Few of us associate the term shamanism with anything more than the practice of primitive religion. Pressed for specifics, we might imagine someone arranging feathers while chanting or tapping a drum by firelight. But even if we’re fuzzy on what shamanism entails, modern rationalism and institutional religion agree it’s an outdated term, irrelevant to our lives.
It comes as some surprise, then, to see that shamanism is on the rise, and in a big way. (This article from 2023 alleges that shamanism is “the fastest-growing ‘religion’ in England and Wales, and the L.A. Times called shamanism “red hot right now” back in 2019.) Many New Age trappings and practices stem from distinctively shamanic spirituality, and shamanism forms the backdrop for much of what we call alternative medicine—wellness retreats, drum therapy, energy healing, and “plant medicines.” Ever-increasing numbers of self-identified shamans openly ply their trade in cities across North America, and dozens of shamanic certification programs now appear in response to a simple online search. What’s happening?
What Is Shamanism?
The word shaman originally comes from pre-Christian Siberia, where the term meant “one who knows”—specifically, one who knows how to enter a trance in order to influence the spirit world. This influence was hardly limited to healing; shamans also sought to influence events, find lost objects, suss out criminals, communicate with the dead, tell the future, and practice clairvoyance.
In order to enter the trances that enabled them to explore and communicate with the supernatural realm, shamans used a range of techniques: fasting, drumming, dancing, abstaining from sleep, gouging themselves with knives—anything that intensified physical or mental stress. Shamans were also known to augment their trances with psychoactive plants, which in Siberia most often meant hallucinogenic Amanita muscaria mushrooms. Thanks to recent mainstreaming of psychedelic drugs, this particular shamanic practice occasions keener interest these days than fasting and self-gouging.
Living in a Shamanic World
The appeal of shamanism is more complex than simply justifying edgy behaviors. The idea that all things (at least potentially) communicate meaning from the spirit world, and that we can establish special spiritual relationships with animals, and that altered states of consciousness reveal knowledge hidden by rationalism and materialism—it’s easy to see the allure of these beliefs for those not oriented toward the truth of Christ. To master shamanic magical practices is to acquire power and spiritual agency, with some mystique and social capital as an added bonus.
Living within a shamanic paradigm has downsides, often minimized by modern enthusiasts. But if we broaden the narrow, Siberia-centric definition of shamanism to include indigenous wonder-workers everywhere, we find much that leaves us ill at ease.
First, shamanism is a religion of the tribe. The gods being worshiped, the ceremonies being performed, the taboos being observed—these vary widely from place to place. Beyond its vague overarching beliefs in spirit animals, harmonious relationships, and so forth, shamanism offers little basis on which to establish unity.
A similar vagueness reigns regarding spiritual discernment. Prudence suggests we not take unidentified, non-corporeal presences at face value—“angels of light” could very well be spiritual con artists, or so we’ve heard (see 2 Cor. 11:12-15). Yet shamanism, depending as it does on subjective experience and intuition, tends to do exactly that, and to brush away questions about the identities, origins, and motivations of the spirits who frequent its seances. Admitting ignorance is hard, understandably, when the job is to be “one who knows.” But remaining willfully ignorant while trafficking with potential demons doesn’t sound good, either.
As a result of its tribal focus and underdeveloped metaphysics, shamanism is hard pressed to articulate a universal ethics: shamanism is shamanism whether its practitioners heal patients, hoard power, or cast murderous curses. And it has little to say when confronted by the human propensities for revenge, tribalism, and gratuitous violence; no shaman is on the record advising his clan to love their enemies. Even the decision of a shamanic initiate to become a good or evil shaman (a “white” or “black” shaman in the Siberian parlance) is a matter of personal inclination. It’s paradoxical that modern bohemians who are so sensitive to the suffering caused by evil should increasingly prefer a spirituality that proves inert in the face of evil.
Lacking any means for transcending tribal divisions, what shamanism actually devolves into—and this is well documented in anthropological literature—is spiritual warfare. It’s not the “St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle” kind, but the “I’d better curse the other tribe before they curse us” kind. Lovely as it might sound to modern ears that all things are charged with spiritual meaning, in practice, this means that all things can be charged with malevolent spiritual meaning by unethical shamans acting on behalf of an enemy tribe. Thus, the shamanic paradigm becomes a gateway not to peace, but to instability, even to an unremitting paranoia, in which every bird and insect poses a threat to life, soul, family, and sanity.
A Catholic Response
None of this means that feathers, drums, or wellness workshops are inherently evil. And some traditional shamans leave an impression of nobility—as, for example, when the renowned Buryat shaman Tusput told of taking evil spirits from his patients into his own body, adding, “The spirits hate us because we defend men.” A society does right to esteem its healers, and it’s unfortunate if Catholicism’s skepticism about divination and trance states gives a false impression of cultural condemnation.
With a shamanic revival in full swing, though, we should know and share that the Catholic Church forbids shamanic practices, including using a shaman’s services (CCC 2112, 2116-17). Invocations and dealings with unknown spirits—whether or not compounded by the “grave offense” (2291) of psychedelic drugs—quite obviously violate the First Commandment.
Modern shamans are unlikely to be swayed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Religion with its ethics and authoritative dogmas goes against the grain of modern individualism, and dependence on mediators—be they priests, sacred texts, sacraments, evangelists, or even messiahs—strikes the shamanic mindset as unnecessary, even childlike. Ascendant shamanism anticipates that the era of mediated religion is drawing to a close, along with the long famines of materialism and radical skepticism. No longer must those who long for a taste of the supernatural crawl toward a church, temple, or synagogue. Direct shamanic access to the world of spirits will replace them all.
So it’s easy to understand the popularity of shamanism: it fits neatly with our culture’s (ungraced) preferences. At the same time, by ignoring deeper spiritual concerns and sidestepping questions of purpose, it detaches itself from the rationality that defines humankind. As difficult as rational, mediated faith can be—as the cross can be—it remains the way commended by Christ when St. Thomas insisted on directly accessing the holy wounds: “Blessed are those who have not seen and believed.”
Shamans will do what shamans will do. In one form or another, they have remained among us, if in the margins of Christian culture, for a long time. But considering the darkness into which shamanism proposes to return us, it seems likely that one silver lining of the current revival will end up being a renewed appreciation for rational, reliable, sustainable religiosity—namely, Catholicism in all its mediating glory.