Steve Watson

A Puzzle about Spirit Opposition in Later Ascension Plotlines

In the ascension stories of the developed religions we very often find that the progress of the protagonist and his guide is impeded at each heaven by spirits determined to test his worthiness. For example, in Bistami’s mi’raj at the First Heaven:

[H]e continued to show me dominion that would wear out the tongue to describe and depict. I knew that he was testing me with it in that. I was saying: My goal is other than what you are showing me.

And by rejecting this temptation and passing the test he is allowed to pass on. Similar tests occur at each succeeding Heaven. (Al-Qasd ila Allah ch. 9. Extract in M. Sells (ed.) (1996) Early Islamic Mysticism, NY: Paulist Press) pp. 242 ff.)

In the Third (Hebrew) Book of Enoch (6:2) the challenges that Metatron recollects in his narrative to Rabbi Ishmael are more pointed still:

As soon as I reached the heavenly heights, the holy creatures, the ophanim, the seraphim, the cherubim, the wheels of the chariot and the ministers of consuming fire, smelled my odor 365,000 myriads of parasangs off; they said, “What is this smell of one born of a woman? Why does a white drop ascend on high and serve among those who cleave the flames?”

But he manages to make the passage here and elsewhere. (J. Charlesworth (ed.) (1983) The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments (London: Longmans) pp. 223 ff. (tr. P. Alexander))

Finally, let us note Dante’s rather gentler approach to this in his Paradiso, where the quality that is required for advancement is made plain to Dante by the mediation of Beatrice and in response to questions that he poses to the celestial population when their presence at that point challenges his beliefs or assumptions.

My problem with this is that, assuming that the ascension plotline is an adaptation of the shamanistic visionary trance – which seems to be widely accepted – where is the model for this spiritual opposition? It is standard that in the ascent the souls of the dead are encountered and the shaman learns important things from the inhabitants of Heaven, and he faces danger; but does the danger come in the form of opposition from the Heavenly inhabitants? I have not had time to read the entirety of the reports in Eliades’s Shamanism, but they do generally seem to lack a root for that theme. To pick one at random, here is part of the report of a Dolgan shamanic séance from U. Harva, (1935) Die religioesen Vorstellungen der altaische Voelker, Helsinki, p. 549 (Eliade, p. 233:)

For the Dolgan shamans likewise scale the nine heavens in performing a cure. According to them, before each new heaven there are guardians whose office is to watch over the shaman’s journey and at the same time to prevent the evil spirits from mounting.

So, my question is whether this nearly standard addition to the shamanic version of the ascension plotline is no more than a narrative device that has found favour. Or if it is more than that, what is its source. Is it perhaps a reflection of the difficulty of non-shamanic mystics in achieving the kind of naïve ecstasy that overcomes the barriers between this world and the various heavens?