When I had begun feel attunement to shamanic-animistic ways, I knew that a reliable guide would be hard to find. Regarding this, there are many strange and magical accounts in New age literature and people that treat this stuff evangelically. Particularly, in order to survive, modern Native Americans had found a way to merchandize their symbols, petroglyphs and other features of their culture during mid-70s; and it occurs to me that the emergent American New Agers took these cultural products and reintroduced to society in an ok-inspiring but superficial way.
While in Lakota culture, for example, eagle is often the most brilliant representation of Wakan Tanka and the myths were created in such a way that tribal members could enjoy the “wildness” within by directly interacting with pristine nature. Rituals, such as chanting (a kind of intuitive prana exercise), are also complementary to solidfy one’s soul identity and attribution of an animal or phenomenon to his/her present self. In that way, this group enjoys an embodied reality with dances and chantings that are by no means silly or unmeaningful. In times of need, medicine men (shamans) are both psychotherapists and physiotherapist; however, in their practice, they retain the myths in order to offer a capacity to beat an illness by transcending reality. Sometimes, medicine men summon a power animal, and often medicine men are accustomed to live on the thin line between conscious world and unconscious world. It is not because they are delirious, but because they are extremely sensitive people and their tribes appoint them as shamans accordingly.
Now this stuff seems to be the real deal and additionally, Leslie Gray’s (a shamanic healer and a professional clinical psychologist) studies are contributing this. However, she told me that getting in contact with traditional medicine men is hard since Native Americans have trust issues. One reason is historical - distrust to white men. And the other reason, as it is tied to first reason, is New Agey people.
It is New Agey people who take this knowledge, give nothing back, and go on writing silly books about Native American crystals, dreamcatchers and so on. They keep the original cultural base, however, they twist everything, when they start interpreting things in such a way that, on the 5th page of any New Age book, there begins a section about chakras. The next section will probably be on crystal powers, and the next one is a mind healing or tibetan astrology, or even Annunnaki or Nibiruans. Its all perpetuated syncretism with a sheer number of speculation. America is full of them, and unbelievable that is, this is more than a billion dollar publishing industry!!!
Now the bottom of line is, this works in creating peaceful communities. Yet there is a catch: that is, if you take the authentic, say, Lakota culture and superficially reinterpret it in a book, people start believing in the New Age version. Because the authentic version is transmitted via oral storytelling, and writing once again bests the oral communication.
So in a sense, the obsessive-compulsive New Age subculture, rather than reinvigorating, devolves authentic rituals and customs. Yet, they get results in the name of peace. So, perhaps, this is how it’s supposed to be from now on. Silly, yes, but peaceful, leastways on the surface. Some people gradually overcome this and become seeker of authentic traditions, such as our friend Surya Deva here, for he mentioned of his previous self - and his change from New Age to radical Hinduism.
