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Shamanism, like many other "isms," is a Western construct, and issues of gender and sexuality play into this construct in various ways. Shamanism has been used since the eighteenth century to describe various people in indigenous ("tribal") communities who might also be termed "medicine men," "witch doctors," "healers," and "sorcerers"; those people who engage with "spirits" for certain socially sanctioned tasks.

Shamans may be identified as such from birth, through an initiatory sickness, or a calling from the spirits; only rarely is the vocation taken up voluntarily. Shamanic practices may include healing the sick, controlling game, altering consciousness, journeying to other worlds, speaking to spirits or becoming possessed by them, even forming marriages and sexual relationships with powerful "spirit-helpers."

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Historically, shamanism has been confused with schizophrenia by anthropologists because shamans often speak of altered state experiences in the spirit world as if they were "real" experiences. While the shaman and the person in a psychotic episode both have unusual access to spiritual and altered state experiences, shamans are trained to work in the spirit world, while the psychotic person is simply lost in it.

But in many traditional cultures, psychotic episodes have served as an initiatory illness that calls a person into shamanism. Mircea Eliade writes:

      The future shaman sometimes takes the risk of being mistaken for a "madman". . .but his "madness" fulfills a mystic function; it reveals certain aspects of reality to him that are inaccessible to other mortals, and it is only after having experienced and entered into these hidden dimensions of reality that the "madman" becomes a shaman. (Mircea Eliade. Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries. New York: Harper and Row, 1960. Page 80-81)

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As the person accepts the calling and becomes a shaman, their illness usually disappears. The "self-cure of a psychosis" is so typical of the shaman that some anthropologists have argued that anyone without this experience should be described only as a healer. The concept of the "wounded healer" addresses the necessity of the shaman-to-be entering into extreme personal crisis in preparation of his/her role in the community as a healer (Halifax, Joan. Shamanic Voices. New York: Dutton, 1979)..

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When someone is called to become a shaman this Call
is often accompanied by a period of physical or mental distress or
illness. A potential shaman may then elect to avoid that calling or
may decide to seek training and begin to shamanize. (Among the Tungus
of Siberia, from whom the word 'shaman' originates, the word is in
fact used both as a noun and as a verb. In English, the verb form is
'to shamanize'.)

The first task the new or prospective shaman must face then is to
master his or her own condition and this experience becomes an
essential part of what resources may thereafter be drawn upon when
shamanizing or engaging in shamanic healing or other activities. The
personal experience of those shamans who do encounter
such an initial period of 'shamanic sickness' is characteristic of
the role of personal experience in the way of shamans worldwide.
Overcoming this initial period of illness or distress, when it is
encountered, and which may be brief or last for many years, provides
shamans with the type of experience which is considered absolutely
necessary for their work as shamans. As self therapy, it also enables
the shaman to participate in the day-to-day life of the community
(which may not have been possible while in the throws of shamanic
sickness.)

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deimya said:
The scar of the shaman grows different in its intricacy. It takes shape in the shaman's habits and discourses and his pact with the community depends only slightly on his particular mystical experiences. He's an oak amongst the ferns, producing a different sound when the wind blows.

In that sense it might be that his spiritual and physical healing aptitudes, if any, depends more on swaying one's mind and body away and steer it back to rest in a hopefully diseaseless state, rather than targeting a particular ailment using diagnostics. Kick the patient over the forest instead of making him crawl along a convoluted path. In both cases you lend somewhere anyway.

That's my 2?

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Mufungo said:
I don't think there are many occupations in the modern age which haven't come a long way from their initial roots.

Does it really matter if a shaman of today isn't like a shaman of long ago (assuming that there really were "shamans" long ago)?  I guess it might depend on one's own values around tradition.

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Wikipedia said:
Shamanism is a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. A practitioner of shamanism is known as a shaman, pronounced /ˈʃɑːmən/, /ˈʃeɪmən/, (|ˈshämən; ˈshā-|) noun (pl. -man(s)).[2] There are many variations of shamanism throughout the world and several common beliefs are shared by all forms of shamanism. Shamans are intermediaries between the human and spirit worlds. According to believers, they can treat illness and are capable of entering supernatural realms to provide answers for human beings.[3]

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