Ecoshamanism: Sacred Practices of Unity, Power and Earth Healing

If you ever want to have a good idea of how your consumer choices affect the environment, read this book. Endredy does a fairly good job of explaining the impact contemporary culture has on the environment. Even better he offers practices and approaches that can, for the most part, be incorporated into contemporary culture. Some practices, however can't be easily incorporated and involve, should you take them, a drastic change in lifestyle. Is it worth it...Depends on how feasible you feel his models are. He does an excellent job of also explaining the difference between newage shamanism and actual authentic shamanism. As someone who's had a fair amount of similar experiences as this author I can really appreciate the distinctions he's made. He also provides some ways for people to really explore the ecoshamanic path...and I really recommend trying them. I do have one problem however. Endredy takes the standard occult counter culture approach of "corporations and big business are evil and so is contemporary culture" While I won't disagree that contemporary culture creates a lot of waste and really needs to change those practices (and again you can learn ways to do that in this excellent book) I do disagree with how corporations are portrayed. Seeing them as evil entities is not the solution we need. It does nothing to address how to change the practices of these corporations so that they are environmentally friendly. What I really would like to see from James are strategies he would use and suggest others use to help these corporations really understand the effect they have on the environment and help them change their practices. Until that is done no change can occur. Education is more important than judgement and he tends to come across as rather judgemental in a way that suggest the guilty white complex. Overall I think this is a book any and every person should read.

Can I just say that this is one of the most superior books I've read in a very, very long time? Now, those who know me know that I'm pretty environmentaly aware. But Endredy has written a book that is exactly what I need for this new stage in my life, when I'm livingt in a more wild area, and have a yard that I intend to turn into a shrine to the Wild. His opening deals with the connection between shamanism an the environment. I canot thank him enough for spending an entire chapter explaining the differences between traditional indigenous shamanism, neoshamanism (ie, buy a crystal and take this seminar and you're a real-live shaman!) and ecoshamanism (drawin from traditional shamanism but with the community being served bein the entire Earth nd all inhabitants thereof). The book is worth the cover price just for that. The following chapters deal with various aspects of ecology--not only theory, and constant reminders of the impact we have on the environment (without a bunch of guilt-tripping), but also over 50 exercises that are designed to help the reader bvecomemore in tune with nature. This doesn't mean things like stick feathers in your hat band, but rituals involving being buried alive overnight, and an impressive hunting ritual that can take a year or mroe to complete. This book is very Earthy, and much, much grittier than the lip service a lot of "nature" based books give. Endredy takes us beyond tossing bird seed out in the yard, has us running through the mud, abnd getting to know Nature no matter the discomfort--and gaining an appreciation from that intensity. probably oneof my favorite exercises involved mapping out special places in nature from childhood. I can clearly remember the various wild spots that were sacred to me when young, and, like Endredy, I saw most of them destroyed by development and human encroachment. It helped m retouch that connection of innocence and purity that often gets lost in the craziness of adult life. I can't say enough good about this book. I believe it should be read by anyone who seeks to follo a true Nature-based path, rather than abstracting Nature into symbols and seminars that separate us from the dirt and the rain and the blood.

This book is amazing and should be required reading for those interested in the fields of psychology, holistic therapies, environmental education, and of course earth-centered spirituality and shamanism. No other book delivers the unique content that this one does. First, Endredy explains what ecoshamanism is and why we should even care to learn about it. He does this in splendid fashion by dividing the explanation of ecoshamanism into four levels of consciousness - mind, body, environment, and spirit while also drawing from and supporting his thesis by including quotes and theories by respected researchers and authors such as Thomas Berry, Chellis Glendinning, Stephen Kellert, Dolores LaChapelle, Ralph Metzner, Theodore Roszak, Jung, Emerson, Thoreau, and dozens of others (buying this book just for the bibliography would be worth the money). Next comes the real meat of the book as Endredy takes us on a fascinating journey that can only be fully understood by engaging in the more than 50 shamanic practices that he fully explains so that anyone can experience them. It saddens me to see reviews like the last one by Keith Savage because it is so misleading. The contents of this book will be NEW to almost everyone that reads it. In no other book on shamanism, spirituality, or environmental education will you find so intelligently blended together subjects as broad and life-changing as: counter-practice, cognitive mapping, seeing in systems, concentric circles of perception, sensory depth exploration, fasting and psychic relations with food, practices with music and dance, chanting, entombment, celestial ceremonies, pilgrimage, hunting, blessing, offering, building temples, making instruments of sound and sacred objects, practices with trees, medicinal plants, animals, and the elements of water, soil, air, and fire. The other unique thing about this book is the way Endredy creates a bridge between the indigenous teachings he has learned and the modern world where we live. For example, the Huichol shamans that Endredy lives with make pilgrimages to the ocean to honor the place where the rain that grows their corn originates. They bring and take water to and from the ocean and their sacred springs in ritual fashion out of the deep knowing that water provides the planet with life. Endredy, in his explanation of the practices surrounding water, takes this one step further by relating the correspondences of the Huichol pilgrimage to the Hydrologic Cycle of water and how deeply we are a part of that cycle. Amazing! He makes these types of correlations between ancient spiritual practices and modern science throughout the whole book. Folks, this is not some far out guide to some bizarre topic but rather a full-on course into the natural mysteries that make up not only our physical reality but the innermost workings of the human psyche. As a psychologist in private practice and a student of the shamanic arts I give this book ten stars.

James Endredy's Ecoshamanism: Sacred Practices Of Unity Power & Earth Healing is for any who have wondered what shamanism is. Earth Education is here explained as a spiritual offshoot of environmentalism, and Shamanism blends spiritual perceptions with understanding of nature's cycles and connections between spirituality and the earth. Chapters do more than provide a philosophical and spiritual overview: they include over fifty 'ecoshamanistic' practices from ceremonies to rituals and point the way to a lifestyle which supports these practices.

I don't normally write book reviews but I'm making exception in this case. I was going to give this book four stars simply because the author, like many, does not touch upon the ecstatic trance states of Siberian shamans from where the term shaman originates. But the significance of this book itself deserves five stars simply because we finally have a mainstream publisher and author willing to speak out about the significant differences between modern neoshamanism (mostly commercially oriented) and classical shamanism (in the service of the Great Spirits). Even though the author has not worked with Siberian shamans, he does claim to have studied with Huichol shamans. If this is true, which from the material I'm guessing that it is, then I can honestly say that I feel his work is legitimate, as I have lived and visited with Huichols in the mountains of western Mexico for over two decades and they are the real thing. Even though for me some of the information in the book is not new, it is SO refreshing to have material from an author that actually works with REAL shamans as opposed to the make believe shamans that are constantly peddling their wares to an unknowing public. The techniques and practices in this book are the best and closest to authentic shamanism (for modern people) that I have seen published to date. Although the author is very critical about the lack of ecological awareness in our society (which is something I can understand, many environmentalists including myself are completely fed up with the current state of things) I applaud him for taking the stance at trying to educate people and especially for bringing the subject of shamanism back to Earth where it is so desperately needed. Endredy's views will seem harsh to some, but if even a small percentage of people learn something from this book the world will be a better place. I have not taken a shamanic workshop in over 20 years, but I'm going to give Endredy's work a try as soon as I can.