13.5: For Further Reading

Recommended articles in the Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987) include Shamanism; Healing; Exorcism; Spirit Possession; Demons; Spells; Prophecy, Power, Miracles; Glossolalia; Visions; Shugendo; En no Gyoja; Mahasiddhas; Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, and Cult of Saints.

Carmen Blacker, The Catalpa Bow: A Study of Shamanistic Practices in japan (London: Allen and Unwin, 1975). The entire book by Blacker, from which the excerpts above have been taken, is strongly recommended.

John Blofeld, The Way of Power: A Practical Guide to the Tantric Mysticism of Tibet (London: Allen and Unwin, 1970; reprint Boulder, CO: Prajna Press, 1982). An introduction to Tantric Buddhism with shamanic elements.

H. Byron Earhart, A Religious Study of the Mount Haguro Sect of Shugendo: An Example of Japanese Mountain Religion (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1970). The most thorough study available in English of the practices of a specific sect of Shugendo.

Ruth-Inge Heinze, Trance and Healing in Southeast Asia Today (Berkeley, CA: Independent Scholars of Asia, 1988). While not limited to Buddhism, this study of shamanism in Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore presents several case studies of Buddhist shamans in Southeast Asia.

Melford E. Spiro, Burmese Supernaturalism (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967). Treats shamanic phenomena in a predominantly Theravada Buddhist context, but for the most part they are distinguished from Buddhism proper.

Rinbochay Khetsun Sangpo, Tantric Practice in Nying-ma, trans. Jeffrey Hopkins and Anne Klein (London: Rider, 1982). An in-depth exploration of one of the sects of Tibetan Buddhism that incorporates shamanic elements.

Stanley J. Tambiah, Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in Northeast Thailand (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Like Spiro, Tambiah treats shamanic phenomena in a predominantly Theravada Buddhist context.

Paul Wirtz, Exorcism and Healing in Ceylon (Leiden, Netherlands: E. ]. Brill, 1954). Like Spiro and Tambiah, Wirtz treats shamanic phenomena in a predominantly Theravada Buddhist context.

Stevan L. Davies, Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance, and the Origins of Christianity (New York: Continuum, 1995). An examination of Jesus as a spirit-possessed healer from the standpoint of contemporary anthropological studies of religious trance, possession, and healing practices.

Eleanor Dickinson and Barbara Benziger, Revival! (New York: Harper and Row, 1974). A somewhat impressionistic photographic introduction to small-town Southern Appalachian Pentecostal Christianity, accompanied primarily by lengthy quotation of participants. It includes coverage of the curious practices of snake handling and drinking of poison.

David E. Harrell, Al! Things Are Possible: The Healing and Charismatic Revivals in Modern America (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1975). Excellent survey of postWorld War II healing revivals and revivalists in America.

Francis MacNutt, Healing (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1974). The most widely respected classic exposition of healing prayer-for physical healing, psychological healing, and exorcism-in the Charismatic movement.

Agnes Sanford, The Healing Light, rev. ed. (Plainfield, N]: Logos International, 1972). One of the earliest important publications guiding the practice of healing prayer in the Charismatic movement, by an extraordinary Episcopalian laywoman who was something of a Christian shaman herself.

Gerhardus C. Oosthuizen, The Healer Prophet in Afro-Christian Churches (New York: E. J. Brill, 1992). An interesting introduction to the spontaneous rise of shamanic practices in independent South African Christian groups in response to the needs of the people and in competition with non-Christian shamanic practices.

William Joseph Sneck, Charismatic Spiritual Gifts: A Phenomenological Analysis (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981). The entire book by Sneck, from which the excerpts given above have been taken, is well worth studying. His first chapter contains a fine critical discussion of previous studies of charismatic prophecy, faith healing, and exorcism and of the Charismatic movement.

Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972). An excellent overview of the whole Pentecostal and Charismatic movements from their origins in the nineteenth-century Holiness movement.

Patricia Treece, Nothing Short of a Miracle: The Healing Power of the Saints (New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 1988). A longer historical view of the spiritual gift of healing in the Christian tradition, especially in the Roman Catholic tradition.

John Wimber with Kevin Springer, Power Healing (San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row, 1987). An informative introduction to the ministry of faith healing by the leader of one of the fastest growing denominations to emerge within the Charismatic Movement, the Vinyard Christian Fellowship. It is remarkable for its generous use of common sense and its readiness to learn from the hard-won lessons of his predecessors and avoid their mistakes.