Sacred Hoop Magazine
Sacred Hoop Magazine is a UK-based, international magazine on the subject of Shamanism. Founded in 1993, the magazine is published four times a year in both paper and electronic formats, and is currently based in Abercych, Pembrokeshire, West Wales in the UK.
The magazine was founded by Jan Morgan Wood (now called Faith Nolton) and Nicholas Breeze-Wood, both of whom have been involved in teaching and promoting shamanism in the UK since the mid-1980s. The magazine was initially created as a way to network those in the UK interested in shamanism and the medicine traditions of the Native Americans, but now Sacred Hoop is much broader in both the material it covers and those it seeks to provide the material too.
Originally the magazine was devoted almost entirely to Native American spirituality, but over the years it has grown into a respected source of articles covering a wide range of earth-based shamanic and animistic cultural traditions from around the world. Sacred Hoop is regarded by many to be the foremost magazine on the subject in the world.
The magazine draws its readership from those who are attracted to 'green spirituality,' people often feeling out-of-sorts with Western mainstream consumerist society. Although generally regarded as a new-age magazine, the articles in Sacred Hoop however cover many aspects of traditional shamanism and Central Asian Buddhism, including accounts of traditional healings, teachings on aspects of shamanism and the history and use of ritual objects, and draws upon many areas of anthropological research. The style of the magazine however is pragmatic rather than academic.
The magazine also includes articles written by those in the West such as artists and psychotherapists who are trying to bridge the ancient shamanic traditions with more orthodox Western understandings of reality and the human condition.
In 2013, with issue 80 of the magazine, Sacred Hoop stopped its regular paper subscription and switched all its subscribers over to digital subscriptions. The magazine continued to provide paper copies of each issue for those who require them using the print-on-demand service provided by MagCloud.