Dr. Manvir Singh: Understanding Shamanism

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Susana Bustos: Hello.

Manvir Singh: Hi Susana.

Susana: Hi Manvir. I'm so glad to see you here. Thank you so much for accepting our invitation to be part of this panel.

Manvir: Yeah, yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Susana: This conversation.

Manvir: Thank you for the invitation.

Susana: Of course, I was really excited when I heard that there was a new book on shamanism out there and that you had, you know, brought something new to the field. And I must say that just in reading your book, I have been, you know, really like looking at some very different angle to address this topic that has been, you know, studied and researched. And then, of course, when we talk about shamanism, we also have misinterpreted and misused the word many, many times. So you just, you know, my sense is that you give like a more secularized perspective to the study of shamanism. And I would like to start with this question, you know. First, it's like, what's your intention in offering a new book on shamanism?

Manvir: Yeah, yeah. I think my main motivation is, I think there are a couple. I think one is that when we often talk about shamanism or when shamanism is often talked about in some circles, I think it really has this imagery that is very, in many ways, othering or exoticizing. Shamanism is something about the far away, the Orient, the primitive. And while people aren't necessarily using those words, I do often think shamanism is thought about and talked about as something far away or something, you know, deeply different from the familiar. And I think that is part of the appeal. It's like seen as a source of lost wisdom or kind of a repository of ancient knowledge or also alternatively a kind of superstitious, what I call superstitious savagery to characterize this one view. And in my own explorations into shamanism, my own engagement with it, I have seen something much more universal and resonant and familiar. And I think a part of wanting to tell this story is that I think that shamanism really plays a deep role in diverse human societies, human societies of all sorts. I think it has emerged and that it speaks to something profound in humans. And if anything, I wanted to try to tell the story of shamanism's part of the human story and of the ways in which it is rather than exotic or archaic. You know, Eliade, one of the most famous books on shamanism, describes it as an archaic technique of ecstasy. I think my book or my goal was instead to see it as something resonant and potentially universal or near universal.

Susana: So what I see that you're trying to do there is just to to found to look into the foundations, the psychological and sociological foundations of why shamanism, why do we have shamanism and why do we have shamans? You know, maybe like before going into that, why don't you give us your understanding of shamanism? Because you kind of like take some kind of key elements of definitions that have been previously given, you know, and say this is the core of it. And also, yeah, and, you know, maybe also talk about the shamanic states of consciousness, like your understanding of them, please.

Manvir: Yeah, so I define shamanism on the basis of three core features. So it's practitioners or the practice of one, entering non-ordinary states or altered states, sometimes described as trance or ecstasy or altered states of consciousness. Two, to engage with unseen realities, unseen agents, unseen realms. And then three, to use that engagement for healing divination or other essentially services. I can talk a little bit about how that relates to what other people have talked about, but to focus on this idea of shamanic states of consciousness. So some major writers on shamanism, two big ones being Michael Harner and Michael Winkerman, the Michaels, really emphasize what they see as cross-cultural similarities in these non-ordinary states that shamans are entering. So Michael Winkerman writes about the integrative state of consciousness. Michael Harner writes about the shamanic state of consciousness. And something that I have seen just in the literature, but also in my travels and my attempt at work, is much more diversity in the kinds of non-ordinary states that shamans enter and engage with. And so, in fact, where I currently stand, I think that there is much less evidence for a kind of singular shamanic state of consciousness or a singular integrative state of consciousness. But if you look at what happens cognitively, psychologically, when people engage in different practices, when you have sensory deprivation, when you have particular psychoactive substances, even when we compare different psychoactive substances, when there is meditation, when there is drumming and dancing, you have wildly diverse cognitive and psychological experiences. So if anything, I want to question the idea of there being a singular or even a common shamanic state of consciousness and instead think of this more as shamans being kind of the psychonauts of humanity and really exploring the limits and variation of mind states.

Susana: Thank you. I was also very curious, you know, because at that level, the level of like, okay, yes, Michael Harner, yes, Michael Winkleman both of them want to find universals, you know, but you too, you do too in your book, you try to find the universals and the psychology and the, you know, the societies that would allow this activity, this profession to continue and to be like, kind of like we rebirthed over and over again, over what 40,000 years if we say that that long, right? Like there are also questions about how long we have had shamanism. So yeah, you're also looking for universals. Where do your universals rest on? That's a question for me.

Manvir: For sure. So I think so much of the work on shamanism, quite a bit of the work on shamanism, and especially in the 20th and 21st century, is inspired by the observation, the very striking observation that in very diverse contexts, you have some very striking resonances. You have practitioners who use techniques like drumming and dancing and sometimes psychoactive substances to enter these different states and in those states engage with these, you know, maybe they go on soul journeys, maybe they're possessed, maybe they call spirits, you know, the manifestation of that engagement with the unseen can be really varied. But then that is connected to healing. And then, you know, there's a recognition of other resonances that people have talked about, you know, dramatic initiations, etc. So I think like Harner, like Winkleman, like Eliade, like many of the writers on shamanism, I start with this real appreciation for these resonances and there is an attempt to really trace out what they are. I personally, so if we think about, so I think a lot of the writing on shamanism has had, has really been profoundly shaped by Eliade and I think Eliade infused a lot of misunderstandings, to be honest, that continue to resonate today. So for people who aren't familiar, Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian. He writes this book in French, Shamanisme. It's translated into English, Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. And he argues that, okay, the thing that is shamanism is a very particular thing. It's, you know, ecstatic states where the soul leaves the body and goes to an upper world or goes to a lower world. It's related to fire and flight and a, you know, very specific cosmology. And then that you find really having implications in shaping the understanding of shamanism throughout the 20th century. So like Michael Harner, then he goes, does incredible research among the Shuar documents, incredible richness, their shamanic practices, but then writes The Way of the Shaman, which is essentially like repackaging Eliade's ideas for a popular audience. And so my own sense is that I think our discussion of shamanism is often really clouded by essentially Eliade's model that he was projecting onto the world. And so where I'm starting, I'm starting with kind of, you might say, a much more basic recognition. I'm not saying shamans everywhere go on soul journeys or shamans everywhere, you know, go to the upper world and go to the lower world. There's a particular cosmology because I think cross-cultural projects have failed to really bear these out. And I'm instead starting with the recognition that across societies, there are specialists who enter non-ordinary states, engage with these unseen realities and provide these services like healing and divination. So I do think there is a universal or at least a very, very frequent or widespread practice or resonance. But you might say it's more simple or basic or, you know, kind of at a higher level than the more specific things that Eliade, Harner, and also Winkleman have argued in their particular notions of shamanism.

Susana: So that's interesting, like, to think that there is a newer definition of shamanism that you bring forth, right? That has, again, more kind of emphasis on how is it that this institution has survived and has been embraced. And I wonder if you would like share with us what's the main thesis of the book itself. And I know we're going to talk like beyond the thesis of the book, you know, I want to also know other things about you and your interest in this topic for sure. But that's like, you know, to start with.

Manvir: Yeah, so I would say the main thesis is that shamanism is not something that is confined to archaic or far-off societies. It is a hyper compelling package of practices and beliefs that humans reconstruct everywhere and reliably that it probably characterized the oldest religions. It's as ubiquitous today, including in Western industrialized societies, and that it will continue to reemerge. And I argue that because shamanism has often been entangled with this primitivist imagery that people are much more willing to say that a practice in the, you know, in Siberia shamanism or a primitivist and orientalist imagery, you know, Korean shamanism, Siberian shamanism and Amazonian shamanism, but they're much more apprehensive about saying that certain forms of Pentecostal practice are shamanism or much more apprehensive about saying the Hebrew prophets were shamans. And so a part of the project is to say that it is widespread and that it manifests in many contexts where I think people have been a little more apprehensive about describing it. So I think like, you know, a lot of spirit mediums that you might find in the contemporary United States would be shamans. I think if there were anthropologists, if we encountered them in any other society, we wouldn't have much more readily described them as shamans historically. So that's the main thesis that this is a hyper compelling practice that rebuilds itself everywhere because it is such a compelling means of dealing with uncertainty in the world.

Susana: One of the things just like coming back to Mircea Eliade, right, is that he brings up the focus on the fear of the shaman. And Michael Harner continues with that. And in general, when we study shamanism, one of the things that I have seen missing is what are shamanic cultures actually sustaining that. And when I see, and maybe you can talk a little bit, you know, about like, OK, the need to control the mystery, basically what's uncontrollable is part of what you think is one of the reasons or one of the main reasons actually of why do we have shamanism and shamanic practitioners. But I don't see in your book like an understanding of a shamanic society as different as ours. And I want to ask you that because in that regard, there is an universalism that you're like bringing up to any society, shamanic or not shamanic. What are your thoughts on that?

Manvir: So I guess like a part of the project would be to push back against an impulse to say these are these are shamanic societies and these are not only in so far. I mean, one thing I do describe in the book is I think the tension between ecstatic tradition and centralized tradition. Historically and cross-culturally, a deep tension between religious and spiritual traditions that value ecstatic experience, intimate and direct experience with the divine and more mediated experience. I mean, you have a common trend in the history of so many religions where they start out ecstatic and experientially oriented and then they become centralized. And then you see the center try to attack this more ecstatic practice. Aside from that basic tension, yeah, I think one thing I want to push against is this idea that like there is our you know, there is like Western, there's the United States in the 21st century and that is not shamanic and there are other societies and those are shamanic. Because I think that is just in part recapitulating this desire to set apart the other, whether that's to celebrate Western industrialized societies or critique them. And I think the image of the shaman and the exotic and primitivizing baggage that we often put on the image of the shaman is often more like serving to talk about ourselves. I'm dissatisfied with the West. I want to seek out something. I want to seek the shamanic or I want to celebrate the West. And so I want to critique the shamanic. So I think I would actually, I think the book would question an impulse to deem some societies as shamanic and some not so. Because I think there are many manifestations of shamanic energies and shamanic desires in the West. And I think that's most trivially something like neo-shamanism, but then also I think like a lot of Pentecostal practice is very shamanic. I mean, it's like a practitioner who's channeling a sky god, speaking in tongues, entering a non-ordinary state, healing. I think if this weren't a tradition, you know, I think if it weren't being described or through the lens of Western observers, then there would be much more eagerness or ease to recognize the deep similarity between that practice and so many others. I think insofar as you want to say, Siberian shamanism is shamanism and certain Amazonian practices are shamanism and Korean shamanism is shamanism. Insofar as you want to include those in some package, then I don't think you can leave out the Hebrew prophets and Pentecostal pastors and, you know, neo-shamanism at Shaman Dome. I think it's very hard to find a justifiable definition that maintains this distinction that people often want to intuitively draw.

Susana: Yeah, I get that. I see the value in what you're trying to do in that way. And on the other hand, too, like, I wonder if you conceive of different paradigms and different epistemologies in different societies. And I think, you know, in some part of your book, you talk about the Western view, you know, and how that has been used also. But, you know, having done quite a bit of fieldwork myself in the topic, you know, I do see a very different stance towards natural world, towards in First Nations and also compared to us, you know, where the relationship is between subject and subject over subject and object, as we have in with the world. And I don't see those differences acknowledged in your proposal.

Manvir: Well, OK, so I mean, I guess two things come to mind. The first is I do think that Western industrialized societies, including in their shamanic practices, do have epistemologies and explanations of misfortune and action that reflect the particular intellectual history from which they're born. So, you know, if you in the book, I talk about a lot of neo-shamanism and what it looks like in a place like the Cambridge Shamanic Circle or Burning Man, where I think there's very interestingly a focus on things like trauma and the mind and emotional healing, which I think reflect a fixation on mental states and mentalism that Western contexts have. At the same time, however, I think the impulse that we sometimes have to say that the West's epistemology is X and the rest of the world or some large swath of humanity has this different epistemology, I think imposes like an unfair, like monolithic singularity on the diversity of understanding, on the diversity of epistemologies, relationships with the other relationships with the supernatural, attempts at healing. And that's like partly one of the big points I want to make in the final chapter on psychedelics. I mean, this is just one example, but I think there can be this tendency, just to use one example, in the psychedelic space to tell the story that's like, well, around the world, people have used psychedelics in this particular way, and they have done so for thousands of years. And the West has lost that, but is tapping into that, which I think is a total mischaracterization of human diversity and the incredibly diverse ways that people have used plants or engaged with hallucinogens or engaged with serotonin-ergic psychedelics in particular, or entered altered states. I think when we tell stories that are like, the West is X and a large swath of humanity is Y, it is reflecting both a kind of Western exceptionalism and like a massive simplification of thousands of ethno-linguistic groups.

Susana: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that you're tapping into our social representations, if I could use that concept of shamanism, our social representations of the West in opposition to other ways. And I think in that way, I totally understand what you're trying to do, though I also see that there are contradictions in that, when I hear you, because for example, there are universals that you're like saying, we're departing all of us from, for example, the need to control what's going to happen. And it's not only that, you just also talk about many other things that come from psychology to understand this. For example, you talk about placebo effect, you talk about use of power and abuse of power, and what are the conditions where that abuse of power can happen. You talk about tricks, you know, you talk about a lot of things that have to do with human universals.

Manvir: Yeah, I mean, so I definitely do invoke, oh, my mistake, universal or ubiquitous human predispositions. I would say that, and you know, I think they're justifiable and maybe others don't, but so like for shamanism, the three that I really emphasize are, one, engaging in practices to deal with uncertain outcomes and controllable outcomes, things that we want control over but cannot. Two, the understanding that there are agents that often oversee outcomes, gods, which is ancestors, but also in some instances, immigrants, the government, you know, just some sense that when misfortune is occurring, it's because of some kind of agent. And then three, the importance of transformation as a way of cultivating power. So these are the three big cognitive building blocks. And yeah, people might push back and they might say, well, I don't think these are universal. You know, I don't think across societies, people think that agents oversee, you know, I don't think we have a predisposition to think that agents are engaged, control or manage uncertain outcomes. I don't think that people have a tendency to engage in practices to control uncertainty, and I would be very glad to be corrected on those regards. So it is true. I definitely invoke them. I would say that the degree of universality and the cultural manifestations that I invoke is much less, though, especially compared to someone like Harner or Eliade, where it's soul journeying to go to an upper world. You have a tripartite cosmology. There's fire. There's flying. I mean, Eliade is like kind of making it up. And I would say, yeah, I'm invoking universals, but I think they're more justifiable and on kind of a safer grounds than the kind of hallucination that I think some scholars sometimes do in trying to smush the world's diversity into a particular frame that they like.

Susana: Yeah, I'm totally with you, you know, in that way of like, even you mentioned something that I always say in classes, you know, when I'm there, like, okay, there are as many shamanisms as shamans are. If we look into that, now again, this is like emphasizing, right, like the fear of the shaman first. And my question about like shamanic societies, which you kind of like entered into from another angle, you know, we can also not dismiss the fact that we do have societies that function differently in that way. And there are many of them, as you just said, you know, so that adds a complexity that I think it's part of the gap of the studies on shamanism thus far that you kind of like tap into, but not go into fully. And I wonder what your thoughts are also, you know, in that regard. You said already certain things, but I wonder in that embracing diversity that you're going towards, you know, how would you approach this?

Manvir: Can you say, approach what exactly? Can you just say it once more?

Susana: The diversity of societies, you know, or cultures that in which a shaman is nestled. So it's, you know, the study of that and how to approach it so that we can understand this phenomenon in broader ways than just focusing on the fear of the shaman.

Manvir: Yeah, well, I would also say, I don't know if you're saying this, but I don't think fear is like the main emotion or form of engagement necessarily with shamans across many, many cultures. But so you're saying like how the social contextualizing of the shaman, you're saying like, how would I think more about that?

Susana: Exactly. When it be that, you know, certain cultures in their way of looking at life and approaching life are like meeting certain specialists, like we need, you know, and you're very clear in saying that shamans are not just healers, right? They're not just doctoring, they perform many other different functions in their society.

Manvir: Yeah, I mean, this is something I really tussled with in my own field work. You know, so I get to Mentawai, I see, I start to see the shamanic practices and see the shamans in the society and immediately I'm trying to understand what is the analog? Are these like doctors? Are these like priests? Are these mediators? Are these performers? I mean, they do live at the nexus. This was one thing that really made me so struck that first summer is that not only are these individuals like among the Mentawai in Indonesia where I've worked, not only are they very conspicuous and noticeably different from other individuals, I mean, they're tattooed, they still wear the loin cloth, they have long hair, they paint their bodies in turmeric, they put leaves on themselves when they go to ceremonies, they put on these necklaces. And all of that is understood as a way of making them very beautiful, but then they also live at the nexus of so many social domains. I mean, you know, they're healers, they're mediators, they're performers who are alone permitted to do some of these really beautiful dances. Of course, they're very central in medicinal life. But then I'll say, so I'll say, within the Mentawai context, you know, my general guess of what's going on or the way that I currently understand it is that they are foremost healers. I mean, that's like the main way that people engage with them. But the way that they become healers is they become like mediators with the divine and that has repercussions and implications in so many other contexts. But other contexts where I visited shamans or studied shamans, it's been contextualized very differently. So I also write about this Buta Kola institution that you have in southern India. And my wife's family is from Mangalore. And so we went to some of these Buta Kola ceremonies where there's a medium and then they dance and then they're possessed. And these ceremonies can look very, very different. Some are huge parties, some are very small ceremonies. And one of the ones I write about in the book was a low caste individual, someone who is normally it was a Brahmin family of Brahmins. And they called him this low caste shaman, shaman medium. And then he became possessed. And I would say the way he exists within that society is very different from how the Sekere exists. Now, of course, in the shamanic ceremony, they are both, I mean, they're doing actually pretty different things. With the Mentawai, it's overwhelmingly healing. In this ceremony, he was doing overwhelmingly divination. He was helping the family understand what will happen with the children's education and stuff. The main thing I remember is like how all the kids do in school. I don't remember the other things. But then outside of the ceremony and even what it looks like in the ceremony, I mean, in the ceremony, he becomes the vessel of a god, the Sekere, calling souls and spirits to the dance floor. But outside of the ceremony, they exist very differently in these societies. And so again, these are just two examples. We can talk about it for much longer. But I would say that engaging with the ethnography through my own fieldwork, the overwhelming lesson is one of diversity. I mean, I do think very critical is this idea of transformation, of otherness, and through otherness, power, and a kind of supernatural credibility. But apart from that, the way that they exist in these societies, I think, is incredibly varied. And so I would actually be very careful about talking about shamanic societies and shamanic contexts.

Susana: That leads to this question that I had from the beginning, Manvir, which was, it looks like when you talk and also in the book, as if you were taking an outsider's perspective, as if you were observing from a Western perspective shamanism. And you even say that kind of the equation of the spirits and the management of spirit is not part of how you're approaching shamanism. When there should be a core issue within it, and you state that in your own definition. But there is an outsider's perspective. And I want to ask you, how would you define your positionality as a researcher?

Manvir: Well, so I would say it has been very varied. So the anthropological position or anthropological method is often described as participant observation, where you are participant, but you always have that observer nature. And of course, different field workers or anthropologists vary in the extent to which they're observers versus participants. But I would say it's really changed and moved in a lot of ways throughout the last decade. So since I've started going to the Mentawai, with the Mentawai, it's very much like an anthropologist. Interviews, I attend the ceremonies and in the book I even talk about, during the ceremonies, I end the book on this, I feel this invitation sometimes, as everyone around is entering trance, I feel this invitation to enter trance. I feel like I described it as almost like there's an invitation to jump into a pool of water. And I stopped myself for a number of reasons. But in different contexts, I've tried to or allowed myself to engage to different degrees. So I went to a neo-shamanic circle during grad school. And with one of these groups at the border of Venezuela and Colombia, I have at least, when offered, taken some of the, I've taken Yopo, this vehicle for achieving non-ordinary states and engaged with it. I've really tried to, to the extent that I have felt comfortable and the opportunities have felt reasonable. Also, you know, experience these states to some degree. And something that I write about in the book, I don't know the extent to which it's so big, is I think the entire project of actually studying shamanism has made me think about the importance of belief at least for participation in the ceremony. And I guess it's that some of these ceremonies, I am incredibly affected. And I talk about some examples. And I think in those moments, if you ask me, Manvir, do you believe, I would, you know, I'm kind of a natural, like empiricist skeptic, but also, you know, who knows anything about reality? Like ultimately, I really don't want to make claims about anything that's going on, but I think it's very hard to know. But insofar as I think that we can test, you know, I kind of trust the testing. To a small degree. But if you ask me in some of these ceremonies and you zoomed in, Manvir, do you believe in everything that's being metaphysically invoked? I would potentially have said no, but I also in some of those moments felt like that was orthogonal and like it was the experience that was really, really kind of very important. And I think more generally, like, you know, I have this complicated relationship between Western exceptionalism, where I think it's very valuable to understand the biases and worldviews that we come in with from a particular intellectual tradition. And at the same time, I want to be aware of tendencies to draw too stark distinctions. But one thing that I do think the West does a lot or the Western intellectual tradition does a lot is it really focuses on belief and faith. Do you believe or do you not believe? And it thinks of belief as the driver of many things. You engage in rituals to the extent that you believe in them. You are healed by rituals to the extent that you believe in them. And working on the book made me start to think that in many cases, I think belief is less important than maybe I had given it credit. Does that answer your question?

Susana: In what way?

Manvir: That I think belief is less important for do rituals impact you? Do ceremonies shape you? Do you participate in them? I think we engage in rituals. So whether we're talking about just the experience of being shaped by one, but also all kinds of outcomes, like how often do you rely on particular rituals? Or are you affected by the placebo effect? My whole engagement with this literature has made me think that I think we have emphasized belief too much. I mean, one example, there are a bunch of examples I've read about in the book, but one is this whole literature on the placebo effect. Or I think historically there was this big sense of like you were affected by the placebo effect in so far as you believe or have an expectation. Now there's been this whole literature that shows that actually you can induce alleviations of pain, alleviations of fatigue, even in the absence of belief or expectation. And what often seems to be a bigger driver is, is there empathy and how immersive is the ceremony? We find that sham surgery produces better effects than topical ointments, which produce better effects than sugar pills. And the story over there from that literature, just to choose one of several, seems to be that immersiveness, empathy, experience are often big drivers of responses.

Susana: And when I hear you talking about belief, what do I believe? And when we're talking about religion as opposed to immersive experiences, don't you believe? Don't you think that that's kind of one of the main differences between religion, right? Institutions, religious institutions and shamanism itself. When we're talking about that thing of that border between shamanism and religion.

Manvir: I don't know. So, you know, I'm not an expert in Judaism, but the researcher who has done a lot of work on placebo, Ted Kapschuk, actually thinks this is a difference that you find very profoundly just between Christianity and Judaism, where Judaism is like you engage in the ritual and like I think it's like praxis more than I forget the word for belief. And Christianity is something much more centered around faith. So I don't even know if I would want to say it's religion versus something else. I would maybe want to say that certain intellectual traditions really emphasize belief.

Susana: I want to quote something here. If you both read a little thing. And again, I'm just like very curious about like this skepticism of yours, you know, and really appreciating how that skepticism has allowed you to look into other aspects of this that have not been studied. Though what I understand is that you have more like an kind of like an etic perspective than an emic perspective. If I would use those terms in terms of like really going into the phenomenon from the actors themselves rather than observing them, if I understand correctly.

Manvir: Yeah, I mean, maybe it's both, you know, trying to understand it from the participants perspective. But also, of course, I have my own observer's mindset and frameworks and whatever.

Susana: So I'm just going to bring up the exclusion, you know, of the spiritual in some way or like wanting to go there that you put here. You know, to make it clear and you start with saying, “To be clear. I'm open to the idea that invisible agents exist. I take seriously the proposition that we know next to nothing about reality, that for all we know, our universe is a tiny speck on the outer membrane of a cosmic, unfathomably complex, many dimensional cephalopod like being or that we inhabit a simulation or that it’s turtles all the way down. Yet, there are good reasons to conclude that shamans do not engage with invisible forces and provide services through that engagement. The most compelling, I think, is that no one has conclusively demonstrated those powers even when there are huge monetary incentives.” Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

Manvir: Yeah, so then the ensuing section about after that is about the many attempts that have been made over the 20th century for individuals to demonstrate these kinds of abilities and powers. So I talk about Abraham Kovor's competition or many year evaluation in India. I talk about the amazing Randy. I talk about Scientific American. All of these being circumstances where individuals were invited to demonstrate engagement with unseen elements or other kind of paranormal abilities under controlled settings. What those have found have been a lot of fraudery and charlatanism. Not that I think, you know, I don't think that those are necessarily super. I think the nature of charlatanism is very complicated. But the point is just that, you know, currently, I think there are up to a million dollars that you can reap by demonstrating these kinds of abilities. And if someone, you know, you could go engage in that, you can get those million dollars and you can give that to, you know, starving children in a Bangladeshi village or, you know, whatever. You could go to Indonesia and by deworming whatever for a million people and deworm them for a year. I think there are profound things that someone could do by winning these competitions and demonstrating these abilities. And yet they haven't. And so on that basis, that just makes me more skeptical.

Susana: Yeah, I see that. I see also your scientific mind wanting demonstration, right? Like of these things, not only yours, but also in many, you know, by many others. Yeah, in that way. And I wonder, you know, why would those not have been demonstrated? What is it in the sacred? And I just, you know, I don't hear much of the sacred in your book. Like needs to be not talked about.

Manvir: You're saying the sacred would not have to be talked about.

Susana: Maybe there is, there are aspects that are not needed to be open. I don't know about your encounters in the different societies about what is shared and what is not.

Manvir: Well, I think it's been variable. I mean, there's something, there's like some hidden knowledge. I mean, my sense, though, is that like. I don't think it's like monolithically dictated or tabooed for individuals to demonstrate these kinds of powers and controlled settings, especially if you can reap a million dollars and use it to help your community get out of, you know, you can build like a small school.

Susana: That sounds more to me like kind of like showing psychic powers in order to get something material in this case.

Manvir: I guess an answer to the question is that I have not in my own fieldwork and in my engagement with the ethnography, it has not, I have not come away with the impression that all societies have a singularly view, a singularly non instrumental view of the sacred. After all, I mean, in many societies, shamans sell their services to other individuals for money. I mean, you know, there are many, a lot of shamanic practice is, I mean, you come to me, I address some of your illness and then I am paid either through explicit monetary incentives. Sometimes it's very different. I mean, in mentality, there's also sharing, you know, you kill an animal and then we feast together. But there are many contexts in which there is it is a monetized service and there is explicitly a market and there's an evaluation of different individuals. And they're evaluated on their their abilities. And so again, I don't think there's like a monolithically tabooed nature of these kinds of practices that would preclude them from engaging in these kinds of settings.

Susana: That sounded like very much like a business exchange, you know, the way that you just said it. You know, I would bring a concept like reciprocity, you know, that are being used nowadays as well. Right.

Manvir: For sure. Korean shamanism. There are 200,000 Korean shamans. And I think reciprocity is important in some of those contexts, but there are many that explicitly work as businesses.

Susana: And do you make distinctions there or is it just like all of them put in the same bag?

Manvir: Well, I think that like the nature of the relationship can be varied, but I do see a lot of them as happening in a context where the shaman is providing something that a client or a community or themselves need. So I see it at least as a relationship where they're providing a kind of service. How that's contextualized can again vary.

Susana: That changes a little bit the tone, you know, from a business exchange into a service. And I think that probably there are like many differences that we can see, as you will say, in different cultures and within the same culture itself, different layers and degrees, you know, of the services provided by different types of shaman.

Manvir: For sure.

Susana: Call it shaman.

Manvir: In the book I use the, for the definition, I use the term service. And so that is foremost how I think about it. But I do, I mean, honestly, like being in Mentawai, if anything, I have been struck sometimes, I think it's a complicated dimension in some instances, and we can talk about that. Both how it is they are gauged as service providers, but with the complexities of a reciprocal relationship. And so I can tell you, I don't know if I write about this in the book, but it's very, people will not explicitly say publicly, I chose this sikerei because they are very good. You know, if you ask someone, why did you choose the sikerei, they'll say, oh, this is my cousin's, you know, wife's brother or something. They will often use relational networks. But then in private, they will say, oh, and even if, as you, you know, as I did, I collected data on who are the sikerei that people visit, and it's overwhelmingly one guy. He does 30% of the ceremonies after him. It's someone who does about 15, and then everyone else does like two or 3%. And it's because he is overwhelmingly regarded as the most effective and he's an interesting individual. He doesn't tattoo himself. He doesn't cut his hair. He wears a loin cloth, but he also wears t-shirts. So he like defies actually at many of the cultural indicators of a sikerei. But so in private, they will tell you, I chose him because he's very good. In public, they don't. And that's because it's in a relational context and they don't want other people to feel beefed or looked over. And they don't want to lose the opportunity to seek them out when they when they see them. And so I guess the point is that I do think there's a big relational dimension, but I think there is also a way in which individuals are evaluating service providers. And I think a complexity is having to reconcile both of those.

Susana: Uh huh.

Manvir: At least in some context.

Susana: This is very interesting. I would love to continue in that line of discussion as well. We are having like we're coming to our end here. And I am curious about you mentioned neo-shamanism in the West, right? And I. My question to you is like, what are culturally shaped characteristics that distinguish this movement from shamanic-oriented cultures around the world? Again, I'm making that distinction that you don't you want to avoid, right? But neo-shamanism is basically like a phenomenon that is has been appearing strongly here, right? And are there specific cultural needs that neo-shamanism is addressing?

Manvir: Yeah, for sure.

Susana: And.

Manvir: Yeah.

Susana: Yeah. OK. I'm just going to stop there because I have also questions about appropriation and commodification.

Manvir: Yes, for sure. So I would say like some of the things that makes some of the things that make neo-shamanism pretty particular in a comparative perspective. One is that it's informed by the academic study of shamanism. I mean, neo-shamanism, like I said, is very much influenced by Harner, who is very much influenced by Eliade. And that makes it kind of peculiar in a cross-cultural, cross-cultural comparative lens. And then, of course, the practice of neo-shamanism, which like if you talk to individuals, they will say that they draw on many traditions. But overwhelmingly, you find an emphasis on soul journeying and you find often animal familiars. You find going into an upper world or a lower world, which are particular manifestations or understandings, which then I think derive from the academic study. Another thing is that it's my perception that neo-shamanism, and we talked a little bit about this, often really centers with the mind or engages with the mind. And it does that in two ways. So one, the models of affliction and ailment and misfortune that are invoked are often pretty mentalistic. So it might be like when you suffer trauma, the trauma is manifested in a particular way. And we will journey together and we will remove the trauma. Or people might go to the neo-shaman because they feel depressed or they feel anxious or they lack a sense of meaning. And these are very familiar narratives or models of illness, especially in the 21st century West. And these are also very kinds of like afflictions that I think are very salient to individuals in the 21st century West. So like essentially psychodynamic or mentalistic models of misfortune and illness and then experiencing distress in this very mentalistic way. And so I would say that those, I think, are very salient features of neo-shamanism. I think when neo-shamans talk about the difference between neo-shamanism and shamanism, they will talk about things like the community chooses you in traditional shamanism and the individual elects themselves in neo-shamanism or initiatory illness works in a specific way in traditional shamanism and a different way in neo-shamanism. And again, like with those, I am less satisfied with those because I feel like they smush the diversity of traditions into this kind of singular mold. When in fact, I think there's a lot more variety than they are often invoking.

Susana: In your experience, have you seen initiatory illnesses? What are the ways in which neo-shamans become neo-shamans? Are there differences with shamanism? With other? Yeah. Those things that we don't call neo-shamanism, right? There's other things. I don't want to make the divisions again, following your lead that way. But yeah, how do people become neo-shamans?

Manvir: So neo-shamanism, you're saying how do people? Well, I don't know, like a systematic examination. I can only just share some of my impressions from talking to people. But I think it's like you become curious. You might go to an ayahuasca ceremony and then it really resonates. And then you might go to another one or you might do a training. You might do the core shamanism. You might go to shamanism.org. You might look up all of the workshops. You might do a first workshop and then you might do a Finding Your Soul Animal. And then through that, you might develop a particular relationship with soul journeying. I mean, maybe you will have had, maybe you will have really gone through something profoundly difficult. You will have maybe had an addiction or you will have had a really bad trauma. And you would have found some resonance or attraction or invitation in nature or in the spirits that you experience in nature and then find ways of engaging with those. Or you might find ways of engaging with the practices of indigenous peoples in the Americas. You might go to particular ceremonies that really resonate and then that builds an interest. I think it can be very varied, but I think in many cases...

Susana: It's a personal calling.

Manvire: Yeah, I think in many ways it's a very personal experience.

Susana: Do we see differences in the way that other cultures receive shaman or there are initiations in this way, in this direction? Yeah, you get the question.

Manvir: Yeah, again, I think it's so varied. I mean, even among the Mentawai, it's incredibly varied. It's like you have initiatory illness where an individual is very, very sick and you try all kinds of ways of dealing with it and they don't work. And then the sikerei are like, okay, I think this individual's spirit wants to be a sikerei, and so we will try to initiate them. Or you can have the child of a sikerei who is often possessed. And there's some sense like, okay, the spirits are moving to this individual. Or you can have an individual who has just been very good at amassing pigs. And then they decide, I want to be a sikerei. And then they get a teacher and they pay the teacher with a very particular amount of payment and then they hold a number of ceremonies. So I think even with the Mentawai, I find a lot of variety. And some of it is kind of based on a lineage or how people are understanding your illness. But I also see in some instances a more personal motivation or calling. I would say, I'm sure just because of how individualistic and the lesser importance of kinship structures and corporate groups in the West that I'm sure personal calling is much more important over here. And personal interest.

Susana: Then for example, being recognized or acknowledged as somebody who has certain things and you need to be trained.

Manvir: Yeah, but I mean, I'm sure there are some neo-shaman who are in communities where other people say, oh, I can really recognize some kind of neo-shamanic, I can recognize some shamanic ability in you. But I would guess nevertheless, I mean, it seems to be your intuition or impression that personal calling is more important in this.

Susana: In neo-shamanism as well. Now coming to psychotropic plants and shamanism, which you also cover. Do you see any differences between shamanic practices that use psychotropic plants and those that don't besides the obvious of course?

Manvir: Yeah, I mean, one thing that I really had an appreciation for in the little work that I've done in Colombia with some of these groups that use Yopo is the strong mystical tradition in those contexts, both among shamans but also among non-shaman. So like, I've been visiting the Piedoa who are on the border of Venezuela and Colombia. And over there, I have been really struck by, yeah, I mean, they have this tradition where there are apprenticeships between individuals who want to cultivate wisdom and these shamans. And there is a very, very strong mystical practice and mystical understanding and mystical relationship with nature. And that I was really struck by. I mean, I haven't done like a more comparative project. I mean, I think that's just anecdotal and impressionistic. But I wonder if like, essentially having these kinds of states being both so profound and somewhat accessible allows for a stronger mysticism or mystical tradition. I just wonder, you know.

Susana: Okay. So here, you know, we could say also that in this culture, it's more egalitarian, the access to the other state, right? And that's not the case in that way because the substance is shared. That doesn't mean necessarily, right, that the shamanic trance that the shaman has, if we call him shaman, you know, they have different names and different cultures. You know, it's the same as the clients and the participants.

Manvir: For sure, for sure.

Susana: Yeah. And I think that that's also part of like what is not being studied that needs to be looked into, right? If, yeah, if there is openness, of course, to study those ones that have the trance.

Manvir: Yeah. I think that's part of the book, which I was also very much, I kind of experienced firsthand is just how much these shamans and their apprentices have really cultivated the ability to engage with these plants in a really profound way. So like I talk about when I took Yopo and, you know, they gave us instructions and contextualized it and I was on the floor vomiting on myself and I had nasal discharge all over my face. And then the shaman’s apprentice also took Yopo with us and for the entire half an hour was just still, utterly still, sitting there. And it was really, really striking. There's a clear cultivation of the ability to understand and manage these very powerful states that I found really impressive.

Susana: I have a last question for you. I know that the people that are listening to this are very interested in shamanism. Maybe personally, maybe like they are like in offering services of sorts, of the sort, you know, maybe they are a client, you know. And is there anything you could suggest to our audience that could be helpful to them as clients or studious people in the field? How do they approach? Yeah, that could be helpful in terms of like their understanding of this, their way of approaching the practices. Like after everything that you have studied and seeing also that not only our audience, but also there is a whole group of people going to South America, for example. And studying there, having experiences there, or I don't know, going to Gabon, going to the Wicholl people. What would be like a good word for these people from your perspective?

Manvir: I have so many, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts in particular about people who go and visit particular communities. I mean, so one, okay, there are a lot of thoughts, but one thing is that, and I talk about this a bunch in that chapter on psychedelics, is that, and I'm sure everyone is very well aware of this, but that a lot of these societies have built kind of dual discourses about these medicines or these experiences, or they are dual streams of worlds where, you know, I mean, so I read about the experience of this person, Brabe Demori, who some of your viewers might know about. He was an Austrian musicologist. He went to live with the Shippibo and study their music and ended up living with them, married a Shippibo woman, and discovered, he uses this word, this dual discourse around ayahuasca, where anthropologists are a kind of tourist, and anthropologists and tourists are shown one world and told one thing, and then among the Shippibo themselves, they have a very different understanding and a very different narrative. That, I mean. He's written about this elsewhere, but I mean, there are many differences between these worlds and these discourses, but one of them is the extent to which the experience, the practitioner, and the plant are whitewashed, and that's where ayahuasca is treated as singularly positive, that the experience is branded and presented as singularly good, that the shaman is presented as singularly helpful, when in fact, these powerful substances and the practitioners working with them work in much more morally complicated worlds that involve sorcery, protection against it, that involve darkness just as much as they involve light and healing. So that is one thing that comes to mind, that a lot of the narratives that are spread around more popularly, including in the kinds of spaces that often are geared to Westerners, present a very particular manicured vision of them. I'm sure many of your viewers are super thoughtful of that, but I think that's something to more generally be thoughtful of. I mean, people even write about how some of these places that really geared to outsiders actively keep out local healers or shamans because they have a worldview that is often very much in conflict with what tourists want or what makes the ceremony most appealing to them.

Susana: Yeah, that’s really. Thank you for that. I think that also what Bern-Rabec de Mori brings up is the question about what is even shared with us as researchers. It's not just anybody, it's also what does the researcher want to hear.

Manvir: Definitely. Definitely. I love his line that anthropologists are thought of as a category of tourists. I think it's an important, I mean, I included in the book partly because the book is written by an anthropologist and I think, of course, everything I say, it comes back to your question about positionality, but it's all through the lens of an important first mediated relationship.

Susana: Manvir, I think that we have covered quite a bit today. I'm very grateful for all the study that you've done and all the things that you have put together in this, not only this book, this has been something that has involved you as a person and field work, you know, and has, I imagine also transformed you in some ways. And I think that you talk about the challenges a little bit about the transformations in the book that you yourself like went through.

Manvir: Yeah, no, it was. Thank you so much for taking this time, Susana. Your questions were so thoughtful. You like clearly engaged so thoughtfully with the material and I am deeply appreciated, deeply appreciative of that, but also like incredibly honored. So thank you.

Susana: Thank you so, so much. So I really love your cognitive anthropological approach. You know, I just wanted to say that and yeah, really appreciate the richness that can come from not romanticizing, you know. I'm not just gonna say that that's not valuable and that there are many other ways, right? But this specific approach of you, I think it gives us a different angle that we need to consider.

Manvir: Thanks so much.

Susana: All right, good night.

Manvir: Good night.  

Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

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