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In this fascinating volume, Spencer Rogers, an anthropologist, examines the basic assumptions, epistemology, and methodology of Shaman healers through the centuries in every part of the world. In a rather systematic, textbook fashion, Dr. Rogers discusses the roles, functions, and methodologies used by the Shaman in the particular societies in which they lived and practiced. From these accounts he deduces specific “striking and unexplained similarities between the practices of people geographically far apart” (p. ix). Rogers uses the generalizations derived from these similarities to ompare Shamanism with modern Western psychiatry and psychotherapy. His treatment is comprehensive and scholarly, with considerable reference to both modern anthropological and psychiatric observers and those of the last century who have studied the practices of the Shaman.
Dr. Rogers regards the Shaman as a constructive leader in his society who practices “mysteries beyond the understanding of most members of his community” (p. ix). In these functions Rogers perceives the Shaman as a skillful therapist who utilizes principles and methods which are basic to the practice of psychotherapy. The Shaman is not only the sole professional in the community, in fact probably the first professional in the development of human society, but frequently, as well, the repository of tribal wisdom and knowledge. In this capacity, he perpetuates the traditional values of his society:
In Shaman therapy, when an individual is sick he is not given treatment for his body in one way, for his mind in another, and for his soul in another-illness is something wrong with the entire being rather than with a particular part of it. (p. 136)
A highly important factor to be included in any evaluation of the Shaman's healing efforts is that he works within the perimeter of the culture of his patients, which he well understands. The modern Western psychiatrist may have difficulty in attaining a comparable degree of rapport