of Buddhist or shamanic origin among the shamans in Central Asia,
as indeed shamanism influenced Buddhism in its turn. Shamanism
as it appears in Greenland, and especially East Greenland, therefore
serves as a credible example of traditional shamanism.

The second part of the book deals with New Age shamanism
examined from the perspective of traditional shamanism. What is
described as neo-shamanism or core-shamanism is a form of
shamanism that has been created at the end of this century to re-
establish a link for modern man to his spiritual roots, to re-
introduce shamanic behaviour into the lives of Westerners in search
of spirituality and, thereby, renew contact with Nature. The chapter
on neo-shamanism also deals with the general spread of urban
shamanism and briefly touches on the role of modern healers in
traditional societies.

Although I have decided not to include the theories of C.G. Jung,
even if they are easily applicable to neo-shamanism, the description
of Western man as presented by Jolande Jacobi in her preface to
Jung's Psychological Reflections serves well as an introduction to
the aim of this book in explaining the growing interest in
shamanism at present:

Western man today, engaged in a mighty struggle outwardly and
inwardly for a new and universally binding order of life, stands at a
point where two worlds meet, amid an almost inconceivable devastation
of traditional values. No clear orientation is possible, nothing can yet
point to a way in this whirlwind of spiritual forces striving for form.
Human existence itself in all its inadequacy and insecurity must submit
to a new revision. ( 1953: xxiii)

Written in the shadow of the Second World War, it posits the view
that modern Western people are continuously striving to establish a
value system according to which their life experiences make sense.
One of the questions this book asks is whether shamanism with its
roots in traditional societies can be the 'new revision' and fill the
spiritual void which seems to be the price of modernity.

The reason, however, for not including Jung's theories directly is
that they would apply a 'prefabricated' explanation to encounters
with non-ordinary reality, experienced both in traditional and
modern societies, and thereby become a screen which may narrow
important anthropological aspects. As difficult as it can be to
extract 'the voice of the people' from accounts of traditional belief

-xi-