The Nature of Shamanism: Substance and Function of a Religious Metaphor Book

	Illustrations
	Acknowledgments
1	Introduction: A Personal Dialectic	1
2	Shamanism and Culture: Configurations of a Religious Metaphor	13
	Cultural Ethos and Mysticism	13
	Hunting Magic	23
	Master of the Animals - The Lady of Wild Things	25
	The Spiral and the Labyrinth	33
	Shamanism and Ancient Egyptian Religion	37
	Shamanistic Metaphors, Techniques, and Appurtenances	42
	Mongolian Shamanism	56
	The Celtic Religion	59
	The Role of the Shaman	62
3	Substance and Function of Shamanism	69
	Definitions and Problems	69
	"Answering the Call," Initiation, and Shamanic Enlightenment	71
	The Shamanistic Experience	92
	Shamanism and Psychopathology	101
4	The Psychotropic Universe: Cosmology of the Spirit World	105
	Cosmic Transformations	105
	Corresponding Realities and Otherworlds	112
	Numerical Potencies	121
	Rock Crystals and the Hexagonal Universe	123
	Reason and Order	127
5	The Ritual Drug Complex: Ethnobiology of Heaven and Hell	131
	The Drug Ceremonial	131
	Psychoactivity and Mechanisms of Hallucinations	142
	Phosphenes	148
6	The Botanic Experience: Hallucinogens in Archaeology and Ethnohistory	151
	The Old World	153
	The New World	166
	The Quest for Magical Plants and the Origins of Cultivation	184
7	The Power of Metaphors: Phenomenology of Symbolic Forms	187
	Language, Perception, and Reality	187
	Metaphor, Myth, and Transcendence	192
	Visionary Experiences and Art	197
	Phosphenes and Shamanistic Symbolism	202
	Shamanistic Parallels and Survivals	204
	Notes	209
	Bibliography	257
	Index	273