Shamans' masks: "wherever it is used, the mask manifestly announces the incarnation of a mythical personage (ancestor, mythical animal, god). For its part, the costume transubstantiates the shaman, it transforms him, before all eyes, into a superhuman being." M. Eliade, Shamanism. New York, 1964.

central to an understanding: J. Clifford, The Predicament of Culture. Cambridge, MA., 1988.

for (Empedocles): P. Kingsley, “Common Sense: A Interview with Peter Kingsley.” Parabola, Spring 2006.

magical flights: "Back then, he mentions, one shaman regularly commuted back and forth to the village of Kugluktuk, four hundred miles east. 'How did he get there?' I ask. 'He flew...like a bird. But our missionary soon stopped all of that.'" J. Waterman, Arctic Crossing. New York, 2001.

chthonic earth: "In other words, even the earth and nature have their psychic function as well as their terrestrial ones, and one may serve the earth and be on the ground (or beneath it) in more ways than one, i.e., through psychic activities, and not only through natural ones." J. Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld. New York, 1979.