HORWITZ, JONATHAN

Neo-shamanicpractitioner who founded theScandinavian Center for Shamanic Studiesin 1986, and withAnnette Høstoffers such basic and advanced workshops as “The Shaman’sJourney,” “Shamanic Counselling Training,” and “SoulRetrievalTraining.” Horwitz was a faculty member of theFoundationfor Shamanic Studiesfor eight years, and the practices of Horwitz and Høst are very much influenced bycore shamanism, including Høst’s work on Nordic (Northern European)seidr. As a practitioner, Horwitz has been critical of anthropological approaches to shamanic practice asperformance, sensing a devaluing of genuine experience and the “reality” that shamans actually engage withspirits. This practitioner perspective is a fitting response to atheistic, empiricist, and skeptical scholars, but does neglect the important contribution the discourse of performance offers to studies on shamanism in moving analysis away from the veracity of belief to the nuances of what shamans do.