The Shaman's Body: A New Shamanism for Transforming Health, Relationships, and the Community

The Shaman's Body: A New Shamanism for Transforming Health, Relat...

Category: (Book)

25 new, starting at $7.66

33 used, starting at $4.44

Buy Now

Editorial Reviews

A thoroughly revised edition of the much-sought-after early work by Terence and Dennis McKenna that looks at shamanism, altered states of consciousness, and the organic unity of the King Wen sequence of the I Ching.

Customer Reviews

Dreambodies for bliss bunnies

Reviewed by kaioatey, 2010-02-08

First there was Robert Reich, a pioneering genius who was essentially ignored and whose books were burned at the stake. Then in 1950ies Eugene Gendlin and Carl Rogers had a great realization: our body is a repository of our dreams, potentials and the only way to healing the mind is to unlock the body, to touch its 'felt sense'. Then there was silence in the psychotherapeutic community............. a silence that always occurs when people see someone has figured something out. And then, suddenly, EVERYBODY and their mother jumped and somatic psychotherapy was born. Embodiment of the mind was addressed from every imaginable angle - neurophenomenology (Varela), mindfulness/Taoism (Kurtz & Hakomi), movement (Feldenkreis), countless forms of Gestalt, somatic experiencing etc. And during the post-Castanedian 80ies, Arnold Mindell jumps on the stage with his own angle, that of shamanism, the "dreambody" and "process work".

The dreambody is a place where the unconscious meets the conscious, where dreams & reflections encounter bodily states. By listening to one we get access to the other, and vice versa. It is essentially the same thing that had been taught previously by Gendlin, Reich and before them Pythagoras and the Buddha. And, of course, native peoples, who couch the 'dreambody' layer in mythological terms and who together with Carlos Castaneda, and unlike Gendlin & Reich :), are credited in this book as Mindell's teachers. According to Mindell, the dreambody is where shamanic work takes place as the 'shaman' steps out of linear, mental space and directs his/her awareness to the body, to feelings and to their Intent.

Mindell explains the dreambody's significance well. He understands what it is is about:

"There are times when you are alone in nature and feel united with the environment. You feel the world around you as if it were a body part or a partner, sending messages of agreements or disagreements, pleasure and stress. This sense is crucial if you need to fish or hunt to eat.... When the world speaks to you, it is impossible to tell whether the world is doing things to you or you are doing things to it.

As you live, you confront your mythical attackers in many forms until you change the way in which you define yourself. It seems sometimes as if you have just one central lesson to learn: to continuously drop all sorts of rigid identities"

He provides a number of useful exercises and forms derived from Jungian active imagination. He tells us to look for a Castanedian "ally" in spontaneous dance or movement or in disturbing thoughts or feelings. How to store the body energy and power by noticing unpredictable, subtle body feelings and follow them instead of throwing them away. If you follow the body it is your ally - otherwise it is an opponent in need of healing, of recovering its lost pieces of the soul. If the case studies described in the book are true, Mindell is also a talented if not brilliant and highly intuitive therapist who has cultivated his own dreambody to the point at which he can suffuse it with awareness. And to trust spontaneity and his own hunches to provide answers. Which is a good thing.

I can't help but to also lay out a few things that irritated me. As i said earlier, Mindell is very bad at crediting his predecessors and perceived competitors (such as Gendlin), the very people who actually discovered the body-mind-imagination connection that he uses in his work. On the other hand, there is lots of name dropping which follows the well known (rigid :) formula used by people who tour the New Age workshop/seminar circle. If you haven't discovered anything by yourself, the next best thing is to go and spend a few days with some Africans or maybe Aboriginess, or Native Americans, and call them your "teachers". Presto, instant credibility with no responsibilities - no need to study and understand what these people actually do and mean. The book itself is remarkably superficial. Once he gets the "dreambody" concept out of the way, Mindell is left with nothing left to say. So he leaves us with scores of case studies (all of which, of course, are a paean to the man's brilliance) and a lazy interpretation of Castaneda's ideas. While the majority of concepts in this book appear to be direct translations of Castanedian terms into Mindellian psychotherapy there is, to me, a notable disconnect between much of what Carlos was about and what Mindell believes Castaneda's terms mean. For example, I doubt sorcery for CC was a game of active imagination. At times, there is a willful misinterpretation of Buddhism and Taoism so that M. can underscore the significance of his New Shamanism. And so on.

Nonetheless. This is a readable book that may persuade some people to pay attention to their bodies and dreams (although i suspect that people who pick up this book are already believers). To work with the netherworld existing between the body and the dreamworld can only bring rewards. We should be grateful to anyone trying to remind us of our bodies, trying to get us closer to the beckoning that tantalizes and frustrates... ever so elusive, ever so attractive, ever so far away.

Great book on the subject

Reviewed by a., 2009-10-15

This is one of the best books I've found on the subject of shamanism as it might be applied to a modern western person's life, rather than as a history of shamanism in older societies. It's fine for beginners as well as those with some background. Both clear and in-depth.

This-This is the New You

Reviewed by Voice in the Wilderness, 2009-06-02

I first read this book a decade ago and at that time I knew that I had just read some of the most deep, profound thoughts that I may ever come acrost. Even if I didn't completely understand the body of knowledge that the author meant as a whole, I was forever changed by reading of the "Dreaming Body" and by my newfound awareness of hands-on techniques to merge this dreaming body with my actual body. An example in my own words: Imagine in your mind the 'you' that is the best 'you' to which you can possibly dream up, see yourself as confident, strong, humorous, whatever you'd like to imagine yourself as. And then act out what you imagined in your real life and in real public situations. What do you have to lose by trying it?

There are books on Shamanism out there that I feel require extensive knowledge of plants in order to understand: Harner's Way of the Shaman, Castaneda's first two books, McKenna's Food of the Gods and True Hallucinations, etc. But this book is different. I recommend The Shaman's Body to virtually everybody, especially to people who are feeling very depressed and really are in need of some serious transformational change. This book is unique in that it is particularly compatible, i.e. sound in both a Shamanic sense and in a Western psychotherapeutic sense. Rarely have I stumbled upon such deep understandings of the human psyche. A decade since I first read it, and I still turn to it every morning to get a little something that will positively impact my day and how I conduct myself.

Process oriented book

Reviewed by T. Sutanto, 2007-10-19

When came to process oriented psychology, I will recomended this book. This is a good book about above subject.

A good supplement

Reviewed by Mama Bubba, 2007-01-10

I liked this book. By itself it is probably not the best book if you want to learn shamanic techniques. But it is a good supplement to any learning and practice of shamanism. It is more philosophy then practice, but there are some concrete ideas of how to develop your shamanic abilities.