Re: OT The historic roots of Santa Claus

[Jeff Shirkey <jcshirke@midway.uchicago.edu>]

>Mircea Eliade's book  "Shamanism,Archaic  Techniiques of Ecstacy" 1951,the first scholarly study on the subject, says >that the traditional definitio f a Shaman is smeone wh can INtentionally go to the other world and bring something back >,usually for healing.

 The two most common metaphors for making this journey are climbing up,and back down the World Tree,and going out the  the Smokehole,or chimney,and coming back with the gifts from the Spirit World.
   

It's really cool you're even aware of who Eliade is (I'm not trying to be condescending in any way, it's just that people outside of the field of religious studies typically have never heard of him.), and that book (as well as his book on Yoga) is certainly one of his better ones. Be careful, though, in assuming that all his talk about World Trees/World Axes and so forth is necessarily accepted as true these days. Still, I think Eliade is worth reading, so cool...good for you. Check out Myth of the Eternal Return or The Sacred and Profane as well...two other classics in the field.

Jeff