Shamans, Healers, and Medicine Men

Whether you're interested in the ethnographic aspects of shamanism or in the practice of it, this book is chocked with fascinating information and revelatory insights.Even though I just read the book carefully (underlining and notating along the way), I've already started re-reading it because there was so much to mull over. This second reading is just as engaging.Kalweit is an ethnologist and psychologist, and he adeptly blends both fields in this book. He has studied shamanism himself, so far from being coldly academic, the book offers working understandings of shamanic cultures. It's engrossing while being outrageously informed about the hidden aspects of indigenous life.Finally, Kalweit manages to make this book relevant. Seemingly "primitive" or antiquated wisdom is turned inside out and fits effortlessly over modern life. For instance, his fascinating discussion on trance states eases into the realization that every state of being is a trance state, including the one we use for ordinary reality. Whether we're watching television, operating in the world through our cultural conditioning, or eating absently (or in full thrall), we're in a trance state.I have no doubt that this book will yield new insights no matter how often I read it.

Fine addition to the small written library on shamanism- good for comparison with the volume by Eliade, interesting for people who want to see the spiritual point of view in a different context than they grew up with. Recommended.

A most excellent book on the controversial subject of shamanism. Unlike others, Kalweit does not writes for the new age crowd or for the academia. It meet us with soul, intellect and candor. Very well researched and poetically written.

Shamans, Healers, and Medicine MenExcellent book, very well researched demonstrating a wide spectrum of shamanic practices in many traditions and identifying the common themes in all.

Simply one of the best surveys of shamanism available, along with Kalweit's first volume, Dreamtime and Inner Space.

Excellent book written from the perspective of the accounts from historical records. Lots of wisdom of shamans direct from their own words. The author guides you through all the aspects of shamanisn in the words of the shamans themselves. Very well done and categorized by subject. I learned alot from this book. Why I am called a shaman in traditional sense. This book taught me that a traumatic life threatening situation CAN change your life!

The author Kalweit, having dismissed away 'psychiatric words' used by others to denigrate Shamanism, - uses them abundantly himself in its support! I found his use of the words 'neurotic' and 'psychotic' especially unhelpful. All that 'neurotic' means is, that an observer can put himself in the patient's place, given different circumstances : that he can 'empathise' to some extent. Whereas 'psychotic' means that to an observer, the patient seems 'crazy' and is quite outside the observer's experience : for example, in the patient's chaotic speech, in his extra hallucinations within reality, and in his delusions about reality. Now empirically, it has long seemed that a clear divide exists, between this 'mental distress' and 'mental craziness.' But Kalweit uses these terms in ways for which they were never designed, in my opinion. In general, a scientist would find most of Kalweit's theses unbelievably fanciful. I took from this book only that prolonged starvation affects the mind ; that such an 'induction' gives Novice Shamans access to trance states ; and that trance states can be used to cure other people mentally and possibly, also physically. I would also accept his association of slight craziness with mental creativity, - although whether craziness is a side-effect of creativity, or creativity is a side-effect of craziness, I'm not sure. Kalweit's 'good examples' of this mostly are present from childhood : so whether it is possible to induce creativity later in life, by starving oneself into a state of mild craziness, is undecided.