El chamanismo y la corporalización del chamán: argumentos para la deconstrucción de una falsa categoría antropológica

analyzing the recent historiography, this paper questions the validity of the concepts of trance and ecstasy in the definitions of shamanism. firstly, we study the proposition of mircea eliade about the mystical role of the shaman along the history of religion, and secondly, we compare this point of view with the self called "neuropsychological model" to show how this new approach reduces the original thesis about religious value of trance to a mere physiological process. then we demonstrate that, as a biological fact, ecstasy is not a sociological category and, in consequence, it is useless to explain any symbolic system. according to these ideas, we prove that the interpretation of art in terms of altered sates of consciousness doesn't provide us with new data about its author's culture. finally, we demonstrate that the supposed universality of shamanism contributes to keep the image of the other as an ahistorical and cultureless being.