Roger Walsh is a professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology, and adjunct professor of religious studies at the University of California at Irvine. He is the author of many books including Essential Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices. This paperback is an expansion of his 1991 book The Spirit of Shamanism. It sets out to present an overview of shamanic practices, to examine them in the light of modern research, to evaluate extreme claims about shamans, and to compare the many shamanistic traditions from around the world.

Walsh puts forward this definition: "Shamanism can be defined as a family of traditions whose practitioners focus on voluntarily entering altered states of consciousness in which they experience themselves or their spirit(s) interacting with other entities, often by traveling to other realms, in order to serve their community." Many anthropologists believe that shamanism is the world's oldest and most widespread profession.

The book is divided into the following sections:

• The Life of the Shaman
• Diagnosing the Shaman
• The Shaman's Universe
• Shamanic Techniques
• The Shaman's Mind

At one point, Walsh quotes Rabbi Yannai, an early Jewish sage:

"Reality is more complex than we would like.
If we insist upon it making sense,
We find ourselves despairing.
Reality cannot be neatly packaged. . . .
Reality is all that is, and this is often at odds
With what we imagine it should be."

Shamanism has always challenged reason and the normal ways of doing things, and Walsh does a fine job demystifying it with his assessments of spirit possession, vision quests, channeling, dreams, out-of-the-body experiences, divination, healing and different levels of consciousness.