The most recommended shamanism books

This was probably one of the first books to specifically connect Witchcraft and Shamanism in a practical way for me. Witchcraft Today Book Three edited by Chas S. Clifton opened the door, but Johnson told you how to deftly step through it. Previously called The North Star Road, he linked stellar knowledge of European Paganism with its spirit worker roots and gave you very practical and meaningful ways to commune with the powers and understand more deeply the Witch’s sabbat, the wild hunt and the journey of life after death. Huge influence on my work. 

When I say to you ‘Religions of Asia’ you will automatically think of the usual suspects: Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and so on. Here is something different from Prof Eliade one of the great scholars of his generation. Shamanism is a major influence across the whole of the northern hemisphere from Canada through Siberia and into eastern and central Asia. The cover of the paperback has an Eskimo ceremonial mask. The shaman is medicine man, magician, miracle worker, priest, mystic and poet. We immediately think of the drum and the ecstatic body, but think also of eagle feathers, rattle, and robe of an animal. Shamanism is still practiced but has suffered from commercial exploitation and the general erosion of native cultures. As a religion of fire and ice, climate change may be its final blow.

An expert in approaching your dream life with beautiful and imaginative consciousness, Robert Moss shows you how to use your dreams, both figurative and literal, as the backdrop for immense personal discovery and growth, and as a powerful tool in reclaiming yourself after trauma. 

This is one of my favorite books about Shamanism.

Harner knows very well what shamanism is, as he experienced it himself many times in the Amazonian forestay and is one of the first academic anthropologists to experience altered states of consciousness and shamanism firsthand himself, and he recommended it to the world!

I am familiar with very few professors who are so bold, straightforward, and devoid of bullsh*t. He admires shamanism, and this is clear from the book. He also gives some practical examples of how to practice shamanism, which can be very useful.  

Kim is another colleague from IASD, and her work on dream medicine attends to altered states of consciousness, focusing on dreaming, and points out our potential to access healing from many realms. It looks at a wide variety of cultural and spiritual perspectives.

Mascaro walks us through shamanic and indigenous ways of knowing and healing as well as incorporating western styles of dreamwork. Her attention to detail allows the reader to easily try many of her suggestions that honor and include alter-making, plant and animal medicine, and nightmare healing that incudes soul recovery.

How could I not love a book that sets its tone with “My name is Bond, Shaman Bond”? 

Bond, aka Eddie Drood, has all the latest magical gadgets to help suppress the forces of magical mayhem on behalf of the ancient and powerful Drood family (and yes there’s a pun there on Druid). This is what James Bond would have been if Ian Fleming had gone easy on the Martinis and tried a few magic mushrooms instead. 

The book, and in fact the whole series, is inventive, witty, and in places outright insane, with every book title a parody of a Bond book or film. 

(Also, Mr Green is a very nice man – we met him once over pizza at EasterCon several decades ago.)

Because of its beautiful presentation of this complex topic, the stunning illustrations and the superb, world-class knowledge the author brings to an enigmatic subject, in which the ability of certain individuals to access the spirit world is discussed. The theatre in which the author performs is worldwide, and, although shamanism differs hugely from the Americas to Siberia, from India to southern Africa, and way beyond, he brilliantly presents a cohesive and totally enthralling picture of the essential ingredients of shamanism: shape-shifting, ‘soul-flight’, healing through contact with the spirits, are just some of the themes covered in this short volume. The book engages academics as a sound starting-point for the understanding of what a shaman is but its concise style and gorgeous colour images will engage anyone remotely interested in world religions.

Evocative, believable, beautifully written. Dark Fantasy at its finest; Megan’s characters will resonate with anyone who feels a bit different, like they don’t fit in with everyone else. Megan explores all this can mean in her trilogy, the good, the bad, and the downright terrifying. Her world is richly written, you can smell the tangy woodfires, and feel the biting cold.

I read this book back in the late '90s when I was just beginning to study herbalism (with a teacher very aligned with plant spirit wisdom). It was a highly significant book in expanding my version of what herbalism can be when practiced in union and cocreation with plants. When I flick back through it now, I see so many aspects of my current shamanic herbalism practice reflected back at me and realise how formative it was to my learning. Highly recommended.  

I read this wonderful book when I was a teenager, and it had a lot of influence on me. I still read it again and again and gain a lot from it.

This is one of the earliest descriptions available of a meeting with a Mexican shaman, and the teachings of that shaman. It vividly describes the way the shaman acts, thinks and operates, and this is so remote and alien from modern Western thinking that it made me realize that alternative ways of perceiving realities do exist. 

Regardless of what some say, I am confident it really happened and that the descriptions are coherent and true. What a book! This is really a book for departure.