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Mircea Eliade - Inuit - Some shamans have visited the moon
Identifier
007108
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Mircea Eliade – Shamanism Archaic techniques of ecstasy
Some shamans have visited the moon, others have flown around the earth. According to the traditions, shamans fly like birds spreading their arms as a bird does its wings.
‘I am a shaman myself’ one of them told Rasmussen, ‘but I am nothing compared with my grandfather Titqatsaq. He lived in the time when a shaman could go down to the mother of the sea beasts, fly up to the moon or make excursions out through space’ …..It is remarkable to find here too, this idea of the present decadence of shamans, which we have already observed in other cultures.
From Rasmussen The Netsilik Eskimos