Shamans, healers, and medicine men — Holger Kalweit

Holger Kalweit´s classic text, Shamans, Healers, and Medicine Men, explores the shared identity of traditional healers around the world.

This book is a must-read for Western clinicians who often feel dis-identified with their role as healers in society. The initiations, understandings, and teaching preserved and presented within, offer a tremendously powerful insight into what it means to be a healer.

Of note, anthropology has turned a critical eye onto the community of white males who studied shaman over the centuries. We found Kalweit´s attitude in this book to be compassionate, respectful, and collaborative. He did his best to simply transcribe rather than interpret the information presented by indigenous shaman perhaps that’s one of the reasons the book retains its universal resonance.

We use it as a preparatory tool for people interested in ethnobotany projects to begin to deconstruct paradigms and gain cultural competence with indigenous healing modalities.