- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Jeremy P. Tarcher (2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1585420913
- ISBN-13: 978-1585420919
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 956,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a must if you are interested in the work of shamans. It's also fascinating from the point of view of seeing how the West has changed its opinion of shamans through the ages. It is a well edited selection from ancient chronicles, explorers journals, anthropological texts and other works. I have been reading this subject with a degree of obsession for many years now - yet they have found pieces I had never even heard of. There are also some really exciting pointers for future research...
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Great Must-Have Anthology
26 Nov 2001
Format:Hardcover
This volume is a must-have collection of writings on indigenous shamanism since the conquest; Edited by
Jeremy Narby (The Cosmic Serpent) and Francis Huxley (The Way of the Sacred). Beyond the
superlative selection of dozens of first hand records over the centuries and up through modern times, we
also see the mirrored portrait of our own evolving delusions, as our framework for understanding
shamanism progresses from considering shamans worshippers, then imposters and lunatics, and on to the participatory anthropology in the post-Wasson era .
Jeremy Narby (The Cosmic Serpent) and Francis Huxley (The Way of the Sacred). Beyond the
superlative selection of dozens of first hand records over the centuries and up through modern times, we
also see the mirrored portrait of our own evolving delusions, as our framework for understanding
shamanism progresses from considering shamans worshippers, then imposters and lunatics, and on to the participatory anthropology in the post-Wasson era .
There are some really amazing stories in here... it's the real stuff.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A marvellous book
18 April 2002
Format:Hardcover
`Shamans Through Time'
What is a shaman? How does he practice? Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley, anthropologists of the mind and much else beside, deftly guide us through five hundred years of literature - from the 16th century Christian view (Ministers of the Devil), through the coming of anthropologists, to contemporary accounts by shamans themselves. The selected writings are richly varied, each reflecting its time and place; and they are short, which makes the reading easy. Here's Diderot in 1765, Franz Boas in 1887, Alfred Metraux and Levi Strauss in the 1940s, Carlos Castaneda in `68, Maria Sabena in 1977 -- sixty four in all, a significant number, you might think: Huxley is a conjurer of numbers no less than letters (see the Raven and the Writing Desk). His own contribution to the collection is a gem, `Smoking Huge Cigars', about an Urubu shamanic ceremony in which vast quantities of tobacco are smoked. Narby also tells a good story, `Shamans and Scientists'(2000), about an encounter between three molecular scientists and a Peruvian ayahuascero.
The entire collection is divided into seven chronological sections, each with a short, bright introduction by the editors. The result is a map by which to navigate this otherwise quite bewildering terrain. There's also a topical index, with surprising and helpful categories, like `Varieties of Shaman'' (diviners, healers, jugglers, tricksters and magicians...), `Creatures' (anaconda, ant, antelope, caterpiller...) and `Magic Substances' (arrows, cords, crystals, darts, ectoplasm, viruses and DNA!).
`Shamans Through Time' is not only skillfully put together and easy to read: it offers deep understanding. This is important, because shamanism is serious stuff. A shaman - `one who maintains by profession, and in the interest of the community, an intermittent commerce with spirits...' (using Metraux's definition) -- is gifted with access to major power, for healing and for harm. In an age when many profess to this calling, we need a deeply reliable voice on the matter. This is it.
Milhaly Hoppal, Director of the European Folklore Institute, says `Shamans Through Time' is "the most comprehensive survey on shamanism ever. It will be a classic in its field." I'm sure he's right. It's a marvellous book.
Michael Schwab, Doctor of Public Health
Berkeley, CA
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Interesting Idea
1 Jun 2003
Format:Hardcover
I really liked this book. Edited (in part) by the author of "The Cosmic Serpent", it gives a sweeping five-hundred year look at how outsiders have percieved Shamanism, from early missionaries and explorers who viewed it as the "work of the devil" to early anthropologists to modern seekers who want to experience Shamanism for themselves. The focus of this book is Siberia and the Americas (which is soemwhat disappointing, as they could have included Hokkaido, Micronesia, South Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere) and the whole purpose of the book is to tell about how outsiders have viewed (and expierenced) Shamanism. As such, its not always clear what the realities of the practice are or were. In addition, there were a few glaring omissions, such as Frazer. Nonetheless, the sheer scope of this overview (both in terms of times and geography) and the amount of information within make it an excellent source for study. If you are seriously interested in the historical practices of Shamanism, or perhaps the changing attitudes toward Shamanism in the west, then you really should seek this book out.
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