Jeremy Narby, Ph.D. is the author of The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge. He lives in Switzerland.

Note to Readers Introduction: Five Hundred Years of Shamans and Shamanism - Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley Part One: The Christian View: "Ministers of the Devil" 1. "Devil Worship: Consuming Tobacco to Receive Messages from Nature" (1535) - Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo 2. "Ministers of the Devil Who Learn About the Secrets of Nature" (1557) - André Thévet 3. "Evoking the Devl: Fasting with Tobacco to Learn How to Cure" (1664) - Antoine Biet 4. The Shaman: "A Villain of a Magician Who Calls Demons" (1672) - Avvakum Petrovich Part Two: The Humanist View Becomes Rationalist: From "Esteemed Jugglers" to "Imposters" 5. "The Savages Esteem Their Jugglers" (1724) - Joseph François Lafitau 6. "Shamans Deserve Perpetual Labor for Their Hocus-Pocus" (1751) - Johann Georg Gmelin 7. "Blinded by Superstition" (1755) - Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov 8. "Shamans Are Imposters Who Claim They Consult the Devil-And Who Are Sometimes Close to the Mark" (1765) - Denis Diderot and colleagues 9. Misled Imposters and the Power of Imagination (1785) - Johann Gottfried Herder Part Three: Enter Anthropologists 10. Animism Is the Belief in Spiritual Beings (1871) - Edward B. Tylor 11. A White Man Goes to a Peaiman (1883) - Everard F. Im Tburn 12. The Angakoq Uses a Peculiar Language and Defines Taboos (1887) - Franz Boas 13. The-Man-Who-Fell-from-Heaven Shamanizes Despite Persecution (1896) - Wenceslas Sieroshevski 14. Shamanism Is a Dangerously Vague Word (1903) - Arnold Van Gennep 15. "Doomed to Inspiration" (1904) - Waldemar Bogoras 16. Ventriloquist and Trickster Performances for Healing and Divination (1908) - Vladimir Ilich Jochelson 17. "A Motley Class of Persons" (1908) - Roland B. Dixon 18. Seeking Contact with Spirits Is Not Necessarily Shamanism (1910) - Franz Boas 19. "The Shaman Practices on the Verge of Insanity" (1914) - Marie Antoinette Czaplicka Part Four: The Understanding Deepens 20. Near-Death Experience (1929) Ivalo and Knud Rasmussen 21. Seeking Knowledge in the Solitude of Nature (1930) - Igjugârjuk and Knud Rasmussen 22. Summoning the Spirits for the First Time (1932) - Black Elk and John G. Neihardt 23. The Shaman's Assistant (1935) - Sergei M. Shirokogoroff 24. Shamans Charm Game (1938) - Willard Z. Park 25. Climbing the Twisted Ladder to Initiation (1944) - Alfred Métraux 26. Aboriginal Doctors Are Outstanding People (1945) - Adolphus Peter Elkin 27. Shamans as Psychoanalysts (1949) - Claude Lévi-Strauss 28. Using Invisible Substances for Good and Evil (1949) - Alfred Métraux 29. The Shamanin Performs a Public Service with Grace and Energy (1955) - Verrier Elwin 30. "The Shaman Is Mentally Deranged" (1956) - George Devereux 31. Clever Cords and Clever Men (1957) Ronald Rose 32. Singing Multifaceted Songs (1958) - Vilmos Diószegi 33. !Kung Medicine Dance (1962) - Lorna Marshall Part Five: The Observers Take Part 34. Smoking Huge Cigars (1956) - Francis Huxley 35. "I Was a Disembodied Eye Poised in Space" (1957) - R. Gordon Wasson 36. Fear, Clarity, Knowledge, and Power (1968) - Carlos Castaneda 37. "I Found Myself Impaled on the Axis Mundi" (1974) - Barbara Myerhoff 38. A Shaman Loses Her Elevation by Interacting with Observers (1977) - Maria Sahina and Alvaro Estrada 39. "I Felt Like Socrates Accepting the Hemlock" (1980) - Michael Harner 40. Experiencing the Shaman's Symphony to Understand It (1987) - Holger Kalweit Part Six: Gathering Evidence on a Multifaceted Phenomenon 41. A Washo Shaman's Helpers (1967) - Don Handelman 42. Magic Darts, Bewitching Shamans, and Curing Shamans (1968) - Michael Harner 43. "Remarkably Good Theater" (1973) - John T. Hitchcock 44. Two Kinds of Japanese Shamans: The Medium and the Ascetic (1975) - Carmen Blacker 45. Music Alone Can Alter a Shaman's Consciousness, Which Itself Can Destroy Tape Recorders (1975) - Dale A. Olsen 46. Shamans Are Intellectuals, Translators, and Shrewd Dealers (1975) - Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff 47. Shamans, Caves, and the Master of Animals (1979) - Walter Burkert 48. "Plant Teachers" (1984) - Luis Eduardo Luna 49. A Shaman Endures the Temptation of Sorcery (and Publishes a Book) (1990) - Fernando Payaguaje 50. Interview with a Killing Shaman (1992) - Ashok and Peter Skafte 51. Invisible Projectiles in Africa (1994) - Malidoma Patrice Somé Part Seven: Global Knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge Come Together and Remain Apart 52. Science and Magic, Two Roads to Knowledge (1962) - Claude Lévi-Strauss 53. Shamans, "Spirits," and Mental Imagery (1987) - Richard Noll 54. Dark Side of the Shaman (1989) - Michael F. Brown 55. Shamans Explore the Human Mind (1990) - Roger Walsh 56. Training to See What the Natives See (1992) - Edith Turner 57. "Twisted Language," a Technique for Knowing (1993) - Graham Townsley 58. Magic Darts as Viruses (1993) - Jean-Pierre Chaumeil 59. Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble: Tourists and Pseudo-Shamans (1994) - Marlene Dobkin de Rios 60. Shamans and Ethics in a Global World (1995) - Eleanor Ott 61. Shamans as Botanical Researchers (1995) - Wade Davis 62. Shamanism and the Rigged Marketplace (1995) - Piers Vitebsky 63. An Ethnobotanist Dreams of Scientists and Shamans Collaborating (1998) - Glenn H. Shepard 64. Shamans and Scientists (2000) - Jeremy Narby

Envoi References and Permissions Notes on the Editors' Commentaries and Further Reading Topical Index Acknowledgments About the Editors