Wolf-Dieter Storl

Wolf-Dieter Storl (born October 1, 1942) is a trained professional anthropologist, has concerned himself with shamanism and healing in traditional societies. Over the years, he was confronted with the fact that in all cultures plants play an overriding role in all aspects of life, including sacred symbolism, magic, medicine, foods and poisons. This shamanistic and ethnobotanic focus is, so to speak, the recurrent theme of his work.

Biography

Early years

Storl was born in Saxony, Germany. When he was eleven years old, his family emigrated to rural Ohio, where he grew up, spending most of his free time exploring nature. 1966 he received a BA in Anthropology from the Ohio State University. The following year he conducted participant research at a traditional Spiritualist Community, where he was introduced to shamanism in practice. He received an MA in Sociology at Kent State University, (Ohio) and was appointed as a full-time instructor of sociology and anthropology.

Career

During the years 1970-1971 he conducted post graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Vienna, and taught American college students studying in their year abroad at the Institute for International Studies. He carried out a field research project in an anthroposophic community near Geneva, which was engaged in bio-dynamic farming and taking care of mentally handicapped. As an American Exchange Scholar (Fulbright Scholar) he received his PhD (magna cum laude) at the University of Berne (Switzerland) in 1974, with a dissertation entitled „Shamanism among Americans of European Origin“. In the following years he taught anthropology at Rogue Community College in Oregon, conducted participant research on a traditional peasant farm in the Emmental, Switzerland, and among vignerons in the Charente-Maritime, France and taught cultural ecology at the University of Berne, Switzerland (1979–80).

In 1982 he spent a year as an official visiting scholar at the Benares Hindu University, Varanasi, India. After returning to the United States in 1984, he spent much time with traditional medicine persons of the Cheyenne and taught courses at Sheridan College, Wyoming. After another term in India and Nepal, he and his wife moved to Germany where he began to write books as a free lance writer and lecturer.

Since that time, Storl has traveled and researched in South Asia, India, Mexico, the Canary Islands, South Africa and much of Europe, pursuing ethnobotanical and ethnomedicinal interests. Much of what he has learned from Indian sadhus and from peasant folk healers and herbalists in various countries has found expression in numerous articles and in some 25 books. The books and articles, written mostly in German, have been translated into various languages, such as English, Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Japanese, Danish, Lithuanaian, Latvian and Czech. Storl is a frequent guest on German, Swiss and Austrian television, and has appeared on the BBC. He lives with his family and a number of pets in the forested foothills of the Alps in southern Germany, where he gardens, collects herbs, conducts ethnobotanic studies and writes his books.

Publications

References and external links

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