Who knew there were so many different view-points on this topic? :twisted:

Perhaps the whole thread deserves to become a sticky in one of the Welcome fora?

OP isn't the first, and probably won't be the last to ask such a question, and it's probably unrealistic to expect new visitors to have a broad awareness of many of the (technically correct) terms beyond shaman. Let's not forget, one person's rue is another person's harmala alkaloids or beta-carbolines or just MAOI even... It all depends on the context, and need for accuracy, of the conversation.

After all,

When bona fide academics like Stephan Beyer can subtitle their PhD thesis: "Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon" then the shamanic-winged-horse has probably long since left the stable, especially when

Note how even here, in the final two sentences, the incorrect and correct usages are difficult to disentangle. Both quotes from An Encyclopedia of Shamanism, 2007.

Leaving aside the dubious providers of workshops, and pre-sewn head-dresses etc, what DmnStr8 said

perhaps goes to the heart of the issue for the "serious seeker". In our modern Western societies, there is NO legitimate space, or path, open for people who subscribe to this archaic belief system, and this makes us collectively poorer IMO. More importantly, any believers are likely to be regarded as some of the last acceptable targets for ridicule and abuse, and perhaps even LEO scrutiny, in stark contrast to pretty much every other harmless, self-contained minority group these days... Our own ways have gone, because they have been exterminated over millennia. We can either attempt to "regenerate" them from scratch, or appropriate them (however inappropriately) from others, or even synthesize them from disparate sources such as Jung, Harner & Eliade.

Whatever you call him/her, one of the key tasks of the shaman was maintaining balance between the worlds. As our world breaks new records every day, on sweeping exponential curves, we arguably need balance to be restored more urgently than ever, and perhaps this "new found interest in shamanism" is only one way that our collective unconscious is manifesting this need...?

In the absence of a dedicated Nexian glossary/lexicon (or just a Wiki entry?) it would be a shame to lose this subject in a storm of semantics.

Now, time to go do some hoovering with the Dyson