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Beginning in 1990, at an annual retreat in Colorado, Donald Sandner gathered a small group of like-minded analysts, therapists and lay-people to explore the relevance of shamanism to Jungian philosophy. The conference for Sandner was the culmination of many years of study and participation in the healing practices of tribal peoples, including the Navajo of Arizona, the trance-healers in Bali, tribal groups in South America, and the Dogon of West Africa.
Don Sandner died suddenly at Easter in 1997, shortly after the publication of this book, The Sacred Heritage. The book is a fitting tribute to the generous way he gave of himself to his patients, his colleagues at the Jung Institute of San Francisco, his family and friends.
With Steven Wong, a Jungian psychotherapist with a lifelong interest in and affinity for shamanism, Sandner collected for the book 24 presentations given at six meetings of the Colorado conference. The book's four sections explore the shamanic archetype, followed by essays on the use of the shamanic paradigm in psychotherapy, shamanism and personal transformation, and the shamanic background to cultural understanding and change.
The essays have a double impact. Throughout the first section, the authors repeatedly make the point that the archaic wisdom of shamanism came out of the discovery of the reality of the psyche. This basic discovery, fundamental to Jungian psychology, has been at the core of healing practice from the beginning of human records, for at least 30, 000 years. Several authors name the parallels between shamanism and Jungian psychology: healing intentions, direct experience of the inner world (Sandner); ‘typic- ally recurring personifications of psychic contents’, profound introversion, relationship between ‘sickness and a vital visionary experience, … profound and disquieting upheaval of unconscious psychic contents’ that ‘anticipate a radical transformation and expansion of consciousness’ (Bradley A. TePaske).
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