TRADITION
Chamanismo
Source entries are currently shown in Spanish; English-first entries arrive with the next cataloguing pass.
El nombre con que esta raíz aparece en el árbol no lo pusieron quienes la practican. Eliade da su procedencia al abrir el capítulo que le dedica: «HE word ‘‘shaman,”’ we saw, comes to us through Russian from the Tungusic Saman.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 516», y enumera lo que en esas mismas lenguas se dice en lugar de la voz tungús: «In the other languages of Central and North Asia the corresponding terms are: Yakut ojuna (oyuna), Mongolian biga, béga (buge, bi), and udagan (cf. also Buryat udayan, Yakut udoyan: ‘‘shamaness’’), Turko-Tatar kam (Altaic kam, gam, Mongolian sami, etc.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 25». La etimología la deja abierta: «It has been sought to explain the Tungusic term by the Pali samana, and we shall return to this possible etymology (which is part of the great problem of Indian influences on Siberian religions) in the last chapter of this book.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 25». Michael Harner dice además de quién es la palabra hoy: «In non-literate societies, the experts who directly confront the supernatural are called "shamans" by anthropologists.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 13», y por qué el gremio la prefiere: «Shaman, a term preferred in anthropology partially because it lacks the sensational or negative connotation of "witch" or "witch-doctor," is a word from the language of the Tungus tribe of Siberia.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 13». La definición que Harner pone a trabajar es suya y es de fuera: «A shaman may be defined as a man or woman who is in direct contact with the spirit world through a trance state and has one or more spirits at his command to carry out his bidding for good or evil.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 13».
Lo que el nombre cubre se extendió, y quien más lo extendió midió él mismo el precio. Eliade consigna la extensión: «By extension, the same terminology has been applied in studying the religious history of “civilized” peoples, and there have been discussions, for example, of an Indian, an Iranian, a Germanic, a Chinese, and even a Babylonian “shamanism’’ with reference to the “‘primitive’’ elements attested in the corresponding religions.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 24», y la juzga en la misma plana: «For many reasons this confusion can only militate against any understanding of the shamanic phenomenon.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 24», con la razón, «If the word ‘‘shaman”’ is taken to mean any magician, sorcerer, medicine man, or ecstatic found throughout the history of religions and religious ethnology, we arrive at a notion at once extremely complex and extremely vague» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 24». Concede sin embargo lo que el uso amplio tiene de cierto: «For, of course, the shaman is also a magician and medicine man; he is believed to cure, like all doctors, and to perform miracles of the fakir type, like all magicians, whether primitive or modern. But beyond this, he is a psychopomp, and he may also be priest, mystic, and poet.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 25», y pone el límite por el otro lado: «As for the shamanic techniques of ecstasy, they do not exhaust all the varieties of ecstatic experience documented in the history of religions and religious ethnology. Hence any ecstatic cannot be considered a shaman» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 26», con una cautela que se impone a sí mismo, «Always endeavoring to define the place of shamanism within primitive religions (with all that these imply: magic, belief in Supreme Beings and spirits, mythological concepts, techniques of ecstasy, and so on), we shall constantly be obliged to refer to more or less similar phenomena, without implying that they are shamanic.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 28». Dentro de ese recorte, lo que afirma es la centralidad de una figura —«Throughout the immense area comprising Central and North Asia, the magico-religious life of society centers on the shaman.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 25», acotada en seguida, «This, of course, does not mean that he is the one and only manipulator of the sacred, nor that religious activity is completely usurped by him.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 25»— y su oficio: «The shaman is the great spccialist in the human soul; he alone ‘‘sees”’ it, for he knows its ‘form’ and its destiny.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 29». Y niega que lo que describe sea un origen: «Thus, nowhere in the history of religions do we encounter “‘primordial’’ phenomena; for history has been everywhere, changing, recasting, enriching, or impoverishing religious concepts, mythological creations, rites, techniques of ecstasy.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 32».
A esa extensión y a ese recorte las obras del corpus les oponen objeciones, y van con su dueño. Andy Letcher es el más frontal sobre el término: «The term ‘shaman’ is therefore a Western, ori applied willy-nilly to a range of practices around the have deemed to be the same, regardless of how the p» «Letcher — Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (2006), ed. inglés 2006 · p. 74» —el troceo pierde el final de cada renglón de esa plana y el tramo va tal cual—, y le reprocha a la erudición occidental el método: «Western scholars have laboured long and hard to find quality, some defining characteristic, that would captur the shaman — ‘the master of ecstasy’, ‘the wounded hea itive psychoanalyst’, ‘the madman”” — missing the oby shamanism has always been characterised by differen» «Letcher — Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (2006), ed. inglés 2006 · p. 74». Lo que halla en su lugar es variedad: «For another, ‘shamans’ everywhere assumed ent roles and undertook different duties, coexisting a religious functionaries, priests and magic-workers. E, expressed an individuality of style through distinctive t tumes, performances and attitudes, and each adhered to world view.» «Letcher — Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (2006), ed. inglés 2006 · p. 74», y niega el objeto único que la palabra supone: «But while it is true to say that most, if not a e animistic tribal communities in Siberia supported people, sy 34 men, in the role of what we now call shaman, it would be Tong to think that they belonged to a static, monolithic, uni-Y adhered-to religion, or even to a pristine ur-religion as some» «Letcher — Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (2006), ed. inglés 2006 · p. 73», con el estereotipo datado en los primeros viajeros, «Similarly, when we think about Siberian shamans, it tends to be a singular image that comes to mind, an image that has not substantially altered since the earliest Western travellers encountered these enig» «Letcher — Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (2006), ed. inglés 2006 · p. 73». Harner objeta por el lado contrario y sin nombrar a nadie: «The theoretical literature has largely overlooked the fact that even this "classic" shamanism often involved the use of hallu» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 16», dicho en su forma más precisa, «Thus one can read entire books on shamanism or primitive religion without finding any reference to hallucinogens except for peyote.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 16», contra lo que opone su propia búsqueda, «Yet by patient library research one can find overwhelming evidence of the use of such substances in connection with the supernatural in scores of cultures.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 16». Ioan Couliano deja dos afirmaciones en la misma plana sin conciliarlas: recoge de Eliade la definición, «Mircea Eliade defined shamanism not as a religion properly speaking, but as a "technique of ecstasy," a system of ecstatic and therapeutic methods whose purpose is to obtain contact with the parallel universe of the spirits and to win their support in dealing with the affairs of a g» «Couliano — Out of This World (1991) · p. 53», saca de ella que «According to this definition, shamanism is unknown on the African continent.» «Couliano — Out of This World (1991) · p. 53», y sostiene acto seguido que «However, shamanism is in fact identifiable in the religions of all continents and at all levels of culture, its center being Central Asia and northern Asia.» «Couliano — Out of This World (1991) · p. 53»; él mismo acota su alcance, «All in all, my survey of shamanism remains extremely brief.» «Couliano — Out of This World (1991) · p. 15».
El desacuerdo mejor documentado del corpus es el de R. Gordon Wasson con Eliade sobre los narcóticos, y ocupa ocho planas. Lo que Eliade sostiene está fichado con sus palabras: «But closer study of the problem gives the impression that the use of narcotics is, rather, indicative of the decadence of a technique of ecstasy or of its extension to “lower’’ peoples or social groups.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 498», con el dato en que lo apoya, «In any case, we have observed that the use of narcotics (tobacco, ete.) is relatively recent in the shamanism of the far Northeast.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 498», y el juicio repetido en otros dos sitios, «Intoxication is a mechanical and corrupt method of reproducing “‘ecstasy,’’ being ‘‘carried out of oneself’; it tries to imitate a model that is earlier and that belongs to another plane of reference.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 244» y «seen that, in shamanism itself, narcotics already represent a decadence and that, in default of true ecstatic methods, recourse is taken to narcotics to induce trance.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 438». Wasson declara primero por qué comenta: «Today Professor Eliade enjoys renown and his word carries weight in certain circles interested in the origin and history of religions, and since he seems to hold the view that the use of divine inebriants is probably a ‘recent phenomenon’ among shamans, or at least among Siberian shamans, a few words of comment on his treatment of this vital aspect of his subject seems called for.» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 390». Le opone la lingüística: «there is valid linguistic evidence that the use of inebriating mushrooms in Siberia goes back to the Uralic period, at a time when the Ob-Ugrian and the Samoyed languages had not yet evolved out of their mother Uralic tongue, more than 6000 years ago.» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 390». Le reprocha el aparato: «The extract that we have quoted from his book on Yoga gives no source or authority for his statements, not even himself. He speaks ex cathedra.» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 391», y las remisiones internas: «And so the reader has found himself shunted back, and back, and back, and again back, only now to be shuttled forward. His statements that the shamanic use of mushrooms is a recent innovation stand unsupported.» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 391». Concede lo que tiene por cierto —«That there is decadence in shamanism among the minor nationalities of the world is clear and self-explanatory, as their feeble cultures founder in the mzlstrom of the modern world. It is also true that in their disarray these peoples have taken to hard liquor. But this proves nothing as to the antiquity of divine inebriation, and in particular divine inebriation from the indigenous mushrooms of Siberia.» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 391», y aun, del licor fuerte, «Has hard liquor ever played a réle in the religious life of any people? The outlying races of the world may have tried it out in recent centuries sporadically and spasmodically, but Professor Eliade is right in saying that its use in shamanism marks the dying phase in the indigenous religious life of the Siberians.» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 394»— y localiza dónde cree que está el fallo: «His preference on moral grounds for other techniques to attain ecstasy has affected his critical faculty when he discusses what is purely an historical question: how old is mushroom inebriation?» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 393», con la objeción técnica al lado, «For the modern toxicologist this lumping together of diverse psychotropic drugs, obliterating the enormous differences among them, is crude.» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 393», y el nombre que le pone: «When Professor Eliade lumps the fly-agaric with hard liquor and tobacco, he is committing an anachronism. He forgets that the fly-agaric is indigenous to the forests of Siberia and that, for the eater, the effects are utterly different from hard liquor.» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 395». Cierra pidiendo lo que esta ficha también hace: «The West is on the threshold of penetrating their secrets. There is an unexplored world before us, and we should not prejudge it.» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 395». Las dos posiciones quedan enteras y sin tercero que las concilie.
De la voz de dentro, el corpus tiene lo que los estudios transcribieron, y entra con el nombre de quien la recogió. Eliade da dos relatos de iniciación en boca de chamanes tungús: «The Tungus shaman Ivan Cholko states that a future shaman must fall ill and have his body cut in pieces and his blood drunk by the evil spirits (saarg7). These—which are really the souls of dead shamans—throw his head into a caldron, where it is melted with certain metal pieces that will later form part of his ritual costume.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 64», y «Another Tungus shaman relates that he was sick for a whole year. During that time he sang to feel better. His shaman ancestors came and initiated him. They pierced him with arrows until he lost consciousness and fell to the ground; they cut off his flesh, tore out his bones and counted them; if one had been missing, he could not have become a shaman.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 64». Del chamán del Yenisei conserva dos gritos en pleno vuelo: «I am high in the air, I see the Yenisei a hundred versts away.» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 244» y «O my little fly, rise still higher, I want to see farther!» «Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989), trad. inglés 1989 · p. 244». Henry Munn, dentro del volumen de Harner, traduce de cinta los discursos de una chamana y un chamán mazatecos. La oración con que ella abre la sesión dice quiénes son los que hablan: «My God, you who are the master of the whole world, what we want is to search for and encounter from where comes sickness, from where comes pain and affliction. We are the ones who speak and cure and use medicine. So without mishap, without difficulty, lift us into the heights and exalt us.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 110». Él se nombra a sí mismo en letanía, y el nombre que se da no es el del título del libro: «I am he who speaks. I am he who speaks with the mountains. I am he who speaks with the corners. I am the doctor. I am the man of medicines. I am. I am he who cures. I am he who speaks with the Lord of the World. I am happy. I speak with the mountains. I am he who speaks with the mountains of peaks. I am he who speaks with the Bald Mountain. I am the remedy and the medicine man. I am the mushroom. I am the fresh mushroom. I am the large mushroom. I am the fragrant mushroom. I am the mushroom of the spirit.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 141»; en otra plana se define por lo que hace, «I am he who puts together," says the medicine man to define his shamanistic function: he who speaks, he who searches, says. I am he who looks for the spirit of the day, says. I search where there is fright and terror. I am he who fixes, he who cures the person that is sick. Herbal medicine. Remedy of the spirit. Remedy of the atmosphere of the day, says. I am he who resolves all, says. Truly you are man enough to resolve the truth. You are he who puts together and resolves. You are he who puts together the personality. You are he who speaks with the light of day. You are he who speaks with terror.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 133». Lo que Munn tiene por el oficio central es la palabra: «His most important function, however, is to speak for the sick one. The Mazatec shamans eat the mushrooms that liberate the fountains of language to be able to speak beautifully and with eloquence so that their words, spoken for the sick one and those present, will arrive and be heard in the spirit world from which comes benediction or grief.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 112», y de ahí saca su tesis, «The function of the speaker, nevertheless, is much more than simply to implore. The shaman has a conception of poesis4 in its original sense as an action: words themselves are medicine. To enunciate and give meaning to the events and situations of existence is life giving in itself.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 112». De la chamana consigna además el nombre cristiano que su pueblo le da al hongo —«known to the ancient Meso-Americans as the Flesh of God, called by her people the Blood of Christ.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 110»— y el llamado por el que dice haber entrado al oficio: «The woman whose words we are listening to, like many, discovered her shamanistic vocation when she was cured by the mushrooms of an illness: after the death of her husband she broke out all over with pimples; she was given the mushrooms to see whether they would "help" her and the malady disappeared. Since then she has eaten them on her own and given them to others.» «Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973), ed. inglés 1973 según el © de la plana de créditos (p. 5); el ejemplar troceado es reimpresión posterior sin año propio impreso · p. 111».
En el volumen de Wasson esa voz está también, y el propio Wasson se niega a traducirla con la palabra que encabeza esta ficha: «We have found no English word that renders curandero. Medicine man, shaman, witch doctor, sorcererall are misleading. The curandero heals with herbs and engages in divination. Curandero is the respectful designation of which brujo is the pejorative counterpart» «Valentina Pavlovna Wasson y R. Gordon Wasson — Mushrooms, Russia and History (Pantheon, 1957), ed. inglés 1957 · p. 335» —el troceo funde *sorcerer* y *all*—. Lo que el curandero mazateco le dijo del hongo lo conserva en las dos lenguas: «The mushroom itself 'is speech', es habla, he would say, and it speaks of many things, of God, of the future, of life and death, and also it tells where to find things that are lost» «Valentina Pavlovna Wasson y R. Gordon Wasson — Mushrooms, Russia and History (Pantheon, 1957), ed. inglés 1957 · p. 338», y con una condición, «But the mushroom speaks only in Mazatec, and he» «Valentina Pavlovna Wasson y R. Gordon Wasson — Mushrooms, Russia and History (Pantheon, 1957), ed. inglés 1957 · p. 344». También registra que no hay un solo modo de hacerlo: «Then he went on to explain to us that different curanderos had different styles in performing the ritual. Some chant and sing and even shout. His own style, he said, was simple: he always remained composed and never raised his voice» «Valentina Pavlovna Wasson y R. Gordon Wasson — Mushrooms, Russia and History (Pantheon, 1957), ed. inglés 1957 · p. 344». A la mujer que da centro al segundo viaje la nombra por el oficio que su pueblo le reconoce: «a curandera de primera categoria, a cumndera of the first class, Maria Sabina by name» «Valentina Pavlovna Wasson y R. Gordon Wasson — Mushrooms, Russia and History (Pantheon, 1957), ed. inglés 1957 · p. 381», y conserva en su español el límite que ella puso: «But the Senora requested through Cayetano that when the power would seize her — cuando la fuerza le aganara — we should desist, and of course we did so» «Valentina Pavlovna Wasson y R. Gordon Wasson — Mushrooms, Russia and History (Pantheon, 1957), ed. inglés 1957 · p. 382». Letcher, que escribe cuarenta años después, mide lo que ese encuentro produjo: «Wasson inverted this reading to make her E Hd legions of mushroom enthusiasts across the world, she has ES e quintessential psychedelic shaman — a term she never used» «Letcher — Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (2006), ed. inglés 2006 · p. 61», y lo atribuye a lo que Wasson buscaba, «But I th compelling that Wasson alighted upon Sabina as *the shaman' because she neatly fitted his preconceptions ab priestess of his old religion should look like. On finding heart must have skipped a beat, for in her he saw the m which he had been looking.» «Letcher — Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (2006), ed. inglés 2006 · p. 59». De la línea larga que hoy se traza hacia atrás desde esas figuras, Letcher describe la forma —«In the case of magic mushrooms, therefore, enthusiasts imagine an unbroken tradition of use stretching back to the Palaeolithic, which includes the hunter-gatherer shamans, the Neolithic builders of Stonehenge and Avebury, the ancient Greeks at Eleusis, the Iron Age Druids and medieval witches, and which was only severed by Christianity and the machinations of the industrial revolution.» «Letcher — Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (2006), ed. inglés 2006 · p. 21»— y da su saldo: «It seems that everywhere we look in the dim and distant p slippery and evanescent magic mushrooms simply evade oui There are none to be found in the archaeological record, nor ences from other psychoactive plant remains easy to make. images of mushrooms are, in the absence of contextual in quite possibly something else entirely, while purported hall cally inspired rock art may be nothing of the sort. Not one of evidence unequivocally points to their having been used by herbalists, Stone Age architects or prehistoric shamans.» «Letcher — Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (2006), ed. inglés 2006 · p. 32».
Lo demás de esta ficha no es voz de dentro y se dice así. Todo lo que el corpus tiene fichado sobre esta materia son estudios, y lo sostienen ellos: Wasson describe el hallazgo como propio de su gremio —«All over the world, wherever anthropologists have been making their way, they have been finding the native peoples utilizing as shamanic inebriants natural plant products. With astonishing resourcefulness untutored folk, or rather their herbalists, in ages past discovered these ‘drugs’, as we call them, and how best to prepare them for medico-religious ends.» «Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968), ed. inglés 1968 según el número de ficha de la Library of Congress impreso en la página de derechos, «68-I1197» (p. 12); la reimpresión Harvest que se escaneó no imprime año propio · p. 395»—, Couliano consigna que la misma figura cambia de signo según quién la mire —«the very same shaman may act as a healer within his own ethnic or regional group and as a sorcerer toward outsiders» «Couliano — Out of This World (1991) · p. 60»— y Terence McKenna, que es el autor del corpus que más cerca estuvo de hablar desde dentro, habla desde fuera y lo dice en primera persona del plural: «But here is the thing; if there is something weird going on, then we should observe it and see what it is and try to reduce it to some coherent framework. Granted we don't know what it is that we are dealing with, but on the other hand, we know that we came here to investigate shamanic magic generally, so now we have to go to work on this effect, or» «Terence McKenna — True Hallucinations (HarperCollins, 1994) · p. 61». Lo que él declara suyo es un método propio —«During this time the method I had evolved for probing the shamanic dimension was to smoke DMT at the peak point of an LSD experience. I would do this whenever I took LSD, which was quite occasionally. It would allow me to enter the tryptamine dimension for a slightly extended period of time.» «Terence McKenna — True Hallucinations (HarperCollins, 1994) · p. 53»—, no una pertenencia; los chamanes de su relato son otros, «That afternoon a young Witoto named Basilio came to the ca-sita and, having heard of our interest from the priest, offered to take us to see his father, a shaman with a local reputation. Basilio assumed we were interested in ayahuasca, the better-known hallucinogen in the area, which is generally available for the asking.» «Terence McKenna — True Hallucinations (HarperCollins, 1994) · p. 43», y a la materia llega por una conferencia, «SOMETIME DURING THE EARLY 1980s, while visiting the Esalen Institute, where I had been invited to participate in a conference on shamanism, I realized that my innate Irish ability to rave had been turbo-charged by years of psilocybin mushroom use.» «Terence McKenna — True Hallucinations (HarperCollins, 1994) · p. 10». Por eso esta raíz nace sin una sola obra adscrita.
in the library: 0 ascribed works · 4 linked authors
What the works say about it
how each work defines it, with its passageAdams — The Game of Saturn (2017)
Asprem y Granholm (eds.) — Contemporary Esotericism (2013)
Assmann — Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt (2005)
Blavatsky — Essential Works (siete obras reunidas, 1877–1892)
Brown — The Channeling Zone (1997)
Bullard — The Myth and Mystery of UFOs (2010)
Couliano — Out of This World (1991)
Literatura hekhalot en traducción (tr. Davila, Brill 2013)
Agrippa — De occulta philosophia
The Rig Veda, antología de 108 himnos (tr. Doniger O'Flaherty, 1981)
Efron, Holmstedt y Kline (eds.) — Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (1967)
Efron, Holmstedt y Kline (eds.) — Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (1967)
Efron, Holmstedt y Kline (eds.) — Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (1967)
Efron, Holmstedt y Kline (eds.) — Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (1967)
Efron, Holmstedt y Kline (eds.) — Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (1967)
Eliade — Myths, Dreams and Mysteries (1967)
Eliade — Patterns in Comparative Religion (1958)
Eliade — Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1989)
Furst (ed.) — Flesh of the Gods (1972; reimpresión de 1990)
Furst (ed.) — Flesh of the Gods (1972; reimpresión de 1990)
Furst (ed.) — Flesh of the Gods (1972; reimpresión de 1990)
Furst (ed.) — Flesh of the Gods (1972; reimpresión de 1990)
Hammer — Claiming Knowledge (2004)
Hanegraaff (ed.) — Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism
Hanegraaff — New Age Religion and Western Culture (1996)
Harner (ed.) — Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973)
Harpur — Daimonic Reality (1994)
Hofmann — LSD: My Problem Child (2009)
Hutton — The Stations of the Sun (1996)
Hutton — The Triumph of the Moon (2.ª ed., 2019)
Kingsley — Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic (1995)
Kripal — How to Think Impossibly (2024)
Strieber y Kripal — The Super Natural (2016)
Letcher — Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (2006)
Mack — Abduction (1994; rústica revisada, 1995)
Mack — Passport to the Cosmos (1999; conmemorativa de 2011)
Terence McKenna — True Hallucinations (HarperCollins, 1994)
Pollan — How to Change Your Mind (2018)
Rätsch — The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants (2005)
Schimmel — Mystical Dimensions of Islam (1975)
Schultes, Hofmann y Rätsch — Plants of the Gods (2001)
Strassman — DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2001)
El Umbral de la Consciencia (2026, en curso)
The Urantia Book (Urantia Foundation, texto de referencia estándar)
Valentina Pavlovna Wasson y R. Gordon Wasson — Mushrooms, Russia and History (Pantheon, 1957)
Wasson — Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality (1968)
Weidner y Bridges — The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye (2003)
The Serpent Power (Arthur Avalon / Sir John Woodroffe), 4.ª ed., Ganesh & Co.
Linked authors
Claims
69 entries«HE word ‘‘shaman,”’ we saw, comes to us through Russian from the Tungusic Saman.» — Eliade abre el capítulo decimocuarto con la etimología: la palabra llega por vía rusa del tungús saman. La capitular se pierde en el troceo y la línea empieza en HE.
«In the other languages of Central and North Asia the corresponding terms are: Yakut ojuna (oyuna), Mongolian biga, béga (buge, bi), and udagan (cf. also Buryat udayan, Yakut udoyan: ‘‘shamaness’’), Turko-Tatar kam (Altaic kam, gam, Mongolian sami, etc.» — el repertorio de términos equivalentes en las lenguas de Asia Central y del Norte, con sus variantes; las transliteraciones van tal como las imprime la capa de texto.
«It has been sought to explain the Tungusic term by the Pali samana, and we shall return to this possible etymology (which is part of the great problem of Indian influences on Siberian religions) in the last chapter of this book.» — la etimología que deja abierta para el último capítulo: derivar el término tungús del pali samana, dentro del problema mayor del influjo indio sobre las religiones siberianas.
«In non-literate societies, the experts who directly confront the supernatural are called "shamans" by anthropologists.» — Harner nombra al especialista y nombra de quién es la palabra: en las sociedades no letradas, quien confronta directamente lo sobrenatural es lo que los antropólogos llaman chamán.
«Shaman, a term preferred in anthropology partially because it lacks the sensational or negative connotation of "witch" or "witch-doctor," is a word from the language of the Tungus tribe of Siberia.» — la procedencia del término y la razón del gremio para preferirlo: es palabra de la lengua de los tungús de Siberia, y carece de la connotación sensacional o negativa de witch o witch-doctor.
«A shaman may be defined as a man or woman who is in direct contact with the spirit world through a trance state and has one or more spirits at his command to carry out his bidding for good or evil.» — la definición operativa de Harner, que no distingue por sexo ni por signo moral: hombre o mujer en contacto directo con el mundo de los espíritus por un estado de trance, con uno o más espíritus a su mando.
«By extension, the same terminology has been applied in studying the religious history of “civilized” peoples, and there have been discussions, for example, of an Indian, an Iranian, a Germanic, a Chinese, and even a Babylonian “shamanism’’ with reference to the “‘primitive’’ elements attested in the corresponding religions.» — la extensión del término que Eliade consigna: se ha hablado de un chamanismo indio, iranio, germánico, chino y hasta babilonio por los elementos llamados primitivos de esas religiones.
«For many reasons this confusion can only militate against any understanding of the shamanic phenomenon.» — el juicio que hace sobre esa extensión: la confusión solo puede obrar contra la comprensión del fenómeno.
«If the word ‘‘shaman”’ is taken to mean any magician, sorcerer, medicine man, or ecstatic found throughout the history of religions and religious ethnology, we arrive at a notion at once extremely complex and extremely vague» — la razón del juicio: tomar chamán por cualquier mago, hechicero, curandero o extático da una noción a la vez complejísima y vaguísima.
«For, of course, the shaman is also a magician and medicine man; he is believed to cure, like all doctors, and to perform miracles of the fakir type, like all magicians, whether primitive or modern. But beyond this, he is a psychopomp, and he may also be priest, mystic, and poet.» — lo que sí concede al uso amplio: el chamán es también mago y curandero, cura y hace prodigios de tipo faquir, y además es psicopompo y puede ser sacerdote, místico y poeta.
«As for the shamanic techniques of ecstasy, they do not exhaust all the varieties of ecstatic experience documented in the history of religions and religious ethnology. Hence any ecstatic cannot be considered a shaman» — y el reverso: las técnicas chamánicas no agotan las variedades de experiencia extática, de modo que no todo extático es chamán.
«Always endeavoring to define the place of shamanism within primitive religions (with all that these imply: magic, belief in Supreme Beings and spirits, mythological concepts, techniques of ecstasy, and so on), we shall constantly be obliged to refer to more or less similar phenomena, without implying that they are shamanic.» — la cautela comparativa que se impone: referirse a fenómenos parecidos sin dar por supuesto que sean chamánicos.
«Throughout the immense area comprising Central and North Asia, the magico-religious life of society centers on the shaman.» — la centralidad que le reconoce: en toda esa área inmensa la vida mágico-religiosa de la sociedad gira sobre el chamán.
«This, of course, does not mean that he is the one and only manipulator of the sacred, nor that religious activity is completely usurped by him.» — y acota esa centralidad de inmediato: no es el único manipulador de lo sagrado ni acapara la actividad religiosa.
«The shaman is the great spccialist in the human soul; he alone ‘‘sees”’ it, for he knows its ‘form’ and its destiny.» — la fórmula con que lo define como especialista del alma humana: solo él la ve, porque conoce su forma y su destino. La capa de texto lee spccialist por specialist.
«Thus, nowhere in the history of religions do we encounter “‘primordial’’ phenomena; for history has been everywhere, changing, recasting, enriching, or impoverishing religious concepts, mythological creations, rites, techniques of ecstasy.» — niega que la historia de las religiones encuentre fenómenos primordiales, porque la historia ha estado en todas partes recomponiendo, enriqueciendo o empobreciendo.
«But closer study of the problem gives the impression that the use of narcotics is, rather, indicative of the decadence of a technique of ecstasy or of its extension to “lower’’ peoples or social groups.» — el juicio de Eliade sobre los narcóticos, con el grado dentro: un estudio más cercano le da la impresión de que su uso indica más bien la decadencia de una técnica de éxtasis, o su extensión a pueblos y grupos sociales inferiores.
«In any case, we have observed that the use of narcotics (tobacco, ete.) is relatively recent in the shamanism of the far Northeast.» — el dato con que sostiene ese juicio: el uso de narcóticos, tabaco entre ellos, es relativamente reciente en el chamanismo del extremo nordeste; el troceo imprime ete. por etc.
«Intoxication is a mechanical and corrupt method of reproducing “‘ecstasy,’’ being ‘‘carried out of oneself’; it tries to imitate a model that is earlier and that belongs to another plane of reference.» — el mismo juicio dicho en el capítulo de la cura ostiaca: la intoxicación es método mecánico y corrupto de reproducir el éxtasis, que imita un modelo anterior de otro plano.
«seen that, in shamanism itself, narcotics already represent a decadence and that, in default of true ecstatic methods, recourse is taken to narcotics to induce trance.» — y repetido en el capítulo sobre el yoga: dentro del chamanismo mismo los narcóticos representan ya una decadencia, y a ellos se recurre a falta de métodos extáticos verdaderos.
«Today Professor Eliade enjoys renown and his word carries weight in certain circles interested in the origin and history of religions, and since he seems to hold the view that the use of divine inebriants is probably a ‘recent phenomenon’ among shamans, or at least among Siberian shamans, a few words of comment on his treatment of this vital aspect of his subject seems called for.» — Wasson declara por qué comenta a Eliade, por el peso que su palabra tiene en los círculos de historia de las religiones.
«there is valid linguistic evidence that the use of inebriating mushrooms in Siberia goes back to the Uralic period, at a time when the Ob-Ugrian and the Samoyed languages had not yet evolved out of their mother Uralic tongue, more than 6000 years ago.» — le opone la evidencia lingüística que lleva el uso del hongo embriagante al periodo urálico, hace más de seis mil años.
«The extract that we have quoted from his book on Yoga gives no source or authority for his statements, not even himself. He speaks ex cathedra.» — el reproche de aparato: el extracto citado del libro sobre el yoga no da fuente ni autoridad, ni siquiera a sí mismo, y habla ex cathedra.
«That there is decadence in shamanism among the minor nationalities of the world is clear and self-explanatory, as their feeble cultures founder in the mzlstrom of the modern world. It is also true that in their disarray these peoples have taken to hard liquor. But this proves nothing as to the antiquity of divine inebriation, and in particular divine inebriation from the indigenous mushrooms of Siberia.» — lo que Wasson concede: que hay decadencia en el chamanismo de las nacionalidades menores y que esos pueblos se dieron al licor fuerte, y que eso no prueba nada sobre la antigüedad de la embriaguez divina; el troceo imprime mzlstrom por maelstrom.
«And so the reader has found himself shunted back, and back, and back, and again back, only now to be shuttled forward. His statements that the shamanic use of mushrooms is a recent innovation stand unsupported.» — el saldo que saca de seguir las remisiones internas de Eliade: sus afirmaciones sobre el uso chamánico de los hongos como innovación reciente quedan sin apoyo.
«His preference on moral grounds for other techniques to attain ecstasy has affected his critical faculty when he discusses what is purely an historical question: how old is mushroom inebriation?» — dónde localiza el fallo: la preferencia moral de Eliade por otras técnicas de éxtasis afectó su facultad crítica en una cuestión puramente histórica.
«For the modern toxicologist this lumping together of diverse psychotropic drugs, obliterating the enormous differences among them, is crude.» — la objeción técnica: para el toxicólogo moderno, meter en un mismo saco drogas psicotrópicas muy distintas, borrando las diferencias enormes entre ellas, es burdo.
«When Professor Eliade lumps the fly-agaric with hard liquor and tobacco, he is committing an anachronism. He forgets that the fly-agaric is indigenous to the forests of Siberia and that, for the eater, the effects are utterly different from hard liquor.» — el nombre que le pone: meter el agárico en el mismo saco que el licor fuerte y el tabaco es anacronismo, porque el agárico es indígena de los bosques de Siberia y sus efectos son del todo distintos.
«Has hard liquor ever played a réle in the religious life of any people? The outlying races of the world may have tried it out in recent centuries sporadically and spasmodically, but Professor Eliade is right in saying that its use in shamanism marks the dying phase in the indigenous religious life of the Siberians.» — la segunda concesión, en la misma discusión: Eliade tiene razón al decir que el uso del licor fuerte en el chamanismo marca la fase agónica de la vida religiosa indígena de los siberianos; el troceo imprime réle por rôle.
«The West is on the threshold of penetrating their secrets. There is an unexplored world before us, and we should not prejudge it.» — cómo cierra Wasson: Occidente está en el umbral de esos secretos, hay un mundo inexplorado por delante y no se debe prejuzgarlo.
«All over the world, wherever anthropologists have been making their way, they have been finding the native peoples utilizing as shamanic inebriants natural plant products. With astonishing resourcefulness untutored folk, or rather their herbalists, in ages past discovered these ‘drugs’, as we call them, and how best to prepare them for medico-religious ends.» — Wasson describe el hallazgo como propio de su gremio y acredita a los herbolarios de los pueblos el descubrimiento de los embriagantes vegetales y su preparación con fines médico-religiosos.
«The theoretical literature has largely overlooked the fact that even this "classic" shamanism often involved the use of hallu» — el reproche de Harner a la literatura teórica del chamanismo, dicho sin nombrar a nadie: incluso ese chamanismo llamado clásico implicó a menudo el uso de alucinógeno. El tramo se corta donde la plana parte la palabra.
«Thus one can read entire books on shamanism or primitive religion without finding any reference to hallucinogens except for peyote.» — la objeción en su forma más precisa, y sigue sin nombrar a nadie: se pueden leer libros enteros sobre chamanismo o religión primitiva sin hallar una sola referencia a los alucinógenos salvo el peyote.
«Yet by patient library research one can find overwhelming evidence of the use of such substances in connection with the supernatural in scores of cultures.» — lo que opone a esa ausencia: la búsqueda paciente en biblioteca da evidencia abrumadora del uso de tales sustancias en relación con lo sobrenatural en decenas de culturas.
«The term ‘shaman’ is therefore a Western, ori applied willy-nilly to a range of practices around the have deemed to be the same, regardless of how the p» — el fallo de Letcher sobre el término: una categoría orientalista occidental aplicada a prácticas dispares al margen de cómo se nombren sus practicantes; el troceo pierde el final de cada renglón de esta plana y el tramo va tal cual.
«Western scholars have laboured long and hard to find quality, some defining characteristic, that would captur the shaman — ‘the master of ecstasy’, ‘the wounded hea itive psychoanalyst’, ‘the madman”” — missing the oby shamanism has always been characterised by differen» — su objeción a la erudición occidental: buscó una cualidad definitoria del chamán —maestro del éxtasis, sanador herido, psicoanalista primitivo, loco— y pasó por alto lo obvio, que el chamanismo siempre se ha caracterizado por la diferencia.
«For another, ‘shamans’ everywhere assumed ent roles and undertook different duties, coexisting a religious functionaries, priests and magic-workers. E, expressed an individuality of style through distinctive t tumes, performances and attitudes, and each adhered to world view.» — lo que halla en lugar de una figura única: los chamanes asumían papeles distintos, convivían con otros oficiantes religiosos y cada uno tenía su estilo, sus herramientas y su visión del mundo.
«But while it is true to say that most, if not a e animistic tribal communities in Siberia supported people, sy 34 men, in the role of what we now call shaman, it would be Tong to think that they belonged to a static, monolithic, uni-Y adhered-to religion, or even to a pristine ur-religion as some» — la enmienda de Letcher: casi toda comunidad tribal siberiana tenía esa figura, y sería falso pensarla como religión estática, monolítica y única, ni como una urreligión prístina; el troceo imprime Tong por wrong.
«Similarly, when we think about Siberian shamans, it tends to be a singular image that comes to mind, an image that has not substantially altered since the earliest Western travellers encountered these enig» — el estereotipo que examina: la imagen única del chamán siberiano, que no ha cambiado mucho desde los primeros viajeros occidentales.
«Wasson inverted this reading to make her E Hd legions of mushroom enthusiasts across the world, she has ES e quintessential psychedelic shaman — a term she never used» — lo que Letcher mide del efecto de Wasson sobre María Sabina: para los entusiastas del mundo se volvió la chamana psicodélica por excelencia, con un término que ella nunca usó.
«But I th compelling that Wasson alighted upon Sabina as *the shaman' because she neatly fitted his preconceptions ab priestess of his old religion should look like. On finding heart must have skipped a beat, for in her he saw the m which he had been looking.» — la tesis que Letcher declara como propia y en primera persona: Wasson dio con Sabina como la chamana porque ella encajaba con lo que él esperaba de una sacerdotisa de su religión antigua; el troceo pierde el final de los renglones.
«In the case of magic mushrooms, therefore, enthusiasts imagine an unbroken tradition of use stretching back to the Palaeolithic, which includes the hunter-gatherer shamans, the Neolithic builders of Stonehenge and Avebury, the ancient Greeks at Eleusis, the Iron Age Druids and medieval witches, and which was only severed by Christianity and the machinations of the industrial revolution.» — la tradición ininterrumpida que Letcher atribuye a los entusiastas, del Paleolítico a las brujas medievales, cortada por el cristianismo y la revolución industrial.
«It seems that everywhere we look in the dim and distant p slippery and evanescent magic mushrooms simply evade oui There are none to be found in the archaeological record, nor ences from other psychoactive plant remains easy to make. images of mushrooms are, in the absence of contextual in quite possibly something else entirely, while purported hall cally inspired rock art may be nothing of the sort. Not one of evidence unequivocally points to their having been used by herbalists, Stone Age architects or prehistoric shamans.» — el saldo que Letcher saca de su recorrido: ni un solo indicio apunta sin equívoco a que los hongos mágicos fueran usados por herbolarios, arquitectos de la Edad de Piedra o chamanes prehistóricos; el troceo pierde el final de los renglones.
«Mircea Eliade defined shamanism not as a religion properly speaking, but as a "technique of ecstasy," a system of ecstatic and therapeutic methods whose purpose is to obtain contact with the parallel universe of the spirits and to win their support in dealing with the affairs of a g» — Couliano recoge la definición de Eliade y se la adjudica a él: no una religión propiamente dicha sino una técnica del éxtasis, sistema de métodos extáticos y terapéuticos para contactar el universo paralelo de los espíritus; el corte trunca la frase.
«According to this definition, shamanism is unknown on the African continent.» — lo que saca de esa definición: según ella el chamanismo es desconocido en el continente africano.
«However, shamanism is in fact identifiable in the religions of all continents and at all levels of culture, its center being Central Asia and northern Asia.» — y lo que sostiene acto seguido en la misma plana: el chamanismo se identifica de hecho en las religiones de todos los continentes y en todos los niveles de cultura, con centro en Asia central y septentrional. Las dos afirmaciones quedan juntas y sin conciliar.
«All in all, my survey of shamanism remains extremely brief.» — Couliano acota él mismo el alcance de su tratamiento, aunque la categoría organice su libro entero.
«the very same shaman may act as a healer within his own ethnic or regional group and as a sorcerer toward outsiders» — el dato con que muestra que el signo depende del grupo y no de la persona: el mismo chamán obra como sanador dentro de su grupo étnico o regional y como hechicero hacia los de fuera.
«The Tungus shaman Ivan Cholko states that a future shaman must fall ill and have his body cut in pieces and his blood drunk by the evil spirits (saarg7). These—which are really the souls of dead shamans—throw his head into a caldron, where it is melted with certain metal pieces that will later form part of his ritual costume.» — según Eliade, el chamán tungús Ivan Cholko declara que el futuro chamán ha de enfermar y ser descuartizado por los saargi, que echan su cabeza a un caldero con piezas de metal que luego serán parte del traje; el troceo imprime saarg7.
«Another Tungus shaman relates that he was sick for a whole year. During that time he sang to feel better. His shaman ancestors came and initiated him. They pierced him with arrows until he lost consciousness and fell to the ground; they cut off his flesh, tore out his bones and counted them; if one had been missing, he could not have become a shaman.» — el relato de otro chamán tungús, con su voz: enfermo un año entero, cantaba para sentirse mejor, y sus antepasados chamanes lo atravesaron con flechas, le cortaron la carne y le contaron los huesos.
«I am high in the air, I see the Yenisei a hundred versts away.» — el grito del chamán del Yenisei en pleno vuelo, con su voz: está alto en el aire y ve el Yenisei a cien verstas.
«O my little fly, rise still higher, I want to see farther!» — lo que pide a su espíritu portador, con su voz: que suba más alto, porque quiere ver más lejos.
«My God, you who are the master of the whole world, what we want is to search for and encounter from where comes sickness, from where comes pain and affliction. We are the ones who speak and cure and use medicine. So without mishap, without difficulty, lift us into the heights and exalt us.» — la primera oración de la chamana mazateca que Henry Munn transcribe y traduce dentro del volumen de Harner: pide al dueño del mundo entero buscar y encontrar de dónde viene la enfermedad, y declara quiénes son los que hablan, curan y usan medicina.
«I am he who speaks. I am he who speaks with the mountains. I am he who speaks with the corners. I am the doctor. I am the man of medicines. I am. I am he who cures. I am he who speaks with the Lord of the World. I am happy. I speak with the mountains. I am he who speaks with the mountains of peaks. I am he who speaks with the Bald Mountain. I am the remedy and the medicine man. I am the mushroom. I am the fresh mushroom. I am the large mushroom. I am the fragrant mushroom. I am the mushroom of the spirit.» — la letanía final del chamán mazateco en la traducción de Munn, donde se nombra a sí mismo: el que habla, el que habla con las montañas, el doctor, el hombre de medicinas, el que cura, el remedio y el curandero, y al cabo el hongo mismo. Ninguno de esos nombres es chamán.
«I am he who puts together," says the medicine man to define his shamanistic function: he who speaks, he who searches, says. I am he who looks for the spirit of the day, says. I search where there is fright and terror. I am he who fixes, he who cures the person that is sick. Herbal medicine. Remedy of the spirit. Remedy of the atmosphere of the day, says. I am he who resolves all, says. Truly you are man enough to resolve the truth. You are he who puts together and resolves. You are he who puts together the personality. You are he who speaks with the light of day. You are he who speaks with terror.» — el chamán mazateco se define por lo que hace: el que junta, el que habla, el que busca, el que compone y cura al enfermo, con la medicina herbal y el remedio del espíritu.
«His most important function, however, is to speak for the sick one. The Mazatec shamans eat the mushrooms that liberate the fountains of language to be able to speak beautifully and with eloquence so that their words, spoken for the sick one and those present, will arrive and be heard in the spirit world from which comes benediction or grief.» — la función que Munn tiene por la más importante: hablar por el enfermo, y por eso comen los hongos que liberan las fuentes del lenguaje, para que sus palabras lleguen y sean oídas en el mundo de los espíritus.
«The function of the speaker, nevertheless, is much more than simply to implore. The shaman has a conception of poesis4 in its original sense as an action: words themselves are medicine. To enunciate and give meaning to the events and situations of existence is life giving in itself.» — la tesis fuerte de Munn sobre la palabra como remedio: el chamán tiene una concepción de la poesis en su sentido original de acción, las palabras mismas son medicina, y enunciar y dar sentido es de suyo dador de vida; el troceo pega la llamada de nota al término.
«known to the ancient Meso-Americans as the Flesh of God, called by her people the Blood of Christ.» — los dos nombres del hongo que Munn recoge, uno antiguo y otro cristiano, y la ficha los consigna sin arbitrar: Carne de Dios para los mesoamericanos antiguos, Sangre de Cristo para el pueblo de la chamana.
«The woman whose words we are listening to, like many, discovered her shamanistic vocation when she was cured by the mushrooms of an illness: after the death of her husband she broke out all over with pimples; she was given the mushrooms to see whether they would "help" her and the malady disappeared. Since then she has eaten them on her own and given them to others.» — el llamado de la chamana tal como Munn lo cuenta: descubrió su vocación al ser curada por los hongos de una dolencia, y desde entonces los come por su cuenta y los da a otros.
«We have found no English word that renders curandero. Medicine man, shaman, witch doctor, sorcererall are misleading. The curandero heals with herbs and engages in divination. Curandero is the respectful designation of which brujo is the pejorative counterpart» — Wasson rechaza cuatro traducciones inglesas por engañosas, entre ellas shaman, y define el término que conserva: el curandero cura con hierbas y adivina, y es la designación respetuosa frente a su contrapartida peyorativa; el troceo funde sorcerer y all.
«The mushroom itself 'is speech', es habla, he would say, and it speaks of many things, of God, of the future, of life and death, and also it tells where to find things that are lost» — la fórmula con que el curandero mazateco definió el hongo ante los Wasson, en español y en inglés: el hongo es habla, y habla de Dios, del futuro, de la vida y de la muerte.
«But the mushroom speaks only in Mazatec, and he» — la razón por la que el hijo del curandero tuvo que estar en el rito: el hongo habla solo en mazateco; el tramo se corta en el folio.
«Then he went on to explain to us that different curanderos had different styles in performing the ritual. Some chant and sing and even shout. His own style, he said, was simple: he always remained composed and never raised his voice» — la variedad ritual que el curandero les explicó y su propio estilo declarado: unos cantan y hasta gritan, y él permanecía sereno y no alzaba la voz.
«a curandera de primera categoria, a cumndera of the first class, Maria Sabina by name» — cómo el libro nombra por primera vez a la mujer que da centro al segundo viaje, por el oficio que su pueblo le reconoce; el troceo imprime cumndera.
«But the Senora requested through Cayetano that when the power would seize her — cuando la fuerza le aganara — we should desist, and of course we did so» — el límite que la curandera puso a las fotografías, conservado en su español por el intermediario: cuando la fuerza la agarrara, debían desistir.
«But here is the thing; if there is something weird going on, then we should observe it and see what it is and try to reduce it to some coherent framework. Granted we don't know what it is that we are dealing with, but on the other hand, we know that we came here to investigate shamanic magic generally, so now we have to go to work on this effect, or» — voz de Dennis McKenna en el diálogo que su hermano transcribe: dice en primera persona del plural que fueron allá a investigar la magia chamánica en general, que es hablar de ella desde fuera; el tramo se corta en el cambio de plana.
«During this time the method I had evolved for probing the shamanic dimension was to smoke DMT at the peak point of an LSD experience. I would do this whenever I took LSD, which was quite occasionally. It would allow me to enter the tryptamine dimension for a slightly extended period of time.» — lo que Terence McKenna declara suyo es un método, no una pertenencia: fumar DMT en la cima de un viaje de LSD para sondear lo que llama la dimensión chamánica.
«That afternoon a young Witoto named Basilio came to the ca-sita and, having heard of our interest from the priest, offered to take us to see his father, a shaman with a local reputation. Basilio assumed we were interested in ayahuasca, the better-known hallucinogen in the area, which is generally available for the asking.» — los chamanes de su relato son otros: el padre de Basilio, un witoto con reputación local.
«SOMETIME DURING THE EARLY 1980s, while visiting the Esalen Institute, where I had been invited to participate in a conference on shamanism, I realized that my innate Irish ability to rave had been turbo-charged by years of psilocybin mushroom use.» — y cómo llega a la materia, según su propio Preface: por una conferencia sobre chamanismo en el Esalen Institute.