Thank you for your heartfelt, deeply reasoned, and respectful exploration of this. None of my beloved elders from First Nations cultures ever use the term shaman; they use the traditional words in their own languages, or when communicating with folks outside their community, they might use the best English translation of the word in their language, but that word is never shaman. They might speak of medicine, or power, or being a spiritual healer if they’re from down south. Often the Christian converts in their tribes might call them witches, and they occasionally use that term themselves just to get people off their backs. Mostly though, they just help people out without calling themselves much of anything. I appreciate how you speak of your own tradition.
Thank you for stating this so well. I know many westerners adopting the label of Shaman. This is a sign to me that they are leading with their ego. Thus far, (sadly) I’ve been correct each time. It is my deeper understanding a true Shaman will not advertise his/her service, being quiet and in the service of Spirit, guided by the higher powers. Bless the true Shamans.
Traditional shamans absolutely do advertise their services, there is no prohibition, they call themselves shamans and do make it known they are for 'hire', available for any task they feel skilled to performing, including cursing. Their spirits are generally not the 'higher powers'.
I teach an ancient Eastern wisdom tradition myself, and this is a topic that comes up often in my own conversations. I know quite a few shamans who are legit and fall within your narrow definition of a shaman. I also know quite a few shamans who are amazing at what they do, and successful in their work, who don't fit your definition. I don't think that means they have no right to call themselves shamans.
I think your article misses something important: every single culture, on every continent, has had shamans, medicine people, and witch doctors, each shaped by their own context and lineage traditions — not one universal model. It's also worth noting that "shamanism" itself is a Western construction — the term comes from the Tungusic word šaman, describing a specific Siberian practice, and was later generalized by anthropologists like Mircea Eliade to cover wildly different traditions across the globe. So treating it as having one settled, correct definition glosses over the fact that it was never a coherent indigenous category to begin with — which feels a little ironic in a piece so focused on gatekeeping "authentic" lineage.
Given that, plus my own personal experience and the research I've done on the subject, I can't fully agree with your position.
What would really strengthen the piece is citations — verifiable references, sources, quotes that back the specific claims (the etymology, the Harner history, the definition itself). Right now it reads as one perspective presented as settled fact. With actual sourcing, you'd have a much stronger paper grounded in evidence rather than an opinion piece resting on its own authority.
Shamanism is a pretty rare tradition really, and is absolutely NOT a worldwide tradition. So no, not every single culture, on every continent, has had shamans.. there is a big difference between a shaman and other types of spiritual practitioner... Animism is universal, but shamanism isn't.
Eliade never met a shaman in his life, he wrote from his library using reference books as his source. He wrote at a time where the word was used as a catch all word, so any indigenous practitioner got placed under that label... that was a long time ago, in a time of far greater ignorance.
Nowadays we know better, and just as we dont call all shamans schizophrenic - as used to be the case - those who know about the subject also no longer call all indigenous spiritual systems shamanism. That is why the deiginmtion I used is accurate. And why some people you know dont fit into it... simply because they are not shamans.
Shamanism is not better or worse than other systems, it's just different.
Sadly the new age industry still clings to the old misuse of the world, the 'S' word is sexy, and sex sells.
I have spent over 40 years researching and studying shamanism as my day job, working with, travelling with, interviewing with - and at times assisting in various ways - shamans... and also medicine people too, which is why I know what I wrote is accurate.
It is absolutely grounded in fact, but was not designed to be an academic article, so I didn't need to include citations.... and unlike Eliade, I tend not to write from stuff I read in someone elses books :)
I hear you on your background, and I'm not disputing you've likely spent decades in this space. But that's exactly my point — as someone encountering your work for the first time, I have no way to independently verify any of that. "I've spent 40 years studying this" is the kind of claim citations exist to support, not replace. Naming specific teachers, communities, or even other researchers in the field who share your definition would do a lot more to earn a new reader's trust than asking them to take your word for it.
You're right that this wasn't written as an academic paper. I'll concede that, But you are making a factual, contested claim — that shamanism has one settled, accurate definition — and presenting it as established rather than as your position in an ongoing debate. That distinction matters significantly more than you've created space for; Scholars like Alice Kehoe have made similar critiques of Eliade's armchair methodology, but there's also a real diffusionist school (Hultkrantz, Vitebsky, others) that treats shamanism as a distinct tradition rather than a universal one — which is closer to your view than you might think, if you wanted the citation. Pointing to that existing scholarship would strengthen your argument far more than personal authority does.
I'll be honest — this critique probably won't change your mind, and that's fine. But as a fellow writer and researcher, in an adjacent field, I think it's worth knowing: readers encountering this piece cold aren't going to take "trust my experience" at face value. Citing your sources isn't about making it academic, it's about making the argument stand on its own rather than on your name. Especially to anyone who has no clue who you are.
:) Yes, if you have never come across me before, you won't know me from Adam, but you can Google me and that will give you some information about me.
Most of the shamans and medicine people I've worked with you almost certainly won’t have heard of, but if it's any help I have edited Sacred Hoop Magazine - the world leading magazine about shamanism - for 33 years, and during that time my work has been read by thousands of people. I also have several books published.
One of my other Substack posts is an account of a long road trip, travelling with traditional Mongolian shaman friends while they went on a pilgrimage across the country.
I am aware that there are many people who treat the word as a catch all, which is an old - and I would say outdated - perspective. I take the view as I lead out in the article, which are my words but far from my definition, and one that my traditional shaman friends endorse. This problem has been amplified by the trendy nature of shamanism - or at least the word - within the new age industry
I come more from ‘inside’ the tradition, in that I hold traditional initiations and empowerments, and am recognised as a shaman by all the shamans I am close to in Mongolia, Siberia and also the Himalayas, but of course I am widely read too. I am not an academic. My ‘specialist subject’ - so to speak - is the use of ritual objects.
People you may know, well I have worked with my friend the Nepali Bhola Banstola for 20 years, and I am also an ordained ngakpa - a form of Tibetan Buddhist lama who specialises in ritual magic. That is not shamanism, but it’s quite close in many ways and the ceremonies - and the spirits - we work with are often exactly the same as the Nepali shamans. It also has a lot of overlap with the Tibetan lhapa [shaman] traditions, and often ngakpas have/had [China has rather changed things in recent years] a very shamanistic role in Tibetan villages.
But your right, you haven’t lived my life and experienced what I have, so you don’t know me from Adam, that’s totally fine, quite understandable.
So very good. Thank you for this post. One of my teachers is of Sami descent, and he always said the position of "shaman," although not termed that exact thing in his culture of origin, was something bestowed upon the individual by elders and the community, not a title taken up as a fad.
Also, it makes me think of the practices of Southern Italy where some of my people are from, and the study I did with a legit elder about the trance-inducing, drum-playing techniques from that region. I have often described them as "shamanistic," although I hasten to add that that term is very specific to a region and a people. I sometimes think the word "shaman," in our modern idiom and in English, is used as an invocation of something numinous, ecstatic, and indigenous (which is also applicable to pre-Christian colonization, European cultures), but also must be spoken with an immediate caveat. Yes, this takes time, but understanding and complexity does.
Lately i’ve been reflecting about how important it was that I be an artist, then when I was working as one I wasn’t making art for myself, for processing or spiritual purposes. So this weekend i’m thinking hey, now that i’m a therapist is a similar wake up call happening with my own practice for myself becoming more valuable than doing it for an agency?
I don't quite understand your comment I'm afraid, it does not seem clear to me... however, a therapist's clients will often bring things to the therapist that the therapist needs to look at in themselves - all of reality is a mirror, kindly reflecting back to us... having a sense of humour is essential, none of us get out alive :)
You built yourself a box to stand on by doing exactly what you now police, and that highly questionable platform settles nothing.
Two things in this article are worth reading twice, slowly.
First: you tell Western students to get "educated enough" to judge how real an Indigenous shaman is, warn them about "dubious indigenous teachers," remind them the right DNA guarantees nothing. Read that back. Western students grading Indigenous elders on authenticity.
That's the oldest colonizing trick in the book: the colonizer decides which natives are real.
Second: look where you draw the line between legit and fake. Core Shamanism, cooked up in California in the 1970s, gets waved through as "a very useful way for Westerners to approach the spirits." New Agers get scolded for mixing in Reiki and crystals. The gate always closes exactly one step behind the man holding it, giving yourself the freedom of making your tools after indigenous ones, mixing because you can, then handing your readers a convenient recipe as a license to misappropriate. Every issue of your magazine follows the formula.
Shamans or else, there are proper words: Ritual Specialists. What degree and kind of relation they hold, with their communities and with spirits, deities, or any other-than-human being considered, and through which methods and traditions, recent, ancient, or modified, is not a Western thinking issue to classify. I'm only replying because people keep handing authority to figures like you, and other exploiters and monetisers of what has never been from your culture to sell.
All are Ritual Specialists, each carrying the name their own language, community, or culture gives them, and the role arises pretty much wherever humans gather.
Whether it takes a natural skill or a rare combination of dispositions in those who "have it," whether it demands signals, sufferings, trainings, or surviving a lightning strike, matters less than the role itself, emerging time and time again, revealing a human need.
And to the practitioners, Indigenous or not, who use your magazine and platform to reach more people: I see you, and I get it. Audiences are hard to build, families need feeding, and this box happens to have a spotlight on it. This is not aimed at you.
I can't hold a stone against anyone trying to make a living with something from their own culture and traditions. But someone under the blue sky has to say things from time to time:
"Shamanism" has never existed. Nobody on the Amur ever said "I practice shamanism." They made their rituals, their people survived. That's what has always mattered. Ritual Specialists everywhere deserve better than a man shouting from a self-constructed box what is and what is not, for personal gain.
Max, you have a massive chip on your shoulder and have been making ridiculous unbalanced pops about shamanism since I first met you many years ago... your comment here is utter nonsense and the same sort of venomous rubbish you have spouted for years.
Thank you, Nicholas, for this thought-provoking article. This is an area that has been "front-line" with me for many years. I am happy to describe myself with the title "Witch" and leave it at that.
THANK YOU so much for this. Written very well, and beautifully captures how I have been feeling for some time. I am an apprentice of Kenn Day, who teaches Post-Tribal Shamanism. Called by the spirits myself, and 3 years in to my training, seeing reiki practitioners call themselves shamans is so frustrating. I do not claim this and will not for quite some time because there are years of training by a competent teacher and stages of initiations required in this. It isn’t something that can be chosen, the spirits choose you and I understand completely why my teacher says he wouldn’t wish this path on anyone because there are so many layers and such pain that go hand in hand with the path of the shaman. Thank you for explaining the East Asian roots and where the word “shaman” comes from and speaking all the words contained in my own heart.
"Shamanism is about humility and being of service to the spirits and to our human community. It is not a badge of honour. In many societies people do not want to be shamans and think Westerners who run to work with shamanic teachers are crazy."
Thank you for this article. So many times shaman is branded in order to validate the practitioner. But the shaman has to live outside of this world and is rarely glorified existence for the one living inside of it truly.
A much needed conversation (and so eloquently put together without so much shaming) and this lady is grateful!
Thank you, Nicholas, for taking on a subject that is as important as it is precarious. Especially for white folx who walk, train and gather in these spaces. Precarious for all the manners you named, and also, the need to be able to subtly and thoughtfully articulate, if and when needed, how one arrived at the practice or lineage. To be in discernment. To not-appropriate, to honor and know in the wisdom-way beyond western knowing. While I’ve had people call be a shaman, I never claim that title, and use the moment as a soft place to educate and illuminate the difference. While I have received lineage training, I prefer Guide or Elder, but shamanic practitioner, animist, those work too. Tip o’ the hat to ya.
Thank you for diving deeper here. Words can be helpful to highlight what is obvious inside. They do tend to bring confusion too, to twist like translating another dimension or 4D into 3 or 2D.
What stands out to me is a proposition on name-roots for male/female. The observation of superficiality, ego-in, cultural appropriation.
With this, i’d like to add that there seems a (Western cultural?) wish to move away from physical object/fact/scientific first .. what may be in the way is the mode of living: to sell, market, cash out fast.
It dilutes loads of budding truths, deeper (scary, risky, poorer) paths.
To see as you do easily leads to pointing at frauds (but why? Let people judge and learn), verifications with ‘university’ and pedigree.. yadayada
Priest, psychologist, coach, father, mother..people to help explain reality and give it colors. Shamanism..animism..artist..etc
Thank you for your heartfelt, deeply reasoned, and respectful exploration of this. None of my beloved elders from First Nations cultures ever use the term shaman; they use the traditional words in their own languages, or when communicating with folks outside their community, they might use the best English translation of the word in their language, but that word is never shaman. They might speak of medicine, or power, or being a spiritual healer if they’re from down south. Often the Christian converts in their tribes might call them witches, and they occasionally use that term themselves just to get people off their backs. Mostly though, they just help people out without calling themselves much of anything. I appreciate how you speak of your own tradition.
So glad you liked it, yes, there is much ignorance
Thank you for stating this so well. I know many westerners adopting the label of Shaman. This is a sign to me that they are leading with their ego. Thus far, (sadly) I’ve been correct each time. It is my deeper understanding a true Shaman will not advertise his/her service, being quiet and in the service of Spirit, guided by the higher powers. Bless the true Shamans.
Traditional shamans absolutely do advertise their services, there is no prohibition, they call themselves shamans and do make it known they are for 'hire', available for any task they feel skilled to performing, including cursing. Their spirits are generally not the 'higher powers'.
I teach an ancient Eastern wisdom tradition myself, and this is a topic that comes up often in my own conversations. I know quite a few shamans who are legit and fall within your narrow definition of a shaman. I also know quite a few shamans who are amazing at what they do, and successful in their work, who don't fit your definition. I don't think that means they have no right to call themselves shamans.
I think your article misses something important: every single culture, on every continent, has had shamans, medicine people, and witch doctors, each shaped by their own context and lineage traditions — not one universal model. It's also worth noting that "shamanism" itself is a Western construction — the term comes from the Tungusic word šaman, describing a specific Siberian practice, and was later generalized by anthropologists like Mircea Eliade to cover wildly different traditions across the globe. So treating it as having one settled, correct definition glosses over the fact that it was never a coherent indigenous category to begin with — which feels a little ironic in a piece so focused on gatekeeping "authentic" lineage.
Given that, plus my own personal experience and the research I've done on the subject, I can't fully agree with your position.
What would really strengthen the piece is citations — verifiable references, sources, quotes that back the specific claims (the etymology, the Harner history, the definition itself). Right now it reads as one perspective presented as settled fact. With actual sourcing, you'd have a much stronger paper grounded in evidence rather than an opinion piece resting on its own authority.
Shamanism is a pretty rare tradition really, and is absolutely NOT a worldwide tradition. So no, not every single culture, on every continent, has had shamans.. there is a big difference between a shaman and other types of spiritual practitioner... Animism is universal, but shamanism isn't.
Eliade never met a shaman in his life, he wrote from his library using reference books as his source. He wrote at a time where the word was used as a catch all word, so any indigenous practitioner got placed under that label... that was a long time ago, in a time of far greater ignorance.
Nowadays we know better, and just as we dont call all shamans schizophrenic - as used to be the case - those who know about the subject also no longer call all indigenous spiritual systems shamanism. That is why the deiginmtion I used is accurate. And why some people you know dont fit into it... simply because they are not shamans.
Shamanism is not better or worse than other systems, it's just different.
Sadly the new age industry still clings to the old misuse of the world, the 'S' word is sexy, and sex sells.
I have spent over 40 years researching and studying shamanism as my day job, working with, travelling with, interviewing with - and at times assisting in various ways - shamans... and also medicine people too, which is why I know what I wrote is accurate.
It is absolutely grounded in fact, but was not designed to be an academic article, so I didn't need to include citations.... and unlike Eliade, I tend not to write from stuff I read in someone elses books :)
I hear you on your background, and I'm not disputing you've likely spent decades in this space. But that's exactly my point — as someone encountering your work for the first time, I have no way to independently verify any of that. "I've spent 40 years studying this" is the kind of claim citations exist to support, not replace. Naming specific teachers, communities, or even other researchers in the field who share your definition would do a lot more to earn a new reader's trust than asking them to take your word for it.
You're right that this wasn't written as an academic paper. I'll concede that, But you are making a factual, contested claim — that shamanism has one settled, accurate definition — and presenting it as established rather than as your position in an ongoing debate. That distinction matters significantly more than you've created space for; Scholars like Alice Kehoe have made similar critiques of Eliade's armchair methodology, but there's also a real diffusionist school (Hultkrantz, Vitebsky, others) that treats shamanism as a distinct tradition rather than a universal one — which is closer to your view than you might think, if you wanted the citation. Pointing to that existing scholarship would strengthen your argument far more than personal authority does.
I'll be honest — this critique probably won't change your mind, and that's fine. But as a fellow writer and researcher, in an adjacent field, I think it's worth knowing: readers encountering this piece cold aren't going to take "trust my experience" at face value. Citing your sources isn't about making it academic, it's about making the argument stand on its own rather than on your name. Especially to anyone who has no clue who you are.
:) Yes, if you have never come across me before, you won't know me from Adam, but you can Google me and that will give you some information about me.
Most of the shamans and medicine people I've worked with you almost certainly won’t have heard of, but if it's any help I have edited Sacred Hoop Magazine - the world leading magazine about shamanism - for 33 years, and during that time my work has been read by thousands of people. I also have several books published.
One of my other Substack posts is an account of a long road trip, travelling with traditional Mongolian shaman friends while they went on a pilgrimage across the country.
I am aware that there are many people who treat the word as a catch all, which is an old - and I would say outdated - perspective. I take the view as I lead out in the article, which are my words but far from my definition, and one that my traditional shaman friends endorse. This problem has been amplified by the trendy nature of shamanism - or at least the word - within the new age industry
I come more from ‘inside’ the tradition, in that I hold traditional initiations and empowerments, and am recognised as a shaman by all the shamans I am close to in Mongolia, Siberia and also the Himalayas, but of course I am widely read too. I am not an academic. My ‘specialist subject’ - so to speak - is the use of ritual objects.
People you may know, well I have worked with my friend the Nepali Bhola Banstola for 20 years, and I am also an ordained ngakpa - a form of Tibetan Buddhist lama who specialises in ritual magic. That is not shamanism, but it’s quite close in many ways and the ceremonies - and the spirits - we work with are often exactly the same as the Nepali shamans. It also has a lot of overlap with the Tibetan lhapa [shaman] traditions, and often ngakpas have/had [China has rather changed things in recent years] a very shamanistic role in Tibetan villages.
But your right, you haven’t lived my life and experienced what I have, so you don’t know me from Adam, that’s totally fine, quite understandable.
So very good. Thank you for this post. One of my teachers is of Sami descent, and he always said the position of "shaman," although not termed that exact thing in his culture of origin, was something bestowed upon the individual by elders and the community, not a title taken up as a fad.
Also, it makes me think of the practices of Southern Italy where some of my people are from, and the study I did with a legit elder about the trance-inducing, drum-playing techniques from that region. I have often described them as "shamanistic," although I hasten to add that that term is very specific to a region and a people. I sometimes think the word "shaman," in our modern idiom and in English, is used as an invocation of something numinous, ecstatic, and indigenous (which is also applicable to pre-Christian colonization, European cultures), but also must be spoken with an immediate caveat. Yes, this takes time, but understanding and complexity does.
Thank you for providing this much needed clarity. 💖
Lately i’ve been reflecting about how important it was that I be an artist, then when I was working as one I wasn’t making art for myself, for processing or spiritual purposes. So this weekend i’m thinking hey, now that i’m a therapist is a similar wake up call happening with my own practice for myself becoming more valuable than doing it for an agency?
I don't quite understand your comment I'm afraid, it does not seem clear to me... however, a therapist's clients will often bring things to the therapist that the therapist needs to look at in themselves - all of reality is a mirror, kindly reflecting back to us... having a sense of humour is essential, none of us get out alive :)
I'll try again to explain when I have more spoons
You built yourself a box to stand on by doing exactly what you now police, and that highly questionable platform settles nothing.
Two things in this article are worth reading twice, slowly.
First: you tell Western students to get "educated enough" to judge how real an Indigenous shaman is, warn them about "dubious indigenous teachers," remind them the right DNA guarantees nothing. Read that back. Western students grading Indigenous elders on authenticity.
That's the oldest colonizing trick in the book: the colonizer decides which natives are real.
Second: look where you draw the line between legit and fake. Core Shamanism, cooked up in California in the 1970s, gets waved through as "a very useful way for Westerners to approach the spirits." New Agers get scolded for mixing in Reiki and crystals. The gate always closes exactly one step behind the man holding it, giving yourself the freedom of making your tools after indigenous ones, mixing because you can, then handing your readers a convenient recipe as a license to misappropriate. Every issue of your magazine follows the formula.
Shamans or else, there are proper words: Ritual Specialists. What degree and kind of relation they hold, with their communities and with spirits, deities, or any other-than-human being considered, and through which methods and traditions, recent, ancient, or modified, is not a Western thinking issue to classify. I'm only replying because people keep handing authority to figures like you, and other exploiters and monetisers of what has never been from your culture to sell.
All are Ritual Specialists, each carrying the name their own language, community, or culture gives them, and the role arises pretty much wherever humans gather.
Whether it takes a natural skill or a rare combination of dispositions in those who "have it," whether it demands signals, sufferings, trainings, or surviving a lightning strike, matters less than the role itself, emerging time and time again, revealing a human need.
And to the practitioners, Indigenous or not, who use your magazine and platform to reach more people: I see you, and I get it. Audiences are hard to build, families need feeding, and this box happens to have a spotlight on it. This is not aimed at you.
I can't hold a stone against anyone trying to make a living with something from their own culture and traditions. But someone under the blue sky has to say things from time to time:
"Shamanism" has never existed. Nobody on the Amur ever said "I practice shamanism." They made their rituals, their people survived. That's what has always mattered. Ritual Specialists everywhere deserve better than a man shouting from a self-constructed box what is and what is not, for personal gain.
Max, you have a massive chip on your shoulder and have been making ridiculous unbalanced pops about shamanism since I first met you many years ago... your comment here is utter nonsense and the same sort of venomous rubbish you have spouted for years.
Thank you, Nicholas, for this thought-provoking article. This is an area that has been "front-line" with me for many years. I am happy to describe myself with the title "Witch" and leave it at that.
THANK YOU so much for this. Written very well, and beautifully captures how I have been feeling for some time. I am an apprentice of Kenn Day, who teaches Post-Tribal Shamanism. Called by the spirits myself, and 3 years in to my training, seeing reiki practitioners call themselves shamans is so frustrating. I do not claim this and will not for quite some time because there are years of training by a competent teacher and stages of initiations required in this. It isn’t something that can be chosen, the spirits choose you and I understand completely why my teacher says he wouldn’t wish this path on anyone because there are so many layers and such pain that go hand in hand with the path of the shaman. Thank you for explaining the East Asian roots and where the word “shaman” comes from and speaking all the words contained in my own heart.
"Shamanism is about humility and being of service to the spirits and to our human community. It is not a badge of honour. In many societies people do not want to be shamans and think Westerners who run to work with shamanic teachers are crazy."
Thank you for this article. So many times shaman is branded in order to validate the practitioner. But the shaman has to live outside of this world and is rarely glorified existence for the one living inside of it truly.
A much needed conversation (and so eloquently put together without so much shaming) and this lady is grateful!
Thank you, Nicholas, for taking on a subject that is as important as it is precarious. Especially for white folx who walk, train and gather in these spaces. Precarious for all the manners you named, and also, the need to be able to subtly and thoughtfully articulate, if and when needed, how one arrived at the practice or lineage. To be in discernment. To not-appropriate, to honor and know in the wisdom-way beyond western knowing. While I’ve had people call be a shaman, I never claim that title, and use the moment as a soft place to educate and illuminate the difference. While I have received lineage training, I prefer Guide or Elder, but shamanic practitioner, animist, those work too. Tip o’ the hat to ya.
Thank you for diving deeper here. Words can be helpful to highlight what is obvious inside. They do tend to bring confusion too, to twist like translating another dimension or 4D into 3 or 2D.
What stands out to me is a proposition on name-roots for male/female. The observation of superficiality, ego-in, cultural appropriation.
With this, i’d like to add that there seems a (Western cultural?) wish to move away from physical object/fact/scientific first .. what may be in the way is the mode of living: to sell, market, cash out fast.
It dilutes loads of budding truths, deeper (scary, risky, poorer) paths.
To see as you do easily leads to pointing at frauds (but why? Let people judge and learn), verifications with ‘university’ and pedigree.. yadayada
Priest, psychologist, coach, father, mother..people to help explain reality and give it colors. Shamanism..animism..artist..etc
Lots of love 😉🫶🏼