Note 56 — PART II CHAPTER VIII ORIGINS OF THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY THE THRACIAN WORSHIP OF DIONYSOS

This is regularly the meaning of such excesses practised by “magicians”. The shaman (with his “soul”) voyages out into the spirit-world; see the remarkably vivid account of Radloff, Siberien, ii, 1–67; and also Erman, Zschr. f. Ethnologie, ii, 324 ff.; A. Krause, Tlinkitindianer, p. 294 ff., 1885. So does the Lapp magician (Knud Leem, Lappen in Finmarken [E.T. in Pinkerton’s Voyages]). The Angekok enters into communion with his Torngak (Cranz, Hist. of Greenland, i, p. 194, E.T., 1820); the Butio with the Zemen (Müller, Amerik. Urrelig., 191 f.); the Piajes with the spirits (Müller, 217). Thus, too, communication with the divine “grandfather” of the people is established by means of dances, etc., among the Abipones (Dobrizhoffer, Abipones, ii, 64, E.T.). The expulsion of the soul to visit the spirit-world is also practised (in their convulsions) by the magicians of the North American Indians, the people of the Pacific Islands (Tylor, ii, 133), etc. Such practices start out from a commonly held conception of the nature of body and soul and of their relations with the unseen. The magicians believe “that in their ecstatic condition they can break through the barrier between this world and the next”, Müller 397. To facilitate this process they employ the various means alluded to of stimulating their senses.