Shamanic Journeys Through the Caucasus PDF Download

Author: Michael Berman
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1846942535
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
What were the religious beliefs and practices of the early inhabitants of the Caucasus? Some of the answers can be found by looking at the folktales from the region, which is what this book does.

Author: Michael Berman
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 184694225X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
Known as the land of the mountains, Dagestan lies immediately north of the Caucasus Mountains, and stretches for approximately 250 miles along the west shore of the Caspian Sea. With its mountainous terrain making travel and communication difficult, Daghestan is still largely tribal. Despite over a century of Tsarist control followed by seventy years of repressive Soviet rule, there are still 32 distinct ethnic groups in Daghestan, each with its own language, making it unquestionably the most complex of the Caucasian republics. Shamanic practices are still prevalent in this country, where one of the ten lost tribes of Israel can be found. In Daghestan, as in the neighbouring countries of Georgia, Chechnya, and Azerbaijan, these roots lie in shamanism. This book, one of only a handful available in English on the country, contains the texts of some of these stories as well as commentaries on them.

Author: Michael Berman
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1846944023
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
A shamanic journey is one that generally takes place in a trance state to the sound of a drumbeat, through dancing, or by ingesting psychoactive drugs, in which aid is sought from beings in other realities, generally for healing purposes or for divination. A shamanic story has either been based on or inspired by a shamanic journey, or one that contains a number of the elements typical of such a journey. In this collection of fascinating journeys and stories, Michael Berman reveals the healing nature of shamanic practice.

Author: Michael Berman
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1780992718
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Despite being located on the extreme eastern boundary of Europe, and having been frequently conquered by invading people from Asia, including Arabs, Turks, Persians, Mongols, and more recently Russians, Georgians still regard themselves very much as Europeans and it is to becoming a future member state of the EU that the majority of the people now aspire. As for the traditional folk-tales from the region, one of their main characteristics is that they are packed with action: Whilst a written, “literary” novel or short story might devote paragraphs to descriptions of people or places, these tales usually settle for an adjective or two; “a thick impassable forest”, “a handsome stately man”, or a formula such as“not-seen-beneath-the-sun beauty”. Many of the heroes and heroines do not even have names (Hunt, 1999, p.8) Safely cocooned, or so we like to kid ourselves, in our sanitised western urban environment, we tend to take the elements for granted. However, tales from a time when the Earth was new help to jolt us out of our daily lethargy, as do the stories in this collection – a number of which have never been translated from Georgian direct into English before.

Author: Michael P. Berman
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1780992629
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
A Bridge to the Other Side is a collection of articles and traditional folk tales that deal with our feelings about and attitudes towards Death, both our own death and that of those nearest and dearest to us. A bridge between earth and heaven, this world and the next, features in the mythology of many different peoples. For example, in Norse legends, Bifröst or Bilröst is a burning rainbow bridge between Midgard, the world, and Asgard, the realm of the gods. The bridge is known as Bilröst in the Poetic Edda; compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and as Bifröst in the Prose Edda; written in the 13th century by Snorri Stureuson. Both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda alternately refer to the bridge as Asbrú (Old Norse Æsirs means bridge). The Persians believed in a bridge between earth and paradise too. In his prayers the penitent in his confession would say: I am wholly without doubt in the existence of the Mazdayaçnian faith; in the coming of the resurrection of the latter body; in the stepping over the bridge Chinvat; as well as in the continuance of paradise.

Author: Verónica Rodríguez
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030061825
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
With a Foreword by Dan Rebellato, this book offers up a detailed exploration of Scottish playwright David Greig’s work with particular attention to globalization, ethics, and the spectator. It makes the argument that Greig’s theatre works by undoing, cracking, or breaking apart myriad elements to reveal the holed, porous nature of all things. Starting with a discussion of Greig’s engagement with shamanism and arguing for holed theatre as a response to globalization, for Greig’s works’ politics of aesthethics, and for the holed spectator as part of an affective ecology of transfers, this book discusses some of Greig’s most representative political theatre from Europe (1994) to The Events (2013), concluding with an exploration of Greig’s theatre’s world-forming quality.

Author: Michael Berman
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443806196
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
All intellectuals driven by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more indigenous (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). In Chechnya, as in the neighbouring countries of Georgia and Armenia, these roots lie in shamanism and the stories in this collection clearly show this to be the case. The history of the Nokhchii (the name the Chechens have given themselves), and their land, is filled with rich and colourful stories, which have survived for thousands of years through oral traditions that have been passed down generation by generation through clan elders. However, legends have blended with actual events so that the true history is difficult to write. The 1994-1996 war destroyed most of Chechnya's treasured archaeological and historical sites, though fortunately ancient burial sites, architectural monuments and several prehistoric cave petroglyphs still remain in the mountains. These valuable relics, coupled with the histories and stories of the elders, provide the people with virtually the only remaining evidence of who their ancient ancestors were. This book contains both the texts of some of the tales and commentaries on them, focusing in particular on their shamanic elements.

Author: Azra Bertrand
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591432804
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 649

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Book Description
Rediscover the lost ancient mystery teachings of the Cosmic Womb • 2017 Nautilus Silver Award • Explains how each of us has a holographic blueprint of the Womb of Creation, our spiritual Womb • Offers practices to help awaken your spiritual Womb, experience the Womb of God within, and activate the Womb’s sacred magic of creation and manifestation • Looks at the power of the moon and its connection to sacred Womb Consciousness • Explores how the lost Womb mystery teachings were encoded in folk and fairy tales, the legends of the Holy Grail, and the traditions of Mary Magdalene and Sophia • Includes access to three guided Womb Awakening audio journeys The Ancients lived by a feminine cosmology of creation, where everything was birthed and dissolved through a sacred universal Womb. Within each of us, whether female or male, lies a holographic blueprint of this Womb of Creation, connecting us to the Web of Life. By awakening your spiritual Womb, the holy of holies within the temple of your body, you can reconnect to the transformative energy of Womb Consciousness and reclaim your sacred powers of creation and love. Drawing on mythical and spiritual traditions from almost every culture, Dr. Azra and Seren Bertrand reconstruct the moon-based feminine mystery teachings of a lost global Womb religion, tracing the tradition all the way back to the Neanderthals and beyond. They explore how these teachings were encoded in the symbolism of folk and fairy tales; the legends of the Holy Grail; the traditions of Mary Magdalene and Sophia; the maiden, queen, and crone archetypes; and the teachings of alchemy and the chakras. They show how sages and shamans across the globe all secretly spoke of the Cosmic Womb and the sacred creative powers of Moon Blood. The authors look at the power of the Moon and its connection to sacred Womb Consciousness, offering meditations and practices to help awaken your spiritual Womb and activate its sacred magic of creation and manifestation. They explain how to activate the energetic gateways of the Womb and merge the heart and Womb to make sexual union the highest sacrament of love. Revealing how we must reconnect with the Divine Feminine to rebirth the Divine Masculine and restore balance to our world, they show how, as we reawaken the powerful ancient path of the Womb Mysteries, we help return our world to harmony with the wild, untamed creative flows and cyclical rhythms of the cosmos.

Author: Kenneth Johnson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Revealing the spiritual roots of Western culture, this in-depth study of witchcraft trial records and the testimony of the witches themselves prove that European peasants accused of witchcraft died, in fact, for the sake of the world's oldest spiritual path. Illustrated.

Author: Elliot D. Cohen
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443808164
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 125

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Book Description
“In Marxist anthropological theory, shamanism represented one of the early forms of religion that later gave rise to more sophisticated beliefs in the course of human advancement … The premise of Marxism was that eventually, at the highest levels of civilization, the sacred and religion would eventually die out” (Znamenski, 2007, p.322). Though history has of course since disproved this, the theory clearly had a great bearing on what was written in the former Soviet Union about shamanism, and also on people’s attitudes in the former Soviet Republics towards such practices. On the other hand, it has been suggested that “all intellectuals driven by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more indigenous” (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). Although this might apply to searching for the roots of Christianity in Georgia, when it comes to searching for the roots of pagan practices, interest on the part of the people of Georgia is generally speaking not so forthcoming. This impasse, coupled with the effects of the repressions against religions, including shamanism, unleashed by the Soviet government between the 1930s and 1950s, along with the recent surge of interest in the Georgian Orthodox church, a backlash to the seventy years of officially sanctioned atheism, makes research into the subject no easy business. However, hopefully this study will at least in some small way help to set the process in motion.