Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Bollingen Series)

The book helped me gain insight into the mind of shamanic practice and how it fits in with other mystical religious traditions. I would have liked more information on South American shamanism, but they at least have a useful reference. Exposure to new vocabulary and concepts gives me the ability to think in new ways.

I'm not sure why indie musicians are, by and large, such uninteresting people. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they all think that they are interesting people and therefore spend no time learning about new things or thinking about new ways to make themselves interesting to others. It's not like everyone has to be interesting: I don't expect a gas station attendant to engage me in sparkling conversation, but it seems that if one is going to create art/culture that this person would go out of their way to learn about new things, try new experiences, etc. Such is clearly NOT the case, here in San Diego, or anywhere else, for that matter. The indie music world often seems about as interesting to me as junior high. I don't have any truck with the social world of junior high, with it's cliques and posturing, but, simply put, it's a boring world. It's the same thing with the indie music world: Like junior high, but with bands. I was super excited to read Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy after seeing the citation in the Shape of Ancient Thought. I was even more excited when I realized that Wendy Doniger, my favorite scholar/professor, was mentored by this guy (Mircea Eliade is a Romanian, and a man, not a chick.) Shamanism was originally published in English (from the French) in 1951, but the book I have is a 2004 re-print with a new foreword by Doniger. Eliade's scholarship is a leetle out of date 50 years on, but that doesn't detract from the fact that this book was the first comprehensive approach to Shamanism that treated it as something other then a "degraded" "uncivilized" object of scorn. In fact, Shamanism appears to be the basis of all religious thought everywhere, showing up not only in the civilized religions of the Near East, West and East, but also in the indigenious peoples of Australia, New Guinea, Polynesia and North and South American. Shamanism is the closest things humans have to a "universal" religion prior to the emergence of the great world religions of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism (sorry Hindus!!!!) So what is Shamanism? Eliade defines Shamanism as religious practice governed by the reaching of non-conscious ecstatic states by the Shaman. During this state, the Shaman travels to the sky or the underworld and rescues the souls of the sick/ill etc. That is Shamanism in a nut shell, but it's the description of the ritual ascents and descents that I found most interesting. I don't want to spoil the joys of the world tree, the soul egg and the bridge for those who might actually read this book, but suffice it to say that Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, contains enough food for thought to keep the reader thinking for months. Also, all the quoted sources are in Russian or German, so you don't have to worry about follow up reading.

As I read other reviews, I am alarmed by the large number praising Mircea Eliade's work as thorough, detached, and scientific. The past forty years in the field of Comparative Religion (or,as Eliade founded it, "The History of Religion[s]") has done everything to disprove Eliade's work and the work of other modernists (though, I did my thesis in defense of Eliade's paradigm for the religious). However, as a student of religion, the study of religion has lost its humor - many are too afraid to admit that patterns exist. Mircea Eliade and all of his work is a product of its time. While 'incorrect' and relying on bad data (due primarily to his armchair anthropology and bad translations), Eliade sought to prove the existence of a universal religious at a time when humanity had all but lost its faith in goodness. This is certainly not one of my favorite pieces by Eliade as it is one of the least poetic (and, after all, Eliade's enterprise was admittedly poetic). If you are looking for a good introduction to Eliade's overarching theory, I encourage readers to consult his "The Sacred and the Profane" (a shorter version of "Patterns in Comparative Religion"). Eliade boldly asserted that all humanity is religious. Unfortunately, his route for achieving that conclusion was flawed.

Mircea Eliade is recognized world-wide as a gifted historian of religion. His book on Shamanism is very thorough introduction to the topic. Keep in mind that when I saw "introduction", this 648 page book is not your basic beach read; it is a scholarly introduction to a vast topic. Eliade, however, writes very well and makes this interesting topic compelling reading.

If you are at all serious about the subject or practice you have to read this book, it's all in here, it's an account that is totally un-newageified if that makes any sense, you can make up your own mind some of it's touching some of it's light and soul saving and some of it's just the makings of down and dirty ritual at it's most transparent that you will find in any book.

Anyone interested in shamanism, needs to read this book.

Ultimate encyclopedic reference book on shamanism around the world. As others have noted, it is not a primary source, but a secondary source that organizes and assesses all the primary source studies available, which allows the author to write about the cross-cultural similarities especially among cultures that have never encountered each other. Some knowledge of the time period during which the author was writing must be taken into account to explain any colonialist/etc. undertones, but the author clearly has a respect for the various magical and spiritual traditions and this shows.

Greatest book on shamanism yet written. If you want to learn about shamanism, across a wide array of practices, learn about rituals, find deeper patterns and meaning in the practice, this is the book for you. Essentially, if you have any kind of interest in shamanism that isn't satisfied by Google, then this is the book you're looking for. It goes beyond the lay understanding, by far. You may be a believer by the end.

Como tudo o que escreveu Mircea Eliade, este volume é fundamental para quem estuda grupos religiosos do mundo todo. Erudito, acessível, bem informado, bem escrito. Compre agora antes que suma do mercado!

I don't normally write reviews for books but felt the one review giving one star for this book to be so unjust that it deserved a more balanced addition. This book is a scholarly meticulously researched study of the various practises of shamanism throughout the world. It does not provide you with a description of the techniques of how to be a shaman, nor how to have an ecstatic journey, nor how to have an out of body experience, which is presumably what the one star reviewer was looking for. Instead it provides a detailed description of shamanism as it was and is practised. There are over 50 pages of reference works on which Eliade drew in order to provide this summary, which groups his findings by region as well as by certain common practises - parallel myths symbols and rites. There are descriptions of the 'rebirth' experiences of shamans [the genuine near death experiences, not the common interpreation now used of born again]; the practises of healing, the travels of the shaman in out of body experiences, their roles as psychopomp and their practise of healing via 'soul retrieval'. He also describes 'soul loss' and what it means to each group. The amount of carefully researched detail that is provided is astonishing, it is almost a life's work but carefully organised into this relatively compact volume. It draws on the work of anthropologists and the better and more serious researchers of religions, as such it is also reliable in its findings. Personally I found this book to be a treasure house of information - but then I bought the book knowing what it contained and what I was going to use it for. To summarise - an invaluable scholarly work on shamanic practises throughout the world over the ages .

An excellent research reference. Very good elucidation of archaic cosmology and shamanic method. Especially strong when read in tandem with History of Religious Ideas 1-3. Note however that this is a heavily footnoted work and is not necessarily a good book if you are looking for an introduction to the topic.

Amazing book with a very descritive shaman pratices of other cultures.

This is probably the most comprehensive amalgamation of shamanism there is. This is a vast and broad subject that has been tackled very well and is a great piece of scholarship. Anyone who has even a passing interest in what shamanism is all about should really read this piece of work. Needless to say there are many books out there that possess the the concept of shamanism in the title but they generally tend to err towards a ideological meaning and skirt around the real content of what shamanism is essentially about. A great piece of work for people interested in society, psychology, religions origins and anthropology. The only area it seems to be lacking in is a neurological view of shamanism (which is understandable given the date of the book).