This book probes the psycho-spiritual wisdom of these two approaches to human health and wholeness. The author sees both systems of healing as a reality that interfaces with the body, draws upon the sacred as the ultimate therapeutic resource, and attests to the importance of a transcendent dimension of wisdom and power.
In the first section, Smith discusses various elements of shamanism including its sacred cosmology, its linkage of imagination and illness, its techniques of ecstasy, and its approaches to soul loss. He then moves on to delineate the connection between Jung, the wounded healer, and shamanism. The last section of the book is the best with a perceptive analysis of soul loss; the contemporary pursuit of the sacred; and the power of ritual, image, and archetype to bring about profound psychological transformation.