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This has been bothering me all day, but I couldn’t really figure out how to articulate it until I was sitting working on some artwork tonight.
In case you haven’t heard, two people are dead and others ill after a sweat lodge held by James A. Ray, a proponent of The Secret, went awry. This is far from the first death caused by improperly constructed lodges; heart problems seem to be a common factor, as is wrapping the lodge in a layer of plastic (which is a bad idea all around, no pun intended). I first read about it at the Wild Hunt, and others have weighed in on angles such as pseudo-psychology and (not) cultural appropriation.
I think the issue that stands out to me the most is that of competency. In counseling, competency means having at least an adequate, if not superior, set of knowledge and skills about a given topic to be able to effectively help a client with a minimum of risk to their psychological health. One thing I’m learning in my classes on practical skills is that no matter who you are, you will always screw up. Therapists are human, and as much as one would like to be the most awesome, helpful, effective therapist ever, there will always be those clients who just don’t work out–and the ones that you really regret because you know you could have acted differently in hindsight.
Competency is an ethical issue designed to make sure that the chances of causing harm are minimized. For example, I’m on the adult track in my program. My classes are tailored toward working with adults, and my internship will be the same. Before I could ostensibly work with children, I would have to take steps to increase my competency through education and reading, at the very least. The same thing goes if I end up having a client referred to me who is of a special population whose unique situation I don’t have experience or knowledge of.
Running a proper sweat requires competency on a couple of levels. I’m not going to get into the debate as to whether indigenous spiritual ceremonies associated with sweats are inherently spiritually better than New Age or otherwise not indigenous ones, and whether these people died because the spirits were displeased. On a physical level, though, there is a definite need for competency–how to safely construct the lodge, how to prepare the correct sort of stone, how to monitor participants for health concerns, and so forth. Psychologically, too, there needs to be competency with any sort of rite of passage or other ritual that has the potential to shake a person out of their usual headspace. I have heard entirely too many horror stories in the neopagan community of ritual leaders who led people through a particularly moving ritual–and then didn’t stick around to pick up the pieces when a participant ended up with some trauma being dredged up by the experience.
What seems to have happened here is a lack of competency on a physical, and potentially psychological, level. Did Ray know about the risks of running a sweat with that many people and that sort of construction, and how to know when something was going wrong? Did he make it clear to people that, no matter how moving an experience they were having, if they felt ill they needed to get out, and they wouldn’t have failed for admitting their limits? Did he receive any sort of training that might have included how to address these and other concerns?
And I think this is something that neoshamans/shamanists/shamanic practitioners in general should be thinking about. Most of us don’t have access to indigenous cultures and their spiritual teachings (nor should we presume we have a right to such things). There’s no shamanism inherent to the culture I am a part of. But there are attempts to try to construct such a thing. The problem is that we’re starting from scratch, whether that means working with core shamanism, gleaning what we can from indigenous contacts, or trying to piece things together on our own.
How can we really gauge competency when there are so many people going in so many directions? There’s not a single non-indigenous shamanic path that doesn’t come under some scrutiny, whether from indigenous practitioners, or from neoshamans themselves. We aren’t going to get everyone to agree to some universal way of doing things. this survey from the Society of Shamanic Practitioners shows a bias toward a very specific, core-based manner of practice that I couldn’t finish because a lot of the questions simply didn’t apply to how I currently do things; same thing goes for others I know.
Some would argue that we have to do more in conjunction with indigenous cultures who have well-established shamanic systems (using the term shamanic loosely). While this certainly would give a person firm grounding in that culture’s shamanism, it A) supposes that a culture would be willing to share such a thing, and B) doesn’t take into account that many, if not most, of the practices and cosmologies found in indigenous shamanism aren’t going to do as well outside of their original cultural context. Nor will many Americans view things like journeying and ceremonies as anything other than “crazy stuff” or “devil worship”–which pretty much eliminates them as potential recipients of shamanic work. (On a side note, I’ve had people tell me I should just look to the religions of my ancestors. Beyond the fact that it’s Catholics way back, I fail to see how 1,000+ year old cultures from a continent away are going to be any more helpful in working with this culture than indigenous ones would be. I am not a circa 700 A.D. Slavic peasant.)
We could also try to come up with some standards and best practices for neoshamans, but who gets to decide what’s what? If we’re going by sheer numbers, core shamans are the most numerous, but most non-core neoshamans have some misgivings with core shamanism. And we’re talking about a bunch of people who are scattered across the country, not all of whom spend as much time on the internet as I do, and are not always particularly accessible or willing to network. It’s a much different context from a more localized, relatively homogenized culture. (I do think that talking more about this stuff, though, is highly recommended, even if nothing truly universal comes out of it. Peer review is a good thing.)
My own personal preference in gaining competency is to interweave aspects of my culture that are most analogous to what I understand shamanism to be, hence my working on a Master’s in counseling psych, since psychology figures heavily in my practice and general worldview. However, I also have the privilege of being able to get loans and go to school in the first place, as well as having enough of an interest and ability with psychology to make it worth my time. And people may disagree with various assessments of what a shaman would be in this culture.
Then, of course, there are those who would be thrilled if all us not-indigenous folks put aside these games of “shamanism” since we don’t have the level of competency indigenous cultures have. Both from a spiritual and psychological perspective, I can see great value in creating structures of meaning, rites of passage, and other things missing from large portions of this culture, and if the means and trappings in which some practitioners try to create these structures is misguided and appropriative, at least the general effort is of value and should be fine-tuned rather than scrapped entirely.
There are times, honestly, when all I want to do is throw my hands up and decide that we’re all arguing over completely subjective psychological meaning-making systems, and that it doesn’t really matter what you believe, but how you use it and for what purposes. Maybe we’d quit arguing over who believes the right things, and get rid of the red herrings of subjective authenticity, and instead get down to the business of dealing with what’s more objective. Whether I believe animal totems talk with me when I drum is a subjective issue, and again something that I sometimes think is wholly a structure of personal mythology. If I claim that what I’m doing is according to some indigenous culture I’ve never had any contact with, then it veers over into objective territory in that I’m making a verifiably false claim about the beliefs that could potentially affect the people whose legitimacy I’m trying to leech. And if I further use this to justify telling people to, say, drink bleach because Bear said that it’s good for what ails you, then we’re really into the objective, insofar as the actions I am taking extrapolated from my beliefs.
And that’s where I really think competency comes in. You can’t measure the legitimacy of whether the totems talk to me or not; there’s no such thing as spiritual competency in that regard, unless someone has some form of omniscience that I’m not privy to. (Gods know there are lots of neopagans and others who try their damnedest to measure the spiritual competency of others, especially others they dislike.) But you can measure one’s competency in psychological and physical terms. If I integrate shamanism into my counseling practice, no one can say whether, say, a soul retrieval was spiritually successful–but we can look at the client’s progress after that ritual and see whether it helped improve their psychological health. And if I decided to incorporate wilderness therapy in my practice and take clients hiking, my competency could be measured in terms of things like whether I have up-to-date Wilderness First Responder training.
As far as how much competency Ray had? There’s not yet enough information available, unless I’ve missed something. I looked on the bio on his website, and couldn’t really find anything to suggest he has any psychological training, or what sort of spiritual training he may have had (including that which may have shown him how to safely run a sweat). Hopefully more will come out in the wash. In the meantime, I think we need to focus less on things like cultural appropriation and the exact tools (physical and psychological) used in this case, and instead look at the people involved and how they were using these tools. Being a non-indigenous person running a sweat lodge does not automatically make you a potential killer. Being someone who doesn’t possess physical and psychological competency involved with the rite, regardless of the exact cultural trappings, is an entirely different story.
I originally wrote this up on Monday, but wanted to take a little more time to chew on what I was saying. So here, slightly belated, is my post.
Over at the Wild Hunt blog, Jason Pitzl-Waters has been taking a much-deserved vacation. In his place he’s invited a group of other pagan bloggers to guest blog. Monday’s guest blog is by Cat Chapin-Bishop of Quaker Pagan Reflections. She brought up a good point:
So why is nearly everything we write in the form of a recipe book? Why so little in the way of lived experience? For a religion of direct, personal gnosis, we have remarkably little writing about what happens when we set out to practice rather than preach.
Now, let me say this first and foremost. Every person has hir own comfort zone when it comes to talking about spiritual experiences. Even I have things that I won’t talk about publicly, or even to anyone save my husband (and even then there are still things that are for my ears only). So I’m not going to say “YOU MUST ALL TELL EVERYTHING!!!!”
However, I think Ms. Chapin-Bishop makes a really good point in regards to what’s actually been written down, whether in print or online, regarding neopagan and related practices. There’s a lot of protocol, and formality, and “Do this this way because that’s the way it’s supposed to be done”, and there are also scads of pre-crafted spells and rituals. Granted, there are also personal accounts, but they’re not as common. The books and sites I like the most are the ones that have a good balance of theory and practice–they explain the theory in good detail, but then use personal anecdotes to further illustrate the points made, and follow up with exercises (not precrafted spells and rituals) to help the readers put the ideas into action for themselves.
I don’t talk a lot about myself-as-author or myself-as-editor here. I save that mostly for my Livejournal, which is more of a catch-all blog where I share links, keep in touch with people I know scattered around the world, and do the bulk of my promotional stuff. This blog here, on the other hand, is more focused, and with rare exception is meant for recording and sharing what of my shamanic work I’m willing to let others read about.
However, one thing I particularly look for as an editor (and as a reader) is people showing their work. Part of that is on the theoretical end, citing sources, etc. However, I want to see practical work. I want to see anecdotes that show that the writer actually did what they talk about. I want to get some idea of what I may be getting myself into. And as an author, that’s something I try to convey in my own writings. Some of what I write is pure theory, and that’s fine. But that’s also why I tell the stories of what’s happened to me here.
Would this blog be as interesting if I didn’t share the stories of myself? If I just rambled on and on about shamanism as a theoretical practice, but without ever sharing anecdotes, either my own or others’? Would you have as good a sense of what’s going on in my corner of the woods? Probably not. I know that for some of you being able to read them has helped you, either by showing you that you aren’t the only one having such experiences, or by inspiring you to do more with your own path. And I know that that’s been true for when I’ve read the works of others, including folks who have commented here.
So while I’ll continue to keep some things to myself, things that are just between the spirits and me, I’ll continue to share the stories I’m willing to tell.
On a little different note, one line in particular from the essay really struck home for me:
Tell me about how hot your sweat lodge was and how thirsty you emerged from it, when you explore whether or not Pagan sweat lodges are cultural appropriation.
I’ve changed a good bit in my perspectives on cultural appropriation, especially since accepting the call to shamanism. When I first started thinking about it, I was more of a hardass than I am now. Not to the extent where I called all white shamans “wannabes”, but I tended to put a lot more emphasis on “doing it right”. My ultimate decision at the time was still “You need to make your own educated choices”, but there was still more judgement on my part than probably was healthy.
I can look at this article from two years ago and see where I was beginning to question the more hardline opinions I had. However, starting shamanic work last September contributed to a further chipping away of my stubbornness that anyone who did X was obviously Y. What really clinched the deal was my experience in Arizona, where going through two of the ecoshamanic initiations with James Endredy, as well as my own personal rite of passage on my “day off”, demonstrated just how overcerebral I was being about the whole situation. I was so concerned about doing it “by the books” and trying so hard not to offend people who might *gasp* assume I was a plastic shaman that I wasn’t really letting myself sink into the experience itself.
And that’s been a really valuable lesson. These days, I still don’t look favorably on people who claim to be of an indigenous culture that they aren’t really affiliated with at all as a way to get money and power. However, I’m less critical of people who may be more on the New Agey end, just because they’re, well, New Agey. I’m learning more and more that what really matters, as far as I can see, is what the person is actually accomplishing with their works.
The way I see it, it’s getting tougher and tougher for people to deny that as a species–hell, as a world–we’re in deep trouble and sinking fast. Even if you don’t believe in global warming, it’s hard to pretend that there aren’t numerous species being negatively affected by our actions. Every day in the news it seems I see articles and reports about some chemical being linked to cancer, or another species on (or over) the edge of extinction, or another wild place devastated by pollution.
And that’s just the environmental end of things. That doesn’t even get into issues that often tie into the environment–famine and wars caused by short resources; crime perpetrated by desperate people raised and living in unhealthy environments, or with serious psychological issues that go untreated due to a lack of health insurance or social support; increasingly poor public education and more expensive higher education, as well as education that continues to promote the division between humanity and the rest of Nature.
I am less inclined to judge someone just because they live in suburbia and call themselves a shaman. In a situation where we can use all the help we can get, healers of all sorts, people who act as intermediaries between the spirit world and this one in part to help find solutions to our problems (as well as placate those we’ve royally pissed off), and those who teach a healthier way of living are all welcome as far as I’m concerned. Sure, there are probably some folks who are more motivated by their egos than anything resembling altruism. But what criteria can Some Random Person On the Internet really use to judge someone they’ve never met in their lives, and whom they’re mainly assessing via personal or professional web site? Just because someone charges for services doesn’t mean they’re in it for the money. Is my mechanic who charges fifty bucks an hour in labor costs in order to pay for rent and other costs an egotist just because s/he doesn’t give it to me free out of the goodness of hir own heart?
Can we really afford time wasted bitching about who’s not doing things in a perfectly acceptable way? One, unless someone is making a claim about themselves that is verifiably false (such as tribal affiliation or Wiccan lineage or some other such thing), in the end it’s really none of my business. Two, even if I think someone’s methods are on the fluffy side, if they’re actually DOING something constructive, then that gets them points in their favor. I’ll be honest; my tolerance for what other people do went way up once I started spending less time fussing around on the internet, and more time actually doing what needs to be done. And as the signal-to-noise ratio continues to get skewed on the ‘net, I’m going to continue putting more weight towards those who are making constructive things happen, even if I don’t happen to agree with them entirely. We may not be in as dire straits as the creator of the Gaia hypothesis recently opined, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to be rolling our sleeves up to get the work done.
First off, I have updated the FAQ page; some things have changed since I last poked at it, and it’s worth taking a peek, if you like. Ever growing, ever changing, and all that good stuff.
My dear friend (and all around awesome person) Erynn wrote this wonderfully thought-provoking post on what she terms “an orthodoxy of fear”. She is one of the foundational folks involved in Celtic Reconstructionism, and the above essay details her thoughts on the growing trend in CR (and which can be seen in other recon religions) where certain tight-laced members will essentially bully anyone who is “out of line”, so to speak. Read it before you go on if you haven’t already; it’s a great set of thoughts, and this post is my rumination on what she said.
I’m not a reconstructionist by far, believe me. I know damned well that what I’m doing is my own creation, and not specific to any culture other than modern mainstream American. However, the concept of shamanism has become particularly contentious these days, especially within dialogue about cultural appropriation, and how much borrowing/inspiration is too much. As I wrote last month upon my return from Arizona, one bad habit I’ve worked to break has been worrying overmuch about proving my authenticity. What Erynn described hits home for me in that regard, because I think I really hobbled myself sometimes for fear that the cultural appropriation police would come along and scream “PLASTIC SHAMAN!!! OMG!!!” Now, don’t get me wrong–I do believe strongly that appropriation is something we do need to continue discussing, and taking into account in our thoughts and actions.
However, reading through what Erynn said about people being afraid to talk about what they’re doing for fear of destructive criticism reminds me very much of myself at times. You know why it took me so long to accept the calling to shamanism? It wasn’t because I was afraid of the hardships (though I know those are a very real possibility). It was because I’d heard so many times that because I was white, because I didn’t have any connections to any indigenous culture, and had no one to teach me, that I shouldn’t ever call myself a “shaman”.
And what did that get me? A lot of years where I could have been answering the spirits when they repeatedly asked me to take up this path, but instead got distracted by other things. Now, I don’t think that my time was wasted; I learned and did a lot of neat things in that time. However, I have to wonder what might have been if I’d answered sooner; would I have been able to make more of a difference? I’ll never know for sure; what’s important now is that I am doing what I need to be doing, and learning more about what I can do further.
I understand the need for accuracy, believe me. We don’t need more “Fiftieth generation family tradition witches” and “Atlantean Crystal Loa Celts”. We don’t need more questionable books talking about how nine million Wiccans were burned at the stake at Salem. And we don’t need more people taking New Age beliefs and calling them genuine indigenous practices. However, how far do we really need to go when making sure that good information is put out there?
We need to stop discouraging non-indigenous people who want to practice a form of shamanism. If any culture could use shamanism–as well as the belief infrastructure that comes part and parcel with it–it’s the U.S. We are the most wasteful, destructive, screwed-up society out there. We consume more resources than any other country, and since the current administration came into power, we have alienated more and more countries (though Bush’s predecessors were far from innocent). We are a society stuck in long-term adolescence, lacking in true rebirthing rites of passage (and no, getting drunk on your 21st birthday doesn’t count). The fact that so many Americans are seeking something beyond what we currently have is a good sign; that many of them “steal” indigenous beliefs because they feel those are the most spiritual is usually a matter of ignorance, not deliberate malice. I think sometimes the critics come down too hard on neoshamans as a whole; don’t throw the baby out with the bath water (no matter how dirty that water may be). I may have a personal dislike for core shamanism as a freestanding system, but this is for me alone–I can’t say that others can’t practice it or get anything out of it.
Discouraging people from taking indigenous beliefs without understanding their context–or the people they originated from–is a good idea. Telling them “Look to the culture of your ancestors” only does so much good–the ancient Celts, Slavs, and other such folks did not have the same culture that we have today. Encouraging people to create a shamanism for this culture–that’s where I believe the answer is. I think sometimes many seekers distance themselves from American culture because they can’t see past the strip malls, and maybe they’re afraid of the immense amount of work that’s needed. But telling them “You can’t be a shaman” isn’t the solution. Then you just end up with people who A) become sick with despair, or B) take what they want anyway.
Being a rabid critic doesn’t help the situation. Setting yourself up as an uber-authority, telling people what they can and can’t believe or do, just makes you look like an insecure wanker with a chip on your shoulder (whether that’s what you are or not). Destructive criticism just turns people away; one can only handle being told “You’re doing it ALL wrong!” so many times before they stop listening out of self-defense. Cultural appropriation is given birth by a sick society seeking healing; if you want to help put a stop to it, there’s a better way than intimidating people to the point where they take their ball and go home.
For that matter, if you are a modern, nonindigenous shaman, take a good look at your cultural influences. How are you interfacing with the culture you are a part of–not just one halfway around the world in a remote area that has unblemished secrets, but whatever industrial/postindustrial, techno-heavy culture you may or may not enjoy living in? How is your shamanism helping the people around you–not just the pagans and the New Agers, but the folks next door, or the people in the local homeless shelter, or the schoolkids down the street? For that matter, how are the local spirits doing these days? Have you even talked to them? What about the Land you live on?
If someone is criticizing you, how are they doing it? Are they being openly antagonistic and insulting? Then chances are there probably isn’t that much to what they’re saying. Are they being calm (if opinionated) and supporting their claims with various sources and commentary? Read it over, think about it, and draw your own conclusions. Consider the possibility that they may very well have a good point; it’s easy for us to get defensive when we perceive someone criticizing us “for no good reason”. However, the method of conveyance can be a major tip-off in how much you really need to listen to someone. Hurling insults just turns people off; making a measured, calm argument is more likely to get a constructive response (honey and vinegar, folks).
In the end there are more important things, I think, than worrying that someone will attack you for daring to use the “S” word; with all the problems in the world, a label doesn’t seem all that important, especially if you don’t attach someone else’s culture to it (one in which you are not actively involved in any way). And I have to wonder if time spent surfing the internet criticizing anyone who is wrong wouldn’t be better off put to more constructive uses. There are bigger problems out there than making sure people stick to the standard dogma. Yes, we need to be aware when we’re overstepping our bounds when it comes to factual claims, and we do need to be aware of the impact on others. However, those of you who feel the need to terrify anyone who doesn’t do things the way you think they should, perhaps you ought to be more concerned with the impact you are having on others, as well. Because in the process of intimidating others, you may very well be contributing to the hindrance of people who could be very instrumental in improving the lot of us all.
I’m in the middle of reading The Secrets of Shamanism by Jose and Lena Stevens. I’m probably about 2/3 of the way through, and it’s turning out to be your usual neoshamanism flavored by core shamanism text o’ techniques. Doesn’t have much context, and throws in some decent psychological exercises in there for flavoring. Like so many authors, the Stevens insist that you don’t have to go through terrifying dismemberment and other ritual torture to be a shaman (however, to be fair, they also make it clear that reading this book won’t make you a shaman, either).
I also read some articles on Northern Tradition shamanism. This included a good comparison of “classic” (what I usually refer to as “traditional”) and core shamanisms. It’s not the first such comparison I’ve seen; I first read James Endredy’s comparisons of classic, core, and eco shamanisms in his text, Ecoshamanism.
It’s often assumed that anyone who isn’t trained in an indigenous cultural shamanism is a core shaman. While none of the sources I referenced above do this, I’ve run into the assumption more than once (online and elsewhere) that neoshaman = core shaman. True, Michael Harner has had a huge influence on modern (neo)shamanism, being the first person to really bring it into public practice in postindustrial cultures. I do, however, have disagreements with personal practice involving core shamanism; while it’s great for some people, not so much for yours truly.
However, I don’t really fit the definition of classic/traditional shaman, either. No indigenous teachers, and no cultural context other than that which I’m living in. My experience with the spirits is decidedly gentler than a lot of traditional testimonies, though I’m not under the illusion that things will always be easy, or play nice, or be successful.
I wish there was a term for modern postindustrial neoshamanism that was expressly not core shamanism, but that was understood to not be classic/traditional shamanism, either. I like “neoshamanism”, but it does have a lot of core shamanism assumptions around it. And therioshamanism is wayyy too narrow, being what I call the relationship I am creating between myself and “my” spirits. I like the concept of shamanism for postindustrial societies, but it has to be understood that you can’t ever take something entirely out of any cultural context whatsoever. Even if you completely divorce a particular practice from its original context, you are still practicing it within your own cultural context, whatever that may be. Therefore it needs to be tweaked to match the context it’s practiced within.
There aren’t very many non-indigenous shamans who are not practicing A) something based in core shamanism, or B) something based in traditional shamanism but also influenced, to one degree or another, by core shamanism, and who are practicing C) something that is based in a post-industrial cultural context. At least not that I know of, anyway. Maybe they’re all hiding from me.
Of course, sometimes I also wonder why I’m so reluctant to go and try to find an indigenous shaman of one culture or another to train under, and quit trying to mow my own path. I think a lot of it has to do with trying to keep the cultural context as focused on mainstream-America-flavored-by-neopaganism as possible; I feel that if I were to base my shamanism in any other cultures’ practices, then my shamanism would forever have that influence in it–and some things simply just don’t translate well from one culture to another. Of course, if I’m reading about other cultures’ shamanisms in books, then I’m being exposed (thirdhand) to those cultures (which is a poor substitute for actual involvement).
However, books also allow me enough detachment to be able to look at what the goals are, and then be able to figure out how to do them myself, coming from my own context. This way I can pull a “What Would Lupa Do?”, rather than, say, automatically falling back on a cosmology and context learned from another culture which may not be entirely appropriate for where I am. And that’s what I really want–a shamanism that is created from where I’m coming from, that addresses the problems that my culture faces, and that allows me to interact with the spirits in an individual manner, however they–and I–see fit.
I’m writing this post partly for my own benefit. Since I am a bibliophile and read voraciously, I sometimes find myself referring books to others. Every so often I’ll be asked for a list of recommended reading for those just getting into shamanism. Rather than continuing to type the same titles out over and over again, I can now just link to this post and say “Here, check this out”. (I also find this is incredibly convenient with other blog posts and articles online where it’s easier to point people to something I’ve already written.)
Keep in mind, of course, that I’ve only been actively pursuing a (neo)shamanic path since September 2007. However, I have spent over a decade as a solitary, self-taught pagan, and so discerning useful books from not so useful ones has become an acquired skill. These books can all be found in my bibliography; however, I’ve extracted a few particularly good for beginners (and yes, I fully admit to having cut and pasted the information from my biblio). Additionally, I strongly recommend checking the shamanism-related links in my blogroll. I’ve listed the books in the order I think would be most useful to read them in (separated into two different categories, neoshamanism and traditional shamanism–you don’t have to read the neo before the trad).
Books on Neoshamanism:
Webb, Hillary S.: Exploring Shamanism
This is pure neoshamanism–and the author gets points for admitting it up front. It’s a great guide to making shamanism relevant to mainstream postindustrial societies, and is a nice, down to Earth exploration of the concept. It’s got a good mix of theory and practice, too. 101, but it gave me some good ideas for integrating my practice into everyday life.
Harner, Michael: The Way of the Shaman
It’d be kinda tough to study neoshamanism without reading this book. Harner isn’t teaching “genuine Native American shamanism”; rather, he did to shamanism what Carroll did to magic in general–boil it down to its bare-bones components, sans cultural context, and present it as a working system for modern practitioners. Unfortunately, he only presents a partial perspective on what shamanism is, and leaves a number of cultural elements in there that can lead people to believe they’re doing it “just like the Indians”. I think the misunderstanding people have is that this book–or the weekend seminars that have ultimately derived from core shamanism–will automatically make you a shaman. I think it’s more accurate to say it can make you a practitioner of shamanic techniques, but one book a shaman does not make. Still, this is a useful handbook for said techniques, and as long as it’s taken in the proper context it’s an okay resource.
Endredy, James: Ecoshamanism
This is a very important book to me. Essentially it takes shamanism and plants it firmly in ecological awareness and environmentally friendly practices. While traditional shamanism isn’t all about environmentalism, therioshamanism is very much an environmentally active practice. It’s quite obvious that Endredy knows his stuff, both with wildcraft and shamanism, and it’s one of my favorite texts for reminding me of my focus on the Earth.
Books on Traditional Shamanism:
Vitebsky, Piers: The Shaman
I like this book because it’s a good anthropological introduction to shamanism–primarily traditional, but with a brief mention near the end of neoshamanism. It’s a nice blend of text and illustrations, and the author covers a lot of ground. He seems particularly interested in altered states of consciousness, and the involvement of the shaman in both the community overall, and politics (including conflict with large governments–shamanism as subversive!).
Eliade, Mircea: Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
Yes, I finally got around to reading this classic. I enjoyed it quite a bit, though chewing through hundreds of pages of pure vintage academia took two weeks. It’s going to be one of those books that I go back to every so often to re-read, and will probably get more out of with each time. It’s apparently withstood the years pretty well, too–while there’s obviously newer material out there, it hasn’t become obsolete. I can appreciate the comparative aspects of the book, though it’s also good to see how cultures have different cosmologies and traditions. A nice thorough resource.
Walsh, M.D., Ph.D, Roger N: The Spirit of Shamanism
This is a superior academic text on the psychology of shamanism. Unlike earlier academic works, though, the author is careful to not allow Western bias to color a negative picture of the topic. Rather, he explains in great detail (and with in-text citations, even!) about how shamanism differs from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, the psychology behind shamanic healing (such as the placebo effect), and the psychological states involved in initiation and journeying. I took away a much better understanding of the internal mechanics of shamanism from this book, as well as some good arguments against “shamans are crazy”. One of the most recommended books on this list.
Harvey, Graham (ed): Shamanism: A Reader
This is an awesome anthology with a great collection of primarily academic perspectives on both traditional and neo shamanism. While I didn’t like every essay, I did learn quite a bit from it, particularly on some of the more interesting niches, such as Siberian shamanic gender roles, the aesthetics of Korean shamanism, and Russian documentaries on shamanism. I wasn’t as impressed by most of the essays on neoshamanism, but it was nice to see them included instead of ignored. The writing on some of the essays is somewhat tough to chew through if you’re not used to academic writing, but this didn’t hinder me too much.
These aren’t the only books on shamanism I’ve read; you can see more at Pagan Book reviews. But this is a brief booklist I’d recommend for beginners and the curious. I’ll probably add to it at a later date, but it’s here for posterity (and my easy linking needs).
