The Shaman download epub

This book is fascinating! It is an excellent reference for a global overview concerning questions about various healing practices and beliefs. It is beautifully presented with meaningful photographs and insightful text. This is an essential source of perspective, knowledge, and vision for anyone engaged in the intuitive arts.

Gives a nice overview , ...does not get into a lot of specifics and left some things out which I was looking for but it was easy for me to follow up with other resources, this is a nice book to get early on in studies to highlight practices around the globe

Nice, visually beautiful overview of a complex subject. Mr. Vitebsky, as usual, delivers a fine book with impeccable research and a light but thorough touch that distills things to an easy to grasp essence. A great book for novices or seasoned shamanic scholars alike.

I was recommended this book by a friend who knew about Shamans. The information is simple, solid and very real. Great easy to read and full of photos to support the information. Anyone who wants to know about Shamans must have a copy because it is the most compact information you will get.

Fantastic book. Well illustrated and deep dive into the shamanic experience worldwide.

Absolutely in love with this book.

This book exceeds in brilliance by the author's really putting shamanism back where it belonged, namely in "reality"! Ironically, most writers of shamanism are completely, or mostly, unrealistic about this multicultural, multilayered, and "multimoral" magico-religious practice. Shamanism isn't a goody two shoes exclusively "healing" practice. This is a childish, and very romanticized and extremely -misleadingly- romanticized view from wasp observers and "anthropologists".

The author makes all these points and clarifications. And manages to also have actual respect for these people without treating them like savages, "noble savages", or anything else but fellow human beings trying to make sense of themselves and environment and to use and work with same. This is science and anthropology at its very BEST, in my opinion. There is nothing that I read that seemed dismissive or condescending or romanticized about these cultures. And shamanism as a whole was much better and more wisely explained and expounded about.

In fact, "Shamanism" should be called what it actually is: *SORCERY*. The practice deals with other "worlds" and supernatural creatures and beings, and that is sorcery pure and simple. And with sorcery there's much healing, yes, of course, but there's also cursing and magical warfare (with rival tribes or sorcerers). This view of the shaman being the "good guy" and sorcerers being these "bad guys" is a terrible misinterpretation of what is going on in this world of sorcery. It's childish and unnecessary in light of this book. In these cultures, the practice of being benevolent and cooperative is viewed as a better "way" of doing things than war and strife. It is definitely best to share and be cooperative. However, they have no qualms about poisoning, killing or cursing enemies if the need arises -and needs are very real indeed faced with possible starvation or eradication of one's people/culture. These are lives lived at their most real (again, ironically). These people know life in a very intense and hands on form, unlike their well fed, Christian raised anthropologists and authors of religious studies who can buy a burger at their local fast food place anytime they get a grumbly tummy.

The only reason there is now a "moral devision" among shamans in the Americas and certain other regions where these cultures have had contact with industrialized cultures, is because of the Christian moral mindset of most industrialized societies, and not because of some inherent "Christian morality" within the shamanic/sorcerous culture. In some cases where this has happened, there are obvious and overt signs of Christian influences seen among the practices and gods of these shamans; usually in the form of Christian Saint statues and crosses among their magical tools and altars.

The author of the book makes this bold and often ignored, or conveniently disregarded, aspect of shamanism and the cultures it exists within. He makes no romanticized statements about these practitioners and their cultures. These aren't "saints" or "morally superior" beings. Shamans are just as human and flawed as the rest of us, often in error or overly aggressive; just like us. Nevertheless, their practices do grant them with knowledge and wisdom, and certain abilities perhaps, we, their more "civilized" brethren, have lost and are beginning to retrieve, and also maybe understand it, our world and ourselves.

This book is beautiful. It contains a wealth of colored illustrations, and has many colored pages as well. The photos are all captioned, and most go into great detail.
However, I feel that it could be organized better. It feels kind of like you're just reading articles upon articles. It is also pretty repetitive. This book goes into great detail of the practices of shamans all over the world, showing that while there are many commonalities, there are also many differences between each shamanistic society, and even between each generation within the same shamanic society. He states that shamanism is not timeless or unaffected by politics, as Mircea Eliade seemed to propose. Except I don't feel that their views entirely conflict.
People are relatively animalistic, and are culture-centered creatures. It goes without saying that shamanistic practices would change from society to society, because each society would naturally form their own distinct, collective beliefs about the universe and how it came to be.
Still, there are bound to be some qualities about the universe and its energies which can be known intuitively and by constant immersion in nature, so that certain beliefs and practices would become universal.
Let me be clear though, he's not in opposition with Eliade and references him a couple times throughout the book.

What I personally got out of this book is that each distinct practice of shamanism should be taken with a grain of salt, as they can be very subjective, and often morally wrong. There is not one single way of practicing shamanism, and I would go as far as saying there's not an objectively superior way to practice it. (Eliade did hold that belief though. For example, he felt that shamans who use psychedelics to heal were degenerative and inferior). Also, shamanic ceremonies are elaborate in order to represent the power of the shaman and really just put on a show, not because that's necessary in order to heal. It's very symbolic, but more than that, it's aesthetic.
A lot about shamanism feels like quackery to me, but I think the vocation as a whole is very much worthy of respect.