“What Yogananda did for Hinduism and D.T. Suzuki did for Zen, Michael Harner has done for shamanism, namely bring the tradition and its richness to Western awareness.”
—Roger Walsh and Charles S. Grob, Higher Wisdom

Dr. Michael Harner is widely acknowledged as the world’s foremost authority on experiential and practical shamanism and shamanic healing, and has had an enormous influence on both the academic and lay worlds. The founder and president of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, he pioneered the introduction of shamanism and the shamanic drum journey to contemporary life and is recognized as the world leader in this movement. He has done fieldwork in the upper Amazon, western North America, Samiland (Lapland), and the Canadian Arctic. His books include The Way of the Shaman, Hallucinogens and Shamanism, and The Jίvaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls. In 2009, he was honored by California Pacific Medical Center's Institute for Health & Healing with the "Pioneers in Integrative Medicine Award." He also received special academic recognition through the presentation of sessions dedicated to him at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia. Three organizations of the AAA joined together to recognize him for his "pioneering work" in shamanism "as an academic and advocate" and for his role during the last forty years in the "exponential growth in anthropological studies of the importance and significance" of shamanism.

Author photo © France Viana