What do you think about modern shamanism? Does the west need a translator or bridge between cultures enable to experience the full power of shamanism? I figure this is an excellent place to pose these types of questions. I feel many here may be closet or sleeping shamans. I think the time has come where the shaman once again has a place in this world.

The shaman is a person who is able to transcend the dimensional confines of cultural existence. . . . Only the shaman knows that culture is a game. Everyone else takes it seriously. That’s how he can do his magic

When a shaman talks about spirit, he’s using a term as technically complicated in his mind as when a physicist uses the term beauty to describe a quark. You know, it’s very technically defined. And we tend to simplify, and then suppose that we understand.
Part of the thing I found with hanging with shamans in various places and times is that once you get past the language barrier, what shamans are are simply curious people. Intellectuals of a certain type. In Australian aboriginal slang, a shaman is called a “clever fellow”. If someone says “I’m a clever fellow”, they mean, you know, I’m a shaman. Well, that’s all it is – it’s somebody who pays attention to how things actually work, and sort of transcends the culture by that means. It’s a weird paradox. It’s that the shamans, who are the keepers of the cultural values, are also necessarily the keepers of the secrets of the theatrics of the cultural values, and so they live their lives in the light of the knowledge that it all rests on showbiz. You know, everybody else is a true believer, but these are the image-makers, the people who actually pull the strings and control the evolution of the mythologies. And in a way, it’s a situation of alienation.
Mircea Eliade talks a lot about this in Shamanism: The Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy and in History: The Eternal Return. He talks about how the shaman is socially marginal, politically marginal, lives at the edge of the village, and so forth and so on, and is feared by the people, because dealings with the shaman are always dealings about life and death. But then the shaman comes forward in this critical role, as go-between, as mediator, between the cultural mind and the real world, which is this potent set of forces and planetary cycles and meteorological events and diseases and, you know, fate; and the shaman mediates. In many languages, the word for shaman means “go-between”. So the cost of this, or the price of this, for the shaman himself, or herself, is a kind of alienation from the cultural values, and a kind of understanding that it’s a game that’s kept in play. -mckenna

And what is shamanism but philosophy with a hands-on attitude. Philosophy not made around the camp fire, but philosophy based on the acquisition of extreme experience. That’s how you figure out what the world is, not by bicycling around in the burbs, but by forcing extreme experience -mckenna

when you deal with preliterate cultures you discover that the shaman is a very peculiar figure.
He is critical to the function of the psychological and social life of his community, but in a way he’s always peripheral to it – he lives at the edge of the village, he is only called upon in matters of great social crisis, he is feared and respected, and this might be a description of these hallucinogenic substances. They are feared and respected, they are misunderstood, they are only called upon often in moments of great crisis, and they are persistent, but always a peripheral part of the community. -mckenna


Shamanism is not some obscure concern of cultural anthropologists: shamanism is how religion was practised for its first million years. Up until about 12,000 years ago, there was no other form of religion on this planet; that was how people attained some kind of access to the sacred. And so shamanism then becomes about technique, and if any of you are students of the literature of shamanism, you probably know that one of the great overviews of shamanism is contained in Mircea Eliade’s book, Shamanism: The Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. The archaic techniques of ecstasy. In other words, shamanism is not so much a religion, as ordinarily conceived, as it is a kind of pre-rational science; a kind of methodology for attaining a certain kind of experience.

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The shaman basically is an exemplar, a model, for how to be. Not simply how to be in the psychedelic or the trance state, but how to be in the act of wooing; how to be in the act of hunting, child-rearing, so forth. It’s a kind of exemplar that bursts through cultural conditioning. Cultural conditioning is like bad software. Over and over, it’s diddled with and rewritten so that it can just run on the next attempt! But there is cultural hardware, and it’s that cultural hardware – otherwise known as authentic being – that we are propelled toward by the example of the shaman and the techniques of the shaman. You know, if someone tells you that vast spiritual riches await you if you will but give up sex, interesting food, and your own thoughts for 10 or 15 years, and follow along with them, then something will be attained; this is no challenge to most of us, because we have our lives to lead, mortgages to pay, children to feed, car payments… but if someone tells you, “Eat this plant, and you will come into your birthright”, that’s a real existential challenge. The excuse that it’s difficult, or unattainable, has been removed. There can no longer be shilly-shallying around that issue. Shamanism therefore is a call to authenticity.
Well, then the last point that I want to make – this authenticity is generally presented, and has generally been presented throughout the evolution of the psychedelic movement in the United States, as a kind of personal integrity – a kind of psychological health, as though you had confronted all your demons and slain them, and you are now balanced, or individuated, or whole – something like that. That’s true; that is the first stage of the shamanic integration. But that is not the goal of the shamanic integration, otherwise it just becomes a kind of chemically assisted psychotherapy. The goal is then, having attained that balance, that wisdom, and that connection, to then rise up to a level of universal meaning. In other words, to break through the machinery of cultural conditioning in the same way that the shaman does, and to attempt to discover something authentic – something authentic outside the self-generated language cloud.

MT: Terence, the kind of knowledge and kind of information you're putting forward is... is not generally available. It's not the kind of information or knowledge that one would find in the typical academic anthropology curriculum um, and yet it seems to be um, a knowledge that uh, is ever expanding but somehow it's outside of the cultural institutional entities in some way. Um, number one, why do you think that's the case? Of course there's a logical answer to that one but um, what do you see as the future of this kind of information, this kind of knowledge?

TM: Well, I think in a sense it signals the rebirth of the institution of shamanism in the context of modern society and uh, anthropologists have always made the point about shaman that they were very important social catalysts in their group but they were always peripheral to it, peripheral to the political power and actually usually physically peripheral, living at some distance from the village. And uh, I think the uh, electronic shaman - the people who pursue these- the exploration of these spaces, exist to return to tell the rest of us about it- that we are now coming into a period of racial maturity as a species, where we can no longer have, uh, forbidden areas of the human mind or cultural uh, machinery. We have taken upon ourselves the acquisition of so much power that we now must understand what we are.

Uh, we cannot, uh, travel much further with the definitions of man that we inherit from the Judeo-Christian tradition. We need to truly explore the problem of consciousness because as man gains power he is becoming the defining fact on the planet, in the near-space area, so uh, the question that looms is "Is man good?" and then if he is, what is it he's good for? And, uh, the shaman will point the way because what they are, are, uh, visionaries, poets, cultural architects, forecasters, all these roles which we understand in more conventional terms rolled into one and raised to Nth power. They are cultural models for the rest of us. This has always been true. The shaman has access to a superhuman dimension and superhuman condition and by being able to do that he affirms the trans- the potential for transcendence in all people. He is an exemplar if you will. And I see the attention that's being given to these things signaling a sense on the part of the society that we need a return to these models. This is why, for instance, in the Star Wars phenomenon, Skywalker, Luke Skywalker - Skywalker is a direct translation of the word shaman out of the Tungusic, which is, S- where Siberian shamanism comes from. So these heroes that are being instilled in the heart of the culture are shamanic heroes - They control a force, which is uh, bigger than everybody and holds the galaxy together. This is true, as a matter of fact, and as we explore how true it is, the limitations of our previous worldview will be exposed for all to see. I think it was JBS Haldane who said uh, "The world may not only be stranger than we suppose, it may be stranger than we can suppose."

MT: I think of the chara-[clears throat] excuse me, the character Yoda...

TM: Right...

MT: ...as a shamanic type character.

TM: Very much so.

MT: As we talk about shamans and shamanism, again that brings up, uh, cross-cultural currents and um, do you see the, the shaman taking on a new uh, -certainly you don't see Indian shamans walking into metropolitan areas but do you see the shaman taking on a new form?

TM: Well I th- I believe along with Gordon Wasson and others, but in distinction to Mircea Eliade who was a major writer on shamanism, that um, it is hallucinogenic shamanism that is primary and that where shamanic techniques are used to the exclusion of uh, hallucinogenic drug ingestion the shamanism tends to be vitiated. It is more like a ritual enactment of what real shamanism is. So that, uh, uh, the shamanism that is coming to be is coming to be within people in our culture. Uh, the people who feel comfortable with psychedelic drugs and who, by going into those spaces and then returning with works of art, or poetic accounts, or scientific ideas, are actually changing the face of the culture. I connect the psychedelic dimension to the dimension of inspiration and dream. I think history has always, uh, progressed by the bubbling up of ideas from these nether dimensions into the minds of receptive men and women. It is simply that now with the hallucinogens we actually have a tool to push the button. We are no longer dependent upon uh, whatever factors it is that previously controlled the uh, ingression of novelty into human history. We have taken that function to ourselves and this will accelerate and uh, and uh, intensify the cultural crisis but I think in the end it will lead that much sooner to its resolution.

MT: So, as we uh, continue to, uh, move towards the further exploration of these spaces um, we uh, can expect that um, social change as a result? Personal change?

TM: Tremendous social change. I see in fact uh, what is happening is a tendency to uh, what I call 'turn the body inside out'. We are, through our media and cybernetics, we are actually approaching the point where consciousness can be experienced uh dis- uh, in a state of disconnection from the body. We have changed. We are no longer as I said, bipedal monkeys. We are instead a kind of cybernetic coral reef of organic components and inorganic technological components. We have become a force which takes unorganized raw material and excretes uh, technical objects. We have uh, transcended the normal definitions of man - we are like an enormous collective organism with our data banks, and our forecasting, uh, agencies, and our computer networks, and the many levels at which we are connected into the universe. Our self-image is changing. The monkey is uh, all but being left behind and shortly will be left behind.-terence mckenna

Jaguar which you used as an example is very easy to understand

all the other shaman song and dance is theatre IMO.
its drugs and charisma , with a show .
if your good at it, your a shaman, if your bad at it , your just a stoner in the audience.
cultural mileage will vary.

been around the world 3 x
much of it third world,
and most of it on drugs ( halluciongens)

been to alot of medicine shows.
never saw anyone cured of anything without proper medicine.

was taken to see a jungle holy man in mindano once.
he produced 2 large river stones.
one jet black and one snow white.
and he asked.........
" wich stone are you young lady?"

i pointed out the window at a mountain and said,
" that stone"

he smiled and said," you dont need me, you may go."

seriously, when i go visit aborigines,
im not there for for stone age song and dance.
they just wanna touch my hair..............
aint everyday barbie swoops your village.
get hopping i like water buffalo steaks.

some go for the blessing.
i go to bless them.
i even bless livestock and crops .....N/C

not being flip here, just recounting the way its been for me.
the path of others may vary.

annie doesnt pilgrimage, i tour.

are we chasing indians, or are we leading the way in the new age?

traditional shamanic ceremony.

I dont travel with an entourage or guides....

You been curing illness lately? Better at healing then the shamans curing cancer, diabetes, paralysis and HIV? (I know shamans that have cured each of those in people that I personally knew before they were cured) It's no big deal if you havent -

I dont normally like to call people out.