Neo-Shaman Healers, Potential Pitfalls & Missed Opportunity For Genuine Healing With Nature
Without Nature, We Are Nothing
Are we really prepared to miss a genuine opportunity for healing from nature and build skills for the future which promote self reliance over psychobabble from influencers?
Integrated Dasein
When a deep meaningful connection to nature through outdoor skills is missing from a Shamanic Practitioners world, Nature becomes abstract as somewhere we go to recharge our batteries rather than somewhere we exist, a place that holds us and we are dependent on.
"It is tempting for Neo-shamanic practitioners to turn to spiritual means of dealing with mundane and psychological issues and traumas rather than seeking more culturally sanctioned sources of assistance such as psychotherapy"
The Shamanic Journey & soul retrieval for healing trauma.
Primarily these appear to be visualisation meditations into a historic world of ancestral fantasy. Neo Shamans call this journeying, but they take us to worlds where they erroneously describe coppice cycles which are are no different to today and what they reveal is their disconnection from the land by getting the periods between cuts monumentally wrong.
"Coppice, last cut in the time of our grand father's" Manda Scott, Sacred Eath Activism, "shamanic journey".
Their followers will even make excuses for them, calling it artistic license. No, you cannot claim authority and get something easily researched wrong.
When Gail Bradbrook says the Ceremonialists will deal with the trauma of climate breakdown, she condemns us to untrained, ungrounded, untrustworthy grifters who have birthed machined wood drums and spent most of their time doing mindfulness in their living rooms and pontificate about nature while rejecting learning real outdoor skills.
These people imitate real psychological methods without the grounding techniques. Drumming Chanting and visualisations do not treat PTSD, in fact they exasperate the problem.
Spiritual Bypassing
We Can Heal You?
Manda Scott, author of Boudica and self-styled Shaman, podcaster of the Accidental Gods channel claims she is so powerful she doesn't need you in in her space to heal you. She doesn’t need to hear your "trauma story". Scott has spoken a few times about psychological trauma "people have a trauma story they repeat and it becomes like a mantra".. I don't need to hear your Trauma story to heal you".
"spiritual bypassing can result in a failure to adequately resolve the problems at hand. It can also lead to identity dysfunctions, including grandiosity, intensified fantasy pronenes"
Scott comes across as calous, grandiose and narcissistic. Especially when she talks about "flourishing" and "leaving a world we could be proud to leave to the next generation" in the midst of collapse & mass extinction.
Trauma Therapy is Not a Casual Thing
As someone who has experienced extreme violence & an attempt to be killed, I have had 2.5 years of psychological therapy with 3 different psychologists I am diagnosed with PTSD and PTSD is a recognised disability.
I feel lucky that I had a dedicated consultant led team supporting my recovery, because I am well and able to function and haven't had my life savings taken in the process.
Some Neo-shaman still subscribe to the idea that:
"In its simplest form, the shamanistic theory of schizophrenia
proposes that the core features of schizophrenia are akin to the
primary qualities of shamanism; and that psychosis provided
certain evolutionary advantages to prehistoric hominid tribes.
The idea that shamanism could be comparable to medical forms of
insanity can be traced back to early academic expeditions assigned
to explore the Siberian wilderness during the late 18th century"
Source The Shamanistic Theory of Schizophrenia:
There is no evolutionary advantage in psychosis, it is a brain cell destroying disorder which changes behaviour, personality and risk profile of the sufferer. But Neo-shamans who subscribe to the idea that Schizophrenia is somehow a sacred affliction are condemning the sufferer and those around the to potentially life changing risks or even severe injury or death, whether that is the sufferer taking the lives of others or their own, intentionally or otherwise.
Dr Gail Bradbrook urges us to go to the Big Green Gathering. A huge alternative festival where the security have a history of not involving the authorities when sa severely unwell psychotic man was running around the site causing mayhem and the shamans are calling him "blessed".
11 years working on secure wards has taught me not to take severe mental disorder lightly. Mental disorder and casual violence are closely linked, but not the rule. The primary work that mental health workers are doing is suicide prevention and they are literally saving lives through compassionate in person care and confinement is sometimes required.
The Mental Health Act is one of the few legal frameworks for public safety that doesn't serve billionaires.
When Neo-shamans claim they are picking up where the NHS is failing is simply untrue. Mental Health Care has come a long way.
"To mark the Warneford Hospital's 200 year anniversary in 2026, we are creating a show garden on the main lawn with service users, staff and volunteers. The garden is designed to reflect on the importance of nature connection and green spaces for positive mental and physical health. The installation is temporary and will be on the main lawn for the duration of the anniversary year…….and we are already getting started."
"Rumi Mohideen is a healthcare assistant at the Warneford Hospital. He’s a real advocate of the healing powers of being outdoors and spends time with patients at the meadow and orchard.
He said: “Access to green space and activities is well documented and proven to reduce anxiety. I worked with a patient told me his anxiety left him as we dug new beds. He continued to water the plot and weed it independently through his recovery, arranged to have use of some of his mother’s garden after he was discharged and continues to garden and practice mindfulness after leaving hospital.
“Clearly, we all have a deep connection to nature and at the Warneford we are blessed with managed parkland, sports field, planted wildflowers, allotment with polytunnel as well an orchard, ancient grassland, hedges, woodland and a brook which is a shared space with the local community. It is here that patients feed the birds, clear brush to create habitat, observe the wildlife and note changes.”
Published: 27 September 2019
Nature is the key to good mental health. I piloted the Warneford Meadow Green Spaces Project with Clinical Psychologist Dr Jane Fossey.
"Associate Director of Psychological Services at Oxford Health Dr Jane Fossey led the development of the framework. She said: “The benefits of being in a natural setting are becoming widely recognised and I’m delighted that we are able to support people and promote their wellbeing in this way.
“Today is a fantastic opportunity to share knowledge and learn from one another about how we can support people and support the natural environment.”
The Green Spaces Framework evolved from a project to develop Warneford Meadow and a wildflower meadow at Warneford Hospital and was created by a steering group led by Dr Fossey"
I have developed my practice to do both and recognise my natural affinity with nature is not unique.
How Humans Have An Innate Affinity For Nature and Why This Matters for Wellbeing
27th January 2024
With all this evidence, why Are Neo Shamans so averse to nature and deep connection to nature through skills?
Why are we falling for this unscientific unproven psychobabbnle when the evidence that Nature Therapy works.
When Gail Bradbrook says we need the people who build stuff, what she fails to understand is that many of the people who build stuff are also the people with survival skills.
We self therapise in nature. Wilderness Surival Skills teach self reliance, resourcefulness, humility and inquisitiveness of the natural world.
Neo-Shamanism seems to teach that this is an alt-mental-healthcare, and you can make money out of it.
An yet these problems keep arising:
Lack of Evidence: There is no conclusive, high-level evidence to support the effectiveness of traditional shamanic healing alone in improving mental health status.
Spiritual Bypassing: Neo-shamanic practices can lead to "spiritual bypassing," where individuals use spiritual explanations to avoid addressing underlying psychological traumas, potentially preventing them from seeking necessary conventional treatment.
Risk of Psychosis: For individuals with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia, viewing their symptoms solely as spiritual gifts (a common shamanic perspective) can cause them to delay or refuse conventional, necessary treatment.
Delusion and Fantasy: Intense focus on non-material realities can lead to increased schizotypy (cognitive traits related to schizophrenia) and grandiosity.
Exploition of indigenous people and the public.
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