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Shamanism, Racism & Cultural Appropriation in a Multicultural World

The worldwide expansion of sacred plant medicine ceremonies beyond their cultural boundaries has been coined a “global shamanic revival”. Increasing numbers of Westerners are traveling to the Amazon, Central America, and Africa to participate in tribal ceremonies, initiations and festivals. This heightened interest in indigenous culture has fueled an indigenous cultural renaissance in the Amazon and elsewhere.

At the forefront of this “Global Shamanic Revival” are Western teachers of shamanism, facilitators of plant medicine ceremonies, and neoshamans. Western participants in these events don feathers and face paint, often applied by the indigenous themselves. Yet underneath this fascination with indigenous culture, the roots of racism, colonialism and cultural appropriation persist. How can Western ceremony facilitators offer and be compensated for their services, without perpetuating colonialism. How can Western practitioners of shamanism embrace indigenous culture, without appropriating it? How can those who walk the path of plant medicine shamanism do so in right relation to the people who are the cultural guardians of these medicine traditions?

Sex, Sacred Medicine & the Psychedelic Patriarchy

Sexual assault and misconduct among shamans has long plagued the plant medicine shamanism community, resulting in prolonged physical and emotional trauma for ceremony participants, rather than healing. But is it “wrong” for a shaman to sleep with a ceremony participant? When do accepted cultural behaviors transgress into sexual addiction and predation? And is it all okay if the participant indeed wants to have sex with the shaman?

Beyond the misconduct of individual shamans & medicine facilitators, how is it possible to address pervasive sexist attitudes in the greater culture? From the Amazon basin to the Psychedelic community, how can men and women address patriarchy and sexual predation in a way where male leaders hold themselves accountable and experience appropriate and meaningful consequences for misconduct, in a way that doesn’t perpetuate victim-shaming or professional pariah-hood for women who speak out?

Leaders in the psychedelic & shamanic community discuss the Importance of a code of ethics in ceremony spaces.