The Call of the Trance is a magnificent book that takes us to the unchartered frontiers of the forbidden. From initiation ceremonies to crises of hysteria, from suicide attempts to the ecstasies of witches, Catherine Clement explores in simple but scholarly terms the responses that civilizations hav[...]

"It is paradoxical to form a retrospective overview of an oeuvre that never sought to be prospective...Doubtless one should put oneself ion the position of an imaginary traveller who came upon these writings as if they were a lost manuscript and, for want of supporting documents, subsequently strove[...]