Archaeologica.org

http://archaeology.about.com/b/2009/04/ ... eology.htm

Religious specialists are those people in a given society who have a connection to the deities who control things humans cannot.

Or...who at least have the chutzpah to claim that they can!

Pffft...

Who wrote the reply at the bottom?

I like the distinction between shamans and priests.
The personal vs. public uses of them by society.
(The confessional booth kind of blurs that line though.)
It would explain the long continued coexistence of Catholicism and Voodoo in the Caribbean and Africa.