Neoshamanism: The Connection of Being with All That Exists

Shamanism is an ancient practice, present in cultures across all continents, inviting us to a deep connection with spirit, nature, and the invisible worlds. The word “shaman,” from the language of the Tungusic peoples of Siberia, means “the one who knows” — someone capable of moving between spiritual dimensions and bringing healing, balance, and guidance to the community.

Traditionally, the shaman serves as healer, spiritual guide, and mediator between the visible and the invisible. Their mission goes beyond the individual, seeking to restore harmony to the community, nature, and the cosmos. As a guardian of ancient wisdom, the shaman transmits knowledge and rituals preserved in myths, stories, and lineages passed down through generations. Through chants, dances, power plants, contact with the elements, and the cycles of the moon and sun, the shaman keeps alive the bridge between humans, spirits, animals, and the forces of nature.

Although each people have developed their own traditions, shamanism reveals universal parallels: the use of drums to alter consciousness, spiritual journeys in search of guidance, relationships with power animals, and reverence for the Earth as a living being. This universality shows that shamanism is both specific to each culture and an expression of a shared spirituality of humanity.

With globalization and the growing interest in spirituality, meditation, and consciousness expansion, shamanism began to emerge in new forms in the contemporary world. Studied, reinterpreted, and adapted to modern times, it became accessible to people from diverse cultural and urban contexts, opening the way for what is now recognized as neoshamanism.

The term emerged between the 1960s and 1970s, in a context shaped by the New Age movement and the Western search for alternative spiritual practices. Unlike traditional shamanism, rooted in specific tribal contexts,

neoshamanism sought to build a bridge between ancestral knowledge and the spiritual needs of the modern world.

It became popular through anthropologists such as Michael Harner, who studied Amazonian peoples and developed what is known as Core Shamanism. The “neo” indicates adaptation: a translation of this knowledge beyond its original context, offering pathways to people of diverse cultures.

Mircea Eliade taught us about the universal function of shamanism and its profound connection to rituals, symbols, and transcendent experiences that span cultures. This perspective supports the idea that neoshamanism does not replace, but expands ancestral wisdom, bringing it into a conscious dialogue with the contemporary world.

Authors such as Carlos Castaneda and Michael Harner became foundational references. Castaneda documented his learning with the Yaqui people, highlighting his encounters with the shaman Don Juan Matus, a mentor who conveyed teachings about perception, attention, reality, and shamanic practices. Don Juan guided Castaneda in direct experience of the spiritual world, power plants, and journeys of consciousness, showing that shamanic learning goes beyond theory: it is lived experience, observation, and inner transformation.

Michael Harner, in turn, developed Core Shamanism, inspired by observing diverse indigenous traditions around the world. He identified universal principles across cultures: shamanic journeying, encounters with spirit guides and power animals, the use of rhythms and sounds to access altered states of consciousness, and energetic healing as an expression of balance between body, mind, and spirit. These references opened space for direct experiences, without the need for complex rituals or rigid dogmas.

More than simply reviving ancient practices, neoshamanism presents itself as a living dialogue with the present, creating a bridge between ancestral traditions and contemporary paths. It does not replace ancient knowledge but opens new forms of connection, integrating the wisdom of indigenous peoples with contemporary consciousness. In this way, it expands the field of spiritual experience, respecting its roots while blossoming in new expressions of the sacred.

Neoshamanism recognizes all manifestations of the mind as legitimate: imagination, dreams, visions, altered states of consciousness, projections, memories of past lives, encounters with beings from other realms, and spiritual journeys — each experience as real as everyday life. Inspired by this vision, it integrates these multiple dimensions through various supporting tools: from transpersonal psychology to integrative therapies, from visionary arts to natural medicines and body practices.

Thus, neoshamanism offers paths for healing, self-knowledge, and consciousness expansion, functioning both in individual practice and as a communal space. Shamanic journeys, inner exploration, connection with spirit guides and power animals, visualizations, drum rhythms, chants, meditation, healing circles, collective rituals, work with crystals, breathwork, medicine music, and visionary art interweave, inviting the being to reconnect with themselves, with nature, and with the flow of life, awakening balance, presence, and harmony.

At the heart of neoshamanism is the certainty that connection with spirit, nature, and the cycles of life is inalienable, innate to all beings, and a natural expression of consciousness. Even in urban and technological contexts, neoshamanism proves relevant for ecology, mental health, and social balance, helping reconnect humans with nature and their own essence. It opens a space of freedom and responsibility: freedom to feel, through intuition, one’s own way of connecting with spirit; and responsibility to act with ethics, awareness, and reverence for all that exists, recognizing that all is sacred.

Living neoshamanism means integrating body, mind, and spirit; feeling divine consciousness united with all; honoring the Earth and the cosmos, recognizing in every river, stone, tree, and star the expression of the Source. It also means acknowledging that even technology is part of this flow, a product of human intelligence inspired by the divine and serving the same purpose: the Great Spirit, the All-One, experiences itself through everything and everyone.

Thus, neoshamanism is an invitation to walk with an open heart, rediscover one’s own essence and the magic within and around us, and remember that we are an inseparable part of the web of life.

It is a call to live in communion with the sacred, in all its forms, respecting and honoring the ancestors and their traditions, until we fully recognize:

We Are All One.

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