Author David Shi is an Asian American shamanic worker who grew up in New Jersey, wanting to be like other American kids, until he realized there were depths to his Asian roots that called to him. “My spirits had other plans,” he tells us in the preface.
His book is full of mythology and folklore, as well as firsthand experience and spiritual practice. When Westerners think of discovering spirituality from the East, it’s usually religious traditions like Buddhism to which they turn. Shi wants Westerners — particularly fellow Asian Americans — to discover their own native traditions instead.
Shi has traveled widely in Asia to Buddhist, Shinto, and shamanic places in Mongolia, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and Manchuria. The results of these travels, researches, conversations, and experiments are offered here as a comprehensive introduction to the many different North Asian shamanic traditions.
The topics of spiritual practices are many and varied, including cleansing baths, the use of sacred herbs; energy manipulation; prayer scarves and ceremonies; various forms of divination; maintaining connections to sacred places, including land and trees; milk blessings; fire ceremonies; spirit containers; and the use of drums, bells, sticks, and other tools.
One detailed spiritual practice in chapter 9 is called an “Offering Prayer Ceremony” and includes calling upon Mother Earth, invoking land spirits, presenting offerings of food and other things, and then telling the spirits what it is you want or hope for. Shi includes here interesting information followed by personal experience: “The shamans and elders of North Asia believe that prayer are best said spontaneously and strongly advise against memorizing them, as this can limit their effectiveness. Every time I perform this offering ceremony, I say the prayer slightly differently.”
Shi offers this useful summary for his book: “Remember that the purpose of shamanism can be summed up in two words: coexistence and balance — coexistence with our spirits and our communities, and the balance that must be preserved between all of us and within ourselves.”
