Shamans Through Time

Description

A survey of five centuries of writings on the world’s great shamans-the tricksters, sorcerers, conjurers, and healers who have fascinated observers for centuries.

This collection of essays traces Western civilization’s struggle to interpret and understand the ancient knowledge of cultures that revere magic men and women-individuals with the power to summon spirits. As written by priests, explorers, adventurers, natural historians, and anthropologists, the pieces express the wonder of strangers in new worlds. Who were these extraordinary magic-makers who imitated the sounds of animals in the night, or drank tobacco juice through funnels, or wore collars filled with stinging ants?

Shamans Through Time is a rare chronicle of changing attitudes toward that which is strange and unfamiliar. With essays by such acclaimed thinkers as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Black Elk, Carlos Castaneda, and Frank Boas, it provides an awesome glimpse into the incredible shamanic practices of cultures around the world.Note to Readers
Introduction: Five Hundred Years of Shamans and Shamanism – Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley
Part One: The Christian View: “Ministers of the Devil”
1. “Devil Worship: Consuming Tobacco to Receive Messages from Nature” (1535) – Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo
2. “Ministers of the Devil Who Learn About the Secrets of Nature” (1557) – André Thévet
3. “Evoking the Devl: Fasting with Tobacco to Learn How to Cure” (1664) – Antoine Biet
4. The Shaman: “A Villain of a Magician Who Calls Demons” (1672) – Avvakum Petrovich
Part Two: The Humanist View Becomes Rationalist: From “Esteemed Jugglers” to “Imposters”
5. “The Savages Esteem Their Jugglers” (1724) – Joseph François Lafitau
6. “Shamans Deserve Perpetual Labor for Their Hocus-Pocus” (1751) – Johann Georg Gmelin
7. “Blinded by Superstition” (1755) – Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov
8. “Shamans Are Imposters Who Claim They Consult the Devil—And Who Are Sometimes Close to the Mark” (1765) – Denis Diderot and colleagues
9. Misled Imposters and the Power of Imagination (1785) – Johann Gottfried Herder
Part Three: Enter Anthropologists
10. Animism Is the Belief in Spiritual Beings (1871) – Edward B. Tylor
11. A White Man Goes to a Peaiman (1883) – Everard F. Im Tburn
12. The Angakoq Uses a Peculiar Language and Defines Taboos (1887) – Franz Boas
13. The-Man-Who-Fell-from-Heaven Shamanizes Despite Persecution (1896) – Wenceslas Sieroshevski
14. Shamanism Is a Dangerously Vague Word (1903) – Arnold Van Gennep
15. “Doomed to Inspiration” (1904) – Waldemar Bogoras
16. Ventriloquist and Trickster Performances for Healing and Divination (1908) – Vladimir Ilich Jochelson
17. “A Motley Class of Persons” (1908) – Roland B. Dixon
18. Seeking Contact with Spirits Is Not Necessarily Shamanism (1910) – Franz Boas
19. “The Shaman Practices on the Verge of Insanity” (1914) – Marie Antoinette Czaplicka
Part Four: The Understanding Deepens
20. Near-Death Experience (1929) Ivalo and Knud Rasmussen
21. Seeking Knowledge in the Solitude of Nature (1930) – Igjugârjuk and Knud Rasmussen
22. Summoning the Spirits for the First Time (1932) – Black Elk and John G. Neihardt
23. The Shaman’s Assistant (1935) – Sergei M. Shirokogoroff
24. Shamans Charm Game (1938) – Willard Z. Park
25. Climbing the Twisted Ladder to Initiation (1944) – Alfred Métraux
26. Aboriginal Doctors Are Outstanding People (1945) – Adolphus Peter Elkin
27. Shamans as Psychoanalysts (1949) – Claude Lévi-Strauss
28. Using Invisible Substances for Good and Evil (1949) – Alfred Métraux
29. The Shamanin Performs a Public Service with Grace and Energy (1955) – Verrier Elwin
30. “The Shaman Is Mentally Deranged” (1956) – George Devereux
31. Clever Cords and Clever Men (1957) Ronald Rose
32. Singing Multifaceted Songs (1958) – Vilmos Diószegi
33. !Kung Medicine Dance (1962) – Lorna Marshall
Part Five: The Observers Take Part
34. Smoking Huge Cigars (1956) – Francis Huxley
35. “I Was a Disembodied Eye Poised in Space” (1957) – R. Gordon Wasson
36. Fear, Clarity, Knowledge, and Power (1968) – Carlos Castaneda
37. “I Found Myself Impaled on the Axis Mundi” (1974) – Barbara Myerhoff
38. A Shaman Loses Her Elevation by Interacting with Observers (1977) – Maria Sahina and Alvaro Estrada
39. “I Felt Like Socrates Accepting the Hemlock” (1980) – Michael Harner
40. Experiencing the Shaman’s Symphony to Understand It (1987) – Holger Kalweit
Part Six: Gathering Evidence on a Multifaceted Phenomenon
41. A Washo Shaman’s Helpers (1967) – Don Handelman
42. Magic Darts, Bewitching Shamans, and Curing Shamans (1968) – Michael Harner
43. “Remarkably Good Theater” (1973) – John T. Hitchcock
44. Two Kinds of Japanese Shamans: The Medium and the Ascetic (1975) – Carmen Blacker
45. Music Alone Can Alter a Shaman’s Consciousness, Which Itself Can Destroy Tape Recorders (1975) – Dale A. Olsen
46. Shamans Are Intellectuals, Translators, and Shrewd Dealers (1975) – Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff
47. Shamans, Caves, and the Master of Animals (1979) – Walter Burkert
48. “Plant Teachers” (1984) – Luis Eduardo Luna
49. A Shaman Endures the Temptation of Sorcery (and Publishes a Book) (1990) – Fernando Payaguaje
50. Interview with a Killing Shaman (1992) – Ashok and Peter Skafte
51. Invisible Projectiles in Africa (1994) – Malidoma Patrice Somé
Part Seven: Global Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge Come Together and Remain Apart
52. Science and Magic, Two Roads to Knowledge (1962) – Claude Lévi-Strauss
53. Shamans, “Spirits,” and Mental Imagery (1987) – Richard Noll
54. Dark Side of the Shaman (1989) – Michael F. Brown
55. Shamans Explore the Human Mind (1990) – Roger Walsh
56. Training to See What the Natives See (1992) – Edith Turner
57. “Twisted Language,” a Technique for Knowing (1993) – Graham Townsley
58. Magic Darts as Viruses (1993) – Jean-Pierre Chaumeil
59. Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble: Tourists and Pseudo-Shamans (1994) – Marlene Dobkin de Rios
60. Shamans and Ethics in a Global World (1995) – Eleanor Ott
61. Shamans as Botanical Researchers (1995) – Wade Davis
62. Shamanism and the Rigged Marketplace (1995) – Piers Vitebsky
63. An Ethnobotanist Dreams of Scientists and Shamans Collaborating (1998) – Glenn H. Shepard
64. Shamans and Scientists (2000) – Jeremy Narby

Envoi
References and Permissions
Notes on the Editors’ Commentaries and Further Reading
Topical Index
Acknowledgments
About the Editors

Jeremy Narby, Ph.D. is the author of The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge. He lives in Switzerland.US

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