DETAIL FROM A CAVE PAINTING AT LASCAUX, FRANCE, SHOWING A SHAMAN IN TRANCE.
As the Organizer of the Houston Shamanism Meetup group, I was constantly asked to recommend websites on shamanism. Sadly I had not found a site that explained the basics of shamanism and animism.
Many people were new to the whole idea of shamanism. Others had been learning all kinds of things that various people were teaching as shamanism—that really had nothing to do with it.
People were using the same terms in totally different ways—and using different terms for the same things. It was impossible to have a meaningful conversation.
Since our group does a lot of practices that have been rediscovered by anthropologists since Dr. Michael Harner wrote his classic book, The Way of the Shaman, simply referring them to that book was not enough.
I was getting really tired of writing, revising, adding to and printing hand-outs. So I decided to make a website that would explain the basics of animism and shamanism and would link to recommended web sites, books and other resources.
That was in 2007. To build the original Shamanista site, I used old software, and the HTML code was already outdated. This new version is built with WordPress, which allowed me to add a blog and will make it possible to add a discussion forum in the future if people want it.
I hope you enjoy the site. Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions. The WordPress system makes it much easier to update the site.
White Cranes
