Reddit Reddit reviews Hallucinogens and Shamanism (Galaxy Books)

We found 3 Reddit comments about Hallucinogens and Shamanism (Galaxy Books). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Hallucinogens and Shamanism (Galaxy Books)
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3 Reddit comments about Hallucinogens and Shamanism (Galaxy Books):

u/FredFnord · 69 pointsr/WTF

Happy to oblige.

Basically, the entire thing started with an article in a book entitled Hallucinogens and Shamanism (see here) which is a so-so treatment of the subject, by a mixture of scholars and journalists (although there are a couple of good articles.) The specific article that made the claims was called "The Role of Hallucinogenic Plants in European Witchcraft", and was written by one Michael Harner, whom you can read about here, but, to save you the trouble, he is the 'founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies and the formulator of "core shamanism."' He is well known for his mystic healing practices, wherein he and his disciples use some herbal remedies (many of dubious effectiveness, some actually quite toxic) and some of 'the powers of their minds' to miraculously heal people, or enable them to miraculously heal themselves. (Incidentally, I hesitate to link to the Wikipedia article, because basically none of his detractors have any say on it whatever, all criticism of any kind having been successfully purged from it, although the edit history is quite illuminating. However, Wikipedia's what the people seem to want these days, so have at it.)

Yes, he has a degree in anthropology. But honestly, he has basically appropriated a whole bunch of shamanic/druidic traditions from a hundred different places, cobbled them together into a synthetic religion, and then spent his life converting people. He uses the witches as another example of a mystic visionary tradition to feed his pet religion.

This article is the first suggestion that anyone made that witches brooms were drugged dildos that I know of, and it was done by cherry picking (so to speak) the facts in a pretty ridiculous way, and parsing things very carefully indeed. Since then, the claim has been made repeatedly, but if you look at the articles and books making it, they all pretty much use Harner as their primary source. If they don't admit it directly, you can tell because they cite the same evidence that he does in his article.

I'm sure he believes what he says, but everything he sees is shamanism, and if there's not enough evidence for it, he's happy to go find some more on one of his mystic spiritual quests to find some.

There's your primary source.

u/0xdefec8 · 2 pointsr/WTF

according to the straight dope, a book from 1973 Hallucinogens and Shamanism also says this. Haven't read it, but looks like that book might cite primary sources

u/bloodwolf2685 · 1 pointr/Shamanism

Hallucinogens and Shamanism was a fun read. It covers shamanistic practices, with the use of hallucinogens, of various indigenous tribes

https://www.amazon.com/Hallucinogens-Shamanism-Galaxy-Michael-Harner/dp/0195016491