ABSTRACT
Acting and shamanism are sometimes discussed together under the umbrella of self-deception, fakery, or feigning, as forms of illusion that, at best, provide rest or escape from reality. But are acting and shamanism just eccentricities through which trained liars and fakers artfully express their deceit and, sometimes, even earn a meagre living? Or do they show us that the distinctions between pretence and reality, appearance and substance, are far more ambiguous and tentative than the dictionary would have it? To paraphrase the Kabala dictum quoted by Darío, can actors not only pretend to be but actually become spectres?
