Shamanistic Magic
September 10, 2019 Nevill Drury, Gregory Tillett
This text surveys shamanism as a form of ecstatic practice, describing it as the magic of leaving the body to achieve mystical illumination. It references Mircea Eliade's characterization of the shaman as 'the technician of the sacred' and notes that, in a strict anthropological sense, shamanism is best represented in Siberia and among native Indian tribes in South and Central America. The author discusses Carlos Castaneda's ten-year effort to grasp the magical concepts of the Mexican shaman Don Juan Matus and argues that the shaman's world is relevant to modern magicians, proposing that encountering the gods of our minds leads to self-discovery.