The paper is an attempt to answer a question about what might have prompted Mircea Eliade, who never considered himself an expert on shamanism and tribal peoples, to write his classic Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. It is suggested that for Eliade with his mindset, which was heavily affected by the philosophy of traditionalism, it was a logical step to enter the field of shamanism studies. An intellectual and cultural movement in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s with numerous links to esotericism, traditionalism fostered quests for “archaic” roots and an authentic primal tradition. The paper also discusses how humanities and social science scholars responded to his book and how Eliade’s vision of shamanism as a cross-cultural primal religion inspired numerous spiritual seekers in the West in the 1960s and the 1970s.