1st Edition
The Catalpa Bow A Study of Shamanistic Practices in Japan
By Carmen Blacker
Copyright 2000
384 Pages
by
Routledge
384 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
This classic work describes shamanic figures surviving in Japan today, their initiatory dreams, ascetic practices, the supernatural beings with whom they communicate, and the geography of the other world in myth and legend.
1. The Bridge
2. The Sacred Beings
3. Witch Animals
4. The Other World
5. Ascesis
6. The Ancient Sibyl
7. The Living Goddess
8. The Blind Medium
9. The Ascetic’s Initiation
10. The Visionary Journey
11. The Symbolic Journey
12. The Ascetic’s Power
13. Village Oracles
14. Mountain Oracles
15. Exorcism
16. Conclusion
Biography
Carmen Blacker
'One of the absolute 'must read' books on Japanese religious practice. It is also essential reading for those interested in asceticism, shamanism and spirit possession in general.' - Ian Reader, Culture and Religion
'one suspects that the time may be not far off when it will come to be recognized as the best book on East Asian religion as a whole to emerge from Britain in the twentieth century.' - T. H. Barrett, Bulletin of SOAS
