Inidigenous spiritual practice and the observation thereof in terms of mythology, psychology, and comparing mystery and institutionalized traditions have influenced the contemporary understanding and definition of religious/spiritual experience as a whole. The predominantly tragic influence of colonial/imperial ideologies on native people, in particular places as well as worldwide as a cultural syndrome, is impossible to deny. How should a contemporary person engage this tension creatively in order to be more fully alive and also respectful of and able to act on the dilemmas involved.

Is it possible for a person with a predominantly post-industrial background to have an authentic spiritual orientation informed by indigenous experience? How would this person act in a way that any living human would recognize as just?

Is the standard for authenticity based on personal transmission and official succession to an office recognized by a specific local community? What about the traditional part of what, for lack of better term must be referred to as "shamanic", which involves an individual receiving a call through inner/solo initiation, instruction through dreams, possession, or the experience of recovering from a psychic break?

What of those who use "shamanic" as a metaphor, meaning something like "engaging with alternate realities for the purpose of gaining power" -- for whatever purpose, but often including various kinds of healing as well as helping to sustain communities? Should they find another term or shut up until they have access to some succession?

"Metashamanism" suggests a spectrum of practice and exploration which presupposes the influence of indigenous ideas and explores the expanse of experience and ideas which indicate the metaphorical, alternately real, fictional and empirical (dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses), dreaming level of real life experience. The question is not "are you a Shaman or not" but in what ways are the paths of human un/consciousness itself revealed by inquiring about the "shamanic"?