The Society for Shamanic Practitoners has announced a new journal, The Journal of Shamanic Practice: Exploring Traditional and Contemporary Shamanism, with a first issue due out in February, 2008.

The journal is intended to provide an international forum for publication and discussion of scholarly, peer-reviewed, and methodologically sound work focusing on the practice of traditional and contemporary shamanism in historical and cultural context. The journal will include work on the relationships between shamanism and the expressive and healing arts. The intention is to be interdisciplinary, experimental, inclusive, and accessible to a broad readership. Full disclosure: I am honored to be one of the editors of this journal.

The Journal of Shamanic Practice addresses the practice of shamanism: what shamans do and why they do it, in a way that honors the cultural diversity inherent in this field. It is intended to include perspectives from a multiplicity of voices and to explore both the traditional practices of shamanic people around the world as well as all types of contemporary shamanism.

The journal will pay particular attention to the underlying principles that inform shamanic practice and will provide a means to understand how shamanism is re-emerging and integrating itself into contemporary societies.