Customer Reviews

Shamanic Christianity: The Direct Experience of Mystical Communion

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Brad Keeney is my hero. This book isn't a hymnal or a book about going to hell for not believing in Jesus, nor is it a book about day dreaming your way into a hole in the ground to get an animal to help you escape from life. It is the work of someone who wants to shake your mind to it's foundation, but with no small help from you. Inside you will find stories about Brad's experiences with his grand father the evangelist, Kalahari Bushmen, and the Spiritual Baptists of Saint Vincent. But most important are the rituals that Brad produces to shake the cobwebs out of your mind (to make you "out of your mind" in a very good way). These rituals don't follow a specific formulaic structure nor do they have a strong "inspirational" religious flavor to them, they are simply mad. They are deliberately nonsensical in such a way that they will take you outside of yourself.

I should point out that this isn't just some Michael Harner rehash either, this is the ecstatic part of the equation that brings you to a state of real, temporary divine insanity. Brad doesn't say that an imagined trip to an underground forest is a real shamanic event (neither does Harner either really although so many people act like it is and thus miss the whole point. Then everyone's expectations of spirit get lowered to the point that a visualization is enough). Keeney's view is one that sees the boiling energy of ecstasy that defines the word "shaman" as central to the experience of spirit and gives real advice on how to open oneself to the real thing, not just a mental picture of a serene white light that inspires neither ecstasy nor real experience.

Brad is a crazy wisdom teacher in the truest sense of the term.

Get Shaking Medicine to make your body shake with divine energy and get Shamanic Christianity to shake out your mind. You won't be sorry.

If I had to verbalize the one thing that this book opened my consciousness to, is that God is too big to be contained within a single religion. Since religion is a human institution, there's no possible way a single religion could fully grasp the magnitude of an almighty, allknowing God.

The message that stood out to me the most was when the Indians stated that before the Pilgrims came to witness of Him, Jesus had already walked with them... but they knew him by a different name.

How powerful is that?!

I was surprised to find the very topic I was looking for when I searched on Amazon.com. I like the way the chapters are broken down into readable lengths. And it is written in very understandable terms. A good choice for me, and I'm sure, for many others with an interest in this topic.

I am not an expert of Shamanism, but the author's treatment of Christianity seems to leave the reader with the idea that he faith is a myth to be used to fire our imginations on to other things. Perhaps this was his point. I wanted a book that linked orthodox Christianity and the shamanistic experience. If that is what you are looking for, this is not it.

I'll keep this short...
I had expected an exploration of Christianity through the lens of Shamanism. It isn't. There are no facts in the book. It's just creative writing on the part of the author. This book isn't for a serious student of religion... it's for a confused teenager, at best.
Seriously, save your money. Do NOT buy this book.

I was really excited, initially, when I found this book. I have done a LOT of shamanic training, and am a Christian so I loved the idea of bringing these two together.
But, on one of the first pages, there's the suggestion to take a small cross, go into the woods, wait for the sound of a wolf, howl back, and bring your cross home. First, do we all live near woods where we hear the sound of wolves? And, if so, how exactly is this Christianity??!!!!! Every chapter asks for similar meditative focuses.
WHAT a HUGE disappointment!!! In fact, I rarely write reviews here or elsewhere because let's face it, they are just someone's opinion. But, this book is such a waste of time and money that I really wanted to save someone else from making the same mistake!