Does that sound frightening? Think of this shamanic journeying as a form of meditation that opens you to personal growth, healing and an interconnectedness to all that is. As Ingerman describes it, shamanism is “a way of life in which we honor and respect the spirit that lives in all things. This way considers how you live to be more important than what you do.”

This doesn’t mean you will become a shaman if you follow the practices described in the book. Shamanism is a calling and the term “shaman” is “a mantle bestowed upon the practitioner by his or her community and is based upon the individual’s abilities to stand and deliver the goods as a healer or as a diviner of information on behalf of others.”

In some ways, the authors point out, “the way of the shaman is the way of the child.” As children, many of us had “imaginary friends” who, as Wesselman points out, “were actually real spirits who were looking after us.” Isn’t it unfortunate that we were probably discouraged from keeping such comforting friends at around the age of eight or ten? We can connect to them again and in fact, children can be encouraged to maintain their connection to their visionary abilities by keeping the conversations going between them and their parents. That’s one way “to keep the imaginal realms alive for the children of today’s world,” as Ingerman points out.

The book includes guidelines for creating rituals and ceremonies; reconnecting with nature by connecting with place and the ancestors of that place; working with dreams, songs and artistic vision; honoring the cycles of life and death; and building a shamanic community based on support and shared purpose.

by Mary Ann Moore

for Story Circle Book Reviews

reviewing books by, for, and about women
Rating: 5 / 5

Shamanism is an ancient spiritual practice from all over the world, a focused meditation that accesses the spiritual world while achieving a one-ness with nature. As a way of life, shamanism can transform the life of the person who practices it. (If you watched the popular television series “Walker, Texas Ranger,” that show often had aspects of shamanism in it.)

This book explains what shamanism is in greater detail, continuing with shamanic journeying, reconnecting with nature, visionary work with weather and environmental changes, ceremony and ritual, dreams, creative art(s) as bridges to the other worlds, working with sound and light, death, change, children, community work, transformational work, and much more. When you actually read this book, you will see the detailed explanations and examples to help you to move forward, if you feel a calling in this direction.

I think it is important to say that you do not have to go away and live in a tent somewhere to become part shaman. If you are into spirituality, you are likely already practicing a connection to nature, animals, spirit guides right from your home with running water and flush toilets. (My 36 year old son has sensitivity to animals, but also one to insects that absolutely amazes me.)

So, let’s take a look at chapter 8, “Working with Sound and Light” for an example. This particular chapter is 21 pages long. It begins by explaining how sound has been used for healing since the beginning of time and how Westerners have begun to get on the band wagon over the last 40 years with vocal toning, Tibetan singing bowls, crystal bowls, tuning forks, and various types of music harmonics recordings. It continues with an explanation on drumming and healing, and how it affects the immune system. Then we discuss the power of singing with passion, and of finding our own power song–allowing it to move its vibration throughout your body (with a how to explanation) and an example of how you might receive your power song. We learn a lot more about healing and singing, based on the Shipibo (Indians) and their icaros (healing songs). Throughout the chapter, the various authors comment. We also have an exercise of how we can find the song of a plant. Then we move to working with stones of light (crystals). An explanation of what this metaphysical “light” means follows in detail along with an exercise for transfiguration, an explanation of the human spirit, and how one maintains a spiritual state.

The chances are, if you have been led to this book, you will likely get a lot out of it, even if just an overall education. But, most likely, you will see parts of yourself that are already somewhat shamanistic.

Rating: 5 / 5

The common factor of Shamans around the world, is that it’s an “Animist religion”, where everything you see, has a spirit, which a shaman contacts thru trances involked thru drugs, tattoo drumming, ritual, or any other method anyone has EVER used for ANY religion. This is the problem with the book. It wants to explain how you take your first astral projection, or find your spirit animal, or healing herbs, or WHATEVER, but only thru a few pages of condensed factoids. Ancient traditions become oversimplified, and blurred into generalities. AWAKENING TO THE SPIRIT WORLD a mix of native american spirituality, Siberian or Inuit spirituality, African possession type religions like Voodoo, and new age definitions of Druid and wiccan beliefs. Parts of the book explains what a SHAMAN ceremony is, only to end the chapter by stating “Now make your own ceremony!”. It covers Astral Projection, where you travel out of your body into a spirit world. This can be SO DANGEROUS, for anyone, and certainly for someone who might be mentally ill, delusional, or open to “evil spirits”. The Astral Projection is recommended to attempt while listening to the “SHAMAN” Cd that is included. The SHAMAN CD is just someone shaking a rattle on track 1, track 2 is a drum, track 3 is a rattle and drum, etc. If you cant shake a rattle, or beat a drum to induce your OWN trance, you surely are not going to fair better using the pre-fab CD of rattle shaking. If your imagination cant tell you HOW to beat a drum like a drone, so you can create a trance, you might not be a good candidate for a shaman. AND, i am sure that the book’s writers ought to know that as well. But the CD makes the book seem more “complete”, no doubt.

There is a simple problem with this book–too many points of view on WHAT TO DO to become a Shaman. There are lots of instances of contradiction between the various contributors. Some use, or used, “spirit medicine” to achieve an out of body trance state. (ie, psychedelic drugs.) Others talk about how they are like DRUIDS, or WICCANS, because they use prayers, chants, etc in order to influence the weather, dilute poisons, or other apparent miracles. Other times, would be Shamans are encouraged to deify themselves, as a way to reveal inner power. Seeing yourself as THE CORN GOD, or the spiritual source of all Unicorns spirit guides, or as whatever, just forms EGO trips. To think of yourself as in pocession of great spiritual powers, makes it harder to clear your soul so you CAN witness deep spirituality. This book wants to appear to obtain the rigours of scientific research. It is not productive combining the rigours of objective scientific research, to the subjective revelations of your spirit guide-animal, as a path to understand shamanism. Be an anthopology professor and give out the objective facts of Shamanic philosophy and practice, or be a shaman and take neo-phytes on as apprentices. But you cant mix them together. It leads to a confusion of methods and meanings.

Nobody can become a Shaman from reading this book. Some people can LEARN what some shamans do, from this book. Altho the book has step by step lessons for leading the dead into the next world, or meeting your spirit animal guide, or astral projection, or interpreting dreams, or shaman ceremonies, the truth is, you either have these “powers” thru DIRECT REVELATION, or you dont have them. In that respect, the book is spot on. If you attempt to BUY shaman powers with books or psychedelic drugs, you are only buying self delusion, and walking the path of SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM. True powers are always a gift from God. The great prophets, were able to read dreams, like Daniel. But he was not a Shaman. St. Francis is said to have had great powers over animals, but they were not his totem familiars. LOVE connects you to all living things, but that’s not because all living things have a soul like you do. The ability to pray, only becomes empowered if you prayer “in God’s name”, because we are all children of the one GOD. If you are after powers, or magical abilities discribed in this book, you might at best obtain these powers, ony to misuse them due to lack of discipline or a true spirit guide. Or worse, you might fall into self delusion and psychosis.

If I wanted to buy this book, it would be for ONE REASON only. Not as a “road map” for taking the journey to become a shaman, but rather to see what the traditionalists have to say about what it means to be a Shaman, after I had taken the road myself, with my own spirit guides telling me THE CORRECT PATH FOR ME. Reading a book about what you need to learn INTUITIVELY, should come AFTER the intuitive lessons. (So your free will, and your personal path, is not contaminated by the wills, and paths, of others.) After all, how can reading a BOOK with your left brain, make your RIGHT BRAIN intuitive and sensitive? Again, the editors are mixing a scientific discipline with intuitive, artistic, spiritual disciplines, in order to see it as a whole. Maybe a noble quest, but not one found in the SPIRIT WORLD, sorry. We are holistic, when that mixture of THIS world, and the DREAM world ( left and right brain practices) occurs in a natural fashion within us. And it takes YEARS.

So, who will this book appeal to? I’m sure it’s for inexperienced people interested in Goth culture, Witches, neo-primitivism, satanism, druidism, and Harry Potter fans. If you want to study the various faces of Shamanism around the world, anthorpogical investigations are not discovered in these pages. And if you want to BECOME a Shaman, this book might replace with fantasy, with what MIGHT have been a true path towards spiritual attainment. Most importantly, for those Christians, Muslims, Jews, or other monotheistic religious practicioners who want to see IMMEDIATE GIFTS of SUPERNATURAL POWER, you are throwing away a solid spiritual tradition that WILL bring you to that place, when and if THE ONE TRUE DEITY deems you ready for spiritual gifts.

I had wanted to give this book 4 stars, but its too filled with unfocused points of views, and cookbook methods to become a Shaman, some methods so oversimplified as to become unuseful in any way. Overall the book’s promise to be a SHAMANIC PATH TO DIRECT REVELATION is bogus. Maybe its best to just join a drum circle, learn to paint a mandala, read “Black Elk Speaks”, and map out your own spiritual journey. Make your own visionquest, interpret your own dreams, write your own poetic incantation, or if you belong to a religion already, stick with it, and let GOD and the ELDERS lead you to the truth. Even using this book for an overview of Shamanism can be misleading, since it’s written for the “beginner” shaman. ANd its at the beginning of ANY new discipline, from music, to art, to rock climbing, where you need to learn PROPER FORM, or end up getting nowhere fast, or even hurting yourself. This book MIGHT have the proper form for SOME PEOPLE, but do you really want to take the chance, if it ends up just spinning your spiritual wheels for years, as you attempt to gain powers, instead of Spiritual wisdom and love for humanity and the Deity. If the book were not so full of “HOW TO DO IT” formulas for shamanic powers, I wouldnt see such problems with it. Also, if the point of view of what a SHAMAN is, were a bit more unified, I’d say the book at least had some anthopological value. But this book is not scientific enough to call it anthopoly, and the book doesnt have enough Shamanic world views, to call the writing theology. Instead, its too little of both sides of the issue, and confusion is a horrible way to start ANY new pursuit, be it spiritual, artistic, or intellectual.
Rating: 3 / 5

The charactors in the so-called story are cardboard cutouts. You end up with mental pictures of them that are right out of comic books – bad comic books.

There is nothing new or interesting in the story. At points the author seems to be trying to make us think there is some kind of mystery involved. He fails to create any kind of suspense what so ever.

Save your money and spend a few quarters on a pinball game.
Rating: 1 / 5