California Dreamin’. Die Erfindung des Neoschamanismus als mediumistische Probe des 20. Jahrhunderts

Mediumism – i. e. the testing of the capabilities and potentials of technical media and human mediums – was, within the context of an intense public debate between religious and secular interests, the subject of controversy throughout the long 19th century. This debate subsided when a psychological and immanent interpretation of negotiated mediumistic effects became dominant in the public sphere. In spite of this process of immanentization, the testing of mediumistic capabilities and the potential of humans has not disappeared in the 21st century and has even resulted in new controversies. From its beginning, mediumism has been a transatlantic approach and, following the contemporary actors and controversies, has led to California in particular as a region in which new institutions of the mediumistic trials of the 20th century were invented, popularized, and globalized. In analyzing the work, writings and reception of Mircea Eliade, Carlos Castaneda and Michael Harner, this article shows that with the invention of neoshamanism, the debate, at least partly, has nearly reached the level it had in the 19th century

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