Michael Harner
Encyclopedia
Michael Harner is the founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies and the formulator of "core shamanism
." Harner is known for bringing shamanism and shamanic healing to the contemporary Western world. Walsh and Grob note in their book, Higher Wisdom, "Michael Harner is widely acknowledged as the world's foremost authority on shamanism and has had an enormous influence on both the academic and lay worlds…. What Yogananda did for Hinduism
and D. T. Suzuki did for Zen
, Michael Harner has done for shamanism, namely bring the tradition and its richness to Western awareness." Harner received a Ph.D. in anthropology
from the University of California
at Berkeley in 1963. He taught there and at Columbia University
, Yale University
, and the Graduate Faculty of the New School
for Social Research, where he chaired the anthropology department. He also co-chaired the Anthropology Section of the New York Academy of Sciences. In 1987 Harner left academic anthropology to devote himself full-time to the preservation, study, and teaching of shamanism as president of the non-profit Foundation for Shamanic Studies. In 2003 he received an honorary doctorate for his work from the California Institute of Integral Studies
. In 2009 two sessions on shamanism were given in his honor at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association
. He received the 2009 Pioneer in Integrative Medicine Award, Institute of Health and Healing.
In 1960-61 he did additional ethnographic fieldwork among the Conibo people of the Ucayali River region in the Peruvian Amazon, during which his experiences with shamanism and the indigenous psychoactive drug, ayahuasca, started him on what was to become his life’s primary work. Indications of this new focus can be seen in his 1968 article, "The Sound of Rushing Water," and the volume he edited in 1973, Hallucinogens and Shamanism which included articles by him, including "The Role of Hallucinogenic Plants in European Witchcraft," and a section in which he raised "The Question of a Trans-cultural Experience," a subject that he continued to pursue in his research and teaching.
Meanwhile, Harner maintained another interest: to discover the causality of the evolution of human societies. In his cross-cultural research he came to the conclusion that ecological factors, especially growing human pressure on natural resources, underlay social evolution. In 1970 he published "Population Pressure and the Social Evolution of Agriculturalists" in which his cross-cultural predictions based on a sample of 1170 societies, were supported without an exception. In 1975 he followed it with a theoretical article involving both low and high population pressure societies, "Scarcity, the Factors of Production, and Social Evolution."
In a 1977 article for the official journal of the American Ethnological Society, Harner noted that it was well recognized that the Aztecs were unique in the world regarding the unparalleled scale of their human sacrifices
. He also observed that their ecological situation was similarly unparalleled for a major civilization. He offered evidence that widespread cannibalism resulting from protein and fat scarcity explained the large-scale capture and sacrifice of war prisoners, justified by the Aztecs as placation of their gods. Harner's theory was endorsed and supported by Marvin Harris, but criticized by Ortiz de Montellano who suggested that the Aztec diet did not require cannibalism. Two decades later, Harner's Aztec theory received significant support in the anthropological journal "Ethnology" as the result of a cross-cultural study by anthropologist Michael Winkelman. Shortly thereafter the Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures referred to Harner's 1977 American Ethnologist article as a "classic."
In 1980, Harner published his ground-breaking work, The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing. In his workshops he taught what he named "core shamanism
," the universal, near-universal, and common principles and practices of shamanism worldwide that he discovered through his cross-cultural, field, and experiential research.
Soon increasing numbers of Westerners both in the United States and Europe were studying core shamanism with him. As with Harner's Aztec article, his teaching of shamanism and shamanic healing at first elicited some controversy , but it gradually received increasing acceptance publicly and academically. Anthropologist Joan Townsend clearly distinguished Harner's core shamanism
from neo-shamanism.
Harner continued his duties as a university professor of anthropology, but at the same time he was aware that shamanic practice and training in tribal cultures were fast disappearing. It became evident that worldwide action should be undertaken to help preserve the ancient knowledge and to transmit it to future generations. To this end, in the early 1980's, he and his wife, Sandra Harner, founded the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, a non-profit charitable and educational organization dedicated to the worldwide preservation, study, and transmission of shamanic knowledge. The later translation of The Way of the Shaman into approximately a dozen languages also helped this goal.
He initiated an Urgent Tribal Assistance program by the Foundation, and in 1985 began work to help highly missionized Inuit
of the Canadian Arctic at their request to recover their suppressed practice of shamanic healing and divination. He similarly initiated a Living Treasures of Shamanism project to help key indigenous shamans keep their knowledge alive in culturally threatened situations.
Harner then integrated his Center for Shamanic Studies into the non-profit Foundation for Shamanic Studies. The Foundation rapidly grew, with financial support primarily coming from the shamanic training courses and workshops he taught, supplemented by private donations. From the early 1980's onward, as demand for his workshops continued to grow, he invited a few of his more advanced students to join an international faculty to reach an ever-wider audience. Finally in 1987, Harner resigned his professorship to devote himself full-time to the work of the Foundation, preferring to transmit his knowledge to the Foundation faculty and students in the oral tradition of shamanism, rather than through publication. Exceptions have included a shamanic primer for physicians and a shamanic theory of dreams.
As of 2011, Harner continues his shamanic research and his work as the President of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.
Core Shamanism
Core Shamanism is a system of shamanic beliefs and practices synthesized by Michael Harner. Core shamanism does not hold a fixed belief system, but instead focuses on the practice of shamanic journeying and may on an individual basis integrate indigenous shamanism, the teachings of Carlos...
." Harner is known for bringing shamanism and shamanic healing to the contemporary Western world. Walsh and Grob note in their book, Higher Wisdom, "Michael Harner is widely acknowledged as the world's foremost authority on shamanism and has had an enormous influence on both the academic and lay worlds…. What Yogananda did for Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
and D. T. Suzuki did for Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
, Michael Harner has done for shamanism, namely bring the tradition and its richness to Western awareness." Harner received a Ph.D. in anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
from the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
at Berkeley in 1963. He taught there and at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, and the Graduate Faculty of the New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
for Social Research, where he chaired the anthropology department. He also co-chaired the Anthropology Section of the New York Academy of Sciences. In 1987 Harner left academic anthropology to devote himself full-time to the preservation, study, and teaching of shamanism as president of the non-profit Foundation for Shamanic Studies. In 2003 he received an honorary doctorate for his work from the California Institute of Integral Studies
California Institute of Integral Studies
California Institute of Integral Studies is a private institution of higher education founded in 1968 and based in San Francisco, California. It currently operates in three locations just south of the Civic Center district...
. In 2009 two sessions on shamanism were given in his honor at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 11,000 members, the Arlington, Virginia based association includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic...
. He received the 2009 Pioneer in Integrative Medicine Award, Institute of Health and Healing.
Career
First trained as an archaeologist, Michael Harner, while an undergraduate student in 1948, participated in the excavation of the archaeologically famous Bat Cave in New Mexico and later did work related to the archaeology of the Lower Colorado River area. Then, as a graduate student, in 1956-57 he undertook field research on the culture of the Jívaro (Shuar) people of the Ecuadorian Amazon and began to pursue a career as an ethnologist. Harner's dissertation later became the basis for his book, The Jívaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls.In 1960-61 he did additional ethnographic fieldwork among the Conibo people of the Ucayali River region in the Peruvian Amazon, during which his experiences with shamanism and the indigenous psychoactive drug, ayahuasca, started him on what was to become his life’s primary work. Indications of this new focus can be seen in his 1968 article, "The Sound of Rushing Water," and the volume he edited in 1973, Hallucinogens and Shamanism which included articles by him, including "The Role of Hallucinogenic Plants in European Witchcraft," and a section in which he raised "The Question of a Trans-cultural Experience," a subject that he continued to pursue in his research and teaching.
Meanwhile, Harner maintained another interest: to discover the causality of the evolution of human societies. In his cross-cultural research he came to the conclusion that ecological factors, especially growing human pressure on natural resources, underlay social evolution. In 1970 he published "Population Pressure and the Social Evolution of Agriculturalists" in which his cross-cultural predictions based on a sample of 1170 societies, were supported without an exception. In 1975 he followed it with a theoretical article involving both low and high population pressure societies, "Scarcity, the Factors of Production, and Social Evolution."
In a 1977 article for the official journal of the American Ethnological Society, Harner noted that it was well recognized that the Aztecs were unique in the world regarding the unparalleled scale of their human sacrifices
Human sacrifice in Aztec culture
Human sacrifice was a religious practice characteristic of pre-Columbian Aztec civilization, as well as of other mesoamerican civilizations such as the Maya and the Zapotec. The extent of the practice is debated by modern scholars...
. He also observed that their ecological situation was similarly unparalleled for a major civilization. He offered evidence that widespread cannibalism resulting from protein and fat scarcity explained the large-scale capture and sacrifice of war prisoners, justified by the Aztecs as placation of their gods. Harner's theory was endorsed and supported by Marvin Harris, but criticized by Ortiz de Montellano who suggested that the Aztec diet did not require cannibalism. Two decades later, Harner's Aztec theory received significant support in the anthropological journal "Ethnology" as the result of a cross-cultural study by anthropologist Michael Winkelman. Shortly thereafter the Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures referred to Harner's 1977 American Ethnologist article as a "classic."
Bringing Shamanism and Shamanic Healing to the West
After Harner's Amazonian shamanic training with the hallucinogen ayahuasca, he started experimenting with monotonous drumming, discovering that there was no need for psychoactive substances in order to have successful shamanic journeys. Using the drum journey, he soon developed a more comprehensive shamanic practice, which led to invitations for him to introduce others to shamanism and shamanic healing. In response to such requests, he started giving training workshops in the early 1970's to small groups. As interest in this training grew, in 1979 he founded the Center for Shamanic Studies in Norwalk, Connecticut.In 1980, Harner published his ground-breaking work, The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing. In his workshops he taught what he named "core shamanism
Core Shamanism
Core Shamanism is a system of shamanic beliefs and practices synthesized by Michael Harner. Core shamanism does not hold a fixed belief system, but instead focuses on the practice of shamanic journeying and may on an individual basis integrate indigenous shamanism, the teachings of Carlos...
," the universal, near-universal, and common principles and practices of shamanism worldwide that he discovered through his cross-cultural, field, and experiential research.
Soon increasing numbers of Westerners both in the United States and Europe were studying core shamanism with him. As with Harner's Aztec article, his teaching of shamanism and shamanic healing at first elicited some controversy , but it gradually received increasing acceptance publicly and academically. Anthropologist Joan Townsend clearly distinguished Harner's core shamanism
Core Shamanism
Core Shamanism is a system of shamanic beliefs and practices synthesized by Michael Harner. Core shamanism does not hold a fixed belief system, but instead focuses on the practice of shamanic journeying and may on an individual basis integrate indigenous shamanism, the teachings of Carlos...
from neo-shamanism.
Harner continued his duties as a university professor of anthropology, but at the same time he was aware that shamanic practice and training in tribal cultures were fast disappearing. It became evident that worldwide action should be undertaken to help preserve the ancient knowledge and to transmit it to future generations. To this end, in the early 1980's, he and his wife, Sandra Harner, founded the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, a non-profit charitable and educational organization dedicated to the worldwide preservation, study, and transmission of shamanic knowledge. The later translation of The Way of the Shaman into approximately a dozen languages also helped this goal.
He initiated an Urgent Tribal Assistance program by the Foundation, and in 1985 began work to help highly missionized Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
of the Canadian Arctic at their request to recover their suppressed practice of shamanic healing and divination. He similarly initiated a Living Treasures of Shamanism project to help key indigenous shamans keep their knowledge alive in culturally threatened situations.
Harner then integrated his Center for Shamanic Studies into the non-profit Foundation for Shamanic Studies. The Foundation rapidly grew, with financial support primarily coming from the shamanic training courses and workshops he taught, supplemented by private donations. From the early 1980's onward, as demand for his workshops continued to grow, he invited a few of his more advanced students to join an international faculty to reach an ever-wider audience. Finally in 1987, Harner resigned his professorship to devote himself full-time to the work of the Foundation, preferring to transmit his knowledge to the Foundation faculty and students in the oral tradition of shamanism, rather than through publication. Exceptions have included a shamanic primer for physicians and a shamanic theory of dreams.
As of 2011, Harner continues his shamanic research and his work as the President of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.