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From the Trip to the Knowledge - The Shamanic Initiation in the Peruvian Andes.


Pages: 249 - 263

Abstract

My remarks are based on a field work carried out in the Cuzco region, Peru, which began in 1999 and more specifically on two rituals. The first, called mesa, is a possessive trance ritual, during which the shaman “fly away” to lay on a table (mesa) and to speak, under an identity other than that of the social person, with the participants. The second is an “energy cleaning” or limpieza, made with fire. Successfully, they form the frame of this article in which I discuss “mind” and body travels for initiative and practical purposes, the relationships they have with each other and with a set of spatial and temporal representations. I show that if destabilization at the precise moment is necessary to lead to the repetition of the trance for the benefit of the community (within the meaning of all individual demands), it is only through the discursive existence of an architectural shaman. In other words, my analysis is intended to explore the process of legitimization and the logic of transmission and circulation of knowledge that enables the human being to manage random.