Shaman

myth:shaman

The shaman is the first worker of magic: who falls into trance and sends the soul up the world-tree or down beneath the earth to the spirit-realm — to heal the sick, to find the lost, to read the future, to guide the dead — with the drum, the spirit-helpers, and the climb of the cosmic tree that is Yggdrasil and a hundred others. Odin hanging on the tree for the runes is of this kind. The root of every magician to come. — comparative religion