Michael Berman

"Long ago the trees thought they were really people Long ago the mountains thought they were really people Long ago the animals thought they were really people Someday, they will say Long ago the humans thought they were really people" Constance O'Day-Flannery, Shifting Love Introduction Shape-shifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. In its broadest sense, shape-shifting occurs when a being (usually human) either (1) has the ability to change its shape into that of another person, creature, or other entity or (2) finds its shape involuntarily changed by someone else. If the shape change is voluntary, its cause may be an act of will, a magic word or magic words, a potion, or a magic object. If the change is involuntary, its cause may be a curse or spell, a wizard's or magician's or fairy's help, a deity's will, a temporal change such as a full Moon or nightfall, love, or death. The transformation may or may not be purposeful. The desire to be different in some way so as to match some ideal promoted through advertising has become an obsession, especially for vulnerable younger members of society. Perhaps the pressure to conform to some unrealistic ideal is something that has always been with us, but surely not to the extent that now is the case. And it is this desire that helps to account for the current interest in shape-shifting as it would seem to provide a means of achieving the goal to bring about change. However, as many of the tales in this collection show, it is only by coming to terms with who we really are that peace of mind can truly be ours once again. Another, and perhaps even more significant reason for the fascination with shape-shifting is that stories and shamanic journeys that involve such transformations let us cross the threshold between this reality and other worlds, at least in imagination. Through such tales and journeys we learn to appreciate that we can in fact wear many shapes and inhabit many skins, and we are reminded that we are all living beings beneath the fur, the feathers, and the scales. Having no scripture, liturgy or singular deity, if one's ... desire is to find universal truth it is easy to perceive the Pagan outlook as too diverse and individualistic to have any weight or worth. (Restall Orr, 2012, p.96). On the other hand, if you take a Bible and put it out in the wind and rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone, whereas for the Pagan his or her Bible IS the wind and rain. And although there may not necessarily be key texts or set teachings to guide the Pagan, there are stories: legends shared with other people, other lands, tales from other, older, cultures that speak to us, and it is those stories that form the focus of this book.

Shape Shifters & Their Stories: The Golem; Lilith; Werewolf; The Dybbuk; Silkie; & More

Stories from various cultures and periods of time can be identified which deal with a concept of soul loss that is essentially shamanic. In shamanism, soul loss is the term used to describe the way parts of the psyche become detached when we are faced with traumatic situations. In shamanic terms, these split-off parts can be found in non-ordinary reality and are only accessible to those familiar with its topography. Case studies are presented to show how the way soul loss is dealt with by indigenous shamans differs from the way it is treated by neo-shamanic practitioners. Stories have traditionally been classified as epics, myths, sagas, legends, folk tales, fairy tales, parables and fables. However, the definitions of the terms have a tendency to overlap, making it difficult to classify and categorize material. For this reason, a case can be made for the introduction of a new genre, termed the shamanic story–a story that has either been based on or inspired by a shamanic journey (a numinous experience in non-ordinary reality) or one that contains a number of the elements typical of such a journey. Within this new genre it is proposed that there exists a sub-genre, shamanic stories that deal specifically with soul-loss, and examples are presented and analysed to support this hypothesis.

Soul Loss and the Shamanic Story

The legal landscape, and litigation, have changed markedly in the last decade.This book identifies the key issues related to ESI--pre-litigation management, preservation, collection, processing, review, production, and use in deposition and at trial--and provides clear, practical guidance to litigators. The book is divided into eight parts that follow the sequence from the pre-litigation stage through trial.

From Pre-litigation Through Trial

Managing E-discovery and ESI

Rohit Dalvi

This exciting new anthology brings together many diverse views on blockbuster and cult science fiction films of the 1970s. These essays, which range in focus from Alien to Zardoz, explore some of the most fundamental questions about the meaning of being human. The chapters of the first section challenge our notions of heroism, confronting our ideas with issues of history, gender and embodiment. The second section’s contributions delve into the human caused monstrosities of our own ingenuity and curiosity whereby our technology transforms the human into a source of horror. The anthology’s final section is a chorus that speaks to the cinematic depictions that disrupt our religious and moral assumptions. The international group of contributors have produced a surprising, entertaining and enlightening work that will appeal to both science fiction and film enthusiasts the world over.

Science Fiction Films of the 1970s

Heroes, Monsters and Values

The Everyday Fantastic is an anthology born in love. The love is for science fiction, in all its myriad forms: novels, television, movies, music, art, etc. Many writers from a plurality of disciplines, professions and walks of life share this disposition. This attitude cuts across national boundaries and has even outlasted the vagaries of popular culture fads. This collection of essays draws upon these feelings in terms of the different ways science fiction is engaged in different disciplines, viewing the genre beyond mere entertainment. The papers collected here engage the fundamental questions explored in science fiction. Many of the essays were originally presented at an interdisciplinary conference in October 2005 at Brock University, highlighted by Robert J. Sawyer’s engaging keynote address. Additional chapters were in part inspired by these presentations. These essays represent a wide array of voices from the humanities, social sciences and sciences, and address a comparable range of topics and the media that use the science fiction genre.

Essays on Science Fiction and Human Being

The Everyday Fantasic

A Bridge to the Other Side is a collection of articles and traditional folk tales that deal with our feelings about and attitudes towards Death, both our own death and that of those nearest and dearest to us. A bridge between earth and heaven, this world and the next, features in the mythology of many different peoples. For example, in Norse legends, Bifröst or Bilröst is a burning rainbow bridge between Midgard, the world, and Asgard, the realm of the gods. The bridge is known as Bilröst in the Poetic Edda; compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and as Bifröst in the Prose Edda; written in the 13th century by Snorri Stureuson. Both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda alternately refer to the bridge as Asbrú (Old Norse Æsirs means bridge). The Persians believed in a bridge between earth and paradise too. In his prayers the penitent in his confession would say: I am wholly without doubt in the existence of the Mazdayaçnian faith; in the coming of the resurrection of the latter body; in the stepping over the bridge Chinvat; as well as in the continuance of paradise.

A Bridge to the Other Side

Known as the land of the mountains, Dagestan lies immediately north of the Caucasus Mountains, and stretches for approximately 250 miles along the west shore of the Caspian Sea. With its mountainous terrain making travel and communication difficult, Daghestan is still largely tribal. Despite over a century of Tsarist control followed by seventy years of repressive Soviet rule, there are still 32 distinct ethnic groups in Daghestan, each with its own language, making it unquestionably the most complex of the Caucasian republics. Shamanic practices are still prevalent in this country, where one of the ten lost tribes of Israel can be found. In Daghestan, as in the neighbouring countries of Georgia, Chechnya, and Azerbaijan, these roots lie in shamanism. This book, one of only a handful available in English on the country, contains the texts of some of these stories as well as commentaries on them.

Shamanic Journeys Through Daghestan

Manana Rusieshvili

Ketevan Kalandadze

Despite being located on the extreme eastern boundary of Europe, and having been frequently conquered by invading people from Asia, including Arabs, Turks, Persians, Mongols, and more recently Russians, Georgians still regard themselves very much as Europeans and it is to becoming a future member state of the EU that the majority of the people now aspire. As for the traditional folk-tales from the region, one of their main characteristics is that they are packed with action: Whilst a written, “literary” novel or short story might devote paragraphs to descriptions of people or places, these tales usually settle for an adjective or two; “a thick impassable forest”, “a handsome stately man”, or a formula such as“not-seen-beneath-the-sun beauty”. Many of the heroes and heroines do not even have names (Hunt, 1999, p.8) Safely cocooned, or so we like to kid ourselves, in our sanitised western urban environment, we tend to take the elements for granted. However, tales from a time when the Earth was new help to jolt us out of our daily lethargy, as do the stories in this collection – a number of which have never been translated from Georgian direct into English before.

Georgia Through Earth, Fire, Air and Water

“In Marxist anthropological theory, shamanism represented one of the early forms of religion that later gave rise to more sophisticated beliefs in the course of human advancement … The premise of Marxism was that eventually, at the highest levels of civilization, the sacred and religion would eventually die out” (Znamenski, 2007, p.322). Though history has of course since disproved this, the theory clearly had a great bearing on what was written in the former Soviet Union about shamanism, and also on people’s attitudes in the former Soviet Republics towards such practices. On the other hand, it has been suggested that “all intellectuals driven by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more indigenous” (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). Although this might apply to searching for the roots of Christianity in Armenia, when it comes to searching for the roots of pagan practices, interest on the part of the people of Armenia is generally speaking not so forthcoming. This impasse, coupled with the effects of the repressions against religions, including shamanism, unleashed by the Soviet government between the 1930s and 1950s, along with the recent surge of interest in the Armenian Orthodox church, a backlash to the seventy years of officially sanctioned atheism, makes research into the subject no easy business. However, hopefully this study will at least in some small way help to set the process in motion.

The Shamanic Themes in Armenian Folktales

Full of third sons, talking birds, enchanted places, beautiful women and impossible journeys, these charmingly illustrated stories have a magic-realist, almost absurd quality, and they are told and translated with enough shamanstvo to keep you reading. In his introduction and extensive accompanying gloss, Michael Berman skilfully locates them in their historical, religious, storytelling and shamanic contexts with a scholarship that is both thorough and accessible, making it complementary to the reader's enjoyment. A nice collection. David Ronder

Georgia Through Its Folktales

The book makes out a case for the introduction of a new genre of tale, the shamanic story, which has either been based on or inspired by a shamanic journey, or contains a number of the elements that are typical of such a journey. The stories featured are the Book of Jonah from the Old Testament, two traditional stories from the Republic of Georgia–The Earth will take its Own and Davit, a contemporary German tale Bundles, and the Korean story of Shimchong, the Blindman’s Daughter. By making use of textual material from a number of different cultures and times, the intention is to highlight the pervasive influence shamanism has had and to show how the “new” genre being proposed is a universal one. The research questions addressed include 1) defining what shamanism is, deciding whether it should be classified as a religion, a methodology or a way of life 2) considering whether a case can be made out for the introduction of a new genre of tale and, if so, what its characteristics are. It is hoped the book will be of interest not only to those involved in the study of shamanism but also to those whose interest is in the study of literary texts. Since the old bearers of shamanic traditions quite often were, and even today are, illiterate, the study of their folklore–epic songs, laments, narratives–undoubtedly provides a rich source for research.

The Nature of Shamanism and the Shamanic Story

Angela Hederman

A visitor's guide for parents explains how to focus on child-centered activities without missing the city's sophisticated food, sights and shops, profiling well-known museums and attractions as well as Midtown areas that are frequented by New York City parents. Original. 15,000 first printing.

Michael Berman

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