3.8.4: On the Way of Shamanic Mediation

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Recommended articles in the Encyclopedia ofReligion, edited by Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), include Shamanism; Power, Miracles; Visions; Healing; Prophecy, Oracles; Divination; Glossolalia; Ecstasy, Spirit Possession; Demons; Exorcism; Necromancy, Geomancy, Tbeurgy, Witchcraft; Magic; Spells, Occultism; and articles on specific religious traditions exemplifying the way of shamanic mediation.

A useful survey of manifestations of the way of shamanic mediation in the religious traditions of the world is Denise L. Carmody and John T. Carmody, Shamans, Prophets, and Sages: A Concise Introduction to World Religions, Part 1: "Shamans" (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1985).

A good introduction to the variety of shamanic phenomena and shamanic traditions can be found in I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study ofSpirit Possession and Shamanism (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1971); Gary Doore, ed., Shaman's Path (Boston, MA: Shambhala Books, 1988); Shirley Nicholson, ed., Shamanism: An Expanded View ofReality (Wheaton, IL: Quest, 1987); and Joan Halifax, ed., Shamanic Voices: A Survey ofVisionary Narratives (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979). One of the most respected of the classic studies of shamanism (which stresses common themes over the differences made by the particular traditions in which it is found) is Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques ofEcstasy (Princeton, N]: Princeton University Press, 1964).

For examples of the way of shamanic mediation in Buddhism and in Christianity, see Chapter 13, below.