Karloff’s first experience with shamans came at the age of six, when his mother took him on a trip to Sri Lanka. When he was sixteen he visited Siberia for the first time. More recently he completed a dissertation on the ways Buryat shamans use the internet to develop perceptions of their power, both in Russia and abroad.

I spoke with Karloff on the 28th of May 2021, a few months after the US Capitol riots. Parts of the conversation were inspired by an article he had written for an Italian cultural site regarding the media’s treatment of Jake Angeli, aka the QAnon Shaman.

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