Strange Survivals: Some Chapters in the History of ManBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Strange Survivals: Some Chapters in the History of Man
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Manners and customs -- Origin; Superstition
As man advances in the scale of general culture, and thinks more of the
unseen world, his reason or fancy, or reason and fancy acting together,
become creative; in the protoplastic, nebulous spirit-world points of
light appear, the light is divided from the darkness, and the spiritual
entities take rank, and assume characteristics. Religion enters on the
polytheistic phase.
At the same time the moral sense has advanced; it has seen that there
is some relation between the two worlds determined by good and bad. An
ethic code is evolved, imposed on man by the superior beings in the
world unseen.
But whilst some of the more gifted in a generation attain to this
religious and moral conception, there remain others, at the same time,
unable to rise, who still occupy the same low level as the earlier men,
who are conscious of spiritual forces, but unable to differentiate
them, who are lost in a vague dream, incapable of accepting a theologic
system, and unwilling to submit to moral restraint. Such men will
always turn away from a definite creed, view a priestly caste with
suspicion, and kick against an ethical code. To them the Schaman is
still the only priest, and delirious ecstasy the only sacrament that
unites the worlds. Their psychic development is so rudimentary, that
they are ready to accept as consecrated whatever utterance is vented,
whatever act is performed in the transport of temporary delirium.
Before proceeding any further with the account of the growth of
religion, it will be well here to give an account of Schamanism as
it at present exists. For this I will quote a description given by
Lieutenant Matjuschin who accompanied Baron Wrangel on his Polar
Expedition in 1820-3. Lieutenant Matjuschin visited a Tungu Schaman
near the Lena, in 1820.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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