He’s credited with predicting the financial crisis and helping Russian athletes win gold in the 2004 Olympic Games: Shaman Valentin Hagdaev claims to have sacred gifts and healing powers.
Hagdaev’s followers include some well known Russian celebrities as well as ordinary people. However, his feet are firmly planted in the modern world

DRESSED in ankle-length vermilion robes, adorned with hundreds of tiny cracked mirrors, the witch-hunters had first been spotted by watchmen, through the flames of their campfires, emerging from the bush in the dead of night.

Aroky Bajung, a mother of six, was one of the first sleeping villagers to wake. She caught fleeting glimpses of ceremonial gowns glinting in the moonlight as the tall strangers flitted between houses like ghosts. She grabbed her children and cowered under her bed, praying for morning to come

An unusual experiment featuring equal parts science, environmental optimism and Native American capitalist ambition is unfolding here on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southwest Colorado.>>>

Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami shaman from the Brazilian Amazon, dubbed "the Dalai Lama of the rainforest," says, "I'm asking all governments to sign ILO 169 to guarantee our rights." ILO Convention169, which marks its twentieth anniversary this year, is the only international law to recognize and protect the land rights of indigenous and tribal peoples.

It is also a key instrument in the battle to save the world's rainforests, putting control of the land back in the hands of the people who have looked after it for generations. >>>

Budapest is known for its extraordinary beauty, its incredible spas and its historical parks like the Memento Park. But we must not underestimate the incredible hidden treasures of the city. Below its historic castle there is a particular labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways to discover. Many of these underground labyrinthes date back to the Middle Ages and are absolutely dark. >>>