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[The Pomegranate 12.2 (2010) 139-58] ISSN 1528-0268 (Print)doi: 10.1558/pome.vl2i2.139 ISSN 1743-1735 (Online)

Shamanisms and the Authenticity of Religious Experience

Susannah Crockford

susannah.crockford@gmaiLcom

Abstract

Shamanic practices and practitioners in Western countries are often deridedas "inauthentic" by both scholars and members of indigenous communi-ties. The experience derived from such practices is therefore also impliedto be contrived. This paper analyses shamanism in the United Kingdomas part of "Western shamarusm" rather than "neo-shamanism." Westernshamanism is understood to be a valid religious tradition found in Europeand America that is based on Western cultural and religious traditions.The concept of authenticity is critically examined as a cultural construct,and the validity of a religious experience is located subjectively.

There are shamans in other parts of the world (except in Western industrial-ised cultures - people calling themselves shamans there are with a relatively highdegree of certainty commercial "plastic shamans").'

Western shamanism is routinely dismissed in academic accounts of sha-manism. The main bone of contention is that it is inauthentic: basedon the fabricated fieldwork of Carlos Castañeda, misappropriating non-Western cultural forms, and motivated by consumerism and naive mate-rialism.^ It is seen as commercial and artificial or simply "plastic." Thisassessment of Western shamanism is reified by a distinction between"traditional" and "neo" shamanism that is made by many scholars,based on a simplisfic split between Western and non-Western culturalforms.̂ Shamanism is a term that is so broad that it can incorporate a vast

1. Ina Rosing, "Lies and Amnesia in Anthropological Research: Recycling theWaste/' Anthropology of Consciousness, 10, nos. 2-3 (1999): 23.

2. See Daniel Noel, The Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginai Realities (NewYork: Continuum, 1998), 26-105, for a critical view. Noel considers Western shaman-ism a neo-colonialist "fictive fabrication" and proposes an alternative-the Merlinmyth as a cultural archetype in a Jungian framework for Euro-Americans desiring tocreate a "new shamanism."

3. Olav Hammer, Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010, Unit S3, Kelham House, 3 Lancaster Street, Sheffield S3 8AF

140 The Pomegranate 12.2 (2010)

conceptual terrain, yet the borders of this terrain firmly stop at Westernindustrialised cultures.

Yet what does it mean to say that a religious practice is inauthentic?Authenticity seems like a self-evident concept, but like so many osten-sibly axiomatic terms it resists easy description. There are two mainthemes in debates conceming authenticity that I would like to highlightfor their significance to the present discussion. The first theme concernsappropriation. Charles Taylor in his The Ethics of Authenticity argues thatwhile the idea of authenticity has a complex history, the core of it is thatwe are authentic when we exhibit or are in possession of that which ismost our own: our own way of flourishing or being fulfilled. To be sepa-rated from that which is most our own is to be in a state of alienation."*What is it, then, that is most our own? In terms of religion, it is the prac-tices and rituals that are derived from the culture of our birth that areoften deemed to be most our own. If we adopt a ritual or practice fromanother culture, this is deemed to be appropriation. We are pretendingto be something that we are not. However, the problems with this for-mulation are manifold as it privileges an idea of discrete cultures intowhich individuals are born. The second theme is coherence to estab-lished fact or record, the idea of genuineness, that something factuallyis what it claims to be. In terms of a religious practice, the "truthfulness"of its history is raised, and if the origin can be clearly demonstrated to behuman then it is less likely to be seen as "real" religion. This means thatnew religions can often be condemned as "cults" or derided as "fakes,"while older, more established religions are granted authenticity.^

Rather than accept or restate this demarcation, the present paper willexamine why Western shamanism is considered inauthentic. Westernshamanism is seen as rooted in Western cultural tradition, consequently I

the New Age (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 136; Paul C Johnson, "Shamanism from Ecuador toChicago: a Case Study in New Age Ritual Appropriation," in Shamanism: A Reader,ed. Graham Harvey (London: Routledge, 2003), 335-354.

4. Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1991), 81.

5. So for example, world religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism are"real" religion while shamanism. Paganism, etc. are not. This reproduces a theo-logical bias toward "true" religion, which is problematic if religious truth claims areto be treated equally. For further discussions on authenticity in religious discoursesee Frans P.M. Jespers, "Longing for Authenticity: Religious Transformations in LateModern Europe," International Journal in Philosophy and Theology 67, no. 4, (2006):369-390; Jenny Blain and Robert Wallis, "Beyond Sacred: Recent Pagan Engagements withArchaeological Monuments — Current Findings of the Sacred Sites Project," The Pome-granate 11, no. 1 (2009): 97-123; Douglas Cowan, Bearing False Witness: an Introductionto the Christian Countercult (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2003); Matthijs van de Port,ed.. Authenticity (Münster: Lit Verlag Münster, 2004).

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Crockford Shamanisms 141

will refer to Western shamanism rather than neo-shamanism.'^ The exam-ples used will primarily be from the UK in order to give some degreeof ethnographic clarity, although the situation in the USA will also bediscussed due to the sharpened politicisation of the issue of authenticitythere. The theoretical scope will be limited to the question of whetherWestern shamanism can be called authentic and what this says aboutauthenticity in the wider debate on contemporary Paganism. Followingseveral recent works, shamanism is described as a plurality of cultur-ally variable forms.^ If universal applicability of the term is denied, thenWestern shamanism becomes a rip-off, an appropriation of a specificSiberian cultural form. If shamanism is defined as a universal form withculturally specific styles then Western shamanism is the Western formtypified by elements common to Western culture. The present paperanalyses a shamanic field of discourse in Western culture, where socialactors are struggling for recognition and symbolic capital and authentic-ity is an important selling point for accumulating both.^

Three Western Shamans

The etymology of the term shaman is problemafic. Kehoe argues thatbecause the term came from Siberia it can only be applied to Siberians.'However, the root of a term is not its essence; the origin does not deter-mine the course of a concept's evolufion. "Shaman" came from Tungusbut is no longer restricted to that linguistic family, for it has crossed lin-guistic and cultural boundaries and mutated its symbolic associationsand meanings along the way. Shaman is not the only term metamor-phosed from its original meaning; a parallel can be found in the term"paganism," which originally meant heretic, non-Christian, and is now

6. Following Kocku von Stuckrad, "Reenchanting Nature: Modern Western Sha-manism and Nineteenth Century Thought," Journal of the American Academy of Reli-gion 70, no. 4 (2002):771-99; see also Robert Wallis, Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy,Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans (London: Routledge, 2003), 30, fora critique of the term 'neo-shamanism'.

7. There are a number of studies which adopt this position, see Kocku von Stuck-rad, Schamanismus und Esoterik: Kultur- und Wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Betrachtungen(Leuwen: Peeters, 2003), 19-22; Wallis, Shamans/Neo-Shamans, 30-31; Thomas DuBois,An Introduction to Shamanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 277-

8.1 am here using Bourdieu's concepts of field of discourse and social/symboliccapital, see Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2003) 16-22,159-97; Richard Shusterman, Bourdieu: a Critical Reader(Oxford: Blackwell, 1999).

9. Alice Beck Kehoe, Shamans And Religion: An Anthropological Exploration in CriticalTInnking (Prospect Heights, 111: Waveíand Press, 2000), 102.



used to denote a variety of reconstructed nature-based spiritualities. Thesolution is not to return to the root but to be aware of the etic and emicdisfinctions, sensitive to cultural differences and biases in interpretafion,and to understand the positive aspects of Western sbamanism for thosewho participate in it.

Western shamanism offers a universal yet individualised spirituality,sometimes by revivifying pre-modern ancestry such as Celtic shaman-ism, somefimes by adapfing and appropriating non-Western culturalforms. It offers an alternative to a perceived shallow, empty moder-nity, while remaining compatible with modern life, being neither tootime- nor effort-consuming to interfere. This alternative to a perceivedshallow, empty modernity is then itself perceived as shallow and emptyby critics. By trying to resist modernity, shamanism becomes modernitypar excellence. Shamanism is deemed inauthentic because moderrüty inthe industrialised West is deemed inauthentic.

In the Urüted Kingdom, anyone claiming to be a shaman can expectto be greeted with scepticism, because there is no cultural category orestablished tradition to support the role. So who in the UK calls them-selves a shaman and why? Gordon MacLellan, an envirorunental educa-tor and shamanic pracfitioner, says this of his vocation:

I'm called 'a shaman' — maybe by people who do not know any better—oreven by those who should. But since none of us seem to be able to defineexactly what makes the shaman, maybe when people feel the term is theright one, that is enough of a decision and that will have to do. 'Shaman'isn't a label that is achieved: not a status that can be measured, tested andawarded. Rather, it is something that comes upon a body and its appella-tion depends probably more upon the role that an individual plays withina community and, to some degree, how they achieve that rather than onany personal claim upon the title.̂ "

Through this definifion MacLellan, as a contemporary pracfifioner, isevoking anthropological descriptions of shamanic practifioners cross-culturally. The shaman is supposed to be called by spirits and is oftenunwilling to accept the call." One of the crificisms levelled at Westernshamanism is that its participants do volunteer, they pay to attend work-shops or complete a course, which at the end entitles them to call them-

10. Gordon MacLellan, "Dancing on the Edge: Shamanism in Modern Britain," inShamanism: A Reader ed. Graham Harvey (London: Routledge, 2003), 365-74.

11. Piers Vitebsky, "Shamanism," in Indigenous Religions: A Companion, ed. GrahamHarvey (London: Cassell, 2000),60; Andrei Znamenski, The Beauty of the Primitive: Sha-manism and the Western Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 265-266;Wallis, Shamans/Neo-Shamans, 55-56.



selves shamans.^^ The critique is that in the West, people are buying aproduct ratber than entering a cultural tradition, and therefore they arenot in possession of what is most their own, but rather making whatbelongs to otbers their possession through commerce.

MacLellan is clearly trying to distance bis activities from this kind ofperception. He goes on to explain tbat in fact his sbamanism is rootedin bis own cultural tradition. Tbe spirit-world tbat be uses ecstasy tocontact and journey through is the Otberworld of tbe Celts, very ancient,and very British. It is the world of Faerie, the land of enchantment, tbat issaid to have existed tbousands of years ago." Wbat MacLellan is doingis rooting bis practice in the past mythology of the Britisb Isles, the spir-itual side lost by centuries of materialism and industrialisation, tbrougbthe process Weber called disenchantment.^'' Tbis shifts bis sbamanicpractice from something appropriated from a foreign "other" to a lostcultural tradition now revived. Once the authorising tradition becomestbat wbich is his own, it grants bis shamanic practice authenticity, andMacLellan tberefore can call bimself a shaman, although by bis ownadmission, be would never do this.

Not everyone involved in Western sbamanism is as circumspect asMacLellan. Bradford Keeney is openly declared an "American shaman"by Kottler and Carlson; it is even tbe title of their book. Keeney is said tobe "a true shaman" because he was a famous therapist and then aban-doned his profession to study witb indigenous bealers from Mexico,Brazil, Japan, Paraguay, Namibia, Soutb Africa, Bali, the Ojibwa culture,Louisiana Black cburches, and elsewbere. From this experience, Keeneydevised a new form of psycbotberapy based not on talking but ondancing, singing, and touching where the disturbed patient should notbe calmed but furtber excited and healing is effected by arousal. Theauthors claim tbat this new form of psycbotberapy encompasses

Not only ... East with West, but North with South, and the 21st centurywith practices that have been in continuous use since prehistoric times.

12. Merete Demant Jakobsen, Shamanism: Traditional and Contemporary Approachesto the Mastery of Spirits and Healing (New York: Berghahn, 1999), 160.

13. MacLellan, "Dancing on the Edge," 367-68.14. Whether such a Celtic past ever existed in the way it is now interpreted by

contemporary Pagans or if this is just a modern romantic invention is a matter ofsome debate, see Tom Cowan, Fire in the Head: Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit (SanFrancisco: Harper San Francisco, 1993), 1-10; Terence Brown, ed.. Celticism (Amster-dam: Rodolpi, 1994), 1-20, 61-78,143-158.

15. Jeffrey A. Kottler and Jon Carlson with Bradford Keeney, American Shaman: anOdyssey of Global Healing Traditions (New York: Brurmer-Routledge, 2004), x-xi. Thereare eight points to Keeney's revision of psychotherapy detailed on these pages; I havehighlighted what seemed the most significant here.



Keeney's definition of a shaman is equally broad, being based on directcontact with God (or the gods) and prayer seen as the bridge to thatconnection. The connection to the divine is used by the shaman to healindividuals and society.̂ *

Keeney's interpretation of shamanism and what makes him a shamanis so different from MacLellan's that it is difficult to assert that they areeven talking about the same thing. Keeney's shaman transcends culturalboundaries to offer a universal and ancient means of healing, which heas an already-trained psychotherapist can use to revolufionise Westernpsychotherapy. MacLellan's shaman is rooted in British mythology andcormected to a more limited idea of community that the shaman benefits.Keeney's practice makes use of that which is most his own—psycho-therapy and spiritual healing—as does MacLellan's appeal to a CelticOtherworld. Both exhibit the key features of shamanism in scholarlydiscourse: the use of ecstasy to contact or master a spiritual world whichis then used to heal or otherwise benefit others. As such it is difficult todeny either is making an inauthentic statement about being a shaman.Rather it seems that the looseness of the category shaman can be manip-ulated to fit the claims of anyone. The idea that anyone can be a shamanwas one that was enthusiastically marketed by the forefathers of Westernshamanism: Michael Harner and Carlos Castañeda. It fits with Westernindividualism and egalitarianism —shamanism is a technique to be usedby anyone to their benefit and others'. The ability to make anything yourown is part of Western cultural tradition, any other religious practice orbelief can be adopted or abandoned at will because individuals are freeand equal to choose their religion. This may seem harmless yet it is thisimpulse that creates accusations of cultural appropriation or theft.

This is one accusafion that could be levelled at the Sacred Earth Campsin Exmoor in Devon. The camps run three or four day courses for individ-uals willing to pay between £100-150 to attend "adventures for the spiritin medicine wheel wisdom ways."^'' What this includes is workshops intipi, pipe, and other ceremonies, medicine walks in the woods, sweatlodge ceremonies, council fires, sacred path teachings, dance, chantingand drumming, story telling, and star gazing. The sweat lodge in par-ticular is said to be an inipi, the Lakota word for sweat lodge, and onentering participants call out "rriitak-oyasin," which is said to be Lakotafor "we are all related." The co-ordinator of the camps is named Beth-lehem Taylor, also called Sun Eagle Heart, who claims to be a Rainbow

16. Ibid, 43.17. "Sacred Earth Sweat Lodge Ceremonies," http://www.sacred-earth-camps.

co.uk/.



Elder and Pipe Carrier and "much respected and well known medicineteacher." A picture of Taylor reveals him to be an elderly white male,without discernible Native American ancestry, nor is there any descrip-tion of which tribe he is supposed to be enrolled in (if any). Castaneda'sDon Juan is quoted without reference to any work of literature, as if infact, he were a real person. Sweats and drumming rituals are adver-tised as the route to the spirit world, where the shaman can confer with"the ancestors" and receive medicine power, wisdom and guidance. Theancestors are Native American rather than British, as a quote from Taylorreveals:

As a Medicine man, I've had to walk the black road of difficulty andunderstanding of the West. And, of all the many different spiritual pathsthat I have walked, the Native American path of harmony and balance,love and beauty, is the one that is the most profound and totally humané[sic]. And, it is this path that we shall explore together.'*

Native American spirituality is universalised and romanticised in thisview. This is not an isolated case, there is a British "pow-wow" scene thatrecreates Native American dances, as well as significant sales of booksand merchandise related to Native American religious practices."

The case of the Sacred Earth Camps seems inauthentic from theoutset: pitching tipis and calling yourself by an Indian name is a classiccase of "playing Indian," which can be seen as racist and disrespect-ful to Native American communities. The Lakota Nation issued a dec-laration strongly rejecting Western uses of their spiritual practices asthe Sacred Earth Camps do.̂ ° The result of this naive appropriafion ispicking and choosing ceremonies, rituals, and practices from various dif-ferent Native American sources and reifying them as a Native American"religion" called shamanism. This is not only inaccurate representationbut also offensive, as it obscures the pressing social issues facing NativeAmerican communities.^^ However, positioning Native American com-

18. Ibid.19. Approximately 10 British pow-wows are held annually, mostly in the southern

half of the country, which stage events on weekends that include singing-teams anddances. See Christina Welch, "Complicating Spiritual Appropriation: North Ameri-can Indian Agency in Western Alternative Spiritual Practice," Journal of AlternativeSpiritualities and Neiv Age Studies 3 (2007): 97-117.

20. Wilmer Stampede Mesteth, Darrell Standing Elk, and Phyllis Swift Hawk,"Declaration of War against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality," 1993, http://www.aics.org/war.html.

21. Wallis, Shamans/Neo-Shamans, 205; Kehoe, Shamans and Religion, 81-91; VineDeloria, Jr., God is Red: A Native Vieiv of Religion (Golden, Colo: Fulcrum, 1993), 23-60;Philip Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 1-10,154-180;Lisa Aldred, "Plastics Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances: New Age Commercial-



muni ties as passive victims of neo-colonialism or cultural appropriationby Westerners reifies a dominant-subordinate relafionship. This ignoresNative American agency in selling and distributing their own religiouspractice.^ Many such individuals are rejected by Native American acfiv-ists and scholars, who strongly deny that any non-Indians should betaught Indian religious practice.^ While it is important to be sensitiveto accusafions of neo-colonialism, at the same fime it is difficult to markownership of religious pracfices or rituals or culture in general. It bringsup the complicated issue of cultural copyright, who owns culture, whocan be considered as belonging to which culture, and where, if any-where, the boundaries of cultures lay.̂ *

While it may seem obvious to say that a British person connectingto a Celfic past in shamanic practice is more authenfic than one con-necting to Native American culture, this is not necessarily the case. Itcannot be said with certainty than any contemporary British individualis descended from the Celts. Arguably the Celts are as genefically distantfrom individuals alive in Britain today as Native Americans. However,the authenticity of Celts or Native Americans that is strived for is notgenetic. It is significant that it is this historical relative that MacLellan

ization of Native American Spirituality," American Indian Quarterly 24, no. 3 (2000):329-52.

22. For example. Sun Bear, who was of mixed blood — half-white, half-Chippewa.If he could claim "authentic" links to both cultures, why then should he not teachthe practices of one to the other? He was accepted as an authentic representative of"Indian-ness" to non-Indians, who paid to attend his sweat lodge ceremonies andjoin his self-created Bear tribe, but he was not accepted by his own community anymore because of the same activities. He was rejected as a plastic medicine man bythem, and his Bear tribe was decried as a fraud since tribes cannot be invented byhumans, according to many Native Americans. See Aldred, "Plastics Shamans andAstroturf Sun Dances," 337-38.

23. The Circle of Elders of the Indigenous Nations of North America, a representa-tive body of traditional indigenous leadership in the United States, requested thatthe American Indian Movement undertake to end the activities of those described as"plastic medicine men" in 1984. The AIM resolution at the request of the Elders listedindividuals thought to be "plastic medicine men" and the characteristics that woulddefine them as such: selling ceremonies (sweat lodge, vision quest) and sacred articles(religious pipes, feathers, stones), particularly to non-Indians, thereby misusing theseceremonies. See Wallis, Shamans/Neo-Shamans, 201-204.

24. In terms of Native Americans, there is a "'blood quantum" specifying a specificfraction of Indian blood that must be genealogically proven before an individualcan be considered, legally, a Native American, see Wallis, Shamans/Neo-Shamans, 20i.Certain tribes have taken steps to try to "copyright" certain items, such as the Hopiwho requested "no more research"; and now all projects involving Hopi intellectualresources must be reviewed and approved by the Hopi Cultural Preservation Officethrough permit or contract. See John Loftin, Religion and Hopi Life (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 2003), 122.



picked rather than Romans, Vikings, or Anglo-Saxons. The Celts areidealised as a colonised people. Connecfing to a Celfic past enables amodern Brifisb person to shake off the yoke of the conqueror and iden-fify with tbe conquered. This is also reflected in the appropriafion ofNafive American pracfices: they were also a colonised, pre-industrialculture. Most of Keeney's extensive list of sources are vyhat anthropolo-gists would describe as "subaltern groups." Each of these three casesdemonstrates a desire to root the idea of shamanism in something otherthan the West, either a pre-modern, autochthonous past, or a mulfi-cul-türal synthesis, or a non-Western society. This desire vocalises a state-ment of discontent witb the West, a rejection of modernity as spirituallybarren and boring. In this discourse, it is modernity tbat is inauthentic,and shamanism is a way to overcome it.

Authenticity in Modernity

According to Marxist and mass-society theorist standpoints, modernityleaves the individual feeling powerless, as tbe control of life is passed toexternal agencies, with a concomitant loss of autonomy when comparedto pre-modern sociefies. Opposed to these standpoints, Giddens arguesthat there is in fact very little individual power or autonomy in tradifionalsocieties, and that in modernity there is also opportunity for power thatis not available in pre-modern sociefies. The individual can seek masterythrough appropriation, through which the loss of autonomy can be com-batted by reasserfing their own power by adopfing something oppositeto modernity. Returning to Taylor's definifion, the opposite of authentic-ity is alienafion, to be disconnected or distanced from tbat which is mostyour own. The perceived loss of autonomy in modernity, what Marxcalled alienation, is experienced as a loss of authenticity. This creates afeeling that life is unreal and fake, based on representafions rather thanoriginals. To combat this individuals reach out to appropriate somethingthat is viewed as authenfic and original. Often this appropriafion is ofnon-Western or pre-modern cultural forms, the opposites of modernity.There is a yearning for what modernity has supplanted and so individu-als construct phenomenal worlds tbat fulfil this desire. Altbough, ironi-cally, this feeling of inauthenticity is itself an erroneous representafion,as Giddens rightly points out, since there was no more power or auton-



omy in pre-modern societies than in modern societies.^Shamanism is parficularly appealing as a defence against alienafion in

part because of the way it was conceptualised by Mircea Eliade. Eliadedescribed shamanism as an "archaic technique of ecstasy," thousandsof years old and cross-culturally prevalent before modernity. As such itallowed contact with the absolute world of truth untouched by the terrorof history.̂ * This positioned shamanism as an ancient tradifion that wasthe opposite of modernity, a survival of "old religion" that existed sinceprehistory only to be extinguished by industrialisation. This discoursewas begun by Eliade but has been continued by multiple practitionersand anthropologists, not least Michael Harner and Carlos Castañeda.What has been constructed is an idealised and essenfialised practicecharacterised by a connection with nature, a tradition stretching backto prehistory, journeys to different versions or states of reality, masteryof spirits and emphases on subjecfive experience rather than objecfivemeasurement. This expresses a desire for communal forms of idenfityand belonging that are supposedly lacking in modernity. What I wouldargue is that in fact it is part of the discourse of modernity. Shamanismis invoked as a rebellion against alienation and inauthenticity, however,it is part of an inherent dialectic in the discourse of modernity.

The traditions that are appealed to in Western shamanism are invented.To take one example, the idea of "nature" prevalent in shamanic practicesdeveloped in the nineteenth century as a response to industrialisationand urbanisation—it is historically contingent rather than "natural."^^It is a common theme in contemporary Pagarüsms that ideas, rituals,and motifs that are claimed to have ancient roots can in fact be traced tofairly recent antecedents. Druidry can be traced to the rituals of Iolo Mor-ganwg in the 1790s, Wicca to the works of Gerald Gardner in the 1940s,and Heathenry to a revival of Icelandic eddas and sagas in the 1970s.^

25. Anthony Giddens, "Modernity and Self-Identity: Tribulations of the Self," inThe Discourse Reader, ed. Nikolaus Coupland and Adam Jaworski (London: Rout-ledge, 1999), 415-425; on modernity see also Gustavo Benavides, "Western Religionand the Self-Cancelling of Moderrüty," journal of Religion in Europe 1 (2008): 86-110;Marshall Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982),15-33; Robert Heffner, "Multiple Modernities: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism in aGlobalizing Age," Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998): 83-104.

26. Kocku von Stuckrad, "Utopian Landscapes and Ecstatic Journeys: FriedrichNietzsche, Hermann Hesse, and Mircea Eliade on the Terror of Modernity," Numen 57(2010): 78-102; Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, trans. WillardR. Trask (London: Arkana Penguin, 1989), 3-33.

27. von Stuckrad, "Reenchanting Nature," 771-799.28. Graham Harvey, "Inventing Paganism: Making Nature," in The Invention of

Sacred Tradition, ed. James R. Lewis and Olav Hammer (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2007), 277-90; Jenny Blain, Nine-Worlds of Seid-Magic: Ecstasy and Neo-



In terms of Western shamanism, the work of anthropologist Carlos Cas-tañeda has been described as its inaugural sacred text, based as it ison fabricated fieldwork yet held as truth by would-be shamans seekingjourneys in non-ordinary reality as described by Castañeda through thecharacter of the shaman, Don Juan.^' The crificism tbat can be levelled ateach of these practices is that they are romantic inventions, that they arenot "real" or "authenfic" religious tradifions because they are not "howthings always have been" either because they are inaccurate when com-pared to the historical or archaeological record or because the recordsdo not have enough data to tell us bow things "really" were. In eithercircumstance, the charge of inauthenficity is based on an idea that reli-gious pracfice should be connected, in some way or another, with his-torical accuracy. Tradition in this view is supposed to be an unchangingcultural truth that connects the present to the past.

However, ceremonies, rituals, and artefacts are not the same as theyalways have been. Cultures are constantly changing and what is calledtradition only has the veneer of timelessness. The way things alwayshave been is often not factually the ways things always have been.That tradifion is invented was first argued by Hobsbawm and Ranger,when looking at cultural traits such as Scotfish bagpipes, assumed tobe uniquely Scotfish but actually of foreign origin and recent import.^"In terms of sacred tradition, the issue becomes even more loaded andemotionally charged. Members of religions often truly believe that theirsacred scriptures are timeless, unchanging, and absolutely true.^' Forexample, in Orthodox Judaism it is sfill held that the first five books ofthe Bible were written by Moses himself, yet contemporary biblical crifi-cism indicates a number of different authors and different redacfionsthroughout the gradual construcfion and reconstrucfion of the Old Tes-tament through time. Protestantism is perceived by adherents as a returnto the "original" religion of the Bible through textual literalism, which isa paradox, since it is actually a new interpretation. However, Protestant-ism and Orthodox Judaism have not attracted the same level of scholarly

Shamanism in North European Paganism (London: Routledge, 2002); Ronald Hutton,The Triumph of the Moon: a History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 2000) and also his The Druids, (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007).

29. Charlotte Hardman, " 'He May be Lying, But What He Says is True': The SacredTradition of Don Juan as Reported by Carlos Castañeda, Anthropologist, Trickster,Guru Allegorist," in The Invention of Sacred tradition, ed. James R. Lewis and OlavHammer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 38-55.

30. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., Tlw Invention of Tradition (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1-42, 263-308.

31. See James R. Lewis and Olav Hammer, eds.. The Invention of Sacred Tradition(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 1-37, 56-74,141-157.



criticism concerning their authenticity.If all sacred tradition is open to change and reinvention, then attempts

to fix it and claim that it is only one thing and one thing only would bean emic position, taken up by believers themselves. On the etic level, itwould not be analytically valid to dismiss one religious form becauseit is an invention which appropriated motifs from other sources, sincethis seems to be a feature of all religions. The question then becomeswhen does a new religious movement become an accepted sacred tra-dition? Does shamanism only appear inauthentic because we can traceits antecedents to the near, recorded past? There is a certain discourseof authenticity involved in this transition where what is old is real, andwhat is new is fake, which corresponds with a related discourse that thenon-West is authentic, whereas the West is not. The discourse has beenprevalent in Western culture since the Enlightenment that the materi-alism and commercialism of industrialised capitalism was viewed bysome as sucking the soul and meaning out of culture, until eventuallyauthentic culture is only found in the pre-urbarüsed non-Western world.In this discourse, modernity itself is inauthentic, a view perhaps put bestby the prophet of Western modernity, Friedrich Nietszche:

The most characteristic quality of modern man: the remarkable antithesisbetween an interior which fails to correspond to any exterior and an exte-rior which fails to correspond to any interior —an antithesis unknown topeoples of other times. Knowledge ... now no longer acts as an agent fortransfornung the outside world but remains concealed within a chaoticworld which modern man describes with a curious pride as his uniquelycharacteristic 'subjectivity' ... for we moderns have nothing whatsoeverof our own; only by replenishing and cramming ourselves with the ages,customs, arts, philosophies, religions, discoveries of others do we beconaeanything worthy of ^̂

This antithesis that is uniquely ours is perhaps the only authenticityallowed for modern Western culture: to be inauthentic. What this showsis that the idea of authenticity itself is part of a discourse which con-demns modernity and glorifies the 'other'. This discourse is, as statedabove, part of modernity, and integral to Western self-identification.Shamanism is therefore part of that which is most truly our own.

Shamanism as Culturally Transcendent: The Claims of Core-Shamanism

What has already become clear is that there is a plurality of shaman-

32. Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life," inUntimely Meditations, ed. Daniel Breazeale, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cam-bridge Urüversity Press, 1997), 78.



isms, some of which appropriate non-Western religious practices, otherswhich try to reconstruct their own pre-modem past, and still more thatdo both or neither. It is my argument that the definifion of shamanism asancient and culturally-transcendent, popularised by Eliade, is a Westernconstruct. One particular form of shamanism stands out as representa-tive of this: core-shamanism. What is ironic is that it purports to be atechnique stripped of its cultural baggage that renders a universal reli-gious experience, claims which are part of the discourse of modernity.

Core-shamanism was developed by Michael Harner, initially ananthropologist working with the Shuar (Jivaro) people of Ecuador.Harner learned how to go on soul-journeys to the spirit world using bothpsychotropic drugs and drumming. He then repackaged this as core sha-manism, removing the key elements of drugs and sorcery. This was thensold as a universal technique underlying all cultural forms of shaman-ism in the present day and throughout history to the Palaeolithic, usingdrumming to induce an altered state of consciousness, which Harnercalls the Shamanic State of Consciousness (SSC).̂ ^ Anyone can attainthe SSC if they follow the techniques proposed by Harner in the form oflistening to rhythmic drumming and focusing the mind in intense con-centration. It can be learned from workshops, or simply from buying hisbook The Way of the Shaman and listening to recordings of drumming.^Core- shamanism thereby fulfils many of the requirements of a Westernaudience: it is available to all, can be purchased in a discrete unit, and itoffers a quick fix to any or all problems. Harner suggests the techniquesused in core-shamanism can be used to help trauma, drug abuse, over-eating, in fact many of the ills seen to typify modern Western culture.-*^

33. While Harner claims an unbroken tradition of shamanism dating to the Paleo-lithic, a number of differences are highlighted by anthropologists between core-sha-manism and traditional anthropological accounts of shamanism. The main differencebetween core-shamanism and non-Western shamanism is that core-shamanism isnot embedded in local social structure or geared toward communal aims accord-ing to Vitebsky, "Shamanism," 66. For Jakobsen, Shamanism, 160, the biggest differ-ence between Greenlandic shamanism and Western shamanism is the time taken forapprenticeship: Harner claims to offer students of core shamanism to learn in minuteswhat it takes angakkoq years to learn. Wallis, Shamans/Neo-Shamans, 49-53, highlightsfour main "charges" against core-shamanism: decontextualizing and universalizing;psychologizing and individualizing; reproduction and reification of cultural primi-tivism; romanticizing of indigenous shamanism including ignoring the dark side ofbattles with spirits, evil spirits and death threats.

34. On Harner and core-shamanism see Jakobsen, Shamanism, 160-165; Wallis,Shamans/Neo-Shamans, 45-48; Znamenski, The Beauty of the Primitive, 234-56.

35. Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman (San Francisco: Harper and Row1985).



Harner's core-shamanism is popular in the United States/^ but hasalso spread to Sweden,^'' the Netherlands,^* Denmark,^' and the UnitedKingdom. In the United Kingdom, Harner's Foundation for ShamanicStudies sponsors The Sacred Trust, run by anthropologist Simon Buxton.Their promotional literature defines shamarüsm thusly:

Shamanism is without dispute the most time-tested system for healing —personal, environmental, communal and global — through the purposefuland holistic integration of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritualcapacities. Archaeological and comparative ethnological evidence sug-gests that the practice of shamanism is at least 40,000 years old and itcontinues to be practised today by indigenous peoples of all continents.Over the last four decades, there has been a remarkable revival of interestin shamanism from non-indigenous cultures, mirroring a groundswell insustainability, eco-consciousness, global awareness and responsibility.'"'

This definition demonstrates the key features of the Western construc-tion of shamanism: ancient, culturally transcendent, connected to natureand environmentalism. By essentialising a core practice, it can then besold to anyone, anywhere. The courses offered by The Sacred Trust havea similarly wide appeal, focusing on soul retrieval, dealing with death,the spirits of nature, divination, and darkness retreats described as"journeys to the midnight sun." What this offers is a slimmed down andsanitised version of shamanism, where any particular cultural systemis played down, and there is no central mythology to fit the techniquesinto. This avoids accusations of cultural theft and at the same time itpoints to the universality of core-shamanism. If any parficular culturalsystem was assigned to the techniques, it would become another religionwith a fixed dogma, a right and a wrong way of doing things. In core-shamanism, there is no right or wrong way, only the interior, subjectiveway. Each person's subjective experience authorises what they do.

At the same time there is a cultural system which is more often thannot assigned to core-shamanism: New Age. The term New Age is asnebulous and open to interpretation as shamanism, since it is not anorganisation as much as a label, applied pejoratively more often thanpositively."*^ So for example, the Native American acfivist website

36. Johnson, "Shamanism from Ecuador to Chicago," 344-49.37. Galina Lindquist, Shamanic Performances on the Urban Scene: Neo-Shamanism in

Contemporary Sweden (Stockholm: Stockholm Studies in Anthropology, 1997).38. Hanneke Minkjan, "Seeking Guidance from the Spirits: Neo-Shamanic Divina-

tion in Modern Dutch Society," Social Compass 55, no. 1 (2008): 54-65.39. Jakobsen, Shamanism, 164-207.40. Sacred Trust, Shamanism 2010: Workshops, Teaching Events & Trainings (Wim-

bourne: The Sacred Trust, 2009), 1.41. Wouter Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture (Leiden: Brill, 1996),



aimed against plasfic medicine men is called New Age Frauds and PlasticShamans, with New Age being spelled nuage by users and pronouncedto rhyme with "sewage."''^ In both American Shaman and the Sacred EarthCamps website, defensive rebuttals are given to any suspicions the audi-ence may have that they are "New Age."*^ It seems unlikely that suchdefences would be made without realisfic anficipation of attack. Sha-manism is often included under the umbrella term New Age along withcurrents as diverse as astrology, channeling, UFOlogy, Paganism, reiki,homeopathy, human potenfial. New Thought, transpersonal psychol-ogy, neurolinguisfic programming, deep ecology, ecofeminism, Wicca,modem witchcraft, and mediumism."*^ However, the very breadth ofcurrents included under the term New Age and the fact that it is usedpejorafively rnifigate against its analyfic ufility. It means everything andnothing and as such becomes an epistemic black hole. While Westernshamanism is often discarded by association with New Age, its rootsare the European fascinafion with shamanism that dates to the seven-teenth century."*̂ As such it has a close affinity with other forms of con-temporary Paganism such as Druidry, Heathenry, and Wicca, which alsodemonstrate a desire to recreate pre-modern and non-Western forms ofreligion. It does not share very much with many other of the currentslisted above, other than the contempt that is shown for them by certainscholars of religion and theologians.

As such I would recommend disassociating shamanism from NewAge and jettisoning the term "New Age" altogether. Instead shaman-ism, Druidry, Heathenry, and Wicca can be grouped together as contem-porary Paganism: modern religious movements that reconstruct, reviveor invent pre-modern or non-Western rituals and beliefs and sharecommon features of environmentalism, self-help, and an emphasis onexperience to support beliefs which may seem otherwise unsupportable.In terms of healing, a cure is the most convincing argument for a therapyto make. If that cure is attributed to the soul-flight of a shaman, then one

1-342. New Age Frauds & Plastic Shamans, http://www.newagefraud.org/43. Kottler and Carlson, American Shaman, xii-xiii: "we are somewhat suspicious

about anything that smacks of "New Age", we have little doubt about the power ofhis interventions ... we mention this by way of an introduction, lest the reader thinkthat we are all a bunch of New Age screwballs." Sacred Earth Sweat Lodge Ceremonies,http://www.sacred-earth-camps.co.uk/sacredearthcamps.html "Please note-thisis not NEW AGE synthetic, nylon knickers, shamanism. This is medicine wheel way."Capitals in original

44. On New Age ideas more generally see Hanegraaff, Neiu Age Religion andWestern Culture; Hammer, Claiming Knoiuledge.

45. See von Stuckrad, Esoterismus und Schamanismus, 35-136.



might believe that shamanisfic claim to be true. Although such attribu-tion may be specious on a medical level, on the personal level, it can bea very powerful experience to undergo a ritual and then be cured. Theexperience of healing can lead to a sincere belief in the practice or ritualthat supported that experience, regardless of the factual accuracy of thereligious system on which the ritual or practice is based.

An invented pracfice or ritual can sfill be appealing or helpful. Itcan give people something they subjectively need even if the claimsof the religious system are not objectively true. Due to this the prac-tice confinues, its reputation spreads and more people join."** Whatmatters more to believers is the relevance to their lives rather than his-torical accuracy or cultural appropriafion. How they feel and whatexperiences they have at sacred sites or during reconstructed ritualshas more impact than who originally built those sites or how they per-formed rituals."*^ Individuals therefore can have experiences foundto be valuable or subjectively valid. This validity is not based on"fact" in a scientific or objective sense but on subjective experience andsentiment. This can lead to something Pagans call "unverified personalgnosis," where a practice is powerful on an individual level but com-pletely unverifiable by surviving Pagan lore. Some symbols, rituals, ormotifs become associated with certain deities or ideas because contem-porary practitioners feel that they are appropriate, rather than havingbasis in any existing record. They have no factual basis but are acceptedthrough the personal understanding of the way the religion is practisedin contemporary society.'*^ What this demonstrates is that the personalexperience of a religion often outweighs the historical or cultural accu-racy for practitioners.

Conclusion

With the recent official recognition of Druidry as a religion by the

46.1 am here following the Stark and Bainbridge thesis on the utility of religion,see Rodney Stark, One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2001), 12-15.

47. Robert Wallis, "Queer Shamans: Autoarchaeology and Neo-shamanism," WorldArchaeology 32, no. 2 (2000): 252-62; Blain and Wallis, "Beyond Sacred," 97-123.

48. An example from Heathenry is the valknot, a symbol of three interlocking tri-angles said to be sacred to the god Odin. This is not stated in surviving lore, but thesymbol is found on several runestones associated with sacrifice, warriors, and theValkyries, things that are strongly associated with Odin in Heathen lore. ModernHeathens use personal experience with this god to conclude that there is a connectionand give him the symbol. See, for example, Galina Krasskova, Exploring the NorthernTradition (Franklin Lakes, N.J.: New Page Books, 2005), 13-14.



British government, there are signs of growing acceptance of Paganismin Britain."" Official recognition confers certain rights, but it does notconfer authenticity. There is no authentic, true, actual, real culture eitherpresent or past to be "discovered" or "represented." There are onlymultiple inventions and reinventions manipulated and transformedby social actors. The notion that there is "authentic" culture derivesfrom a discourse in Western culture that idealises non-Western or pre-modern societies over Western industrialised modernity. This field ofdiscourse includes not only shamanism but also other forms of contem-porary Paganism such as Druidry, Heathenry, and Wicca. Authenticity isa powerful tool for legifimating or de-legitimating these pracfices usedby both practifioners and scholars (and sometimes, scholar-practition-ers). Denying authenticity is as much an emic position as granting it,as both involve using authenticity as a selling point for accumulatingrecognition and social capital. As such rather than slide into the polar-ising debate, the only viable academic standpoint is to investigate whyshamarusm and related contemporary Paganisms are prevalent andwhether historical accuracy or cultural appropriation have any bearingon this, and if so, how do practitioners address these issues.

The three cases presented demonstrate a variety of strategies fordealing with issues of authenficity. MacLellan invokes a past that he canlegitimately be connected to, the cultural heritage of the British Isles,regardless of how reconstructed that may be. Keeney chooses so manydiverse sources so as to transcend roots in any one particular culture, astrategy shared with Michael Harner and core shamanism. The SacredEarth Camps appropriate a popular non-Western "other" that is com-monly seen as more authentic. What this indicates is an awareness thattheir practices are recent inventions, and therefore require legifima-tion. This awareness is common throughout contemporary Paganisms;however, how much it matters to practitioners is individually variable.Some forms of Paganism, for example Star Trek Paganism, are quiteobviously invenfions based on ficfifious source material.^" More oftenthan not, what matters to individual practitioners is the relevance or use-fulness of the experience. They creatively reconstruct, reinterpret, and

49. "Druidry to be classed as religion by Charity Commission," http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11457795. The Charity Commission is a non-ministerial depart-ment of the British government; "Pagan Police Get Solstice Leave," http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8154812.stm; also increased access to ritual sites such asStonehenge and Avebury, and burial sites such as Prittlewell Saxon Cemetery. See"Beyond Sacred," 97-123; and Jenny Blain and Robert Wallis, Sacred Sites - ContestedRites/Rights (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2007), 23.

50. Harvey, "Inventing Paganisms," 289.



situate practices in space and time and enjoy doing it. Through unveri-fied personal gnosis, rituals and beliefs can be reconstructed and thensubjectively legitinüsed. This does not mean such creativity is uncontro-versial, however. Indigenous communities and Pagans themselves rejectthe creative actions of certain shamarüc practitioners. Yet religious expe-rience can be derived by participants from ritual whether or not thatritual is a recent invention or it is rejected by others. It is that experiencewhich for them constitutes authenticity, because only experience is trulyour own and provides our own way of flourishing or being fulfilled.

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