Yes, indeed lady…

That said, I agree with pretty much every point you make with regards to CS- these are the same problems I have with a lot of academic theories on shamanism (although I’m also not a huge fan of the opposite end of the spectrum, where researchers use the word ‘shamanism’ as a shorthand for “whatever oral traditions of ritual this cultural group happen to have”, and aren’t really interested in clarifying their use of the word or entering into debate about how the rituals they’ve studied compare to the ‘shamanism’ practiced by other peoples).

Given how prolific your own reading obviously is, I don’t know if this will be much use to you- but I’m in the process of blogging some of my thoughts on a book called ‘The Concept of Shamanism: uses and abuses’ by Henri-Paul Francfort and Roberte N. Hamayon. It’s basically an academic anthology of critiques on the theories on shamanism developed by Lewis-Williams et al. (who propose a similar thing to CS, but in relation to archaeological evidence rather than ethnographic data or their own personal experience).

They make a lot of good points, but so far I’m getting the impression that Hamayon (at least) may be jumping to conclusions about Western people who develop their own shamanic practices (basically, Hamayon worries that some academics may be tailoring their descriptions of non-Western shamanism so as to exclude anything which Westerners are likely to be uncomfortable with- which is a very valid concern, but I get the feeling that maybe she’s blaming the Western New Age and Pagan movements without necessarily having done all that much research on them. Which is kind of why I’m here reading this article, really.)

She also argues that the idea of a upper, lower and middle world is not held by all Siberian shamans (I assume she’s referring specifically to the Evenk here)- she gets the impression that it might be a partially-successful attempt to reconcile traditional Evenk beliefs with Russian Christianity and Chinese Buddhism, with their depictions of Heaven and Hell. I can’t read her original research on this, unfortunately (since it’s in French), but it’s an interesting idea.

Whew, long response, sorry. My review of Hamayon’s article is here:
http://anthropometamorphosis.blogspot.com/2009/01/review-of-concept-of-shamanism-uses-and.html

I have since embraced an incredibly eclectic path, working with Deities and spirits from a wide variety of cultural, religious and spiritual backgrounds. I research as heavily as I can before initiating a working arrangement with the Deities/spirits/etc. that I can, but I still retain some of my early ‘shamanic’ understandings. I think the less we embrace the wild, the ecstatic, the more dull and immobile our practices will become.
In short, I feel Pagans need to embrace, if not the word, then the shamanic mindset to further advance our practice. As we have seen by those who practice CR and even CS, a lot of things are becoming codified. This is not to say tradition is wrong or irrelevant; tradition and similar practices give us a ground floor to work with, and move off of. This said, I would not want to sacrifice the progress of my or others’ spirituality to the trappings or workings of a tradition, especially when the tradition cannot serve the people engaged in it.

Just my thoughts, a kind of ramble at four in the morning. My apologies.

I salute you for taking the road less traveled (perhaps it is the case that you are the only traveler now and forever) and feeling good about it.

Walk in the light.