The Universal Quest: From Ancient Shamanic Traditions to Core Shamanism

I started using shamanic journeying techniques many decades ago but it wasn’t until 2017 that I embarked on a 7-year formal training program with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies under the guidance of published author and the director of the Asian Branch, Kevin Turner, a gifted protege of the founder of core shamanism, Michael Harner. Since that time core shamanism has been an integral part of my weekly practice, although in truth I have fallen somewhat short of becoming an accomplished shamanic practitioner! This article explores, with gratitude, the development of core shamanism and Harner’s contribution to this powerful modality. Kevin Parker

Michael Harner’s development of Core Shamanism in the 1970s and 1980s represents one of the most significant attempts to bridge ancient spiritual practices with contemporary Western consciousness. Core Shamanism emerged as a systematic distillation of universal shamanic techniques found across diverse cultures worldwide, deliberately stripped of culture-specific elements to create an accessible methodology while avoiding direct appropriation of indigenous traditions. This revolutionary approach transformed a practice rooted in humanity’s oldest spiritual traditions into a framework that could serve modern practitioners seeking authentic spiritual experience. Harner’s anthropological background and extensive fieldwork with indigenous shamans provided the empirical foundation for identifying common elements across shamanic traditions, from Siberian drumming circles to Amazonian ayahuasca ceremonies. His work bridged the gap between academic anthropology and experiential spirituality, though not without significant controversy regarding cultural appropriation and the decontextualization of sacred practices.

The foundation for Harner’s synthesis lay in centuries of cross-cultural shamanic traditions that shared remarkable similarities despite geographic and temporal separation. From the original Tungus “shamans” of Siberia to the curanderos of South America, practitioners across cultures developed techniques for entering altered states of consciousness, communicating with spirit beings, and facilitating healing through spiritual intervention. These universal elements suggested deeper patterns in human spiritual experience that transcended cultural boundaries, providing the empirical basis for Harner’s later systematization.

The ancient roots and early encounters with shamanic traditions

The term “shamanism” derives from the Tungus word “šamán,” meaning “one who knows,” originating among the Evenki people of Siberia where it described individuals capable of mediating between humans, animals, and spirits within a three-tiered cosmos.¹ The first documented European encounter with shamanic practices occurred on New Year’s Day 1557, when Englishman Richard Johnson witnessed what he described as “devilish rites” on the northwest coast of Siberia, setting the tone for centuries of Christian bias in Western interpretations of indigenous spiritual practices.²

The introduction of the term to Western discourse followed a complex historical trajectory. Russian forces first encountered shamanic peoples after conquering the Khanate of Kazan in 1552, leading to extensive interaction with indigenous Siberian populations. The earliest written record appeared in the memoirs of exiled Russian churchman Avvakum Petrovich in 1672, while Dutch statesman Nicolaes Witsen brought the term to Western Europe in 1692 through his work “Noord en Oost Tataryen,” based on travels among Tungusic- and Samoyedic-speaking peoples.³ Adam Brand’s 1698 translation of a Russian embassy account introduced “shaman” to English speakers, establishing the linguistic foundation for future scholarly discourse.⁴

Early European documentation reveals the profoundly prejudiced lens through which Western observers initially viewed shamanic traditions. Nicolaes Witsen’s 1692 engraving of a Siberian shaman depicted the figure as a “Priest of the Devil” with clawed feet, reflecting Christian interpretative frameworks that would persist for centuries.⁵ Spanish chronicler Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo described Caribbean elders using tobacco to communicate with “the Devil” in 1535, while missionary accounts consistently framed shamanic practices as demonic rather than recognizing their sophisticated spiritual technologies.⁶

The 18th century marked a crucial transition period. Historian Karena Kollmar-Polenz argues that the social construction of shamanism as a religious “other” began with Tibetan Buddhist monks’ writings in Mongolia, which “probably influenced the formation of European discourse on Shamanism.”⁷ This period saw the gradual shift from viewing shamanism as uncivilized and untouched by culture toward more systematic anthropological study, though evolutionary prejudices persisted well into the 20th century.

Cross-cultural shamanic practices demonstrated remarkable consistency across vast geographic and temporal distances. Siberian shamanism, considered the classical form, featured specialists communicating directly with transcendent worlds through assistance from active spirit-beings and guardian spirits.⁸ Practitioners underwent initiatory experiences involving spiritual death and resurrection, used specific ritual objects including drums and ceremonial costumes, and engaged in otherworld journeys for healing and divination purposes. Native American traditions shared these core elements while developing distinctive practices such as vision quests, power animal relationships, and sweat lodge ceremonies for purification and spiritual empowerment.⁹

Australian Aboriginal shamanism, representing perhaps the world’s oldest continuous spiritual tradition dating back 40,000-100,000 years, featured access to the eternal Dreamtime realm through trance states, songlines marking sacred pathways across the landscape, and elaborate initiation rituals involving symbolic death and rebirth.¹⁰ African traditions, particularly among hunter-gatherer groups like the San, emphasized spirit possession and mediumship, community healing practices, and divination systems using bones and other sacred objects.¹¹ Arctic shamanism adapted these universal elements to extreme environmental conditions, with Inuit angakkuit serving as mediators between humans and the spirit world, conducting underwater journeys to the Sea Woman for hunting success and community survival.¹²

The emergence of systematic anthropological study

The late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed the transformation of shamanic studies from colonial curiosity to legitimate academic discipline. Methodological developments in anthropology enabled more sophisticated approaches to understanding shamanic phenomena, moving beyond simple prejudice toward systematic analysis of complex spiritual systems. The Greenlandic-Danish anthropologist Knud Rasmussen, known as the “father of Eskimology,” conducted expeditions from 1902 to 1934 that provided primary sources on Inuit culture and shamanic practices, establishing standards for ethnographic documentation that would influence generations of researchers.¹³

Russian and German ethnographic reports of the early 20th century began using terms like “shamanhood” or “shamanship” to stress cultural diversity and specific features, recognizing the sophisticated nature of shamanic knowledge systems. This period saw the gradual abandonment of evolutionary frameworks that positioned shamanism as primitive religion destined for replacement by “higher” forms, replaced by more nuanced understanding of shamanic practices as complex spiritual technologies adapted to specific cultural and environmental contexts.¹⁴

Mircea Eliade’s foundational work “Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy” (first published in French in 1951, English translation 1964) established the first comprehensive cross-cultural study of shamanic phenomena.¹⁵ Eliade’s phenomenological approach focused on shamanic trance as a universal feature across cultures, identifying shamanism as “at once mysticism, magic and religion” and arguing that it represented humanity’s oldest form of spiritual practice. His comparative methodology synthesized ethnological, sociological, and psychological studies while proposing that shamanism spread from Siberian roots to global distribution through human migration patterns.

Though later criticized for its generalizing approach and evolutionary assumptions, Eliade’s work provided the theoretical foundation for understanding shamanism as a coherent phenomenon rather than isolated cultural curiosities. His structural analysis identified core elements including the shaman’s role as mediator between worlds, the use of altered states for spiritual travel, and the emphasis on direct experience rather than belief systems. These insights established the conceptual framework that would later enable Harner’s synthesis of cross-cultural practices into Core Shamanism.¹⁶

Claude Lévi-Strauss contributed crucial analytical tools through structural anthropology, examining shamanic practices as sophisticated communication systems operating through symbolic logic. His seminal essays “The Effectiveness of Symbols” (1949) and “The Sorcerer and His Magic” (1949) explored the therapeutic efficacy of shamanic healing and introduced the concept of a “shamanistic complex” that included the shaman, patient, and community as integrated elements in healing processes.¹⁷ Lévi-Strauss compared shamanic practices to psychoanalysis, recognizing both as structured systems for addressing psychological and spiritual distress through symbolic manipulation and narrative reconstruction.

These early anthropological foundations established shamanism as a legitimate area of academic inquiry, identified cross-cultural patterns and common elements, and created methodological frameworks for studying spiritual phenomena from scientific perspectives. The work of Eliade, Lévi-Strauss, and their contemporaries moved shamanic studies beyond colonial stereotypes toward recognition of sophisticated knowledge systems that had enabled human societies to address spiritual, psychological, and community needs for millennia.

Michael Harner’s transformative journey from academic to practitioner

Michael James Harner’s unique trajectory from conventional anthropologist to shamanic practitioner began with his doctoral research among the Jívaro people of eastern Ecuador in 1956-57.¹⁸ Initially trained as an archaeologist at UC Berkeley under Alfred Kroeber and Robert Heizer, Harner shifted to ethnology after recognizing that living Indigenous peoples possessed “encyclopedias that nobody was opening”—vast repositories of cultural knowledge disappearing faster than they could be documented.¹⁹ This realization proved prophetic, as traditional shamanic practices faced unprecedented threats from modernization and cultural suppression during the mid-20th century.

Harner’s early academic work established him as a serious scholar within conventional anthropological frameworks. His 1963 doctoral dissertation, “Machetes, Shotguns, and Society: An Inquiry into the Social Impact of Technological Change among the Jivaro Indians,” examined cultural transformation through material lens, while his subsequent book “The Jívaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls” (1972) provided comprehensive ethnographic documentation of Shuar society.²⁰ His edited volume “Hallucinogens and Shamanism” (1973) explored psychedelic plant use in shamanic practices worldwide, positioning him as an authority on consciousness-altering substances in religious contexts.²¹

The pivotal moment in Harner’s career occurred during his 1960-61 fieldwork with the Conibo people in the Peruvian Amazon, when tribal members insisted that understanding their spiritual system required direct experience: “there’s only one way to learn about it—you’ve got to take the drink.”²² His first ayahuasca experience fundamentally altered his worldview and methodological approach to anthropology, revealing what he described as “a whole other reality” that could not be dismissed as fantasy because the experiences matched those of indigenous practitioners “down to concrete details” without prior discussion.²³

This transformative encounter led Harner to pursue formal shamanic training, marking his evolution from academic observer to experiential practitioner. A Conibo shaman recognized his potential, telling him he could become a master shaman based on the depth of his first journey. This acknowledgment by indigenous practitioners provided crucial validation for Harner’s later development of teaching methods accessible to Western students.²⁴

During the 1960s and early 1970s, Harner continued his academic career while secretly exploring shamanic practices. His discovery that monotonous drumming could achieve the same altered states as psychedelic plants proved revolutionary, both for his personal practice and for the accessibility of shamanic techniques to contemporary practitioners.²⁵ Initially convinced that all shamanic experiences required psychoactive substances, Harner gradually realized that “perhaps 90 percent of the world’s shamanic cultures use monotonous percussive sound to enter altered states of consciousness, rather than significant psychedelics.”²⁶

Harner’s experiments with drumming at 4-7 hertz (theta brainwave range) demonstrated remarkable effectiveness for achieving what he termed the “shamanic state of consciousness” (SSC). This discovery solved multiple practical problems: it eliminated legal issues associated with controlled substances, avoided the physical risks of psychedelic experiences, and made shamanic techniques accessible to individuals who might not tolerate powerful plant medicines. The sonic driving method became the cornerstone of Core Shamanism, enabling systematic teaching of shamanic techniques without cultural appropriation concerns.²⁷

The development of Core Shamanism methodology emerged from Harner’s unique combination of rigorous anthropological training, extensive cross-cultural fieldwork, and personal shamanic experience. His comparative analysis identified universal elements across diverse traditions: the use of altered states for spiritual travel, relationships with helping spirits in animal form, healing through soul retrieval and extraction techniques, and divination through direct spirit communication. These common features suggested fundamental patterns in human spiritual capacity that transcended cultural boundaries.²⁸

Harner’s approach deliberately stripped away culture-specific elements while preserving the essential technologies that enabled shamanic experience. Core Shamanism avoided using sacred songs, rituals, or ceremonial objects from particular traditions, instead focusing on universal techniques that could be practiced without appropriating specific cultural heritage. This methodological choice reflected both ethical concerns about cultural appropriation and practical recognition that effective shamanic practice required authentic experience rather than imitation of foreign cultural forms.²⁹

The synthesis and systematization of core shamanic practice

The publication of “The Way of the Shaman” in 1980 by mainstream publisher HarperCollins marked the beginning of the contemporary shamanic renaissance, introducing hundreds of thousands of Western readers to practical shamanic techniques.³⁰ The book represented a radical departure from conventional anthropological writing, combining scholarly analysis with detailed instructions for shamanic practice and personal accounts of Harner’s transformative experiences with indigenous practitioners. Its accessibility and practical orientation enabled readers to begin their own shamanic explorations without requiring extensive anthropological background or access to traditional teachers.

Harner’s systematic approach to teaching Core Shamanism addressed multiple challenges simultaneously. The three-world cosmology provided a simple yet sophisticated framework for understanding shamanic geography: the Lower World as the realm of power animals and nature spirits, the Upper World as the domain of spiritual teachers and guides, and the Middle World as ordinary reality and its spiritual dimensions.³¹ This universal structure eliminated the need for culture-specific mythologies while providing clear guidance for shamanic navigation.

The shamanic journey process developed by Harner standardized what had been highly variable practices across cultures. The methodology included preparation through creating sacred space and setting clear intentions, drumming at specific rhythmic patterns to induce altered states, traveling to spirit realms with defined purposes, and returning with information or healing energy. This systematic approach enabled consistent results while maintaining flexibility for individual experience and cultural adaptation.³²

Power animal work became central to Core Shamanism practice, based on the near-universal shamanic concept of spirit allies in animal form. Harner’s method for power animal retrieval provided students with practical techniques for establishing relationships with helping spirits, while avoiding appropriation of specific cultural traditions around particular animals or their meanings. The emphasis on personal relationships with spirit guides rather than predetermined pantheons respected individual spiritual experience while providing essential support for shamanic work.³³

Healing practices in Core Shamanism focused on universal techniques found across cultures: soul retrieval for addressing trauma and spiritual fragmentation, extraction work for removing harmful spiritual intrusions, and power restoration for reconnecting individuals with their spiritual vitality. These methods translated traditional shamanic healing concepts into frameworks accessible to contemporary practitioners while avoiding the cultural specificity that might constitute appropriation of indigenous healing traditions.³⁴

The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, established in 1979 as the Center for Shamanic Studies and reorganized in 1987, provided institutional support for preserving and teaching shamanic knowledge worldwide.³⁵ The Foundation’s threefold mission of preservation, study, and teaching reflected Harner’s recognition that traditional shamanic knowledge faced unprecedented threats from cultural suppression and modernization. The Living Treasures program provided lifetime support to exceptional indigenous shamans, while the Shamanic Knowledge Conservatory created the world’s largest archive of shamanic materials.³⁶

Training programs developed by the Foundation standardized Core Shamanism instruction while maintaining quality control and ethical guidelines. The basic curriculum introduced students to shamanic journeying, power animal retrieval, and fundamental healing techniques, while advanced programs provided specialized training in shamanic counseling, divination methods, and complex healing practices.³⁷ International expansion brought Core Shamanism training to dozens of countries, adapting universal techniques to diverse cultural contexts while maintaining core methodological consistency.

Research programs supported by the Foundation explored the scientific validation of shamanic practices, including studies of the psychological and immunological effects of shamanic drumming, cross-cultural analysis of shamanic experiences, and mapping of nonordinary reality through systematic documentation of journey experiences.³⁸ This research agenda reflected Harner’s commitment to bridging indigenous wisdom with contemporary scientific understanding, demonstrating the practical effectiveness of shamanic techniques for healing and personal development.

Contemporary reception, criticism, and the appropriation debate

The academic reception of Core Shamanism has been sharply divided, reflecting broader tensions within anthropology regarding the relationship between scholarly study and experiential practice. Alice Beck Kehoe’s comprehensive critique in “Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking” (2000) represents the most sustained academic attack on Harner’s work, arguing that Core Shamanism constitutes “intellectual or ivory-tower racism” that treats indigenous cultures as “lesser evolved” forms requiring interpretation by advanced Western civilization.³⁹

Kehoe’s fundamental objection centers on what she views as the homogenization of diverse cultural practices into a universal “shamanism” concept that ignores cultural specificity and context. She argues that Harner’s approach perpetuates evolutionary assumptions by treating shamanism as a primitive stage of human development rather than recognizing the sophisticated knowledge systems embedded within specific cultural contexts.⁴⁰ This critique reflects broader concerns within contemporary anthropology about the ethics of extracting practices from their cultural origins and the power dynamics inherent in Western academic interpretation of indigenous knowledge.

Daniel C. Noel and other scholars have extended this critique to argue that Core Shamanism fundamentally depends on cultural appropriation, providing the foundation for what they term “massive exploitation of Indigenous cultures by ‘plastic shamans’ and other cultural appropriators.”⁴¹ This criticism highlights the unintended consequences of making shamanic techniques widely accessible without adequate cultural education or respect for indigenous communities’ sovereignty over their spiritual heritage.

Indigenous scholars and activists have been particularly vocal in their criticism of neoshamanic movements, including Core Shamanism. Native American scholars argue that such practices represent illegitimate cultural appropriation that commercializes and trivializes sacred traditions, regardless of practitioners’ intentions.⁴² Geary Hobson and other Indigenous intellectuals view the New Age appropriation of shamanic terminology as another form of colonialism, enabling white practitioners to benefit from indigenous wisdom while distancing themselves from the historical and contemporary injustices faced by tribal communities.

Recent scholarship, including Eric D. Mortensen’s “The Ongoing Harm of the Term Shamanism” (2023), argues that the very use of the term “shamanism” causes continuing harm to Indigenous communities through scholarly misapplication based on romanticization and subsequent cultural appropriation.⁴³ This perspective challenges the foundational assumptions of comparative shamanic studies, suggesting that the cross-cultural application of Siberian terminology inevitably distorts and commodifies diverse spiritual traditions.

Methodological criticisms focus on Harner’s universalist assumptions and the decontextualization of spiritual practices. Anthropologists argue that shamanic techniques cannot be meaningfully separated from their cultural matrices because their effectiveness depends on shared symbolic systems, community structures, and worldview assumptions that cannot be transplanted across cultural boundaries.⁴⁴ The “naive understanding of trance” attributed to Core Shamanism practitioners reflects deeper concerns about reducing complex spiritual phenomena to generic experiences accessible through simple techniques.

However, supportive scholarship has emerged from researchers who recognize value in Harner’s experiential approach despite its limitations. Joan Townsend’s detailed ethnographic study of “modern shamanic spirituality” distinguishes between Core Shamanism and Neo-Shamanism, arguing that Harner’s methodology maintains greater integrity through its systematic approach and ethical guidelines.⁴⁵ Michael Winkelman’s cross-cultural statistical analysis supports some universalist claims about shamanic practices, while research on the psychological and physiological effects of shamanic drumming validates the therapeutic potential of Core Shamanism techniques.⁴⁶

The appropriation debate reflects fundamental tensions between preservation and accessibility, respect and innovation, cultural sovereignty and human heritage. Defenders of Core Shamanism argue that it represents humanity’s oldest spiritual technology rather than the property of specific cultures, pointing to the universal distribution of shamanic practices as evidence for shared human capacity rather than borrowed cultural elements. Critics counter that this universalist argument ignores power dynamics and the ongoing impact of colonialism on indigenous communities struggling to maintain their cultural integrity.⁴⁷

Contemporary applications of Core Shamanism in therapeutic contexts have generated additional controversy and research interest. Integration into counseling and psychotherapy raises questions about professional ethics and cultural competence, while medical applications require careful consideration of evidence-based practice standards. Research on treating trauma, particularly PTSD in veterans, suggests potential therapeutic value but requires rigorous scientific validation to justify clinical applications.⁴⁸

The Foundation for Shamanic Studies has attempted to address appropriation concerns through several initiatives: providing scholarships to indigenous practitioners seeking to reclaim their traditions, maintaining clear distinctions between Core Shamanism and culture-specific practices, and developing ethical guidelines for contemporary shamanic practice.⁴⁹ However, critics argue that these efforts, while well-intentioned, cannot address the fundamental issues of cultural decontextualization and commercial exploitation that they view as inherent in any systematic extraction of indigenous spiritual techniques.

The ongoing vitality of the global Core Shamanism community, with tens of thousands of practitioners worldwide, demonstrates the appeal of Harner’s synthesis despite academic criticism. Contemporary practitioners report significant personal and therapeutic benefits from shamanic techniques, suggesting that effectiveness may transcend questions of cultural authenticity or academic approval. However, the tension between individual benefit and cultural respect remains unresolved, reflecting broader challenges in contemporary spirituality regarding the relationship between ancient wisdom and modern practice.⁵⁰

Conclusion

The story of shamanism’s evolution from ancient practice to contemporary movement reveals fundamental tensions between preservation and accessibility, tradition and innovation, cultural specificity and universal human experience. Michael Harner’s Core Shamanism represents perhaps the most systematic attempt to bridge these divides, creating a methodology that preserved essential shamanic technologies while making them accessible to modern practitioners. His synthesis emerged from unique historical circumstances: the convergence of academic anthropology with experiential spirituality, the urgent need to preserve disappearing traditional knowledge, and the growing Western interest in alternative spiritual practices during the countercultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

The transformation from Siberian “shamans” documented by early European explorers to the global Core Shamanism community illustrates both the universality and cultural specificity of human spiritual experience. While the techniques of drumming, journeying, and spirit communication appear across cultures with remarkable consistency, their meanings and applications remain deeply embedded within specific worldviews and social structures. Harner’s achievement lay in identifying and systematizing these universal elements while attempting to respect cultural boundaries through the deliberate exclusion of culture-specific practices.

The contemporary debates surrounding Core Shamanism reflect broader challenges facing humanity in an increasingly interconnected world. How do we preserve and honor indigenous wisdom while making beneficial practices accessible to those who need them? How do we distinguish between cultural appreciation and appropriation? How do we balance respect for traditional knowledge holders with recognition of universal human spiritual capacity? These questions extend far beyond shamanism to encompass issues of cultural sovereignty, intellectual property, and the ethics of cross-cultural exchange in a globalized world.

Perhaps most significantly, the persistence and growth of shamanic practice in contemporary contexts suggests that ancient spiritual technologies continue to address fundamental human needs that modern civilization has not fully met. The therapeutic applications of shamanic techniques, their integration into healing practices, and their appeal to individuals seeking direct spiritual experience all point to enduring human requirements for connection with non-ordinary states of consciousness, relationship with helping spirits, and participation in meaningful healing practices. The shamanic renaissance, whatever its cultural and ethical complications, demonstrates the vitality of humanity’s oldest spiritual traditions and their continued relevance for addressing contemporary challenges of meaning, healing, and spiritual connection.

The legacy of Michael Harner’s work will likely be measured not only by its immediate impact on shamanic practice but by its contribution to broader questions about the relationship between traditional knowledge and modern application, the ethics of cultural transmission, and the universal aspects of human spiritual experience. While debates about cultural appropriation and authenticity will undoubtedly continue, the demonstrated effectiveness of shamanic techniques for healing and personal transformation suggests that the essential questions concern not whether such practices should be preserved and taught, but how they can be maintained with integrity, respect, and benefit for all involved. The future of shamanic practice may depend on developing new models that honor both cultural specificity and universal human heritage, creating pathways for authentic spiritual experience that serve individual and community healing while respecting the wisdom and sovereignty of traditional knowledge holders.

Bibliography

Atwood, Mary Dean. Spirit Healing: Native American Magic and Medicine. New York: Sterling Publishing, 1991.

Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Translated by Willard R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964.

Flaherty, Gloria. Shamanism and the Eighteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Halifax, Joan. Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979.

Harner, Michael. Hallucinogens and Shamanism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.

———. The Jívaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1972.

———. The Way of the Shaman. New York: HarperCollins, 1980.

Hobson, Geary, ed. The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979.

Kehoe, Alice Beck. Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2000.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. “The Effectiveness of Symbols.” In Structural Anthropology, translated by Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf, 186-205. New York: Basic Books, 1963.

———. “The Sorcerer and His Magic.” In Structural Anthropology, translated by Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf, 167-185. New York: Basic Books, 1963.

Mortensen, Eric D. “The Ongoing Harm of the Term Shamanism: From Problematic Scholarly Misnomer to Evolving Cultural Appropriation.” Program for the Evolution of Spirituality, Harvard Divinity School, 2023.

Noel, Daniel C. The Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal Realities. New York: Continuum, 1997.

Rasmussen, Knud. Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1927.

The Foundation for Shamanic Studies. “Core Shamanism.” Accessed December 2024. https://www.shamanism.org/core-shamanism/.

———. “FSS Polestar: Core Shamanism – Respecting Indigenous Cultures.” Accessed December 2024. https://www.shamanism.org/core-shamanism-respect-indigenous-cultures/.

———. “History and Work of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.” Accessed December 2024. https://www.shamanism.org/history-and-work-of-the-foundation-for-shamanic-studies/.

Townsend, Joan B. “Shamanic Spirituality and the Western Imagination.” In Shamanism: A Reader, edited by Graham Harvey, 452-475. London: Routledge, 2003.

Turner, Edith. “The Reality of Spirits: A Tabooed or Permitted Field of Study?” Anthropology of Consciousness 4, no. 1 (1993): 9-12.

Vitebsky, Piers. The Shaman: Voyages of the Soul, Trance, Ecstasy and Healing from Siberia to the Amazon. London: Duncan Baird Publishers, 1995.

Winkelman, Michael. Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 2000.

Witsen, Nicolaes. Noord en Oost Tataryen. Amsterdam: François Halma, 1692.

Notes

1. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 4-5.
2. Gloria Flaherty, Shamanism and the Eighteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 45.
3. Nicolaes Witsen, Noord en Oost Tataryen (Amsterdam: François Halma, 1692), 231-235.
4. Flaherty, Shamanism and the Eighteenth Century, 47.
5. Witsen, Noord en Oost Tataryen, 234.
6. Mary Dean Atwood, Spirit Healing: Native American Magic and Medicine (New York: Sterling Publishing, 1991), 23.
7. Piers Vitebsky, The Shaman: Voyages of the Soul, Trance, Ecstasy and Healing from Siberia to the Amazon (London: Duncan Baird Publishers, 1995), 58.
8. Eliade, Shamanism, 13-19.
9. Joan Halifax, Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979), 45-67.
10. Vitebsky, The Shaman, 89-103.
11. Halifax, Shamanic Voices, 89-112.
12. Knud Rasmussen, Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1927), 167-189.
13. Rasmussen, Across Arctic America, 12-15.
14. Vitebsky, The Shaman, 134-145.
15. Eliade, Shamanism, xi-xix.
16. Eliade, Shamanism, 3-7.
17. Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Effectiveness of Symbols,” in Structural Anthropology, trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (New York: Basic Books, 1963), 186-205; “The Sorcerer and His Magic,” in Structural Anthropology, 167-185.
18. Michael Harner, The Jívaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1972), ix-xi.
19. The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, “My Path in Shamanism,” accessed December 2024, https://www.shamanism.org/articles/article16.html.
20. Harner, The Jívaro; Michael Harner, “Machetes, Shotguns, and Society: An Inquiry into the Social Impact of Technological Change among the Jivaro Indians” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1963).
21. Michael Harner, ed., Hallucinogens and Shamanism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).
22. The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, “My Path in Shamanism.”
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman (New York: HarperCollins, 1980), 63-68.
26. Harner, The Way of the Shaman, 64.
27. Ibid., 65-67.
28. Harner, The Way of the Shaman, 20-25.
29. The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, “Core Shamanism,” accessed December 2024, https://www.shamanism.org/core-shamanism/.
30. Harner, The Way of the Shaman, cover and introduction.
31. Harner, The Way of the Shaman, 26-39.
32. Ibid., 40-59.
33. Ibid., 80-95.
34. Ibid., 96-120.
35. The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, “About the Foundation for Shamanic Studies,” accessed December 2024, https://www.shamanism.org/foundation-shamanic-studies/.
36. The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, “History and Work of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies,” accessed December 2024, https://www.shamanism.org/history-and-work-of-the-foundation-for-shamanic-studies/.
37. Ibid.
38. Michael Winkelman, Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing (Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 2000), 15-30.
39. Alice Beck Kehoe, Shamans and Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in Critical Thinking (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2000), 65-78.
40. Kehoe, Shamans and Religion, 79-95.
41. Daniel C. Noel, The Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal Realities (New York: Continuum, 1997), 125-140.
42. Geary Hobson, ed., The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979), 15-25.
43. Eric D. Mortensen, “The Ongoing Harm of the Term Shamanism: From Problematic Scholarly Misnomer to Evolving Cultural Appropriation,” Program for the Evolution of Spirituality, Harvard Divinity School, 2023.
44. Kehoe, Shamans and Religion, 96-110.
45. Joan B. Townsend, “Shamanic Spirituality and the Western Imagination,” in Shamanism: A Reader, ed. Graham Harvey (London: Routledge, 2003), 452-475.
46. Winkelman, Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing, 45-67.
47. The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, “FSS Polestar: Core Shamanism – Respecting Indigenous Cultures,” accessed December 2024, https://www.shamanism.org/core-shamanism-respect-indigenous-cultures/.
48. Edith Turner, “The Reality of Spirits: A Tabooed or Permitted Field of Study?” Anthropology of Consciousness 4, no. 1 (1993): 9-12.
49. The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, “FSS Polestar: Core Shamanism – Respecting Indigenous Cultures.”
50. Townsend, “Shamanic Spirituality and the Western Imagination,” 470-475.