The Way of the Shaman Quotes

“Incidentally, no matter how fierce a guardian animal spirit may seem, its possessor is in no danger because the power animal is absolutely harmless. It is only a source of power; it has no aggressive intentions. It only comes to you because you need help.”
― Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman: The Classic Resource on Shamanism

“Keep in mind that no matter how successful you were in dancing your animal, that in itself is not proof that you still have its power. You may only be dancing a memory. A successful experience does suggest, however, that you may have at least had such a guardian spirit in the past, if not now. The dancing itself, however, is no proof in itself, one way or another.”
― Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman: The Classic Resource on Shamanism

“Without a guardian spirit it is virtually impossible to be a shaman, for the shaman must have this strong, basic power source in order to cope with and master the nonordinary or spiritual powers whose existence and actions are normally hidden from humans. The guardian spirit is often a power animal, a spiritual being that not only protects and serves the shaman, but becomes another identity or alter ego for him.”
― Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman

“A shaman is a man or woman who enters an altered state of consciousness—at will—to contact and utilize an ordinarily hidden reality in order to acquire knowledge, power, and to help other persons. The shaman has at least one, and usually more, “spirits” in his personal service.”
― Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman

“Anthropologists teach others to try to avoid the pitfalls of ethnocentrism by learning to understand a culture in terms of its own assumptions about reality. Western shamans can do a similar service with regard to cognicentrism. The anthropologists’ lesson is called cultural relativism. What Western shamans can try to create, to some degree, is cognitive relativism.”
― Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman: The Classic Resource on Shamanism