ABSTRACT
Occasionally the ascetic makes his entry into the religious life by means of the experience of a mantic journey to the other world. His soul is forcibly separated from his body and carried off on a frightening voyage through a number of cosmic regions, notably heaven and hell. This experience seems to be complementary to that of the kamigakari or divine possession. Here it is not the numen who bursts into our world and makes a forcible entry into the body of the shaman: it is the shaman who is compelled to travel to the abode of spirits.
