A new book entitled “Turkish Shamanism Beyond Consciousness and Memory” by Fuzuli Bayat, Head of the Department of Folklore Theory at the Institute of Folklore of ANAS, Doctor of Philological Sciences and Professor, has been published in Ankara, Türkiye.

The study can be characterized as the theoretical culmination and scholarly foundation of the six books the author has written on Turkish shamanism. Rather than viewing shamanism merely as a remnant of the historical past, the book examines it as a phenomenological mode of thought and an epistemic system associated with knowledge, memory, ritual, the body and experience. Instead of focusing primarily on the question of what shamanism is, the study seeks to answer why it has endured and what underlying factors have sustained its existence as a system of thought.

The book consists of ten main chapters, as well as sections entitled “Foreword”, “Afterword”, “Sources” and “Index.” Its chapters follow a systematic progression, beginning with the conceptual and theoretical framework of Turkish shamanism and proceeding to its historical manifestations, ritual and cosmological characteristics, relations with various religious systems, shamanic knowledge and trance experience, anthropological and psychological approaches, female shamanism and the socio-cultural functions of the shaman. The continued existence of shamanism is examined not merely as a historical process but as a transforming and adaptive phenomenological discipline.

In this book Fuzuli Bayat moves beyond viewing Turkish shamanism solely as a religious and mythological phenomenon of the past, evaluating it instead in the context of knowledge, memory, the body, ritual and cultural continuity. In this respect, the principal contribution lies in bringing the theoretical reconsideration of Turkish shamanism from the contemporary perspectives of folkloristics, anthropology, and psychology to the forefront of scholarly discussion.

It should be noted that the 405-page book was published in 2026 by Publishing House “Bilgem”.