Sacred Trust, The

   “A United Kingdom–based educational organization concerned with the teaching of practical shamanism for modern women and men,” founded and directed by Simon Buxton and headquartered in Penzance in Cornwall. The Sacred Trust began offering workshops and resources (primarily books, drums, sage, and so on) in the 1990s and has become the most prominent organization for neo-shamans in Great Britain. Buxton is the British faculty for the United States–based Foundation for Shamanic Studies, and he offers a program including core shamanism workshops. Buxton’s practice of “bee shamanism” is outlined in his book The Shamanic Way of the Bee, in which he claims to have undergone a 13year apprenticeship with a “European Bee Master” in the shamanic bee tradition. Buxton teaches a workshop entitled “The Serpent Flight of the Honey Bee: Shamanic Sexuality and Sexual Energy” through the auspices of the Sacred Trust. The historical authenticity of this bee shamanism tradition, as with many neo-shamanic practices, cannot be verified, but it marks another example of the vibrant inventiveness of neo-shamanists in the early 21st century.