On Shamanism

Shamanism has been lurking in the background of our discussions since day one, and our “jingle” is just one of us playing a shaman drum. It was high time we had an episode on it.

What is a shaman? We follow Manvir Singh in boiling it down to people who 1) enter non-ordinary states and then 2) engage with unseen realities to 3) provide a service to their community. They have long served an important role in community helping their fellow humans deal with uncertainty, and as a result crop up in pretty much every human society at some point. They tend to lead very different lifestyles to the rest of their community, othering themselves.

Is it a LARP, or do the shamans actually believe what they’re doing? It’s hard to tell, probably a bit of both. They know they’re performing a role, and the better their performance, the more they consci ...