself and help others through the interaction with the spirit world.

So this is something that you do find across different Shamanisms, I’m just going through the different forms of Shamanism that I know and have studied and I don’t recall any form of even indigenous Shamanism that doesn’t have this element of interacting with the spirit world and I think that the reason why we look at a religious phenomenon and we are able to see that’s Shamanism. Just as you said with the cup you can have different shapes but you immediately see that as a cup I think it’s the direct communication with the spirit world, it’s like you don’t have an institution, a dogma, a sacred book. It’s like there is this idea that the person who has this ability because there are traditions where only certain people are able to enter the spirit world in the indigenous Shamanisms. Whereas in transcultural Shamanism you have more of the idea that everybody can enter this direct communication with the spirit world. In indigenous traditions, it’s more common that only certain people can do so, in some cases against their will. So they get chosen by the spirits and in some cases, they really don’t want to be to become Shamans because it’s a great responsibility for themselves and especially for the community but they have to because otherwise it’s believed that they will die.

In fact, one other element that you find in indigenous Shamanism is the idea that once you get the call – one of the recurring elements is that you will fall ill and that nobody is able to heal you or cure you of that specific disease and that’s going to be the first contact with the spirit world when you first are able to heal yourself. And once you heal yourself then it is a kind of a testament that you have, in fact, entered the spirit world and you have survived death, in a way, and that made you a Shaman. But you also find that there is the concept that not always Shamans will call themselves Shamans or whatever the local term is. In some cases, it’s that others would call you that because Shaman and even when it comes to contemporary indigenous traditions, the local terms that mean Shaman, what we now understand is Shaman, they tend to identify a role. It’s not a title, it’s a role. So it’s like this is the person that will heal the sprains or something like that. So it identifies a role with respect to what you do for the community and others and I think that that very fact highlights the fact that Shamanism is a relational form of spiritual practice and of traditions because it is defined by the relations between the Shaman and the people in the community. In the case of indigenous Shamanism communities tend to be the local community, people that surround you physically but in other cases it also, especially with transcultural Shamanism, communities that are people that are kindred spirits or fellow Practitioners.

ZS: That was really helpful and quite exhaustive. I want to pick on a few of the things that you said there in that definition. It’s nice that after we lay out the careful methodology, we can actually begin to say some constructive things as well, that’s important, as well, I think, too. This idea of the practitioner, the one who has some sort of direct or immediate contact with the spirit realm and is able to go there to gain knowledge and power sometimes to bring healing back to the community that they’re participating in. I want to pick on a few of those points there. One is that from what I want there are some things that one that we could hear in that definition and we can and we can hear overlaps with things like Magic and theurgy and other forms of related practices and I want to know how, perhaps, we can distinguish between those things and maybe a helpful way to distinguish would be to go back to the etymology. For when I understand the etymology of Shaman is, as you’re beginning to say, is the one who knows and you can correct me if I’m wrong, it’s not my expertise and perhaps that emphasis on knowledge, I find very interesting. And you had emphasized power, you had mentioned healing, I’m curious to know what is the relationship there between the etymology, between the emphasis on knowledge, power healing and to think about other traditions. I mean I’m sure people who are thinking will realize that something like Gnosticism shares the same in the Greek, it’s the gnosis is to know. So this kind of relationship in the field of Shamanism itself, of the centrality of knowledge, of power, of healing and maybe how that works to define it in our conception of it and how that differentiates it or relates it to other streams and fields. Is that it’s a bit of an open-ended question? But I’ll be curious to hear about that.

AP: I think that with regards to the terms Shaman and Shamanism specifically, etymology doesn’t play that big overall in understanding what the Shaman is and I know that in some other cases etymology may play a bigger role but in this case, as I mentioned, even though Shaman comes from the Shaman – the Tungusic word, even when it was first used in reference to Siberian Shamanism, it was already a different thing. So it’s like me using a term that is native to your language but using it my own way. So to identify a phenomenon that from its very inception, I’m also referring to other things that don’t use the term from its very inception it wasn’t really based on what the native people were using it for. It was based on – they needed a term they heard it that people were using it and then travelling around they saw that other people would do very similar things and so they said, oh that must be Shamanism because the first term they encountered was that one. And yeah it is a term related to knowledge but we are also running again into the problem of knowledge being also a very loose term and difficult to pinpoint. But I don’t think that with Shamanism and even with Paganism, I would argue. I think that it’s important to understand where terms come from but it’s also important to see whether to distinguish cases where etymology doesn’t play that big, overall, in understanding the phenomenon now and other cases. Where with Paganism I’d say that the term, the etymological origin of Pagan, which comes from the Latin paganus. Paganus means inhabitant of the pagus and the pagus in Latin is a village – it’s like a rural kind of isolated, not quite isolated – it is a village, a village of people that would farm and have a connection with the earth and the field. So it started out as a derogatory term and it was used, it was first used in Roman times and then later on it became a way of saying people that are not Christians and I think it was also used to mean people that are not Muslims. So with that time, the term started out to set apart those who were not converting to Christianity and it was used in a derogatory manner.

So it’s interesting that in some cases you can hear Pagans say, why do you use the term since it started out as a derogatory term. But it’s quite often the case that terms and labels are created by others, by outsiders. I didn’t call myself Angela, my parents called me Angela. You don’t call yourself – when you are part of something, part of a phenomenon you are just in the stream of it. It’s always some somebody or something that is outside, that in order to distinguish what they see in front of them, they need to adopt a term, a label because in that way labels and terms are important because they are ways of reifying things. Reify means to make into a thing, make something into a thing. So they are reified terms and when you would see that there are some people that would not convert to Christianity, for instance, in a specific historical time you would call them with a term and that becomes derogatory because you are naming the others. But that doesn’t mean that the term in itself is spoiled or that it is inherently a negative or offensive term because if we are to if we have to investigate the etymology of the term then we also need to be susceptible and be open to investigating also the semantic development of that term and the term Pagan has evolved over time and there have been cases where the term was reclaimed, like in the Italian Renaissance. I don’t know how much that might not be common knowledge, I don’t know how common that is but during the Renaissance, there were Philosophers, Italian Philosophers in the Renaissance who will talk about Magic and they will also talk about Paganism and they would kind of reclaim the term in a more positive light. And I think that the term Paganism, as opposed to the term Shamanism, the term Paganism, I’m still trying to find a very clear way or the most accurate way to define it but I think there are certain core elements of contemporary Paganism and modern Paganism or contemporary Paganism, also started out as ‘others’ from the dominant culture and the dominant religion.

So it’s a bit like with the Satanists, even the atheistic Satanists. So they don’t literally worship Satan but they are still using the term to highlight that they are opposing the dominant religious system and all the morals and ethical values that it brings to the table, the cultural table. With Paganism and modern Paganism, you have a similar concept in that when contemporary Paganism became popular thanks to Wicca, which was and perhaps still is the most popular form of contemporary or modern Paganism. And it also started, I wouldn’t say in opposition, but it started as the other within a very Christian background in the case of Europe. So that sense of otherness that is brought about by the word pagan that idea that you live in contact with the earth and so that makes you less susceptible to endorsing a dominant religious system that disconnects you from the earth. That is something that I think might have been part of the adoption of this term by contemporary Practitioners because there is still the idea – I wouldn’t say that it is inherently derogatory but I’d say that Pagan and Paganism are inherently connected to the earth and perhaps we may say to being outliers, in a way.

ZS: That’s very interesting. I want to focus still on Shamanism a little more before moving to Paganism. I’m curious, my main interest is in metaphysics and part of what is being brought back from what you identified as the spirit realm, maybe this thing of healing and power and knowledge and those terms are certainly amorphous terms as well and perhaps difficult to define and culturally specific. And I’m curious to know a bit more about that but what I’m curious to know is, what is this sense of the spiritual realm. If there is a shared metaphysical conception of what this notion of the spirit realm is across what we’re calling shamanistic traditions, I’d be curious to know what that looks like and how that might relate to forms of metaphysics that we find in other traditions such as what we’ve been discussing here in Magic and Paganism and Mysticism. Do you see some sort of metaphysical structure a sort of conception of reality that can be situated in this larger conversation of these broader traditions specifically surrounding this idea of the spirit realm and its relationship with the realm of the mundane or however it’s defined?

AP: I’m not sure I understand your question. Is it about whether there are elements of Shamanism that are also found in other traditions that practice Magic or is it something different?

ZS: My question is, is there a shared metaphysics of Shamanism, is there a shed conception about the fundamental structure of reality the different shamanistic traditions or different traditions which we call shamanistic share?

AP: Oh, I think that there are parallelisms. I wouldn’t say that they all share the same worldview or the same concept of reality. There are parallelisms, Animism is very common as a religious framework. Animism is the concept that everything is sentient, so even inanimate objects, everything in reality, in our manifested world and everything literally has the same agency. We would say the soul but that’s not how, especially certain shamanic, traditions would call it. But the idea is that every element of reality is sentient and has inherent power and can be communicated with. So there is this sense of Animism is this idea that everything is connected to everything else and all the elements that are part of this web are equally sentient and equally able to communicate and share power and energy. So this is something that, I guess, you find across different Shamanisms and you also asked about other forms of traditions like Esotericism and Magic.

So that you can create a connection with something that is perhaps far away from you. And also the idea of correspondences is based on identifying what threads of the web are closer and that is not really linked to the physical distance. So if everything is an interconnected web and there are things that correspond to other things, it’s like finding the right thread that you can pull so that the thing that you want to attract or repel will lead to the desired result because if everything is connected and obviously the connection is not based on physical distance but on the correspondence between you and a specific object, a specific symbol, a specific allegory and a herb or a specific element that you can use. These are all things that will allow you to interact with this web, this interconnected fabric that reality is made of, in a way that you can affect your reality and what is happening around you. So I’d say that connection and also connection plays a role in the idea of communicating with the spirit world. So yes, perhaps Animism or a certain degree of Animism, the idea of connection, the connection or that everything is connected and the idea of correspondences, where you also find symbols and different elements that people employ in their magical practice to aid the reshaping of the fabric of reality.

ZS: That’s really helpful actually, that’s a very interesting framework to be working with. So Animism, a sense of interconnectivity and correspondences. The phrase you said that everything is an interconnected web, is some sort of general vision of reality. I think it’s very fascinating. I want to ask a question. I don’t know if it’s a fair question to ask a scholar as opposed to a practitioner. I’m just curious before I ask the question, do you at all, identify as a practitioner with any given tradition, if I may ask?

AP: I don’t share that publicly. So I don’t share publicly whether I am a practitioner or not. So I will have to pass. I will have to give that question a pass, I’m afraid.

ZS: I understand, that’s fine. So then I’m gonna have to ask you as a scholar then. If we can speculate as to why humans that we now see under this umbrella category of Shamanism came to see everything as belonging to an interconnected web of reality with deep correspondences and interconnectivity and the sense of the sentience or life pulsating throughout that web. Do you have a theory or a hunch or something as to why people came to adopt such a belief?

AP: Well there are, of course, the cases where there are people that were born in a culture that would also end with that kind of worldview but in other cases, especially in countries that are more influenced by the monotheistic religions, which are a bit distant from this view. I would say that, based on my fieldwork and the interviews and what I heard from my informants, I think that there is a point in people’s life where they have an experience that sort of breaks that dominant theoretical framework that tells you that things are separated and isolated. Also, sometimes Practitioners feel like what they experience, that sense of isolation given from the opposite worldview is impoverishing their experience in their daily life because there are lots of people that have that sense that you, as an individual, are not enough – there is a sense of not being enough and the perception of not being this isolated creature that is here to eat, pay taxes and decay and then die is not appealing to most people.

So I think that most of those who practice Magic want to explore a different way of interacting with reality a way that goes beyond that sense of separation and that sense of isolation and makes you have experiences that don’t tell you, from a dogmatic point of view or because a sacred book says so but makes you experience deeply and fully that sense of interconnection and that sense, that even if now you see yourself moving within a body, you can also move without a body like with experiences of astral projection, for instance. And even if you can see that there are certain limitations to what your hands can do, like you can lift the cup but and there are so many things that you can do but you can do more without touching things. So you can have a manipulative power in a way towards things that you cannot touch and for some people that may be a way of feeling empowered or even to feel like they are this big, fantastic magician that can do whatever and be all-powerful. But for other people, they draw from the magical practices, they don’t just draw a sense of power and agency and extended agency but also that reshapes the way they are in the world. Because the idea is that if I can act and if I can manipulate things without touching them then it means that I am connected to something that is far away from me.

ZS: Oh, I actually think that was a really great answer and I have some follow-up questions. It’s a shame that we don’t know if you’re a practitioner because if we could, I could have asked you just to astrally project here instead of doing this. We could have done it in astral projection. But what I heard was two things there which I think were quite fascinating and I’m thinking about this in relation to my own field of interest which is Mysticism. It seems that there’s both a push and a pull and then there are different possible goals or outcomes. So the push is something that you mentioned there’s an experience and there’s a really great phrase that you said that it experienced which challenges their dominant conception of reality, their dominant worldview towards a theory or towards the conception of reality which is much more interconnected and interdependent and corresponding as opposed to what they initially believed it was just a separate or isolated reality. I mean that’s in terms of there’s a push and there’s something there’s definitely a parallel there to Mysticism which has this contentious category called the mystical experience which also pushes people towards that worldview.

And then there’s also that which I would say is the pull into that way of thinking. You’re pulled by the experience, perhaps and there’s the push that people are living in a world where they don’t find it to be meaningful or to be gratifying, as you said, all they’re doing is eating, paying taxes and dying and that’s a push to get away from that to a conception of reality which is more fulfilling and more sustaining. So this push and pull model is very interesting both people escaping an unhappy or an unfulfilling conception of reality and those having experiences which challenge that conception and push them to something else. And I’m sure there’s a relationship between those and the communities which have those and then being in a space which already has those interpretations there’s obviously a lot going on there. But just trying to get to the nitty-gritty, that was one thing I want to come back to that. the other thing which you said which is quite interesting is that there are different drives in terms of what might motivate someone. For some people, it may just be a question of power, for some people may just be a question of knowledge and for some, it may be a question of coming towards more of a state of unity. I’m curious to know how you see Shamanism fitting in here if it can fit? It might not fit neatly into any category but there’s a certain, I’m not sure who proposed this but there’s at least, like a heuristic definition that Magic is generally more interested in increasing power, esotericism is generally more interested in hidden knowledge. So it’s increasing knowledge and then Mysticism, again these are all such like, amorphous categories, it’s hard to make any broad sweeping statements like this. That Mysticism may be more identified as the drive towards the state of unity, interconnectedness and love – I wonder if that’s a categorization which you at all I feel that it may be way too broad for you for your interest but…

AP: I’ve never come across this definition in my studies, to be honest.

ZS: Does it sound like something that you might entertain or something that is not even…?

AP: No I don’t think that’s true. I think that somebody who was interested in Mysticism must have elaborated it.

Well, I think that I understand where they come from but it is a massive oversimplification, I think, because from the outside, like the very outside from a different planet when you look at Mysticism what you see is that there is a lot of focus on knowledge. So I can understand that and when people talk about Magic they tend to focus on spells and spell casting but that’s an oversimplification because there have always been people who have practised Magic to seek unity. So that is also an aspect like if you read Giordano Bruno, once again from the Italian Renaissance, there is quite clearly this idea of interconnection and unity. So you do have a sense that Magic is only possible insofar as you are able to seek unity because if you are not part of that interconnection how can you even be able to interact with it and this is not something that everybody would agree on, obviously. But I’m just pointing out that there are Magic Practitioners and Magic traditions that have had a focus on the idea of seeking unity and what you would define as Mysticism. In fact, I’m preparing now a video on the Rider Waite Tarot deck and it’s quite serendipitous because the author, the lead creator which is Arthur Edward Waite, even though he was part of the Golden Dawn and an Esotericist, his primary interest was Mysticism and so even though he was part of traditions that were engaging with Magic he was kind of extrapolating what he was most interested in because his main purpose was what he called ‘divine unity’ and he was mostly interested in Mysticism. And he was trying to see what could he get from all of that knowledge around him and all of the symbolisms that were within Christianity and the other occult traditions that he was engaging with. He was trying to ultimately find a mystic unity, as I said he defined it as divine unity. So I also have an example from something that I’m reading and preparing these days, actually for my next YouTube video.

So I would think that that’s an oversimplification that comes from somebody who’s outside, yeah, which I can see where it comes from but I also have to point out that it is in our simplification.

ZS: I had a feeling that you wouldn’t be so happy with that broad characterization. I think that I actually want to return back to what was saying earlier about the push and pull toward these conceptions of reality. I think that if this conversation, I think if it’s continued it’s just gonna lead to like questions of no true Scotsman and like how do we define these people, are they magicians? Are they mystics? And I think what happens there is that our definitions begin to dictate the data as opposed to the other way around, which becomes problematic. And even I mean even the definition of Mysticism as someone who’s inherently seeking unity but the divine is also contested. Bernard McGinn rejects that definition and among many others. So let’s not pursue that just yet, maybe we can come back to it if we’re feeling up for the task. What I want to ask more is about this push and pull toward this conception of reality as fundamentally interconnected and corresponding, this web of reality. I’m curious to know and this may be more of a philosophical question than a scholarly question, I’m curious to know if you think that there is some validity, veracity, and verticality to this conception of reality. Is there any sense where the experience of the Shaman and their worldview has some sort of modern persuasiveness from a metaphysical standpoint?

AP: My answer would be yes but I also need to highlight that I don’t think that different worldviews are necessarily mutually exclusive. So yeah, I also have to say that I like that idea of push and pull as you explained it. So I think that defines quite well what people who engage with spiritual practices or religious mystical practices may feel. But yeah, to answer your question, I’d say yes because it affects changes in people’s lives. I think that one of the things about traditions that include some form of Magic or the belief in Magic is that these traditions, like Paganism and Shamanism, were not born especially when we analyse it in a western context, like in Italy, it’s not like people were born in a family that imposed that onto them. It’s something that they grew an interest in and it is quite common that experience needs to be at the forefront. So it’s not really like they have a belief system and then act in accordance with that belief system to prove – it’s kind of the other way around. So they tend to have the experiences first so in some cases somebody may have a spontaneous astral projection and then try and understand what’s happening to them. So I think the experience has a primary role for Practitioners of these traditions and as a consequence, I think that their worldview is persuasive in that it is mirroring their experience, it is giving an explanation and a framework to understand what they experience, whether that is true, it is something that I would argue cannot be said of anything. I don’t think there is a true Shaman or true Shamanism. I think that this idea of truthfulness is very dogmatic and it is something that only works when it is imposed over something rather than trying to understand what is. Like you can say, okay the true Catholic is what is the person that follows all the rules according to the Roman Catholic Church but how can you say whether somebody is a true Shaman, who’s the dictator of that? Obviously not us scholars because scholars, especially nowadays, are not anymore in the 19th century or early 20th century, where the Anthropologists at that time were like the armchair Anthropologists who would judge non-western attitudes as primitive and they had they were applying this evolutionary model that was very involved with biology even to the culture and so it’s like everything that came before us, is worse. So they had this idea that time goes from worse to better and so as a consequence everything that came before us or that appears to us as being linked to what we have overcome as a society – it means that it is primitive.

So yeah, I’d say that it is persuasive for them because it mirrors their experience and for Magic Practitioners experience comes first and theory comes after. And theory is important because as human beings we tend to create meaning. We are not just satisfied with experiencing things, we want terms and names and understandings. In a way, because knowledge is part of how we navigate reality and gives us meaning and purpose. And another way is because it makes things more predictable and more understandable and more as you have them in front of you. When you can name something it means that you are creating a distance because you are observing that phenomenon and giving it a name which means, if I’m the observer it means that I am separate from what I was observing and as a consequence that creates a distance that also allows me to see it and even change it and manipulate it if I want to. So it gives you a sense of control in a way but it is also we like to know as human beings, I would assume.

ZS: That was very helpful and I appreciate your switching the emphasis from truth to persuasion and the notion of why humans are trying to make sense of it and coming to name something which can have both effects it can also be a way to get close to something to be intimate with someone to call them by their name is a way of creating a relationship but also to create distance so we can begin to categorize and analyse. There’s an interesting idea that pops up in many ancient traditions when one would encounter a monster or a demon the way to gain control of it was by naming it and that idea of having the name means that you’re now able to observe it and you have some sort of control over it by naming it. That is a very interesting idea. I have to think about that. I’m curious to know. I know that part of your expertise is on modern forms, contemporary forms of both Paganism and Shamanism and other related traditions even though those that just the two are focusing on here today. I’m curious to know if you have an understanding or an explanation of firstly, if you could give us a brief description of those modern traditions and what’s happening there and I know I’m asking you for a lot here, so I appreciate it, and if you could tell us why perhaps that spread is happening and what is persuasive, for a modern person, that they’re now turning back to adopting these ancient,? all these indigenous traditions that they were not born into.

AP: Do you also want a definition of Shamanism? I thought I had covered that?

ZS: I would love an overview of contemporary movements of – I’m not sure what the correct terms are; whether that’s contemporary Shamanism or neo-Shamanism, neo-Paganism, where you see that spread happening and why perhaps that spread is happening? I know that I’m asking you very big questions here

AP: Which yeah, I’m just trying to answer your question. I’m not sure whether you want my question to be my answer to be only on Shamanism or Paganism

ZS: I mean the main bulk of the conversation has been on Shamanism. So if you’d like to focus on that you’re welcome to but I also I’m not sure what’s happening in the modern world. So the modern world of Paganism may be more interesting so whichever one you feel more interested in answering.

AP: And you want me to talk about why they spread?

ZS: Yeah, why might a modern person who grew up in a tradition that has no real connection to these other cultures is going ahead and adopting these practices and these beliefs?

AP: Yeah, that’s a very complex question. I don’t think that we could lump together Shamanism and Paganism, though. I guess with Shamanism, as I said, Shamanism tends to be more seen, especially by western Practitioners, as a set of spiritual techniques following the Eliade view on Shamanism but that is also the leading view from Practitioners. So the idea is that Shamanism is a technique to enter into contact with the spirit world to gain knowledge and power and so there are people who are also Christian and practice Shamanism. So that’s seen as a practice and it’s not threatening in a way to your religion even if you are following the dominant religious system, which of course, in the case of Italy’s Catholicism, whereas Paganism is considered more as a religion. So I would distinguish the two from the point of view of Practitioners, especially those of transcultural Shamanism and I’m aware that there is also the term neo-Shamanism – but I prefer not to use that because it tends to be used in a diminishing way. I prefer the term transcultural because it tells us more about what that form of Shamanism is about, which is that it is transcultural and focuses on the techniques rather than the cultural connection.

So with Shamanism, you find that people that are interested in healing in different ways or that they want to have a contact with the spirit world but they are not completely satisfied with their religious affiliation, even though they might still very well be Catholics and engage with shamanic practice, they see that as an experience having an experience of the divine, a direct connection with the spirit world and since, for my fieldwork, I have undertaken different workshops and retreats, shamanic retreats with transcultural shamanic Practitioners I can say that when they were travelling when they would do shamanic journey, which is the core practice for transcultural Shamans and you can travel to different worlds, the lower world, the middle world and the upper world. The upper world is meant to be where you can encounter higher spirits and deities. There were lots of people that would encounter Jesus or the Holy Mary and other figures from Christianity. So it was quite clear to me that transcultural Practitioners tend to see Shamanism as something that they practice on the side of another religious practice which is often either Paganism or Catholicism. Of course, I’m talking about Italy but from speaking with colleagues it seems to be quite the case in other European countries. So the idea that you have the dominant religion and then you have Paganism and then you will also have a group of Practitioners that would define themselves as spiritual. So they are not interested in a specific religion but just in the spiritual experience. And with Paganism, Paganism is, in a way, more challenging in terms of the dominant religion because that is considered to be a religion by most Practitioners, at least in my fieldwork. I know that there are other countries where Pagans would challenge the idea of their practice being considered a religion because they associate the term religion with the monotheistic religions and so they want to distinguish themselves from that kind of asset and from that specific way of interacting with the divine. But Paganism tends to be more challenging, in a way, that it is perceived more in opposition to Christianity and so most Pagans would not also practice Christianity. They would just be Pagans and in some cases, they might also engage in shamanic practices. In fact, that’s quite common and even in that case, it is perceived to be an added set of techniques that you have in your toolkit.

But Paganism tends to be more often defined as an umbrella term to identify earth-based and earth-worshipping religions. So people who are drawn to Paganism tend to be quite often people that feel a deep connection to the earth, a deep connection to the elements, you know, air, fire, water, and whatever I missed – air, no air, fire, water, and earth, yes I was speaking so much about earth that I had forgotten it. But yeah, as I was saying, usually Pagans tend to feel that the earth bears a sense of the divine and so that immanence that they feel, so that sense that the divine is immersed in nature, in the material world. That tends to be something that draws people who were born Christians or Catholics, in the case of Italy, they are drawn towards Paganism, because of that.

Then there’s also the practice of Magic which also can draw people to the practice of Paganism which is quite common among Pagans. And also it tends to be an option for those in the LGBTQ+ community or the queer people that feel excluded by Catholicism and Paganism is, on the other hand, quite inclusive and quite open to different, non-heteronormative approaches to one’s sexuality and the gender definition. So, that tends to be another component. In fact, in the contemporary pagan community in Italy but it seems to be not just the case in Italy, but I think it was quite prevalent in Italy perhaps because Catholicism in Italy is a bit more conservative than in other places, like in the UK. I can see that Catholicism here and Christianity, in general, is lived and perceived in a different way. So with Italy being very conservative still you can see that lots of contemporary Pagans are from the LGBTQ+ community so that’s also another element because perhaps they feel excluded from Catholicism and they might also have an interest in Magic or feel a connection to the earth and so that could lead them to exploring something else which is Paganism.

ZS: That was really, really wonderful. I love how like, any question which I ask, you have such an in-depth, comprehensive, fact-based answer. It’s really quite something and your fieldwork and your scholarship very much shine through all of your responses and I very, very much appreciate you making the time to share that knowledge with us. I feel like we’ve covered a very comprehensive, brief overview and introduction to Paganism and Shamanism, although more Shamanism, in both in historical senses in a theoretical sense and a mythological and now a bit of contemporary and I don’t want to take too much of your time. I want to maybe ask one last question, which is not directly related to these fields but related to your work here as an educator and as a YouTuber sharing academic knowledge. I’m curious to know, perhaps and this wasn’t part of the script, so I’m gonna launch this as a surprise. I’m curious to know what that work is like for you coming from a place where, academically, your work is being done very rigorously and most of the discussion is to an in-peer audience where you’re you’re working on layers and layers and layers of already established debates and definitions and terminologies, methodologies and things are so technical, and so precise, so specific – taking that information and bringing it to the public who, for most people, these terms are not terms who they have spent hundreds of hours trying to look at and getting a sense of the topic. And that knowledge, for me, I face similar challenges trying to distil that information. I’m curious to know how that experience has been for you? How have people been receptive to the information? I mean, I know if the numbers say anything that people are finding your content to be very educational and very value-giving and I’m curious to know from your side, how that challenge has been for you and how the reception has been for you.

AP: That’s a good question. So when I started my YouTube channel one of my aims was to bridge the gap between academia and the community of Practitioners and that is because I realized since I do field work and I do anthropological research, so I do have an interaction with Practitioners who are also my informants and I also go to conferences and I publish with other scholars. And I could see that there was such a big gap between the knowledge that Practitioners have access to and the knowledge that we have in the ivory tower and so I thought it was unfair because even though there is some scholarship that is open access and it’s not behind a paywall of any sort but people just wouldn’t know because the way you research things from an academic perspective is completely different. And it’s not a way of me saying all Practitioners are not good enough in their research, it’s just that it is a completely different training and understandably so. So I just wanted to bridge that gap and offer, in a very digestible and easy-to-access way, academic scholarship. And that’s why, in my YouTube videos, I always use peer-reviewed research. And when I use primary sources, which are texts written by other Practitioners, I always emphasize that in my reference list because I thought that it might be that Practitioners might be interested. And it seems to be the case that even by studying these practices I could tell, as other scholars have in the past, that Magic Practitioners tend to be very interested in academic scholarship and science. So I just felt that it was like why are you an academic scholar if you cannot even help Practitioners have access to the knowledge that you are trying to acquire through your methodology. So it’s like we try so hard to get the most accurate way of exploring and understanding this phenomenon and then it just stays amongst us. To me, it was like why though so it’s like why though?

And then I could see in fieldwork Practitioners were still citing Mircea Eliade from the 1950s and it’s like, wow I think that there’s something wrong with how we are doing this. Whereas there are certain things and certain knowledge and certain methods that are common knowledge among scholars but they are completely new to the community of Practitioners and that tells me that we are not very good at community, at communicating our studies and if our study and our research is not of help to the communities that we are studying, what’s the point anyway? So I thought that it would be a good idea to try. And at first, I said okay, I’m gonna try for a year and if nobody is interested I’m just gonna drop out of this project. But then it seemed that people are interested and slowly but steadily more people are joining the community which is really nice obviously. I’m not focused on numbers, I focus more on engagement. So the comments that people leave you and like when I hit 20 000 subscribers I got a comment from a person who said, how many lecture rooms would you need to fill in order to reach that kind of audience? And we have decided willingly to learn from you. And that there was a very nice comment but to me, it’s not just like they are learning from me but also that there is an exchange. I also learn from them or I hope that I’m learning something, I hope I am. And also, I’m quite proud of my Patreon community because they are all very bright and knowledgeable and honestly they are better than my students at university. It’s like if I tell them to do a reading they’re gonna do it and that’s very uplifting I also had for with my Patrons, it was I think, a month ago we had a session with my PhD supervisor, my former PhD supervisor and then afterwards she told me privately, she said wow, they’re amazing, they’re just so full of ideas and they’re very stimulating and thought-provoking. So yeah, I’m really proud of that community that I’m creating. However, that means that quite often I don’t even have a day off in a week but yeah, we will see what happens in the future and how things develop.

ZS: That’s really, really awesome. Thank you, thank you for sharing that with us, I think, firstly from someone who’s also part of your audience. I think that besides for your rigour and your scholarship and your attention to methodology, I think that your passion and your enthusiasm and your liveliness and joviality around the energy that you bring to the topic, I think is so important. And I think that a lot of the work perhaps that people see academia as boring and dry and old white men giving over lectures that everyone falls asleep in and I think that what you’re bringing is very fresh and very, very exciting in that regard. And this might be a bit tongue-in-cheek but we but the work that you’re doing to bridge the academic world, the ivory towers as you put it, with the communities of Practitioners, I think is very, very beautiful and one may even suggest that there is some sort of shamanistic element of the person who goes to contact the other realm to bring back knowledge and to bring some healing between those two realms, to transfer the knowledge so we can call you Dr Angela Puca, the Shaman of YouTube, bringing back that knowledge from the peer review journals, from behind – you’re going into the liminal places, behind the paywalls, into the conferences and bringing that information to us and for that, we’re very, very appreciative and I’m very appreciative that you made the time to sit here and answer all of these questions that I had and I hope they weren’t too broad and expansive and I hope that they weren’t too generalizing.

But thank you so much for taking the time and for sharing your wisdom and sharing your knowledge and may you continue to have much success and much nachas as we say in Hebrew. Much gratitude for continuing to share and continue to explore with all of us together. Thank you.

AP: Thank you so much for inviting me I think you were so nice and lovely that every time that I have a bad day, I’m gonna rewatch different parts of the interview. Yeah, I’m really glad that you think that of my work. And I also really enjoy your YouTube channel and I hope that it will be a success. I’m sure it will be a success and you totally deserve it.

ZS: Thank you very much, thank you.