Mircea Eliade writes:
Mircea Eliade said:
Recent researches have clearly brought out the “shamanic” elements in the religion of the Paleolithic hunters. Horst Kierchner has interpreted the celebrated relief at Lascaux as a representation of a shamanic trance.[…]
Finally, Karl J. Narr has reconsidered the problem of the “origin” and chronology of shamanism in his important study. He brings out the influence of notions of fertility (Venus statuettes) on the religious beliefs of the prehistoric North Asian hunters; but this influence did not disrupt the Paleolithic tradition.[…] it is in this “Vorstellungswelt” that the roots of the bear ceremonialism of Asia and North America lie. Soon afterward, probably about 25,000 BC, Europe offers evidence for the earliest forms of shamanism (Lascaux) with the plastic representations of the bird, the tutelary spirit, and ecstasy. […]
What appears to be certain is the antiquity of “shamanic” rituals and symbols. It remains to be determined whether these documents brought to light by prehistoric discoveries represent the first expressions of a shamanism in statu nascendi or are merely the earliest documents today available for an earlier religious complex, which, however, did not find “plastic” manifestations (drawings, ritual objects, etc) before the period of Lascaux.
In accounting for the formation of the shamanic complex in Central and North Asia, we must keep in mind the two essential elements of the problem: on the one hand, the ecstatic experience as such, as a primary phenomenon; on the other, the historic-religious milieu into which this ecstatic experience was destined to be incorporated and the ideology that, in the last analysis, was to validate it. […]
Everywhere in those lands, and from the earliest times, we find documents for the existence of a Supreme Being of celestial structure, who also corresponds morphologically to all the other Supreme Beings of the archaic religions. The symbolism of ascent, with all the rites and myths dependent on it, must be connected with celestial Supreme Beings; […] This symbolism of ascent and “height” retains its value even after the “withdrawal” of the celestial Supreme Being — for, as is well known, Supreme Beings gradually lose their active place in the cult, giving way to religious forms that are more “dynamic” and “familiar” (the gods of storm and fertility, demiurges, the souls of the dead, the Great Goddesses, etc.) […]
The reduction or even the total loss in religious currency of Uranian Supreme Beings is sometimes indicated in myths concerning a primordial and paradisal time when communications between heaven and earth were easy and accessible to everyone; as the result of some happening, these communications were broken off and the Supreme Beings withdrew to the highest sky.[…]
The disappearance of the cult of the celestial Supreme Being did not nullify the symbolism of ascent with all its implication. […]
The shamanic ecstasy could be considered a reactualization of the mythical illud tempus when men could communicate in concreto with the sky.
It is indubitable that the celestial ascent of the shaman is a survival, profoundly modified and sometimes degenerate, of this archaic religious ideology centered on faith in a celestial Supreme Being and belief in concrete communications between heaven and earth. […]
The myths refer to more intimate relations between the Supreme Beings and shamans; in particular, they tell of a First Shaman, sent to earth by the Supreme Being or his surrogate to defend human beings against diseases and evil spirits.
It was in the context of the “withdrawal” of the “Celestial Being” that the meaning of the shaman’s ecstatic experience changed.
Formerly, the activity was focused on communing with the god and obtaining benefits for the tribe. The shift of the function of the shaman associated with the withdrawal of the benevolent god/goddess was to “battling with evil spirits and disease”. This is a sharp reminder of the work of Jesus, healing the sick and casting out demons - the shamanic exemplar “after the Fall”.
There was, it seems, another consequence of this “shift”. Increasingly, the descents into the “underworld” and the relations with “spirits” led to their “embodiment” or in the shaman’s being “possessed” by “spirits”. What is clear is that
these were innovations, most of them recent. What is particularly striking in the research of the historiographers of myth, legend, shamanism, etc, is
the discovery of the “influences from the south, which appeared quite early and which altered both cosmology and the mythology and techniques of ecstasy”. Among these southern influences were the contribution of Buddhism and Lamaism, added to the Iranian and, in the last analysis, Mesopotamian influences that preceded them.
Eliade writes:
Mircea Eliade said:
The initiatory schema of the shaman’s ritual death and resurrection is likewise an innovation, but one that goes back to much earlier times; in any case, it cannot be ascribed to influences from the ancient Near East. But the innovations introduced by the ancestor cult particularly affected the structure of this initiatory schema. The very concept of mystical death was altered by the many and various religious changes effected by lunar mythologies, the cult of the dead, and the elaboration of magical ideologies.
Hence we must conceive of Asiatic shamanism as an archaic technique of ecstasy whose original underlying ideology — belief in a celestial Supreme Being with whom it was possible to have direct relations by ascending into the sky — was constantly being transformed by an ongoing series of exotic contributions culminating in the invasion of Buddhism. […]
The phenomenology of the trance underwent many changes and corruptions, due in large part to confusion as to the precise nature of ecstasy. Yet all these innovations and corruptions did not succeed in eliminating the possibility of the true shamanic ecstasy.
More than once we have discerned in the shamanic experience a “nostalgia for paradise” that suggests one of the oldest types of Christian mystical experience. As for the “inner light”, which plays a part of the first importance in Indian mysticism and metaphysics as well as in Christian mystical theology, it is already documented in shamanism.
What seems to be most important about Central Asian shamanism in the history of mysticism is the role the shaman plays in the defense of the psychic integrity of the community. Shamans are pre-eminently the anti-demonic champions; they combat not only demons and disease, but also the black magicians. The shaman is the tireless slayer of demons and dragons. {...}
The Siberian shamans tell that in former ages all men had access to the gods, whereas now, only shamans have it and that
Shamanism itself has been degraded. Shamanism presents itself as the remnant of an Ancient Wisdom teaching which once flourished across the Northern Hemisphere. The main feature of the Shaman’s universe is the cosmic center, an axis connecting earth with both heaven and hell. It is often represented as a tree, a ladder, or a pole. The shaman can utilize this tree to travel upward to commune with the gods, or downward to battle demons. Numbers are important: there are a fixed number of steps, or celestial stages. The cosmic tree can also be represented as a mountain with seven stories. {...}
It is clear that shamanism, as it is known, has declined from its original unified and coherent system. One reason for thinking so is that, while there are many local terms for a male shaman, there is only one for a female shaman. Shamanism, it seems, was formerly a woman’s activity. In one Tartar dialect, utygan, the word for a woman-shaman, also means “bear”. {...}
The “ecstatic experience” is the primary phenomenon of Shamanism, and it is this ecstasy that can be seen as the act of merging with the celestial beings. Merging results in Forced Oscillation that changes Frequency. {...}
Mircea Eliade said:
We have observed the striking resemblance between the other world ideas of the Caucasians and of the Iranians. For one thing, the Cinvat bridge plays an essential role in Iranian funerary mythology; crossing it largely determines the destiny of the soul; and the crossing is a difficult ordeal, equivalent in structure, to initiatory ordeals. […]
The Cinvat bridge is at the “Center”, at the “middle of the world” and “the height of a hundred men”. […] The bridge connects earth and heaven at the “Center”. Under the Cinvat bridge is the pit of hell.
Here we find a “classic” cosmological schema of the three cosmic regions connected by a central axis (pillar, tree, bridge, etc.) The shamans travel freely among the three zones; the dead must cross a bridge on their journey to the beyond. […] The important feature of the Iranian tradition is (at least as it survived after Zarathustra’s reform) is that, at the crossing of the bridge, there is a sort of struggle between the demons, who try to cast the soul down to hell, and the tutelary spirits who resist them.
The Gathas make three references to this crossing of the Cinvat bridge. In the first two passages Zarathustra, according to H.S. Nyberg’s interpretation, refers to himself as a psychopomp. Those who have been united to him in ecstasy will cross the bridge with ease. […]
The bridge, then, is not only the way for the dead; it is the road of ecstatics. […] The Gathic term maga is proof that Zarathustra and his disciples induced an ecstatic experience by ritual songs intoned in chorus in a closed, consecrated space. In this sacred space (maga) communication between heaven and earth became possible. […] The sacred space became a “Center”.[…]
Shamanic ecstasy induced by hemp smoke was known in ancient Iran. […] In the Videvdat hemp is demonized. This seems to us to prove complete hostility to shamanic intoxication. […] The imagery of the Central Asian shamans would seem to have undergone the influence of Oriental, and principally Iranian, ideas. But this does not mean that the shamanic descent to the underworld derives from an exotic influence. The Oriental contribution only amplified and added color to the dramatic scenarios of punishments; it was the narratives of ecstatic journeys to the underworld that were enriched under Oriental influences; the ecstasy long preceded them. [….]
We … have found the technique of ecstasy in archaic cultures where it is impossible to suspect any influence from the ancient East. […]
The magico-religious value of intoxication for achieving ecstasy is of Iranian origin. […]
Concerning the original shamanic experience … narcotics are only a vulgar substitute for “pure” trance.
The use of intoxicants is a recent innovation and points to a decadence in shamanic technique. Narcotic intoxication is called on to provide an imitation of a state that the shaman is no longer capable of attaining otherwise. Decadence or vulgarization of a mystical technique - in ancient and modern India, and indeed all through the East, we constantly find this strange mixture of “difficult ways” and “easy ways” of realizing mystical ecstasy or some other decisive experience. {...}
The idea that there was a time when man was directly in contact with the Celestial Beings is at the root of the myths of the Golden Age that have been redacted to the Grail stories of the 11th and 12th centuries. During this paradisiacal time, it is suggested that communications between heaven and earth were easy and accessible to everyone. Myths tell us of a time when the “gods withdrew” from mankind. As a result of some “happening”, i.e. “The Fall”, the communications were broken off and the Celestial Beings withdrew to the highest heavens.
But, the myths also tell us that there were still those certain people who were able to “ascend” and commune with the gods on the behalf of their tribe or family. Through them, contact was maintained with the “guiding spirits” of the group. The beliefs and practices of the present day shamans are a survival of a profoundly modified and even corrupted and degenerated remnant of this archaic technology of concrete communications between heaven and earth such as the Cassiopaean Transmissions.
