Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Open Court, Vol. 42: Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea; June, 1928
The investigator may assume that the stratification of human minds, likewise the exigencies of growing societies, are such as to lead to the adoption of one or more factors of the hierarchy. It is also a labour saving device to postulate that the common sense of those societies which adopt one or more forms of initiation will choose the constantly recurring factors of isolation, hardships, ta boos, acquisition oi power, renaming and ceremonial rebirth, as the best means of launching out into a new career as chief, priest, member of a secret society or ordinary tribal member.
The title of this paper involves the preliminary difficulty of de fining the term medicine man. Although a definition which shall meet the requirements of logic is difficult to formulate, there is, in the consideration of a definite geographical area, some facility in drawing lines of demarcation between the offices of priest, a chief officiating as priest, and a medicine man.
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