I have had much experience of late of the manner in which indigenous shamanism is appropriated and subsumed into the Judeo Christian framework of the western “practitioner” and reinvented as a pale approximation of it's actual living experience. There's plenty to say on that subject, and many wiser, more erudite folks than I have done so.
"Shamanism has thus come to connote an alternative form of therapy; the emphasis, among these new practitioners of popular shamanism, is on personal insight and curing. These are noble aims, to be sure, yet they are secondary to, and derivative from, the primary role of the indigenous shaman, a role that cannot be fulfilled without long and sustained exposure to wild nature, to it's patterns and vicissitudes. Mimicking the indigenous shaman's curative methods without his intimate knowledge of the wider natural community cannot, if I am correct, do anything more than trade certain symptoms for others, or shift the locus of disease from place to place within the community. The source of stress lies in the relation between the human community and the natural landscape"The Spell of the Sensuous
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, a Bön master who now lives and teaches in the West says
"If we relate to the natural world as a collection of lifeless mechanical processes, it is lifeless for us. If we relate to our bodies as machines, they are machines to us. If we relate to religion as a fantasy, it is fantasy to us. But if we relate to the natural world as alive, full of spirits and elemental beings, the natural world speaks to us. Generally, shamanism deals with forces and entities understood as being external to the practitioner. Practitioners work with the raw natural elements and their energy, and they also work with spirits, deities, healing goddesses, ancestral spirits and other non physical beings...The shamanic vehicles are not primarily concerned with enlightenment but with the removal of obstacles in life, the enhancement of positive qualities, and the lessening of the suffering we experience through interaction with external forces."
Even further debased, “Shamanism” the word has been applied to any number of imaginative flights of fancy of the manner which Israel Regardie (who's Middle Pillar exercise has been widely adopted in the New Age movement) referred to as “New Age cosmic foo-foo”.
"What the modern world calls Shamanism is not at all Shamanism.....the westerners have this idea that a shaman is a guru, but shamans are technicians. They are lovers of the sacred, but are no way looked upon as being exemplary. They are not 'holy men'. They are technicians of the holy You'd never say to your kids: 'Grow up and become a shaman', like you might say: 'Grow up and become a farmer'. It's like telling someone to be like a fighter pilot!...People say: 'You want to be a shaman? I want to be a shaman!' And it's like, 'Oh no you dont!''"....
Shamanism is not to be confused with entertainment - like people taking drugs and getting high. Shamanism says everything is alive. The spirits are alive. You really can't be naive about this. The problem with people that are dabbling around with so-called 'Shamanism' is that they think they can sit there on some hill that was used long ago or ceremonies, and take flowers and go up there and say to some unhappy spirit 'I love you', and that that will make things OK. It's like going back to an old girlfriend and saying; 'I've decided you are the most beautiful after all.' Well, the girlfriend you have abandoned a long time ago, she is not going to say; 'I knew you would come back'. It will be like - 'Well! Hey sucker!' And then BAM! You get hit. And you have to be awake about this. This is what the shaman does. He is not naive."Martin Prechtel, Tzutujil Mayan Tradition
Anthropology professor Michael F Brown says;
"When in my role as curious ethnographer, I've asked Santa Feans about their interest in this exotic form of healing, they have expressed their admiration for the beauty of the shamanistic tradition, the ability of shamans to "get in touch with their inner healing powers", and the superiority of spiritual treatments over the impersonal medical practice of our own society. Fifteen years ago I would have sympathised with these romantic ideas. Two years of fieldwork in an Amazonian society, however, taught me there is peril in the shaman's craft...New Age enthusiasts are right to admire the shamanistic tradition, but while advancing it as an alternative to our own healing practices, they brush aside it's stark truths. For throughout the world, shamans see themselves as warriors in a struggle against the shadows of the human heart. Shamanism affirms life but also spawns violence and death. The beauty of shamanism is matched by it's power-and like all forms of power found in society, it inspires it's share of discontent."Michael F Brown
As there are more than enough words in the datasphere I have maintained a silence of sorts of late regarding this issue, but the most recent example of this to come to my attention has prompted a public utterance.
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