"Shamanism in North Asia as a religious phenomenon. A brief note on Mircea Eliade’s morphology" By Daniela DUMBRAVA

https://www.academia.edu/37875859/_Shamanism_in_North_Asia_as_a_religious_phenomenon_A_brief_note_on_Mircea_Eliade_s_morphology_?nav_from=5b665373-6ffe-48a4-a6de-0117673da362 Mircea Eliade’s Shamanism. Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy set for the first time the phenomenon of shamanism in the general framework of the history of religions. In this work, Eliade aimed to cover the entire phenomenon of shamanism: by way of this new epistemological approach, he analyzed and corroborated ethnological, sociological and psychological studies casting fresh light on several studies in the field. Using a historiographic lens, he also examined an immense bibliographical literature about shamanism – e.g. Holmberg Harva studies on Altaic shamanism, and several aspects concerning the morphology of the religious phenomena explained the organic body of shamanism as both a historical and a religious process. Furthermore, Eliade made a sharp distinction between shamanism as an ethnological, sociological and psychological phenomenon. The dialectic vision between sacred and profane entails the competence of the historian of religions, from Eliade’s point of view. In fact, Shamanism… illustrates, the very method which Mircea Eliade proposes: deciphering the deep meaning of religious phenomena rightfully falls to the lot of the historian of religions. My paper will examine some of the peculiarities of this method and will briefly underline the main critiques made by historians of religions such as Ioan Petru Culianu and Jonathan Zittell Smith and Giovanni Casadio.