A Buryat shaman once told an ethnographer that a drum is not a tool. It is a horse. The hide stretched over the frame carries the rider into the lower world. That horse has a name, a lineage, a spirit that must be fed. In a neoshamanic workshop in Berlin, twenty people sit on cushions with identical frame drums bought from a catalog. The drums have no names. The difference between those two drums is the difference between classic shamanism and neoshamanism.
Neoshamanism is a modern, eclectic adaptation of shamanic techniques stripped from their indigenous cultural contexts, while classic shamanism refers to the traditional practices rooted in specific lineages, cosmologies, and initiatory structures. The key difference is not authenticity versus fraud. It is the presence or absence of a living tradition that governs every detail from the drum’s hide to the spirits it summons.
Where the Term “Shaman” Actually Comes From
The word shaman entered Western languages through Russian explorers in the 17th century. It comes from the Evenki (Tungus) word saman, meaning “one who knows.” The Evenki are a Siberian people whose shamans performed healing, divination, and spirit negotiation for the clan. By the time Mircea Eliade published Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy in 1951, the term had already been stretched to cover similar figures across the Americas, the Arctic, and Australia.
Eliade’s book was the first systematic attempt to define shamanism as a universal phenomenon. He focused on the ecstatic journey: the shaman’s soul leaves the body to travel the cosmic axis, the world tree or mountain that connects earth, sky, and underworld. That definition became the foundation for what later scholars and practitioners would call “core shamanism.”
But Eliade worked from texts, not fieldwork. He never sat with a Siberian shaman. His shamanism was a construct, a skeleton of techniques without the flesh of a specific culture. That skeleton is what neoshamanism later dressed in new clothes.
What Classic Shamanism Actually Requires
Classic shamanism is never a solo practice. It belongs to a community. The shaman is chosen, often through an initiatory crisis: a severe illness, a vision, a death-and-rebirth experience that the community recognizes as a call. Among the Sakha (Yakut) of Siberia, the candidate would fall into a trance for days, sometimes weeks, during which the spirits dismembered his body and reassembled it with new bones. He emerged speaking a new language, the language of the spirits.
The tools of classic shamanism are not optional. The drum is made from a specific animal whose spirit agrees to serve. The hide is prepared with prayers, the frame carved from a tree that grew in a sacred place. The shaman’s costume carries iron pendants that clatter like bones, representing the shaman’s skeleton. Each pendant has a spirit. The costume is a map of the cosmos.
Healing in classic shamanism is not a metaphor. When a Sámi noaidi (shaman) performed a soul retrieval, he believed a person’s soul had been stolen by spirits or lost through trauma. He journeyed to retrieve it, fought spirits, bargained, and brought the soul back. The patient recovered because something real was restored.
How Neoshamanism Was Born
Neoshamanism emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, fueled by the counterculture’s hunger for direct spiritual experience outside organized religion. Carlos Castaneda’s books, beginning with The Teachings of Don Juan (1968), presented a fictionalized shamanism that many readers took as fact. Castaneda’s influence was enormous, but his work is now widely considered fabricated.
The more systematic architect of neoshamanism was Michael Harner, an anthropologist who studied with the Shuar and Conibo peoples of the Amazon. In 1980 he published The Way of the Shaman, which distilled what he called “core shamanism”: the techniques of journeying, power animals, and healing that he believed were universal across cultures. Harner founded the Foundation for Shamanic Studies and began teaching workshops in the United States and Europe.
Harner’s core shamanism removed the cultural scaffolding. No need to learn an indigenous language. No need for a community to recognize your calling. No need for years of apprenticeship. The techniques could be learned in a weekend workshop. The drumming was recorded on a cassette tape. The spirits would come if you followed the method.
That is the birth of neoshamanism: a universalized, privatized, commodified version of practices that were never meant to be universal or private.
What the Practices Look Like Side by Side
The differences show up in every detail.
The drum. Classic: made by the shaman or a specialist, consecrated with offerings, used only in ceremony. The Evenki shaman’s drum was often oval, covered with reindeer hide, painted with the world tree. Neoshamanic: mass-produced, bought online, used in group meditations and personal journeying. The hide is cow or goat, the frame plywood. It is a tool, not a horse.
The journey. Classic: the shaman journeys for the community, to heal a specific person, to find lost game, to negotiate with spirits. The journey is dangerous. Spirits can attack, deceive, or refuse to let the shaman return. Neoshamanic: the journey is for personal growth, self-discovery, or stress relief. The lower world is a safe space. If a spirit seems threatening, the practitioner is told to call on a power animal for protection. The stakes are lower.
The spirits. Classic: spirits are independent beings with their own agendas. They must be fed, honored, and sometimes fought. The shaman has a relationship with each one, built over years. Neoshamanic: spirits are often seen as aspects of the self, archetypes, or guides who are always benevolent. The power animal is a source of strength, not a being that demands reciprocity.
The initiation. Classic: the shaman is chosen by spirits, often against their will. The initiatory crisis is a genuine psychological and physical ordeal. Neoshamanic: initiation is voluntary. You sign up for a workshop. You may receive a “shamanic initiation” in a ceremony that lasts a few hours. The crisis is simulated or absent.
The community. Classic: the shaman serves the tribe. Without a community, there is no shaman. Neoshamanic: the practitioner serves themselves. The community, if any, is a temporary group of fellow seekers. The relationship is transactional: you pay for the workshop, you receive the technique.
The Cultural Appropriation Debate
This is the most charged difference. Classic shamanism belongs to specific peoples: the Sámi, the Evenki, the Navajo, the Shipibo, the Dagara. These traditions have been suppressed by colonialism, forced conversion, and genocide. Neoshamanism often borrows freely from these cultures without permission, context, or compensation.
We do not take a side in every argument. But we note that many indigenous leaders have spoken against the commercialization of their sacred practices. The Sámi have asked non-Sámi to stop using the noaidi drum. The Navajo have requested that outsiders not perform their healing ceremonies. Neoshamanic practitioners sometimes respond that the spirits are universal and that no culture owns the techniques of ecstasy. That debate is not settled.
What is clear: a neoshamanic practitioner who has never met a Sámi reindeer herder is not continuing a Sámi tradition. They are practicing something new, inspired by something old. Whether that is respectful or exploitative depends on the practitioner’s awareness and accountability.
Notable Figures and Texts That Shaped Both
Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) gave the academic definition. His Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy remains the most cited work, though scholars now criticize its universalizing approach.
Michael Harner (1929–2018) created core shamanism. His The Way of the Shaman is the foundational text of neoshamanism. The Foundation for Shamanic Studies continues to train practitioners worldwide.
Sandra Ingerman is a prominent neoshamanic teacher specializing in soul retrieval. Her book Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self (1991) adapted the concept for a Western therapeutic context.
Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) wrote the most influential fictional shamanism. His books sold millions but are now treated as fiction by most scholars.
Terence McKenna (1946–2000) popularized the use of psychedelics for shamanic journeying, particularly psilocybin and DMT. His influence on neoshamanic practice is enormous, though classic shamanism often uses entheogens within strict ritual and dietary frameworks.
Common Misconceptions
“All shamans use drugs.” False. Many classic shamans enter trance through drumming, dancing, fasting, or sleep deprivation. The use of entheogens is specific to certain traditions, particularly in the Amazon and parts of Siberia. Neoshamanic practice often emphasizes psychedelics, but that is a modern emphasis.
“Neoshamanism is fake shamanism.” Not entirely. The techniques of journeying, power animal retrieval, and soul retrieval can produce genuine altered states and healing experiences. The question is whether they are the same as what happens in a traditional context. They are not. But that does not make them worthless.
“Classic shamanism is dead.” It is endangered but not dead. The Sámi noaidi tradition is being revived. The Buryat shamans in Siberia have experienced a resurgence since the fall of the Soviet Union. The Shipibo in Peru continue their healing practices, though now often adapted for tourists. Classic shamanism survives, but it is under pressure from both modernity and neoshamanic appropriation.
“Anyone can be a shaman.” In classic traditions, no. The spirits choose. In neoshamanism, yes. That is the fundamental difference.
FAQ
Is neoshamanism a religion? No. It is a set of techniques without a fixed cosmology, dogma, or community. Practitioners often combine it with other spiritual paths.
Can neoshamanic soul retrieval work? Many practitioners report positive results, but it operates in a therapeutic rather than a traditional framework. It is closer to guided visualization than to the spirit-bargaining of classic shamanism.
Do I need a teacher to practice neoshamanism? Many people learn from books and recordings. But Harner’s Foundation recommends in-person workshops for safety and depth. Classic shamanism requires a teacher and a community.
Is it disrespectful to practice neoshamanism if I am not indigenous? That depends on how you practice. If you borrow openly, acknowledge sources, and avoid claiming indigenous authority, many consider it acceptable. If you pretend to be a shaman in the traditional sense, it is not.
The Drum Is Not the Horse
The Buryat shaman’s drum carried him into the lower world because the spirits recognized it. The neoshamanic drum carries the practitioner into a state of mind. Both can be meaningful. But they are not the same journey.
If you want to understand classic shamanism, start with the cultures that created it. Read the ethnographies. Learn the names of the spirits. If you want to practice neoshamanism, do it with humility, knowing that you are building something new from borrowed pieces. The difference is not a judgment. It is a distinction that matters.
For more on the techniques of journeying and the role of the drum, see our guide to shamanic tools and practices. For the cosmological framework of the world tree and the three worlds, visit the glossary entry on the axis mundi. And for a deeper look at soul retrieval and its modern adaptations, read Soul Retrieval: Traditional and Contemporary Approaches.