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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the Jivaro shaman give to Harner to drink?
(a) Water from a mystical underground spring.
(b) A substance made from the datura plant.
(c) The juice of the cacao plant.
(d) Fermented coconut milk.

2. What does Harner recommend that the aspiring shaman listen to?
(a) Flowing water.
(b) Drumming.
(c) Chanting.
(d) Birds singing.

3. To learn more about shamanism, what does Harner do?
(a) Enrolls in a class on shamanism at his community college.
(b) Asks the oldest shaman in the world to mentor him.
(c) Assembles a team of seven shamans from every corner of the world.
(d) Lives among tribal people to learn their shamanic ways.

4. Why does Harner say it's important that the shaman does not tell the patient's family that he already has the ordinary form of the spirit in his mouth?
(a) The physical manifestation that has infected the patient will read the family's thoughts, rendering the cure useless.
(b) The family should not know what is happening to the patient without the patient's explicit permission.
(c) The symbolic act of expelling the ordinary form is part of the ritual rather than the actual act that removes the intruder spirit.
(d) It will frighten the family, and this fear will work against the energies applied by the shaman.

5. When drugs are involved in Shaman practices, who takes them?
(a) The shaman.
(b) The shaman and the patient.
(c) The shaman and the patient's family members.
(d) The patient.

Short Answer Questions

1. Master shamans focus on a triumvirate which is composed of what?

2. Harner explains that some shamanic students report using caves as:

3. What happens in the state a shaman reaches, known as a type of ecstasy?

4. It is typical for one or more spirits to help guide the shaman through what?

5. How is a shamanic state of consciousness, or SSC, achieved?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the participant of the exercise in Chapter 2 instructed regarding the end of the journey?

2. What are some of the similarities Harner notes in first-hand shamanic experiences reported by middle-class Americans?

3. Who is Akachu, and how does he help Harner?

4. In the step-by-step instructions for going on a first shamanic journey that the author supplies for the reader in Chapter 2, how does he ask the participant to prepare?

5. What is the practice of rock-seeing?

6. Summarize the first shamanic journey exercise presented to the reader in Chapter 2.

7. Harner says that apprentice shamans report similarities in how they get out of difficulties. What are some of the difficulties he mentions?

8. Prompted by similarities he found in books and accounts about shamanic experiences, what did Harner decide to do in order to learn more about shamanism?

9. What does Akachu question when he and Harner are getting to know each other?

10. Why does the author find it encouraging for Westerners that not all tribes use drugs in their shamanic practices?

(see the answer keys)

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