Becoming Half Hidden: Shamanism and Initiation Among the Inuit / Edition 1

by Daniel Merkur

Overview

First Published in 1993.This study seeks to analyze shamanism and initiation from the perspective of shamans, rather than from the laity's point of view. One of the aims of this research has been to get behind the shamans' language in order to understand their experiences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815307839
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/01/1992
Series:	Garland Reference Library of the Humanities , #1559
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 A Study in Esoterica; Chapter 2 The Fiction of the Healed Healer; Chapter 3 The Ecstasies of Inuit Laity; Chapter 4 The Varieties of Ecstatic Seance; Chapter 5 The Pattern of Shamanic Initiations; Chapter 6 The Initiator’s Role; Chapter 7 The Vision Quest; Chapter 8 The Journey to the Moon and the Sun; Chapter 9 Helping Spirits and Shamanic Power; Chapter 10 The Seances of Commencement;

Editorial Reviews

Draws on psychoanalytic criteria to demonstrate that the traditional shamans among the Inuit of North America are expert in the religious uses of alternative psychic states, and that the sleight-of-hand, ventriloquism, and other tricks that have led other researchers to label them pathological personalities and charlatans, are merely dramatizations of invisible happenings for the benefit of their non-adept audience. Includes new findings of visualization techniques. Revised from a 1985 doctoral thesis for the University of Stockholm. No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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