Communicating with the Spirits
ISBN: 9786155053566
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Central European University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter



Focuses on the problem of communication with the other world: the phenomenon of spirit possession and its changing historical interpretations, the imaginary schemes elaborated for giving accounts of the journeys to the other world, for communicating with the dead, and finally the historical archetypes of this kind of religious manifestation--trance prophecy, divination, and shamanism.Recognized historians and ethnologists analyze the relationship, coexistence and conflicts of popular belief systems, Judeo-Christian mythology and demonology in medieval and modern Europe. The essays address links between rites and beliefs, folklore and literature; the legacy of various pre-Christian mythologies; the syncretic forms of ancient, medieval and modern belief- and rite-systems; "pure" examples from religious-ethnological research outside Europe to elucidate European problems.
Pócs Éva :

Éva Pócs is Professor emeritus at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Pécs, Hungary.

Klaniczay Gábor :

Gábor Klaniczay is University Professor of Medieval Studies at the Central European University.

hidden image for function call