History and Shamanism
599556
This novel is well written and encompasses historical events and shamanic interventions.  Above all the characters are real, reflecting all of man's evils as well as heroics.  The reader gains some understanding of the multiple cultures represented.

I was sad to come to the end.
816009
This book is not really about shamanism per se, but about the author's experiences in searching for indigenous Siberian peoples.  She assumes that the state of shamanism will reflect the more general cultural health of the Siberian peoples, which is a rather shaky assumption to begin with, as not every single indigenous group had the same traditions.

After an introduction giving the basic information on the Russian conquest of Siberia, the body of the book is dedicated to a series of essays on specific indigenous Siberian peoples. She mixes history with her personal experiences.  I was disappointed to see so little use made of Russian-language sources.  There is a great deal of Russian-language material on indigenous Siberians, and to not see it cited made me wonder how good her Russian is.  Once I started wondering that it made me less sure about her reporting of events that happened to her in Siberia.

Her chapters provide a spectrum of how the peoples of Siberia have dealt with the modern age.  One side of the spectrum contains the Buryats, who became important Communist leaders and oppressed Mongolians during the Soviet takeover of that country in the 1920s and the Sakha (formerly Iakut), who were widely known for their ability to assimilate Russian settlers and who still have a strong culture.  On the other, we see the Khant, who are presented as having almost completely lost their culture.  She actually comes across the death of one culture, as the last Ainu woman in Siberia had had a stroke and could not speak to her.  The Ainu woman's daughter has listed herself as Russian on her passport and says that she and her children are not interested in anything to do with the Ainu. That seems to be a pretty widespread attitude in Siberia more broadly.

I found the chapter on Tuva the most interesting, as it gives a sense of the place and its complicated history as a sometimes independent state caught between Russia/ the USSR and Mongolia. Reid is better with political history than with ethnography, so the chapters on the Buryats and Sakha are also stronger than the others.  The Chukchi chapter is also interesting in tracing the Chukchi's unwillingness to be assimilated.

Reid notes that even though Stalin's collectivization and use of Siberia as a massive prison camp - the well-known Gulag system -- was bad, Khrushchev's policy of consolidating Siberian villages was really what destroyed a lot of the culture there.  This is echoed in Valentin Rasputin's chapter on Russkoe Ustye in _Siberia, Siberia_ where he says the same about Khrushchev's policy.

If someone is seriously interested in the peoples of Siberia, I'd recommend James Forsyth's History of the Peoples of Siberia.  However, this is a useful, if somewhat flawed, introduction.  At least it can raise awareness of the great difficulties Siberian natives have and still do experience.
4938224
A lot of useful and new information. I especially liked Chapter 4 Recapitulation Practice of South American Shamans. And also Chapter 5 Primitive Emotions or "The Animal" Inside. All in all the book I really liked. My rating 5 stars. Must read.
4968045
Anyone interested in Native American Culture should not read this one first.  Read the "Dine History"  and "Navaho Symbols of Healing" first. These two books give you a better understanding into the background and history of the Native Americans and their culture.  Once you understand "where they are coming from" and understand why they do what they do you will then be able to understand how their everyday life and connection with the Earth is part of their religion.  It is their religion.
This book explores a comparative analysis between Judaism, Christianity and the Navaho religion/culture.  There are some definite similarities.  You will see where much of our many religions came from and how they sprang up from "the beginnings".
Written in academic style, it is a bit dry but very very interesting and gives you a true understanding of the Native American, cuts through the Myths and Legends and more.
3249210
It was interesting learning about the Hmong culture, their history, traditions, and beliefs. It's sad to know the clash with traditional medicine clashed even existed, but this book is based on medicine in the 1980's.....lots have changed. I believe Lia was instrumental in moving cultural competence to where it exist and where it will go in the years to come.
1311979
This book was recommended by someone knowledgeable about the shamanic path, and it is an excellent introduction to experiencing life in a very immediate, natural, and respectful way.
4805357
Bruce Lerro Author:  Forging Promethean Psychology: From the Middle Ages To The End of the 19th century

This is a wonderful book to compliment a major textbook on Western Civilization. The subtitle tells it all: Body and Spirit in the Hidden History of the West. Berman starts out claiming that the west has a dualistic tradition that exists not only in religion but in philosophy. After a brief lesson in psychoanalytic object relations theory which explain what happens when at an early age a mother is split into good mother and bad mother, he sets upon the road of the underground western history. His work sets out to reveal the hidden mystical traditions in the West that were not dualistic. These include the Gnostics and the Cathars. He argues that religious heretics, witches and magicians strove for a participatory consciousness and they were persecuted because of it. Berman has a good command of the early history of science and appreciates that the in the beginning of science, many scientists were magicians. When the magical traditions were persecuted, science became mechanistic and created another duality between dead matter on the one hand and an otherworldly Protestant God on the other.

This book is well-written and addressed to an educated lay person. It has adequate references and not a dry book. I wish two things could have been added. One is that though the book is supposed to be about our senses, Berman does not discuss how the senses themselves evolved. For example, Walter Ong and Marshall McLuhan talked about the rise of sight and the decline of hearing after the invention of the printing press. That evolution would have worked very well with his overall argument. Lastly, James Hillman makes a very provocative case for the existence of a polytheistic psychology in Renaissance Italy before the arrival of a new monotheistic psychology that came about with the Protestant Reformation. Both oral storytelling traditions and polytheistic psychology could have supported the underground participatory tradition and while vision, mechanistic science and monotheistic psychology all supported the dualistic tradition in the west. Overall I found this a very inspiring book.
4807613
This book reads like a college thesis on Shamanism around the world. Must read for anyone interested in the subject.
4193592
I found this to be an excellent book on Shamanism as experienced, not a how to book. But even as a book of personal experiences there was a lot of down to earth explanations of just what Shamanism is.

I especially liked the information that we don't choose Shamanism as a path, the Mysteries/Spirits pick us. Like wise we don't choose a power animal, they choose us. I like this as there are too many books out there that lay guilt trips on us that if we aren't able to do this or that somehow we are slacking or are deficient. This is a refreshing change.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject.
2015478
This is a thorough look at a time period in history unfamiliar to many--including, culture, politics, medicine, geography.
The story line is addicting and a page turner. The book has stimulated a new interest in natural medicines, learning
more about the history of the 10th century and drove me to read Gordon's sequel, The Shaman which I enjoyed just
as much. The third book seemed to be a bit shallow after the first two.
3002002
If you are going to study Shamanism, then you need this book. No serious study is complete without it.
2947656
The author does name names of sources for the most part. I think that her discussion of traditional shamanisms and shamanistic practices in different cultures is pretty good, and that she does a service in lifting the veil of academic male-centered assessments of shamanism in her work. She has some very good things to say, but overall, I do find her approach rather feelgood. She somewhat downplays the dangers of the shamanic path, though she points out that the death/renewal theme of shamanic initiation seems to arise more from the masculine practice of shamanism, where her view of the feminine practices emphasise birth/midwifery as a metaphor of shamanic initiation in global practices.

Generally, the book seems reasonably sound. My greatest overall complaint is that there is no bibliography. All her cites are in her footnotes, and the reader is forced to comb through the footnotes to get where her research is coming from, rather than having her sources and readings cited in a more easily accessible bibliography. It's in looking to these sources that I have some concerns.

Her chapter on reconstructing shamanisms is where I have my greatest single issue. She seems to hold Michael Harner in high regard, and cites people like Nigel Pennick (whose books are always notably free of source cites), John Matthews, Tom Cowan, and DJ Conway about the shamanic nature of early Celtic religion and Wicca. This in itself is more than enough to make me twitch. I could probably have lived with it if she'd only cited Cowan and Matthews, but Conway's inclusion really tosses her final chapter off the deep end for me, and makes me wonder about the rest of the scholarship in the book. Her academic mentors, Peter Furst (well known for his work on entheogens and shamanism) and Mihly Hoppl are quite respectable in the field and are generally reliable from what I can discern.

Overall, I'd say this book is a mixed bag, but worth the read if you want to wait for the trade paperback. Her chapter on reconstruction, if read with Robert J. Wallis's Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, alternative archaeologies and contemporary Pagans, can be somewhat useful. Wallis's approach is to take "neoshamanism" as its own thing, unrelated to indigenous shamanism, but useful and workable in its own right. I feel that if we're going to deal with things like this, it's how we should approach the field rather than making attempts to claim that New Age and NeoPagan "shamanisms" are the same as indigenous practices. I feel Wallis's book is more useful to modern practitioners in general, though Tedlock's work on uncovering the feminine side of shamanism is certainly eye-opening for those exposed only to mainstream academic views of the shamanic complex.
3353900
Historical creatures I've encountered in literature outside Lupa's text include the North American Man-bear/Werebear, and the European Werewolf. Then there's the postulated homo-erectus constructed from minimalist bone fragments by very artistic forensic anthropologists, and not to be overlooked, the Celtic traditions of the hunter who ticked off the goddess (like the Grecian Diana) and was hexed to become a stag, so that he was hunted by his own hounds. These all require an as yet undemonstrable transmutation of matter.

All of these, we humans do fantasize, and Lupa shares her perspective about historical and latent shamanistic ideas on shapeshifting. Humanity it turns out has historically believed in the transmutation of matter, and if magic & evolution turn out to be truth, then readers shouldn't be too proud to consider that those who went before us hadn't turned the concept into a utopian religion. It was traditionally frame-fitted for aboriginal society. Today we use a larger if not more sophisticated frame.

Levitical prohibitions against spiritism and witch craft are sometimes cited by Christians, but in another mood swing they might insist on the Pauline apostolic `inspired' doctrine of Romans chap. 10:4, about:

"...Christ is the end of the 'law' for righteousness..." or "...Messiah is the goal at which the Torah aims...for righteousness,"

depending on whose translation you use. I begin to understand why A.E. Waite found it necessary to write about Kabbalah.

<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/THE-HOLY-KABBALAH-A-STUDY-OF-THE-SECRET-TRADITION-IN-ISRAEL-AS-UNFOLDED-BY-SONS-OF-THE-DOCTRINE-FOR-BENEFIT-AND-CONSOLATION/dp/B000J3S7TY/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">THE HOLY KABBALAH: A STUDY OF THE SECRET TRADITION IN ISRAEL AS UNFOLDED BY SONS OF THE DOCTRINE FOR BENEFIT AND CONSOLATION....</a>

For my part, what I consider the 'differences' between religion and ceremonial magic are often semantic. Each presumes the existence of a 'supernatural' influence upon the universe, which may in turn be influenced (or manipulated) by variously defined 'right' thought or prescribed behavior.

Bibliographic sources for this book reach well beyond the borders of Western culture. So, if you don't mind absorbing some vocabulary which may be new to you, then you may find Lupa's writing informative, entertaining & witty. And if you find her comments on pop-cultural magic happen to strike you the way they did me, (as a bit silly) I'd urge you to remember that the silliness of pop-psychological reality TV and celebrity worship is a cash cow of entertainment based industrial society. Do you dare to be dismissive about it's effects on our collective psyche ? Can you appreciate the beneficial catharsis of such ritual, whether it occurs in your living room or in a mainline church ?

I enjoyed what you wrote, Lupa. The format left room for a lot more information I kept looking for. --Elwyn
2583091
I must confess I have been deeply moved when reading this book, both by what the author explains about his childhood and by his inspiring shamanic journeys. I acknowledge it has enlightened me with truths I had glimpsed elsewhere, from other sources, and which now prove themselves right. I dearly recommend others to read it, as it contains deep spiritual knowledge, not the New Age usual stuff, and gives an astonishing insight to what shamanism and helping others means and is. I do hope the author will write a second part later on about his experience, because he surely has a lot  to tell.
1843894
"Each time I return home from fieldwork among communities with shamanic traditions, people ask me the questions: what is a shaman? What does a shaman actually do? What effect is there on the people around them?" -Piers Vitebsky in his opening paragraph of the book "The Shaman"

Piers Vitebsky thus begins his book about shamanic traditions, and answers these questions and many more. I came across this book recently and picked it up as a matter of interest. As I delved deeper into the many mysterious ways of the shaman and his beliefs, I found it quite gratifying that someone had taken the time to research and explain this ancient system. There are and have been many misconceptions and generalizations about the shaman and their work, and Vitebsky does an excellent job of explaining, in a plain matter, just what the shaman is and does. This book may only be 180 or so pages, but its diminutive size is deceptively packed with information. There are six chapters, with numerous subchapters, that explain everything about shamans from their initiation and instruction to their role in society today. Vitebsky knew that he would not be able to explain the shaman with simple words, so included are countless visuals from the world of the shamans, varying from photographs of shamans in action and their tools, to artistic works created by the shamans themselves. And if the reader was somehow not satisfied wholly with the ocean of knowledge presented, the author kindly included an extensive bibliography and a documentary reference detailing  the names of the peoples he worked with. The pages themselves are very colorful and fun, and the book feels good to hold. All in all, it would be safe to say that this book is the premiere introductory guide to Shamanism.
As with any published work, "The Shaman" has its faults. Many would be drawn to this book in hopes of learning the ways of the shaman, and would be quickly disappointed. This is a documentary, not a handbook. It certainly explains the methods and initiations used, but the reader would be wiser to look elsewhere for a definite guide. Secondly, the layout of the book seems very cramped. The author often includes little side paragraphs that explain a concept further, and thus makes the flow of the book a bit hard to follow. But these are the only faults I can find with this publication, and would certainly urge the reader with the desire to learn about Shamanism to pick this book up.

-Alex B.
509475
Alone  - this is an informative book, but for those who are looking into the ancient rites, shaman practices and quantum energy - this is a great companion book.  Who knows where the symbols will show up?
790188
Mrete D Jakobsen is Academic and the book is structured in that way. Her thoroughness was not boring to me as she stayed on point though quite detailed. She does highlight mainly Greenland Medicine People. Excellent pictures and graphics. A superb job in showing the similarities and dissimilarities of Greenlandic Shamanism to current Modern New Age Shamanism with actual interviews of participants in Workshops and Classes. I gave it a 5 Star for structure of the material presented, source material used (great Bibliography and Index) and especially her own interviews with modern Practitioners. Reading the book revealed to me what was the source and secret these Medicine people had and how they acquired it. I bought the paperback and yes I wrote in it. A book that you "do not lend out". A good Read.