The Quest for the Shaman: Shape-Shifters, Sorcerers and Spirit Healers in Ancient Europe

Here is an exciting innovative study of ancient European religious practice and practitioners. The Aldhouse-Greens entertaining and informative book represents a search a voyage of discovery in which evidence is sought that there were individuals living in Europe from the Stone Age to the early post-Roman period who believed they were able to liaise with the spirit-world through the medium of trance and who perceived themselves to be part-human and part-animal.The authors support their argument with diverse and rich evidence including the 30 000-year-old lion-human ivory figurines found in south-western Germany which may represent monsters seen by shamans in altered states of consciousness; the newly discovered and spectacular Nebra sky-disc which depicts the sun moon and the Pleiades indicating that Bronze Age shamans were using highly sophisticated objects to explore the heavens; and the Doctors Grave from southeast England which suggests that a Late Iron Age chieftain who may have been a shaman was sent to the Otherworld equipped with hallucinogens medical kit and divining tools.