Observations placeholder
Mircea Eliade - Inuit Weather control
Identifier
005915
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Mircea Eliade – Shamanism Archaic techniques of ecstasy
The Eskimo shaman can not only pray to Sila for fair weather, he can also end a storm by a complicated ritual involving the aid of his helping spirits and the evocation of the dead as well as a duel with another shaman, during which the latter is ‘killed’ and ‘resuscitated’ several times…….
The shaman sings for a long time in secret language to evoke the spirits. Falling into a trance, he speaks in a high, strange voice that seems not to be his. The songs improvised during trance may reveal some of the shaman’s mystical experiences:
My body is all eyes
Look at it! be not afraid
I look in all directions
Sings a shaman, no doubt referring to the mystical experience of inner light that he undergoes before entering into trance