General Editor's Preface -- Introduction -- SECTION ONE -- Neo-Hindu Acculturation: An Alternative to "Instant Chemical Religion" -- Lévi-Strauss in Fairyland -- Gods, Kings, and the Caste System in India -- Shamanism as a Profession -- Religion and Human Play -- The Akan Stool Polity: A Political Organization -- Religious Change in a Northern Nigerian Emirate -- SECTION TWO -- Deified Men and Humanized Gods: Some Folk Bases of Hindu Theology -- Shamanism in Central Asia -- Shaman and Priest in Yucatán Pentecostalism -- Sense Stimulation and Ritual Response: Classifying the Religious Symbolism of the Persian and Yemenite Jews -- Characteristics of Sisala Diviners -- The Goddess Cult in the Hebrew-Jewish Religion -- Tibetan Oracles -- Breaking Ties with Deceased Spouse -- The Spirit "Rides" or the Spirit "Comes": Possession in a North Indian Village -- The Shamanistic Element in Taiwanese Folk Religion -- The Study of Shamanism among the Peoples of Siberia and the North -- SECTION THREE -- Altered States of Consciousness in Northern Iroquoian Ritual -- Shamanism, Trance, Hallucinogens, and Psychical Events: Concepts, Methods, and Techniques for Fieldwork among Primitives -- The Cultural-Historical Origin of Shamanism -- The Role of Women in the Male Cults of the Soromaja in New Guinea -- Certain Aspects of the Study of Siberian Shamanism -- Learning of Psychodynamics, History, Diagnosis Management Therapy by a Kali Cult Indigenous Healer in Guiana -- A Peruvian Curandero's Séance: Power and Balance -- SECTION FOUR -- Esoteric Rituals in Japanese Traditional Secret Societies: A Study of the Death and Rebirth Motif -- Ritual, Myth, and the Murdered President -- SECTION FIVE -- Pandharpur Priesthood: Its Changing Role, Functions, and Future -- An Anthropomorphic Shamanic Musical Instrument from the Eighth to Twelfth Centuries A.D.

Rousalia: The Ritual Worship of the Dead -- Personification of Capes and Rocks in the Hellenic Seas -- Historical Reality and Russian Supernatural Beings -- Some Findings Concerning the Nomenclature and Functions of Certain Lacandon Mayan Deities -- The Moon-Mythical Character of the God Yü-huang -- Was Espingo (Ispincu) of Psychotropic and Intoxicating Importance for the Shamans in Peru? -- Epilogue -- Biographical Notes -- Index of Names -- Index of Subjects.