NORTHERN ECHOES: MEETING THE SHAMANS

Ernest(o) de Martino. Magic: Primitive and Modern. Tom Stacy, 1972.

This was a book which had quite an influence on me as a 21 year old student, introducing me to shamanism and to radical ideas of what one might later see as a proto-post modernist nature. Ernesto de Martino (1908-1965) was an Italian anthropologist and philosopher who undertook an intellectual journey from fascism to communism, perhaps seeing both as forms of civic religion.
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WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD…

J.H. Brennan, Whisperers: The Secret History of the Spirit World, Duckworth Overlook. 2013.

Brennan is a well-known elder statesman of the more New Agey end of popular occultism. He comes over as a nice guy and writes in an engaging, accessible style, which is always a plus in these rushed days when a book must seize the imagination within seconds or never be read at all.

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THE STORY OF ISOBEL GOWDIE

Emma Wilby. The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth Century Scotland. Sussex Academic Press, 2010

One of the insights that our study of contemporary visions and beliefs has brought is that past traditions may not just be based on literary tradition, but instead founded on actual experience, or remembered experience.
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