ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Internationally renowned anthropologist Michael Harner pioneered the return of shamanism to the West and is the originator of core shamanism, a methodology founded on practices and principles shared by shamans across cultures worldwide. In 1979, he and his wife, Sandra Harner, established the Center for Shamanic Studies (which later became the nonprofit Foundation for Shamanic Studies) in order to return the lost knowledge of shamanism to contemporary life and to preserve the knowledge still practiced by remaining indigenous shamans. Harner has practiced shamanism since 1961, and the famed Siberian Buryat shaman Bo Bair Rinchinov once said of him “Michael Harner is a great shaman. He also proves that a person can be both a scientist and shaman.”

Harner received his doctorate in anthropology in 1963 from the University of California, Berkeley. He taught there, at Columbia and Yale, and at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, where he chaired the anthropology department. His many honors include the 2009 Pioneers in Integrative Medicine Award from California Pacific Medical Center’s Institute for Health & Healing, an honorary doctorate in shamanic studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and special academic recognition at the 2009 meeting of the American Anthropological Association, at which he was honored for his role in the exponential growth of the anthropological study of shamanism. His classic book The Way of the Shaman has long been considered the premier text on modern shamanism.