GRE Reading Comprehension
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Source: VW
The societies in which shamanism has flourished have been small, relatively self- sufficient social systems which see themselves as coping directly with their natural worlds. Like all human beings, the members of such groups lived in a world of uncertainty. The presence of a person who could maintain contact with the cosmic forces of the universe directly, who could make sense of both the measured order of ordinary times and the catastrophes of drought earthquake, or flood, was of incalculable value.
More complex social systems tend to have "institutionalized" specialists who transmit information without explicit recourse to the supernatural. Such societies have priests and prophets, not shamans, at the overt level. But the line between shaman and prophet is tenuous. The prophet usually does not enjoy the legitimacy within his society that is granted the shaman. His is a voice crying in the wilderness, not that of the legitimate curer and philosopher. Despite these differences, the prophet can be seen as a kind of shaman, and thus the study of shamanism illuminates some of the obscurities in religious traditions.
The primary purpose of the passage is to
- A explain the differences between shamans in small and large societies
- B describe the reasons why shamans are esteemed in certain societies
- C discuss the roles of shamans as well as prophets in social systems
- D compare religious leaders in small social systems to those in complex social systems
- E argue that the power of the shaman is derived from the supernatural