Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas by Claudia Müller-Ebeling, Christian Rätsch, and Surendra Bahadur Shahi; translated by Annabel Lee.  Rochester, VT:  Inner Traditions, 2002.  Append.; biblio.; glossary; illus.; index; 309 pp.; $49.95 (cloth).

Reviewed by Timothy White. Reprinted from Shaman's Drum, Number 64.

As the text and illustrations of Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas make vividly clear, the Kathmandu valley of Nepal is simultaneously an ecumenical crossroads and a rich cultural melting pot, where ceremonial traditions from some sixty-one linguistic and cultural groups have mixed and merged into a great melange of related yet distinct shamanic traditions.  Compiling a comprehensive overview of the many Nepalese shamanic traditions may remain forever an impossible task, but co-authors Claudia Müller-Ebeling, Christian Rätsch, and Surendra Bahadur Shahi have produced an illuminating mosaic portrait of Nepalese shamanism that may cover more ground, explore more nooks and crannies, and reveal more stimulating insights than any other book on the subject to date.  Nonetheless, I have concerns that the book’s revolutionary revelations and its iconoclastic style may provoke some academic critics into summarily dismissing it.  Before addressing those concerns, let me say that I fell in love with its graphic presentation at first sight, and I found its dedication to documenting shamanism from an experiential perspective to be refreshing. 

Because of the incredible variety of ethnic cultures and religious traditions found in Nepal, many Western ethnographers have been hard pressed to unravel the interlaced Nepalese shamanic practices, and most have contented themselves with studying individual practitioners or narrowly defined ethnic traditions within the region.  In direct contrast, the German co-authors of this volume—Rätsch and Müller-Ebeling—have chosen to abandon the prevailing myth of objective ethnographic analysis.  Instead, by drawing heavily on the subjective comments and observations of practicing shamans from six major Nepalese culture groups—Newari, Gurung, Kirati, Jarga-Magar, Tamang, and Sherpa—supplemented by narrative accounts of their own subjective experiences, the authors have created some stimulating composite sketches of key Nepalese shamanic and tantric practices. 

With titles such as “The Way of the Shamans,” “Shamanic Healing,” and “Shaman­ic Vision, Traveling, and Flying,” the book’s thirty-one chapters are each loosely structured around a general subject, or several closely related themes.  For the most part, the chapters are very interesting, insightful, and well documented.  For example, “The Way of the Shamans” offers insightful personal statements by practicing shamans (mostly identified by name or initials); ethnographic comments on the Kirati shamanic pathway known as mundum; a detailed narrative account of a Kirati death ritual; a brief account of a healing; a discussion contrasting jhankris (shamanic healers) and bokshis (witches); and, finally, accounts of how Maile Lama (a Tamang shaman), Parvati Rai (a Kirati-Rai jhankri), and Indra Gurung (a Gurung jhankri) were called to become shamans.  The chapter is enhanced by an informative selection of illustrations—including photos of Indra Gurung playing cymbals while writhing in a trance, jhankri Dana­shing Tamang drumming at a waterfall, a young child exhibiting evidence of being called to shamanism, and demonstrations of Kirati burial postures; before-and-after pictures of a man successfully treated for paralysis; and one slightly anomalous illustration of a Siberian child on a German comic book titled The Path of the Shaman: Thunderstorm.  The text is also supplemented with informative footnotes and photo captions, plus miscellaneous short margin notes and quotations from Nepal-ese shamans and Western authors. 

Although some chapters are shorter than the one just described, all utilize similar combinations of text, illustrations, and margin notes to convey a subjective understanding of the topic at hand.  The chapters on shamanism are filled with informative quotes and interpretive comments from practicing shamans—including Indra Gurung, Maile Lama, Parvati Rai, Myingmar Sherpa, and Danashing Tamang—as well as from Mohan Kumar Rai, the founding director of the Shamanistic Studies Research Centre in Kathmandu.  For example, in a section explaining why Newari phurbas (ritual daggers) are often decorated with fierce demons, the text states: “We received the answer from a Kirati shaman that these forbidding faces caution us against thoughtless handling of this powerful instrument, and remind us that humans—who generally approach the gods only with wishes and needs, or to burden him with their fate—should ponder precisely what questions they are using to penetrate other-worldly realms.  In addition, a discernable function of the gods is to enter into conflict with demonic powers that are more effectively driven back to their boundaries with a frightening appearance.” 

The chapters on tantric traditions and thangka paintings follow a similar format, using experiential observations by Müller-Ebeling to supplement the mythic and religious knowledge of Surendra Bahadur Shahi—the book’s third author—who heads a prominent thangka studio in Kathmandu that employs four hundred painters.  Incidentally, on first glance, some readers may assume that the book’s marvelous, full-color reproductions of over fifty distinctive Newari tantric thangkas—many of which are by Shahi, a talented painter—are variations of Tibetan thangkas.  In fact, the authors argue persuasively that Newari tantric painters have, over the last millennium, contributed more to Tibetan iconography than the other way around.  While the debate over the origin of thangka styles is beyond this reviewer’s expertise, I can say the thangkas presented in this volume are decidedly more colorful, dynamic, and magical than the more formal, didactic varieties of Tibetan thangkas. 

In the opinion of this reviewer, the crowning highlight of this book is its excellent photographs and reproductions, which thoroughly document both public and esoteric aspects of Nepalese shamanism.  In fact, the volume is so lavishly illustrated—with over six hundred photographs and paintings—that simply skimming through the book’s illustrations could give readers a good introductory overview of Nepalese shamanism and tantra.  For example, the chapter “Shamanic Vision, Traveling, and Flying” includes an impressive photo of an entranced Maile Lama, literally flying one meter into the air directly from a cross-legged, seated position; a series of photos depicting Maile’s facial contortions during a deep trance; and several dramatic pictures of Indra Gurung, in trance, gnawing vigorously on a human bone trumpet.  The chapter “Shakti, The Shamanic Energy” includes a series of flash photos, showing Indra Gurung invoking spirits of the dead and honoring them with the ritual sacrifice of a chicken, that were shot at night in a cemetery, during a ritual conducted to conquer fear of mortality and to gain shakti, wisdom, and knowledge from the dead souls.  Another sequence in the same chapter shows Danashing Tamang deep in trance, swallowing burning oil-lamp wicks to feed his shakti.  It would have been nice if the many small reproductions could have been larger, but I think many readers—particularly those interested in classical Asiatic forms of shamanism—will agree that the illustrations alone are more than worth the book’s relatively modest price. 

Although the book offers a broad range of insights into many aspects of Nepalese shamanism, its fate may soar or fall depending upon how scholars respond to its claim that psychoactive plants have played a major esoteric role in Himalayan shamanism.  Because the longest chapter in this book is devoted to documenting the use of “traveling” (i.e., trance-inducing) plants and herbs—and because the discovery of their shamanic use has far-reaching implications—I want to address this topic in depth. 

Since Shiva, the “Lord of Intoxication,” is traditionally associated with intoxicating plants in Nepal, as well as India, the authors begin by identifying the names and uses of Shiva’s psychoactives, collectively called nisa jhar (Nepalese: “intoxicating plants”).  In addition to identifying over eighty of these plants that are invoked in Kirati rituals, the chapter includes individual sections on the best known shamanic traveling plants—including Shiva’s favorite euphoric, ganja, bhang, or charas (Cannabis spp.); several shakti-enhancing nicotine-like plants known as angeri; potentiated pan betel chews made from unfermented betel nuts (Piper betle) and lime solutions; the trance-inducing thorn apple (Datura spp.), which is said to have sprouted directly out of the chest of Shiva; the shakti-strengthening flowers of hasana (Cestrum nocturnum); and the powerful root of a leguminous vine known as lache lahara (“the snaking vine”)—as well as several types of traveling mushrooms consecrated to Shiva.  Interestingly, Newari shamans have incorporated the use of two New World plants—tobacco (Nicotiana tobacum), which is smoked as a pleasurable relaxant, and the hallucinogenic  Brugmansia spp., known in Nepal as siva ghata (literally, “Shiva’s bell”).  Although the Newari shamans are aware that these two plants were imported into Nepal relatively “recently”—in the seventeenth century—they have adopted them fully into Shiva’s garden of traveling herbs. 

Given the ancient and well-known association between sacred psychoactive plants and Shiva—the archetypal shaman in Nepalese mythology—it is curious that the shamanic use of psychoactive plants in Nepal has gone unnoticed (or unreported) by most mainstream ethnographers and even some well-known, pro-entheogenic ethnobotanists.  Rätsch suggests several explanations for this oversight.  First, until recently, Western ethnological researchers were seldom trained in ethnobotany, and even fewer were taught about the role of psychoactives in shamanism.  Second, not all Nepali shamans take the potent traveling plants, and many use only the milder psychoactives—such as bhang or pan betle—on a regular basis.  Third, the shamans who do use the most potent traveling plants tend to use them mostly in private.  According to Rätsch,  “Because the traveling herbs, as a rule, are utilized to increase shakti or to obtain secret information from nature, their use is usually not revealed, and to others—for example, to ethnologists—it is not visible.” 

It clearly wasn’t chance that prompted Rätsch to research and document the shamanic use of traveling plants and teaching herbs in Nepal—he is an ethnobotanist who has written several popular books on psychoactive plants.  His enthusiastic interest in psychoactives may have—as he hints—inspired shamans to share with him esoteric knowledge that otherwise might have gone unnoticed.  Ironically, because of Rätsch’s enthusiasm about the subject, some scholars may be tempted to challenge his speculations on the archaic use of many intoxicants—even though Shiva’s legendary association with bhang and Soma, the sacred intoxicant of ancient India, is well documented.  Even Rätsch reports that, after hippies in the 1970s discovered psilocybin mushrooms growing in Nepal, “the Nepalese quickly recognized the foreigners’ desire for spiritual growth,” and “because of an international interest in Shiva’s favorite substances, a new tourism industry developed.”  

One of the most provocative botanical discoveries made by the authors is that Kirati, Sherpa, and Tamang shamans use over twenty varieties of psychoactive mushrooms, ranging from mild stimulants to potent entheogens.  Sherpa shamans report that they eat several tree fungi, one called shakti chyau (shakti mushroom) and another called gorato chyau (red mushroom), to enhance their shamanic power.  Both the Sherpa and Tamang know about Ganoderma lucidum (the famous Chinese “mushroom of immortality”), which they call denguru shyamu (drum mushroom) or bonpo shamaup (shaman’s mushroom), and which they use to fly, increase shakti, and revitalize the fatally ill.  At Kalingchok, the authors came across a small, umbrella-shaped mushroom (possibly a Panaeolus sp.)—known locally as gobar chyau (cow-manure mushroom)—that Myingmar Sherpa indicated is eaten, after being roasted with salt, to obtain knowledge when fighting demons.  This sort of specialized, esoteric knowledge about mushrooms—within an overall culture that is basically mycophobic—suggests that their use could have been restricted to shamans, as it was in ancient Europe and the Urals.

As someone with more than a casual interest in the red-and-white-capped fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria), I was delighted to find this volume also provides exciting new evidence supporting R. Gordon Wasson’s classic thesis that A. muscaria mushrooms were the original source of Soma.  Although Wasson’s research had uncovered Vedic references stating that Soma was collected in the mountains, his theory was plagued by his inability to document that A. muscaria was actually used, or that it even grew, in the Himalayas.  It was only in 1998 that Newari botanist Keshab Shrestha first documented the presence in Nepal of A. muscaria, which he called bhut chyau (demon mushroom).  Inspired by his report, the authors discovered that A. muscaria mushrooms were, in fact, quite common in the Kathmandu valley, and that A. muscaria is reportedly found in eastern and western Nepal, as well as Bhutan. 

Most importantly, the authors were able to document that Kirati shamans still use the fly agaric to travel and fly and to strengthen shakti.  In fact, Mohan Rai claims, “Without the sacred mushroom, mundum—the way of the shaman—would not be complete.  It is totally bound up with Shiva.  Even the tigers love the amanitas.  One or two of these mushrooms is enough to fly.”  In addition, Mohan Rai reports that his father, Dil Bahadur Rai (1900-1976), who served as court shaman to the king of Bhutan, also used fly agaric for shamanizing.  “For a deep trance,” Mohan Rai recalls, “he ate a few pieces of a prepared fly agaric, at most a half of a cap, in order to make his journey into the other worlds.  He fell fairly quickly into a trance and flew around the area.  In this way he could visit his distant house or see his family members.”

Because Rätsch has chosen to publish his books with popular—as opposed to academic—publishing houses, some scholars may blindly choose to ignore his proposal that psychoactives are used in Nepalese shamanism.  A few other anthropologists may—borrowing the language of Mircea Eliade—dismiss their present use as “a degenerated form of shamanism.”  Nonetheless, I think that this book provides ample evidence to support Mohan Rai’s statement that “all species of traveling plants and poisons are fundamentally connected to [Kirati] shamanism.”  In fact, the authors conclude—based on the Kirati belief that shamans must be able to invoke the names of all Shiva’s sacred plants in order to be able to fly—that psychoactives may have played an even more dominant role in the past than they do today.  However, it is also possible that the name of a plant may be invoked as a mnemonic handle for rekindling powers previously experienced under the plant’s influence.  In either case, the entheogenic discoveries reported in this volume will undoubtedly inspire other Westerners to seek out and encounter Nepalese shamans—and I hope those encounters will, in the words of the authors, “be crowned by mutual respect.”

While I was reviewing the book, one of the closing lines of the preface caught my eye—”Only the person who flies together with the shaman will understand anything.”  Suddenly, it dawned on me that the authors aren’t just championing the value of being empathic participant-observers; they seem to be hinting—in the hip language of psychedelics—that the only way to truly understand shamanism is to take traveling herbs and fly with the shaman.  As someone who studies and practices entheogenic shamanism, I can attest that psychoactives can empower people to fly, but dreams have taught me that psychoactives aren’t the only way to fly.  Finally, for any novices who might feel inspired to explore the traveling herbs listed in this book, I must offer a reminder of what happened to Icarus when, in his naive enthusiasm, he ignored his father’s advice and flew too close to the sun. 

One of the potentially controversial features of this volume is the irreverent, anti-academic undercurrent that runs through it.  The authors announce in the preface that they plan to adopt an unconventional approach to understanding shamanism.  After defining shamanism as “a combination of natural science, psychotherapy, and theatrical comedy,” they offer this aphorism:  “Although ‘sacred somberness’ is often useful, frequently more can be achieved with a hearty laugh.”  For the most part, I found myself chuckling at the playful attitudes of the authors—for example, Rätsch mocks his own academic training as an anthropologist with this cavalier comment:  “How can academic honors compare with the kiss of a shaman?”  However, I also found myself grimacing at some comments in the book that seemed intolerant of adversaries.

Many readers initially may not notice the undercurrent of iconoclastic criticism that flows through many parts of the book, but the adversarial views of the authors are stated explicitly in the preface.  There, in rapid succession, the authors chastise political authorities who persecute users of psychoactives, they denigrate the superficiality of journalists who sensationalize shamanism, they ridicule misguided Westerners who have subverted the meaning of tantra, and they challenge academics who indulge in excessive theoretical analysis.  Even though I agree in principle with many of their comments and charges, I feel that the critiques sometimes seem to focus more on belittling potential adversaries than illuminating the inner workings of shamanism.  For example, the authors charge that “many journalists—apart from the laudable exceptions, of course—write about things that they don’t really understand and that they don’t believe in.…”  To be sure, we all have read shallow articles on shamanism, but I don’t see how mocking writers will encourage them to transform “ignorance into wisdom via experience.”  

Strong opinions—some framed in the form of well-reasoned observations, and some as thinly veiled rants—are scattered throughout the book, but the most scathing comments are found in remarks prefacing the bibliography.  There, the first line sets the tone by denigrating the ignorance of early ethnographers:  “An overview of the literature about shamanism … leaves us with the impression that most authors who offer a definition of shamanism have never encountered a shaman.”  Then, the section openly belittles Mircea Eliade’s Shamanism, charging: “This so-called standard work shows the least amount of understanding of the phenomena of shamanism.”  Although Eliade may be faulted for relying primarily on secondhand reports and for introducing the erroneous view that the use of psychoactive substances was a “degenerated form of shamanism,” I think it is presumptuous to totally dismiss his work.  In fact, I had to chuckle when, several paragraphs later, the authors propose that the true mission of shamans is “to travel in the three worlds, to confront death, and to be dismembered by demons during the battle over the soul of the patient”—forgetting that the same paradigms were championed by Eliade. 

Some of the comments in the book’s preface, “About the Procedure:  Our Way,” seem to be aimed—perhaps justifiably—at defending the book’s unconventional ethnographic approach against potential academic criticism.  The preface extols the virtue of taking the “path of the heart” and treating shamans with respect and empathy, and it spells out the need to approach shamanism from an experiential—and not an academic—perspective.  As an editor of a magazine devoted to experiential shamanism, I understand the primacy of documenting shamanism from the perspectives of practitioners.  However, I also value the academic discipline of carefully checking out and citing sources, because, when used judiciously, it helps avoid careless generalizations. 

By relying on firsthand comments and experiential reports, the book may accurately reflect the fragmentary, sometimes ambiguous nature of Nepalese shamanism.  For example, the authors note that shamans hold conflicting views about the connection between jhankris (shamans) and gubajus (priestly healers):  “We received three divergent answers to our inquiries from the gubajus:  Gubajus never go to jhankris to receive instruction.  Gubajus go to jhankris in order to be taught certain knowledge.  Jhankris go to gubajus when they want to be taught tantric techniques.”  Leaving ambiguities unresolved is not inherently problematic.  The problem with unqualified subjective comments, particularly those that indulge in superlative generalizations, is that they may be confusing or inaccurate.  For example, in a section explaining how the phurba is used in weathermaking, the authors state:  “For this reason, the phurba is always decorated with strips of fabric in the (symbolic) colors of the rainbow tied to the upper end.”  In fact, most images of phurbas in the book suggest that the phurba is used most regularly without any strips of fabric attached.

There is also a danger, when texts shift casually from subjective experiential comments to speculative interpretive analysis, that unsupported assumptions may be mistaken for ethnographic observations.  For example, in the chapter “Dragons and Nagas,” the authors document secondhand reports of how snake venoms are used in Nepal to induce visions, and they provide some fascinating insights into the meaning of naga (snake) motifs found in Nepalese iconography.  They paraphrase Maile Lama’s description of how her grandfather, a shaman, allowed himself to be bitten by cobras because then “he was able to fly higher and faster, and saw only rainbows.”  After reporting rumors that saddhus (renunciates) sometimes dribble cobra poison onto ganja leaves to enhance their shakti-inducing potency, the authors relate Danashing Tamang’s claim that ganja planted over the grave of a cobra produces a potent hallucinogen that allows one to fly and see nagas flying around.  Based on such evidence, they offer an interesting interpretation of the cobras often depicted entwined around Shiva’s arms and neck: “The cobra obviously symbolizes the state of enlightenment in the Hindu and Buddhist pantheon, the journey to other spheres through which the truth can be comprehended behind the veil of illusion (maya).”  Then, they throw in an undocumented and unidentified comment, “The snake is the protective umbrella of the deities—in other words, the naga is identical to the cosmic mushrooms!”  Without knowing the source of that statement, I couldn’t help but wonder if the authors had—in a reverse of Eliade’s misguided bias—allowed their pro-psychoactive views to influence their ethnography. 

Despite such minor reservations, I think the eclectic, subjective approach used in this volume may ultimately reflect the diversity of Nepalese shamanism and tantric traditions more accurately than any analytical study could.  Certainly, by juxtaposing stunning thangka paintings, informative photo essays, experiential accounts, descriptive commentaries, theoretical discussions, flavorful quotations, metaphoric diagrams, scientific tables, and ritual recipes, the book creates many marvelous snapshots of Nepalese shamanic practice that should, at the very least, stimulate readers and researchers to continue exploring this very vital and dynamic form of shamanism. 

Timothy White is editor of Shaman’s Drum.