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Shamanism
Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy Mircea Eliade Pages: 612 Search
Alibris Used Books |
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Foreword |
| Description > |
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Shamanism is preeminently a religious phenomenon of Siberia and
Central Asia; throughout this vast area, the magico-religious life
of society centers on the figure of the shaman, at once magician and
medicine man, healer and miracle-doer, psychopomp, priest, mystic,
and poet. The same phenomena and techniques occur elsewhere in Asia,
in Oceania, in the Americas, and among the ancient Indo-European
peoples. - Publisher Writing as a historian of religion, Eliade synthesizes the approaches of psychology, sociology, and ethnology to study the figure of the shaman, at once magician and medicine man, healer and miracle-doer, psychopomp, priest, mystic, and poet. |
| Reviews/Excerpts > |
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Reviews: Healer and psychopomp, the shaman is these because he commands the techniques of ecstasy--that is, because his soul can safely abandon his body and roam at vast distances, can penetrate the underworld and rise to the sky. Through his own ecstatic experience he knows the roads of the extraterrestrial regions. He can go below and above because he has already been there. The danger of losing his way in these forbidden regions is still great; but sanctified by his initiation and furnished with his guardian spirits, the shaman is the only human being able to challenge the danger and venture into a mystical geography. - The Readers Catalog Excerpts: The importance of the intoxication sought from hemp is further confirmed by the extremely wide dissemination of the Iranian term through Central Asia. In a number of Ugrian languages the Iranian word for hemp, bangha, has come to designate both the preeminently shamanic mushroom Agaricus muscarius (which is used as a means of intoxication before or during the seance) and intoxication ... The hy mns to the divinities refer to ecstasy induced by intoxication by mushrooms. These facts prove that the magico-religious value of intoxication for achieving ecstasy is of Iranian origin. But what does this prove concerning the original shamanic experience? Narcotics are only a vulgar substitute for "pure" trance. We have already had occasion to note this fact among several Siberian peoples; the use of intoxicants (alcohol, tobacco, etc.) is a recent innovation and points to a decadence in shamanic technique. Narcotic intoxication is called on to provide an imitation of a state that the shaman is no longer capable of attaining otherwise. Decadence or (must we add?) vulgarization of a mystical technique-in ancient and modern India, and indeed all through the East, we constantly find this strange mixture of "difficult ways" and "easy ways" of realizing mystical ecstasy or some other decisive experience. (pages 400-401)
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