Michael Harner
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Michael Harner (born 29 April 1929) is the founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, the formulator of "core shamanism," and one of the primary proponents of neoshamanism. He was trained as an anthropologist, having taught at Yale, Berkeley and at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York City, where he chaired the department.
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[edit] Career
According to Daniel Noel, at Berkley, Harner sat on Carlos Castenada's dissertation committee; Castenada's dissertation was "Sorcery: A Description of the World," which he later published with few changes as Journey to Ixtlan.[1] Susan Grimaldi wrote an article for Shaman's Drum magazine in response to Noel's book.[2] Grimaldi notes that Harner never taught at UCLA where Castenada was a graduate student. Harner's own departure from academic anthropology to become what Daniel Noel termed a "shamanthropologist" came with the publication of The Way of the Shaman as a "how-to" guide for people outside of shamanistic cultures to become "shamans." The Foundation of Shamanic Studies, created in 1985, published more books along these lines, and offers weekend seminars and for-fee classes to the same end.
In the late 70s Harner suggested that the Aztecs had resorted to organized cannibalism on a vast scale to make up for an assumed protein deficiency in the diet, mostly due to lack of any large domesticated animals, a scarcity of game and the lack of plant-based protein. Human sacrifices had indeed been a central aspect of Aztec religion and the theory initially gained some scholarly support. However, since then it has been shown to be based on unfounded or highly speculative assumptions about eating habits, agriculture, nutrition and demographics, making it an entirely unlikely scenario.[3]
[edit] Way of the Shaman
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The Way of the Shaman is one of the early texts in the neoshamanism movement. Like Castenada's novels, provided a mythic context for shamanic practices. Part of the popularity of Harner's book is explained by the fact that, in contrast to so-called hallucinogenic shamanism that was popular with spiritual seekers in the 1960s and the 1970s, "The Way of the Shaman" began to popularize "safe" spiritual techniques based on drumming, rattling and guided meditation. This resonated with the changing spiritual tastes of Western "New Agers." Roger Walsh and Charles S. Grob in an interview with Michael Harner in Higher Wisdom wrote that "What Yogananda did for Hinduism and D. T. Suzuki did for Zen, Michael Harner has done for shamanism, namely bring the tradition and its richness to Western awareness."[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] Bibliography
- Harner, Michael, The Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls (University of California Press 1972)
- Harner, Michael, Hallucinogens and Shamanism (Oxford University Press 1973)
- Harner, Michael, The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing, Harper & Row Publishers, NY 1980
[edit] References
- ^ Noel, Daniel, The Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal Realities, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999.
- ^ http://www.susangrimaldi.com/docs/harner.pdf Observations on Daniel Noel's The Soul of Shamanism: A Defense of Contemporary Shamanism and Michael Harner. Retrieved April 27, 2008
- ^ Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard R. (1990) Aztec medicine, health, and nutrition. ISBN 0-8135-1562-9. p 85-86
- ^ Higher Wisdom, Roger Walsh and Charles S. Grob, eds. Albany: State University of New York Press. 2005.
