Scholars and shamans: the questing self as archetype.

The inquisitive mind in its broadest sense has Paleolithic roots that Western civilization codified but did not invent. From the mists of prehistory to the present, the quest for knowledge owes more to the people who seek to learn than to the social institutions that foster education. Universities, institutes, laboratories, foundations, and publication programs are the results, not the causes, of the human compulsion to explore the borders of the known. The knowledge industry in the postindustrial world is so complex and important that it is easy to forget that its motor force--cu