Bücher der Reihe Mythos: The Princeton/Bollingen Series in World Mythology

Translation of: Chamanisme et les techniques archa'iques de l'extase.

The gods of Olympus died with the advent of Christianity--or so we have been taught to believe. But how are we to account for their tremendous popularity during the Renaissance? This illustrated book, now reprinted in a new, larger paperback format, offers the general reader first a discussion of mythology in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, and then a multifaceted look at the far-reaching role played by mythology in Renaissance intellectual and emotional life.

Mircea Eliade--one of the most renowned expositors of the psychology of religion, mythology, and magic--shows that myth and symbol constitute a mode of thought that not only came before that of discursive and logical reasoning, but is still an essential function of human consciousness. He describes and analyzes some of the most powerful and ubiquitous symbols that have ruled the mythological thinking of East and West in many times and at many levels of cultural development.

Rich with implications for the history of sexuality, gender issues, and patterns of Hellenic literary imagining, Marcel Detienne's landmark book recasts long-standing ideas about the fertility myth of Adonis. The author challenges Sir James Frazer's thesis that the vegetation god Adonis-- whose premature death was mourned by women and whose resurrection marked a joyous occasion--represented the annual cycle of growth and decay in agriculture. Using the analytic tools of structuralism, Detienne shows instead that the festivals of Adonis depict a seductive but impotent and fruitless deity--whose physical ineptitude led to his death in a boar hunt, after which his body was found in a lettuce patch. Contrasting the festivals of Adonis with the solemn ones dedicated to Demeter, the goddess of grain, he reveals the former as a parody and negation of the institution of marriage. Detienne considers the short-lived gardens that Athenian women planted in mockery for Adonis's festival, and explores the function of such vegetal matter as spices, mint, myrrh, cereal, and wet plants in religious practice and in a wide selection of myths. His inquiry exposes, among many things, attitudes toward sexual activities ranging from "e;perverse"e; acts to marital relations.

The enigmatic sixteenth-century Swiss physician and natural philosopher Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus, is known for the almost superhuman energy with which he produced his innumerable writings, for his remarkable achievements in the development of science, and for his reputation as a visionary (not to mention sorcerer) and alchemist. Little is known of his biography beyond his legendary achievements, and the details of his life have been filled in over the centuries by his admirers. This richly illustrated anthology presents in modernized language a selection of the moral thought of a man who was not only a self-willed genius charged with the dynamism of an impetuous and turbulent age but also in many ways a humble seeker after truth, who deeply influenced C. G. Jung and his followers.

The only Freudian to have been originally trained in folklore and the first psychoanalytic anthropologist to carry out fieldwork, Gza Rcheim (1891-1953) contributed substantially to the worldwide study of cultures. Combining a global perspective with encyclopedic knowledge of ethnographic sources, this Hungarian analyst demonstrates the validity of Freudian theory in both Western and non-Western settings. These seventeen essays, written between 1922 and 1953, are among Rcheim's most significant published writings and are collected here for the first time to introduce a new generation of readers to his unique interpretations of myths, folktales, and legends. From Australian aboriginal mythology to Native American trickster tales, from the Grimm folktale canon to Hungarian folk belief, Rcheim explores a wide range of issues, such as the relationship of dreams to folklore and the primacy of infantile conditioning in the formation of adult fantasy. An introduction by folklorist Alan Dundes describes Rcheim's career, and each essay is prefaced by a brief consideration of its intellectual and bibliographical context.

In Quest of the Hero makes available for a new generation of readers two key works on hero myths: Otto Rank's Myth of the Birth of the Hero and the central section of Lord Raglan's The Hero. Amplifying these is Alan Dundes's fascinating contemporary inquiry, "e;The Hero Pattern and the Life of Jesus."e; Examined here are the patterns found in the lore surrounding historical or legendary figures like Gilgamesh, Moses, David, Oedipus, Odysseus, Perseus, Heracles, Aeneas, Romulus, Siegfried, Lohengrin, Arthur, and Buddha. Rank's monograph remains the classic application of Freudian theory to hero myths. In The Hero the noted English ethnologist Raglan singles out the myth-ritualist pattern in James Frazer's many-sided Golden Bough and applies that pattern to hero myths. Dundes, the eminent folklorist at the University of California at Berkeley, applies the theories of Rank, Raglan, and others to the case of Jesus. In his introduction to this selection from Rank, Raglan, and Dundes, Robert Segal, author of the major study of Joseph Campbell, charts the history of theorizing about hero myths and compares the approaches of Rank, Raglan, Dundes, and Campbell.

Examines the festivals of ancient Greek religion to identify the primitive 'substratum' of ritual and its persistence in the realm of classical religious observance and literature.

One of the three great gods of Hinduism, Siva is a living god. The most sacred and most ancient book of India, "The Rig Veda", evokes his presence in its hymns. This title details the metaphysics, ontology, and myths of Siva from the Vedas and the Puranas. It aims to reveal the paradoxes in Siva's nature and in the nature of consciousness.

Ananda K Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) was a pioneer in Indian art history and in the cultural confrontation of East and West. This is a collection of his writings on myth drawn from his "Metaphysics" and "Traditional Art and Symbolism".

Presents a picture of the historical development of beliefs regarding the soul in ancient Greece. In exploring Greek ideas of human souls as well as those of plants and animals, this title illuminates an important stage in the genesis of the Greek mind.

An anthology which includes the central texts from the acclaimed two-volume compilation "Selected Works of Ramon Llull". This volume contains three prefaces on Llull's life, thought, and reputation. Of Llull's works, it offers "Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men"; "The Book of the Lover and the Beloved"; and "Book of the Beasts".

Dream interpretation was a prominent feature of the intellectual and imaginative world of late antiquity, for martyrs and magicians, philosophers, polytheists and monotheists alike. This book draws on pagan, Jewish, and Christian sources and modern semiotic theory to demonstrate the integral importance of dreams in late-antique thought and life.

An anthology of nearly two hundred "hieroglyphics," or allegorical emblems, said to have been used by the Pharaonic scribes in describing natural and moral aspects of the world. This work tells how various types of natural phenomena, emotions, virtues, philosophical concepts, and human character-types were symbolized.

Examines the complex fate of classical Egyptian religion during the centuries from the period when Christianity first made its appearance in Egypt to when it became the region's dominant religion. This book describes how an ancient culture maintained itself while also being transformed through influences such as Hellenism, and Roman government.

Examines the saga of the Grail. Exploring the legend's Gnostic roots, this book considers how the legend of the Grail related to fertility rites with the lance and the cup serving as sexual symbols. It traces its origins to a Gnostic text that served as a link between ancient vegetation cults and the Celts and Christians who embellished the story.

Prometheus the god stole fire from heaven and bestowed it on humans. In punishment, Zeus chained him to a rock, where an eagle clawed unceasingly at his liver, until Herakles freed him. For the Greeks, the myth of Prometheus' release reflected a primordial law of existence and the fate of humankind. The author examines the story of Prometheus.

The Sanctuary of Eleusis, near Athens, was the center of a religious cult that endured for nearly two thousand years and whose initiates came from all parts of the civilized world. Looking at the tendency to "see visions," C. The author examines the Mysteries of Eleusis from the standpoint not only of Greek myth but also of human nature.

No other god of the Greeks is as widely present in the monuments and nature of Greece and Italy, in the tradition of antiquity, as Dionysos. This work presents a historical account of the religion of Dionysos from its beginnings in the Minoan culture to its transition to a cosmic and cosmopolitan religion of late antiquity under the Roman Empire.

Originally published: Beacon Press, 1968.

In this work a distinguished scholar of Islamic religion examines the mysticism and psychological thought of the great eleventh-century Persian philosopher and physician Avicenna (Ibn Sina), author of over a hundred works on theology, logic, medicine, and mathematics. Henry Corbin's discovery in an Istanbul library of the manuscript of a Persian translation of and commentary on Avicenna's Hayy ibn Yaqzan, written in Arabic, led him to an analysis of three of Avicenna's mystical "e;recitals."e; These form an initiatory cycle leading the adept along the path of spiritual progress. In Part I Corbin summarizes the great themes that show the philosophical situation of Avicennan man in the cosmos and presents translations of these three great Avicennan recitals. Part II is a complete translation, with notes, of the Persian commentary.Originally published in 1960.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In this in-depth exploration of the symbols found in Navaho legend and ritual, Gladys Reichard discusses the attitude of the tribe members toward their place in the universe, their obligation toward humankind and their gods, and their conception of the supernatural, as well as how the Navaho achieve a harmony within their world through symbolic ceremonial practice.Originally published in 1963.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This volume presents the most important portions of Erwin Goodenough's classic thirteen-volume work, a magisterial attempt to encompass human spiritual history in general through the study of Jewish symbols in particular. Revealing that the Jewish religion of the period was much more varied and complex than the extant Talmudic literature would lead us to believe, Goodenough offered evidence for the existence of a Hellenistic-Jewish mystic mythology far closer to the Qabbalah than to rabbinical Judaism.Originally published in 1989.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Gnosticism, together with alchemy, was for C G Jung the chief prefiguration of his analytical psychology. Jung did not simply interpret Gnostic texts psychologically but also cited them as confirmation of his psychology. The author has searched the Jungian corpus to bring together Jung's main discussions of this ancient form of spirituality.

The Medicine Rite is performed by medicine men upon the initiation of a member to their cult. Presenting a transcription of the Medicine Rite, the most sacred ritual of the Winnebago Indians, this work captures a poetic source of profound importance to the understanding of mystical experience.

The Swiss thinker JJ Bachofen is most often connected with his theory of matriarchy, or 'mother right,'. This book includes an autobiographical essay and selections from "An Essay on Ancient Mortuary Symbolism", "Mother Right", and "The Myth of Tanaquil".

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) was a wide-ranging thinker whose ideas affected almost every branch of the social sciences. And nowhere is this impact more evident or more persistent than on the study of myth, ritual, and religion. He articulated as never before or since a program of seeing myths as part of the functional, pragmatic, or performed