i asked Chat GPT if there were any essays linking pop music performance to shamanism ...

Yes — there **are academic essays, book chapters, and scholarly articles that explore the connection between **popular musicians’ performance (and music performance in general) and concepts drawn from shamanism — especially in terms of trance, altered states, ecstatic experience, and the performer as a liminal/ritual figure. Here are some important examples you can look up:

🔎 Academic Articles & Essays

“I’ve Got a Spirit Coming through Me”: Music as Hierophany and Musicians as Shamans
Mark Jennings (Journal for the Academic Study of Religion) – This article explicitly discusses the comparison between ecstatic Pentecostal music, popular music performance, and shaman-like symbols using Mircea Eliade’s concepts of hierophany and shamanism. It treats musicians as figures who facilitate proto-religious experiences in listeners.
Techno-shamanism and the Economy of Ecstasy as a Religious Experience (book chapter in Pop Pagans: Paganism and Popular Music)
Alan Nixon and Adam Possamai examine how electronic dance music scenes and rave culture evoke “religious” or shaman-like ecstatic experiences, framing performers and participants in these subcultures through a shamanic lens.
The Figure of Shaman as the Potential Model of Leader in Music and Musical Education
Magda Bałajewicz explores the shaman as a model for musical leadership and transformation, linking this archetype to pop culture and performance pedagogy.

📚 Books & Book Chapters with Relevant Themes

While not always focused solely on pop musicians, these works frame music performance in a way that’s useful for comparative study:

Mircea Eliade – Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy — A classic foundational text on shamanism and ecstatic experience; its framework is often applied in studies of music and performance.
Jonathan Weinel – Inner Sound: Altered States of Consciousness in Electronic Music and Audio-Visual Media — Includes discussion of shamanic ethos in sound and trance practices relevant to electronic/pop music.

🧠 Related Scholarly Themes

Even if not strictly about pop music, these topics are tightly connected to your question and appear in scholarly discourse:

Music & trance rituals — Some ethnomusicology articles compare psycho-physiological effects of trance rituals and contemporary performance, which can inform a shamanic reading of pop performance.
Music and shamanism methodologies — Surveys of how music functions within shamanic practices, useful as background theory for linking performance styles to shamanic practices.

📌 Examples in Practice

Although not peer-reviewed academic work, discussions in music and cultural criticism sometimes apply similar ideas, e.g., linking K-Pop performance to mudang (Korean shamanic) traditions, or DJs as contemporary ritual-like figures (popular forums and essays).

🧠 How to Use This in Your Research

If you’re writing an essay or thesis:

Theoretical grounding: Start with Eliade’s and Jennings’s discussions of shamanism and ecstatic experience.
Case studies: Use the techno-shamanism discussion to look at EDM and rave culture’s ritualistic dimensions.
Comparative perspective: Draw parallels between indigenous shamanic performance models and how specific pop musicians (e.g., trance DJs, ritual-like live shows, ecstatic audience engagement) function in contemporary culture.

If you want, I can also help locate full-text links or recommend where to find PDFs of these papers — just tell me what format you prefer (e.g., open access, university repositories).

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