Customer Reviews

Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasies, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans

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Robert Wallis's recent book on neo-Shamanism is, like his colleague Jenny Blain's work, highly informed by detailed and presented theory. Wallis's approach is that he is writing an autoarchaeology of neoShamanism--one informed by neoShamanism itself, but also drawing upon narratives of a usable past created by neoShamans, critiques and views of neo-Shamanism from the perspective of indigenous peoples, and also of his own experience as a neo-Shamanic practitioner. Wallis is not acknowledging his own experience as definitive--this is not an autobiography. Rather, he writes knowing that archaeologies, whether geological or ideological, are always politically informed from a situated position of knowledge--not some universal view from nowhere. Drawing on Queer Theory, Post/Neo-Colonialism, he echoes Anthony Giddens in suggesting that "in a reflexive world, we are all knowledge producers." Ultimately, Wallis, a practitioner himself, gives qualified support to neo-Shamanic efforts, while acknowledging the legitimacy of much (but not all) indigenous criticism.

Wallis is forceful in articulating the influence of shamanism on Western modernism, in art, literature, and occultism. But he asserts head-on that not all neo-Shamans are neocolonialist--and the attempts to authenticate indigenous Shamans as real and neo-Shamans as not again reduces indigenous Others to exotic "noble savages." Furthermore, this simple 'positivist' dichotomy of authentic/inauthentic is largely a mask for larger questions of legitimate/illegitimate knowledge based on the situatedness of power. Mircea Eliade, Carlos Casteneda, and Michael Harner are discussed as markers of "white Shamanism." But Wallis does not limit himself to texts. Rather, he considers aspects of material archaeology, art, and artifact in his investigation--a welcome addition to a discipline too often mired in either texts or experiences.

Wallis has criticism for some neo-Shamans, but he extends those to the academic concept of "core shamanism" as well. He doesn't mind the capitalism of neo-Shamanic training, since shamans have often received payment for services, but does see individualizing, romanticizing, reification of the primitive, and acceptance of prior gender and social roles as a major theme distinguishing Shamanism from neo-Shamanism. Yet, he also sees neo-Shamanism as returning benefits to indigenous communities as well, raising awareness, and undergoing phenomenologically similar experiences. Likewise, he sees neo-Shamans as engaging with similar morally ambivalent or harmful powers that Shamans also engage with. And neo-Shamanism has, through its association with contemporary Pagans, given Shamans and Shamanism a wider field in which to operate and articulate their own claims. In addition, Wallis finds that neo-Shamanic investigations of ancient "Celtic" and "Northern" shamanism, while problematic, have positive aspects to offer. Academics, he contends, have ignored these subjects almost entirely, as well as neo-Shamanic contributions to research in this area.

Wallis's most powerful contributions come in his discussion of contemporary Wiccan, Druidry, and Heathen seidr neo-Shamanism. This is part of the larger platform Wallis claims in his previous discussions, and he demonstrates that there are thematic similarities of process in each of the traditions he discusses, at least with the concept of core Shamanism as it has been elaborated in academic discussion. At the same time, he reproduces information and dialogue that shows Pagans are not engaging wholesale in uninformed cultural theft, but instead often consciously looking for thematic kinship in the way they approach Power, Place, and Persons, both human and other-than-human. Wallis's ethnographic fragments of Diana Paxson's Hrafnar community and Greywolf Shallcrass represent gold-mines of previously under-explored aspects of contemporary Paganism, and raise Michael York-style questions of thematic and typological similarity to other religions such as as Umbanda.

In the end, Wallis chides academics for neither investigating Pagan shamanisms, whether ancient or (post)modern systematically, and in failing to engage the subject adequately, can hardly take neo-Shamans to task for at least investigating these subjects. In addition, his coverage of archaeologists and contemporary Druids using Stonehenge and Pagans at Avebury is unparalleled. A companion chapter covers controversy over Amerindian concerns at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde.

Wallis contends that while criticisms of neo-Shamans is in some cases justified, over-generalizations and misunderstandings of neo-Shamanism are also common, and the extreme amounts of diversity in these movements means that they cannot be fairly painted with such a broad political stroke. In addition, he contends that the entire framework of discussion is often flawed, being based out of terms (like Amerindian blood purity) created by colonialist governments. His implication is that those situations which exhibit the highest tension are best approached by initiating a broad process of historical accountability and reconciliation in general between Amerindian peoples and the U.S. government.

An recommended volume that appropriately frames the many complex discussions at hand.

This is one of those interesting books written by an academic mind who yearns to be part of authentic spiritual experience but just can't make the leap himself. Because he is stuck in the domain of the scholar, and can't quite cross the bridge into firsthand mystical and shamanic experience himself, the only thing left for him to do, as author, is to pick apart his subject--in this case, shamanism--with a rather "slice and dice" approach. The book is like an unveiling of his unconscious desires to experience these realities, but since he doesn't he can only attack them. This is a book that claims to respect contemporary shamanic practitioners, yet the author dismisses, left and right, the authentic shamanism and shamanic practice that is re-emerging among Western peoples and cultures where these arts have been supressed. Western culture is a diseased culture, one profoundly marked by an addictive consumerism, a continuing ethos of global imperialism, and a rather one-dimensional existence devoid of spirit and soul. Shamanism, and even Wallis' so-called "neo-shamanism" (is it "neo" if it is re-emerging according to the same patterns as the ancient times?) offers a profound antidote to these ailments. However, Wallis, in his rather Anglo-philic view on things seems to do nothing in this work but exercise (or rather seek to exorcise) the rather large chip on his shoulder by attacking some of the foremost proponents and tried and true practitioners of shamanic consciousness, healing, and vision in the modern milieu. Among the people he seems determined to flay is Michael Harner (founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies) who will one day be considered the Freud of our time, or the D.T. Suzuki of our time, for re-introducing the shamanic journey into modern life as a problem-solving tool; and Frank McEowen/MacEwen (sp.?) (an Irish-American shamanic teacher recoginized as a shamanic wisdomkeeper, not only by traditional Irish healers and seers for bringing aspects of the Celtic and pre-Celtic shamanic traditions of Ireland into the public eye, but also by indigenous shamans). When I was done reading this book, honestly, the only thing I was left with were questions about the overall intent and premise of its author. If you're genuinely interested in shamanic readings that do not criticize modern Western practitioners, or make racist attacks against Celtic descendents trying to bring back aspects of their visionary traditions, I recommend the writings of Holger Kalweit, Dreamtime and Inner Space, and Hank Wesselman, a Western anthropologist who is both scientist and shamanic practitioner.