Published in Issue 7 of Pagan Ireland (Spring 2023). Get a copy of this issue here: https://paganireland.com/buyissues

To my knowledge a traditional Shaman or Medicine Man comes from a community tribal culture, and is fully immersed in that culture and language since birth. So can a New-Age Shaman that has never been immersed in a Shamanic culture from his birth to death really be considered to be a Shaman? Since they don’t have access to the majority of that tribal culture and are making it up with New-Age research as they go along?

Shaman (the word) has a historic/anthroplological use to depict a particular person in a tribe that communed with the spirits and the Otherworld. As such they had training and cultural conditioning to make them who they were. They specifically looked after the wellbeing of their tribe beyond all others, upto and including the destruction of other tribes and individuals.

The New-Age Shaman is making it up from their knowledge as they go along. Many of which to my mind don’t seem to have the safety training that is taught in traditional cultures. The majority of which also lack counselling skills, basic psychology and some do have ego issues.

Yes, they can enter the Otherworld and commune with spirits and bring others there that is true. However, the coming back from the Otherworld and closing the doors on the spirits and spirit world does not seem to have been taught to many of them. This is a problem for themselves and others whose lives they intervene in. Some doors should not be opened unless you know how to close them. “First do no harm”. “If It Harm None, Do What Thou Will” are good mottos / aspirations to go by.

To loosen the rules of reality to rewire the brain in the Otherworld landscapes can lead to psychosis. Our brains are precious and should not be tampered with by amateurs, experimenters or egotists. For the way back is difficult for those that are lost, hurt or injured. In the past many who previously called themselves counselors are now calling themselves life coaches because the governments are cracking down on them for the damage they did to unsuspecting clients. You wouldn’t let just anyone touch your beating heart, so be careful who you let touch your brain, mind and soul for the damage from a stranger is just as tangible. There will always be exceptions to the rule people with natural/un-natural abilites Shamanic wise. Yet I am weary of people who call themselves Shaman and cannot show pedigree, lineage or modern day training in those skills from experienced practitioners. Wicca, Druidry etc, have their own Shamanic training skills, not everyone can do it, not everyone should. In many cases Pagan healers are first aiders, some of those we are asked to help need further help from specialists in psychology, counselling and medicine.

You either have that skill naturally in you, or you don’t. It may be dormant and brought out by training, yet I feel some will never be able to get it, just like colour-blind people will never see colours the way most people do. To my mind Shamanism is not to be messed with by untrained individuals, proper training is a must and a good support network needs to be available to both the practitioner and those that seek their aid. For as A. Crowley said, “It is easy to call demons for they are always calling you”. One person’s demon is another’s Shamanic spirit.

New Age for me is not a dirty Word, nor a derogatory one. I chose the New-Age Shaman reference - because ‘Shaman’ academically for me refers to something specific and cultural, just as medicine man does. However, New-Age Shaman for me and others refers to the honest fact that the practice is not embedded deeply in a Shamanic tradition with its specific culture, language, traditions and native religious beliefs. The New- Age Shaman description for me has an honest ring to it to my mind.

As for my comment above of people making it up as they go along. There I am referring to people who don’t have that training from others that were taught properly by indigenous shamans and are book learned etc. I take the fact that others that have been properly trained so I have no problem with them, and acknowledge their ability to relearn the techniques and make it work for them and others in the culture that they are immersed in. On the other hand I don’t want to be going out clearing up the messes of the fly-by-night fantasy practitioners. I have no problem with genuine spiritual practitioners, and many is the time we are first aiders rather than spiritual surgeons.

Some refer to Wicca, Druidry, as being New Age made up stuff. I agree, the practitioners of Wicca and Druidry reused, recreated, reconstructed and fashioned earlier knowledge to work for them in the present. They have over 50 years of experience in making working spiritual paths that work for their practitioners who are in the millions these days. Many people have found truths and meaning in these reconstructed practices. With over a million people involved that is a lot of experience that has been passed down and a lot of experimentation and a hell of a lot of lessons and mistakes to learn from. I believe that with this ever evolving knowledge there is hope, and the possibility of a deeper spiritual experience by Shamanic practitioners and others, by the genuine seekers and practitioners in the future.

I have experienced Shamanic trips and worked with genuine practitioners. The majority of which were New-Age Shamans and Shamankas. I have experienced the good and the bad, I wouldn’t wish the bad trips on others, so I am a great believer in having properly trained people in charge of my journeying, so they can aid me in getting back safely if I run into trouble. We need to look closely at the origins of where our Shamanic material comes from. Lets talk about the British Empire, which had people worldwide collecting information on local practices and customs, including Shamanic and spiritual practices. We have James Frazier’s “Golden Bough” encyclopedia of folk customs and culture worldwide as part of this. There are many other scholarly tomes on the same subject such as “Witchcraft and Magic among the Azande People” by A. Pritchard. Works by W.B. Yeats, Esperanza Wilde, etc, on folk practices and beliefs. Evan Wentz “Tibetan Books of the Dead” & “Tibetan Yoga and its Secret Doctrines”. Quite a few of these collectors met people who practiced Shamanic skills and spiritual practices and experienced them firsthand.

So instead of using Wicca and Druidry and others as a starting point for modern learned Shamanic practices, I think it is better to widen the scope and honour all those collectors who for over 100 hundred years prior to Wicca and Druidry had done all this work collecting experiencing and practicing these practices and passing on their knowledge of it to the West. There were plenty of people who would have returned to Britain after years of working abroad with knowledge of other cultures - organisations such as Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy Society, with its members aspirations to seek arcane knowledge from abroad.

G. B. Gardner of Wicca would have mingled with quite a few of them. So those skills and practices would have been distilled and mixed to form what we have today over generations by the million/s or so of practitioners I mentioned earlier. Not all Pagan groups covens cover this knowledge, information and practices, of those that do, some individuals are definitely better than others at it.

Experiencing the Otherworld up close and personal through deep trancework does not mean you will have a happy ever after existence or that it will make you a better person. Some Shamanic practices similar to enlightenment - means the stripping away of misconceptions and false truths, it does not mean happiness, in fact it may burst your comfort bubble of happiness, showing you things about yourself and others that cannot be unseen.

Seeing things as they are and not how we want them to be. A couple of final thoughts to remember are: “Who put the Sham in Shaman?”, don’t believe all the hype, be wary of who you put your trust in. Would a traditional Shamanic practice work outside its culture here in the West? There are a lot of scientific studies on the brainwaves and practices of Shamans and meditators. Not all of it translates into understandable language just like there is a lot lost in the translation from a traditional Shaman’s language to our own, much is lost in what is said and unsaid.

Dagda Segais