Harner, Michael

   Arguably the most prominent figure in the introduction of practical shamanism to Westerners and its reintroduction into indigenous communities, via the Foundation for Shamanic Studies in Mill Valley, California, a nonprofit educational organization of which Harner is director and founder. Harner and colleagues offer workshop programs in “Harner Method” core shamanism.

   Harner studied shamanism as an anthropologist and shamanic practitioner among the Untusuri Shuar (Jivaro) peoples of Ecuador and the Conibo of the Peruvian Amazon, as well as in western North America, in the Canadian Arctic, and in Northern Europe among the Saami. Having been a professor at Columbia and Yale universities, the University of California at Berkeley, and the New School for Social Research in New York, Harner has led a distinguished academic career. As an anthropologist, his publications include The Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls (1972) and Hallucinogens and Shamanism (1973). Nonetheless, Harner is best known for introducing practical shamanism to the West, in The Way of the Shaman (1980).