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Tulitanssi – askeleita samaanin polulla, Jaana Kouri, SKS Kirjat, 2024.

Tulitanssi – askeleita samaanin polulla is a narrative non-fiction book. Jaana Kouri is a researcher in the field of religious studies and an adjunct professor at the University of Turku. She studies the relationship between humans and their environment and has practiced shamanism for about thirty years. The framework of Tulitanssi is Jaana’s own life, starting from her childhood in the 1960s, which she writes from a shamanistic perspective: how did a child from an ordinary middle-class family become interested in folk tales, the spiritual side of the environment, and especially shamanism? And then what happened?

In Tulitanssi, Jaana’s personal experiences alternate with informational sections about contemporary shamanism in Finland. However, it is not a handbook but a story about how shamanism has influenced her everyday life and research work. For Jaana, shamanism is a healing method, a spiritual path, and the act of making the invisible visible through writing. The book also explores the shamanistic worldview, spiritual teachers, and undertaking a shamanic journey. It demonstrates how healing power and guidance received from the spiritual realm affect everyday life – when a person is willing to interact with the environment, the spiritual world, and the forces of nature. And to do their part for the well-being of all living things.

Jaana also shares what it means to be a researcher of shamanism, especially an autoethnographer, as well as a practitioner and teacher of shamanism.