The Way Beyond the Shaman

It is never a good sign when you find yourself yelling at the book you are reading.  Even less so when the yelling happens during every chapter. Barry Cottrell is a New Age writer. Which in this case seems to mean that he writes wild generalisations, uncorroborated ‘facts,’ trilling paragraphs of historical speculation and dowdy passages of re-hashed New Age ‘truisms.’ Hence the yelling.

The preface deals with a re-telling of the fundamental tenants of New Age philosophy, to wit: Western consciousness has turned away from nature towards an obsession with consumerism that denies the Earth Spirit, a spirit that is only being kept alive by a few outlying tribal societies who practice shamanism. The author notes that he studied “academic psychology and philosophy”  but found the experience pervaded with a, “menacing and deadening spirit of scientific materialism” so that he went on a journey of inner exploration and art practice, emerging in the 1980’s with a vocation towards Shamanism. 

There then follow several chapters tracing the lineage of shamanism starting with pre-historical exploration that, if you know anything at all about science and archaeology, may well have you yelling as loudly as I did. So many, frankly unbelievably wild assumptions, generalisations and flights of fantasy pervade this section of the book that anything that follows, no matter how well researched or well-written would suffer irreparably because of it. He consistently writes what should be treated as speculation as if it were known fact. For instance when writing about the cave painters at Chauvet he says:

“Reaching the remoteness of these locations would assist

them in their transition from a normal to an altered state of

consciousness, at the same time as honouring the living body of the

‘Great Mother’ before they embarked on a shamanic ritual or

journey.”

Well, we can’t know that. The experiences of our pre-historic ancestors lie so far back in time that we can only view their life experience through the material artefacts left behind, accepting that any interpretation of those facts is done through a veil of our own 21^st century prejudices and culture.

He claims that people who made this art needed to do it because they needed, “to give permanent form to a spiritual reality that had become inaccessible to normal human consciousness.” Further, their ancestors who lived before the Palaeolithic ice age left very few artistic items because their art was an art of impermanence, “Their indigenous sense of being at one with the natural rhythms of life would have given these people a strong awareness of the cycles of growth and decay; and while they almost certainly made art, it would not necessarily have been made to last.”

So nothing to do with three miles of ice grinding across the landscape then? This  speculation continues through the next chapters when the role of our Neanderthal cousins, as the progenitors of the shamanic consciousness is discussed with reference to the teaching of Ruth White’s channelled guide Gildas. To be fair, Mr Cottrell does reference some scientists in his writing, as well as more esoteric writers like Joseph Campbell and Laurens van der Post, but most of what he writes is speculative, given a veil of authority easily torn aside with the weakest of scientific challenges.

In this I think the author has done himself a great disservice, for after reading the speculative passages at the beginning of the book, it is hard to accept any authority he may have later on with regards to a new shamanic consciousness. He does write a considered and sensible assessment of the validity of the shaman in the modern Western world, without traditional earth-based practices and the support of a tribal system that acknowledges the role of the shaman. He also writes well on the dangers inherent in following inner journeying as a path to power and the problems of differentiating found wisdom from falsity.

At the end though, I feel that his call for a way beyond shamanism towards a modern, soul-full state of being, has little fresh inspiration or depth of substance. I think that if you wholeheartedly accept and enjoy New Age philosophy, then you will enjoy this book, if only because it simply reiterates most of what you have already read. If you prefer to explore a philosophy of human spirituality with well reasoned argument, then this book is definitely not for you. Unless you enjoy yelling at books.