Soul journey
In some religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism , the process of reincarnation or samsara is referred to as a soul journey . In this context it is sometimes referred to as an astral body that leaves the physical body. Sometimes the term is equated with those of astral travel , astral projection , out-of-body experience or, more generally , experience of the hereafter .
The word soul journey (or similar expressions) is also used in the specialist literature of ethnography and anthropology : Cultures with shamanistic characteristics often have a motif that is so designated. For example, Siberian and Eskimo ethnic groups believe that some people with special abilities - the shamans - can “travel” to distant regions or spirit worlds and share important experiences that are inaccessible to normal people. These are, for example, causes of unsuccessful hunts, diseases, storms or other information that is important in daily life.
The cultures that are labeled as shamanistic are not uniform. Even the term shaman is sometimes controversial.
In the new Eckankar religion , the term is also used for a conscious shift of attention from momentary experience to an imagination (similar to the process of dissociation known from psychology ).
See also
literature
- Mihály Hoppál: Uráli népek. Nyelvrokonaink kultúrája és hagyományai . Ed .: Péter Hajdú. Corvina Kiadó, Budapest 1975, ISBN 963-13-0900-2 , Az uráli népek hiedelemvilága és a samanizmus, p. 211–233 (Hungarian, the title means: “Ural peoples. Culture and tradition of our linguistic relatives ”; the chapter title means: “Faith of the Ural peoples, and shamanism”).
- I. Kleivan, B. Sonne: Eskimos: Greenland and Canada . In: Iconography of religions, section VIII, "Artic Peoples", fascicle 2 . Institute of Religious Iconography • State University Groningen EJ Brill, Leiden 1985, ISBN 90-04-07160-1 (English).
- Daniel Merkur: Becoming Half Hidden: Shamanism and Initiation among the Inuit . In: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis / Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion . Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm 1985 (English).