The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2211 page)

(Heb., ‘peace’). Common Hebrew greeting. ‘Sh
l
m’ indicates security, contentment, good health, prosperity, friendship, and tranquillity of heart and mind. The Arabic equivalent, also used in greeting, is
sal
m
.

 
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Shamans
.

Inspired, ecstatic, and
charismatic
individuals, male and female, with the power to control spirits, often by incarnating them, and able to make journeys out of the body, both to ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’. The word is traced to the Tungu in Siberia (where shamanism is common), though the claim is also made (but not universally accepted) that the origin is in the Skt.
r
ma
a
, reaching China in the form of
shamen
and Japan of
shamon
. The word is now used of a wide variety of people who enter trance and ecstatic states, and make ‘out of the body’ journeys. The inducing of ecstatic states is accomplished in many ways, including exclusion of general sensory stimuli through drumming, concentration on a mirror, etc., and through tobacco, alcohol, and hallucinogens (see M. J. Harner (ed.),
Hallucinogens and Shamanism
, 1973). The spirits involved are not regarded as inherently either good or evil: the outcome depends on context and on whether they are controlled. The shaman removes threat to an individual or community by incorporating potentially destructive spirits into his or her own body and thereby neutralizing them. The ability to make journeys to upper or (more often) lower worlds is a part of the protective role of the shaman extended from its main focus on this earth.
Careful observations of shamanism make the analysis of M.
Eliade
(
Le Chamanisme et les techniques archaiques de l'extase
, 1951) improbable, although it has had wide influence. He attempted to separate two forms, regarding the ascent as a survival of archaic religion, to be called ‘pure shamanism’ (but by other writers ‘white shamanism’), with the descent and contest against malevolent spirits as innovations (‘black shamanism’). There is no serious warrant for these distinctions in the practice of shamanism as observed.

 
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(Skt., obscure: ‘happiness giving’? Tib., bde.’byung, ‘source of happiness’). A semi-mythical kingdom in Tibetan Buddhist cosmology; ‘the only
Pure Land
which exists on earth’ (Birnbaum). While playing an important part in the
K
lacakra
cycle of
tantras
, Shambhala is also a popular myth in its own right. Located ‘somewhere north of Tibet’, Shambhala is governed by a line of thirty-two wise and powerful kings—who guard the true doctrine of Buddhism through a period of world history which sees a decline in religious values. When this decline is at its lowest depth, the final king of Shambhala, Rudra Cakrin, will emerge from his kingdom with a great army, subdue the forces of evil, and establish a golden age. See also
SHANGRI-LA
.