Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession, 3rd edition

I. M. Lewis was a social anthropologist, and this book, first published in 1971 and reissued here in a third edition, is his influential comparative study treating spirit possession and shamanic trance across many societies as a single analytic field, organized by his own framework of central versus peripheral possession cults tied to social status. Its strength is genuine comparative breadth across a wide ethnographic record. Its limit is important to state plainly: the central and peripheral framework is Lewis's own analytical construction for comparing societies, not a category any of the traditions themselves use, so a claim citing this source should attribute the framework to Lewis's analysis rather than presenting it as the traditions' own self-understanding.