‘The Shamanic Method’ as part of the Series ‘The Shamanic Quest’ is a study that is based on my essential hypothesis that shamanism is a science, the first real science that humanity has developed through the wisdom of native aboriginal peoples around the world.The article first elucidates what detracted shamanism from being recognized as a valid science, based on objective observation of nature and repeatable experimentation, then it shows shamanism’s model function in our culture, and finally explains how shamanism has finally, in the 20th century, entered our own Western culture, and what this means for our cultural and spiritual development.In the last chapter, it is further explained how shamanism can be a science and a tool for achieving ecstasy—the contemplation of wholeness—at the same time, something that our Western science has never even attempted to achieve.
The
Shamanic
Method
The Shamanic Quest
By Peter Fritz Walter
Contents
The Shamanic Method
3
The Detractors of Shamanism
13
The Age of Enlightenment
15
Cartesian Science
18
Scientific Reductionism
23
Catholicism
25
Shamanism’s Model Function
29
The Shamanic Revival
34
Sigmund Freud
40
Bronislaw Malinowski and Margaret Mead
43
Carl-Gustav Jung
48
The Grand Opening
53
The Shaman as a Scientist
58
Shamanism and Ecstasy
79
Bibliography
89
— —
2
The Shamanic Method
The first real science humanity has developed, it
has developed not under the pulpit of scientists, but
of native shamans. This is my proposition.
Of course, when I assume that shamanism is a
science, I must be able to show that it uses a method,
a scientific methodology, that is, a set of tools that serve
to look at nature in a truthful and possibly objective
manner. Is that the case with shamanism?
Let us look at the literature first. Most authors’
assessment of shamanism coincides with saying that
it is a way of apprehending reality, a set of insightful
techniques, rituals and patterns, as well as a natural
and organic lifestyle centered not at dominating na-
ture or the cosmos, but at participating in and under-
standing nature and the cosmos.
— —
3
Stanley Krippner and Alberto Villoldo, in their
study Healing States (1984), define shamanism as ‘an
attitude, a discipline, and a state of mind that em-
phasizes the loving care and concern of oneself, one’s
family, one’s community, and one’s environment.‘ (Id.,
85)
Most authors agree with this view, in that the
shaman is having a regulatory function within tribal so-
ciety, for bringing inner peace and healing to the clan
or the whole of the tribe. But this is not his only
function. This quote also does not give flesh to my
theory that shamanism is essentially a science, even
though this science is used for doing good to people,
for healing or for divining future events.
What I am saying is that the shamanic method or
technique is not j