Writch

"Shamanism is very much alive and well all around us. How do I know this? For one, by direct experience, but it is also true by simple definition. Let me explain.
Shamanism, unlike brotherhoods and many of the mystery traditions, is not something you choose to join or can be invited to. Shamanism chooses you because it is a natural reflex of society rather than some kind of formal group or organization. In a word, shamans are by definition those individuals whose own internal psychological or spiritual experiences force them outside normal societal conventions and into a mental space not easily understood or accepted by that same society. The shaman stands outside convention by virtue of their own internal chemistry. One does not choose to be a shaman. The personal internal experience of the shaman push them beyond the pale of convention into a psychic or spiritual space where they literally must sink or swim, meaning: you either go kind of crazy or manage to stabilize yourself."

That is very interesting.

I agree utterly. Close and accurate... but not precise enough for the uninitiated. Most people (scholars and even plain folk like you and me) who bump up against shamans & shamanism recognize and accept Mircea Eliade's characterization and definition of shamans - a term Eliade borrowed from one culture but now has become the term used cross-culturally for the person filling that role.

Here are the bones of it from Wikipedia:

According to Eliade, one of the most common shamanistic themes is the shaman's supposed death and resurrection. This occurs in particular during his initiation. Often, the procedure is supposed to be performed by spirits who dismember the shaman and strip the flesh from his bones, then put him back together and revive him. In more than one way, this death and resurrection represents the shaman's elevation above human nature.

First, the shaman dies so that he can rise above human nature on a quite literal level. After he has been dismembered by the initiatory spirits, they often replace his old organs with new, magical ones (the shaman dies to his profane self so that he can rise again as a new, sanctified, being).

 Second, by being reduced to his bones, the shaman experiences rebirth on a more symbolic level: in many hunting and herding societies, the bone represents the source of life, so reduction to a skeleton "is equivalent to re-entering the womb of this primordial life, that is, to a complete renewal, a mystical rebirth". Eliade considers this return to the source of life essentially equivalent to the eternal return.

Third, the shamanistic phenomenon of repeated death and resurrection also represents a transfiguration in other ways. The shaman dies not once but many times: having died during initiation and risen again with new powers, the shaman can send his spirit out of his body on errands; thus, his whole career consists of repeated deaths and resurrections. The shaman's new ability to die and return to life shows that he is no longer bound by the laws of profane time, particularly the law of death: "the ability to 'die' and come to life again [...] denotes that [the shaman] has surpassed the human condition". 

Now my own personal take.

Being an Active shaman means one is a Hunter. Hunting for energies and 'eating' them - consuming them and integrating them into the self to feed Self.
Some call these energies...
- Chi or Ki in Eastern traditions
- Spirits, souls or gods in Animistic traditions
- planets, signs and aspects in Astrology
- in Psychology, they're identified as moods, dreams and complexes
This is of course not an exhaustive list, but to provide a few examples of the mixed glossary that I deal in.

But they are all of the mind and (gestalt-wise) they are Mind.

We humans are fishes in an ocean of the corporeal. Above this ocean is the incorporeal - the Transcendant. Fishes are ruled by the ocean because they live and eat in the ocean - they even breathe the ocean! But they breathe (in small quantities) the essence of what is Above the ocean in a purer form... call it "Air". If they stay out of the ocean - they perish, yet just jumping out for a while they can survive if they return.

I'd say Active Shamanism is swimming in the shallows, sometimes beaching yourself for the altered state and having Faith in the Tide to pull you back, or the intervention of beings from the non-Ocean realm to push/put you back in.
But then how do you tell the other fishes of your experience? What do they know of non-aquatic terms? Why is there no word for "Polar Bear" in the Hawaiian language.

In my humble opinion, a prophet is similar to a shaman but Passive: chosen by the Energies in the Above (Transcendent) realm they are then returned to safety - call it a Divine Catch-and-Release program. Some have it once, other recurring times... but they don't seek it. That is, unless they are ignorant enough to not recognize that they keep taking the sacred 'bait'. If they do, and they are then looking for it, well they are then hunting it, hunters, Active shamans.

Now, every three years or so I gain temporary clarity I gain in an involuntary climb up the World Tree or spelunking down my local cave leading to the Cthonic Unconcious. I find my way back by material and immaterial guides. Then things slowly 'return to normal' - but my clarity gets tarnished and encrusted. And then Energies backup behind this build-up and explosively spill over the damn every three years, flooding the plain of my mundane where I have toiled to plant crops for the future - and not without the irony that the plain would not be fertile without this cycle. The farmer of that plain also dies and must be reborn: re-made.

Granted, it is a viscious cycle to be sure. But I live with it and learn from it - to paraphrase Eliade again, I am the victim of the Terror of History - my own personal history.

This is also the story of the three little pigs, but with more than three pigs, many more wolves and a diverse stockyard with more types of construction materials and blueprints than you can imagine. The local libraries and sacred sites are my piggies' Home Depot.

10 gramm of magic mushroom make a shaman out of everyone...

No. I dont believe so. I have to say this in all seriousness There is much more than that to it though it might give you an insight into it. Take this from somebody who has done a lot more then that. You have to be preordained of sort . You will know it from a young age how different you are. You also need to be able to project your will into matter. Doing mushrooms or other things just gives you an idea of other spaces. You dont have to do Mushrooms to be a Shaman.......Rolef

Rolef,  I think the winking emoticon was a indicative of teasing.

He might as well typed something outlandish like:
     "10 beers makes any man a philosopher and every woman beautiful "
               or
     "10 chapters of Art of War makes a strategist "

His moniker and the names of the tourneys he's in speaks volumes...
to him, psychedelics are for recreational purposes, not re-create-tional paths.

I mean no offense, Psychonaut. If you have a different philosophy or profound experience to share - please educate me. I mean that. I want to hear from your hara, your dantian. Sing shakti to me from your manipura.

Thanks Writch.

            I did not catch on to the wink.