...the shaman remains eminently individualistic, idiosyncratic, and enigmatic, standing ever apart from organized ecclesiastical institutions while performing important functions for the psychic and religious life of the culture. Comparable, but not identical, with such similar idiosyncratic practitioners as medicine men and sorcerers, the shaman is the possessor of techniques of proven efficacy and of powers bordering on the paranormal, the complete understanding of which still eludes modern psychology... ...he is believed to cure, like all doctors, and to perform miracles of the fakir, like a magicians, whether primitive or modern. But beyond this, he is a psychopomp, and he may also be a priest, mystic, and poet... ...Through the office of the shaman, the society at large is brought into close and frequent encounter with the numinous archetypal symbols of the collective unconscious. These symbols retain their numinosity, immediacy, and reality for the society through their constant reaffirmation in shamanic ritual and through the shaman's epic narration of mythical scenarios and his artistic production... (The Invisible Landscape. Dennis and Terrence McKenna) >./continue\.<