Alan Cohen is part of a rare species, a marxist who has had a life-long interest in shamanism and the so-called ‘mystical’ traditions of humanity. Long ago, in 1976, he was awarded a Bachelor of Letters at Oxford for his thesis, ‘The Small Grey Bird, a study of forms and patterns in shamanism and ecstatic experience’ and, more recently, is the author of ‘The Decadence of the Shamans: shamanism as a key to the secrets of communism’, published as a booklet by the Radical Anthropology Group in 2012.