This talk examines the contested conceptual terrain underpinning contemporary understandings of “Celtic shamanism,” a late‑modern spiritual phenomenon that draws creatively on Celtic cultural heritage, academic discourse, and globalized (neo)shamanic imaginaries. Although often presented as a revived ancestral tradition, Celtic shamanism emerges from a dynamic interplay between alternative spiritualities, Romantic constructions of “the Celt,” and scholarly attempts since the early twentieth century to identify shamanic patterns in Celtic historical sources. Tracing how different stakeholders negotiate the meanings of both “Celtic” and “shamanic”, the presentation foregrounds the interpretative, ideological, and methodological tensions that pertain to the study of this topic.

Many practitioners position Celtic shamanism as the indigenous religion of northwestern Europe, thereby drawing on notions of ancestral continuity, spiritual locality, and shared histories of colonial oppression to forge a sense of legitimate belonging. Such framing intersects uneasily with long‑standing primitivist and romanticized depictions of the Celts as inherently mystical and visionary; a legacy that continues to inform both popular and academic imaginations in various guises.

By disentangling the shifting “indigenizing discourses” that constitute Celtic shamanism, this presentation highlights some of the underlying issues at stake in the broader ongoing debates over who has the authority to interpret the Celtic past and to determine what counts as authentic religious heritage. The discussion illustrates how authority and authenticity within this field function less as fixed historical criteria than as negotiated, situational, and often highly subjective constructs. Understanding how these contested concepts operate offers insight into wider processes of identity formation, heritage production, and the continuing appeal of imagined ancestral traditions in the contemporary spiritual landscape.