"The figure of the shaman is closely associated with madness. When an initiate becomes a shaman by Eliade’s first method, “spontaneous vocation,” he “takes the risk of being mistaken for a ‘madman’” (Myths 80). The behaviour of someone chosen in this way becomes more and more strange. Such a person “seeks solitude, becomes a dreamer, loves to wander in woods or desert places, has visions, sings in his sleep, etc.”" - Mary Nicole Silvester, "The Artist as Shaman: Madness, Shapechanging, and Art in Terri Windling's The Wood Wife."
Eranos - Love and the Vocation of the Artist
Robert Venosa "The Artist & Shaman"
