Ancestry is NOT Culture: A Guide to Heritage and Spiritual Appropriation

In the last post, things could easily have gotten heated from the talk about appropriation. Appropriation is a huge buzzword in our society today and it is largely used unjustly. To understand appropriation we have to understand two other topics. Culture and Ancestry. 

These two terms are often used as though they are interchangeable when they are completely separate but can be related. Ancestry is easier to explain so let’s go with that first. I never wanted to be that guy saying, “Oh, I’m descended from 'x y z' blah blah blah.” But the more I worked in my ancestral side of things the more proud I became of my ancestry. And I learned that this one from this point wasn’t that different from this one of another point. That being said I will be using myself as the example throughout this post for my Ancestry and Culture. My ancestry information comes from using the services of 23&Me. There are reasons why I picked that company to trust with this at the time. 

What is Ancestry?

Ancestry is your blood ties. It is your DNA lineage that paints the picture of where and when you came from. It does not necessarily define who you are or what you are though. Every person has an ancestral lineage and that lineage is half of their heritage. I will explain heritage a little later in this post. 

Your ancestry does not equate to your Culture though. But it does clue you into what cultures you are most likely to have an energetic link to. And from that, depending on your practice, you can tap into your ancestry through Energetic Memories and learn different practices that would be carried in your blood. For example, I performed a healing service for a friend. I received very specific instructions through my practice on how to perform the service. When discussing this with my mentor at a later date and explaining what I was shown to do she asked, “When did you study Tibetan Shamanism?” I was confused for a second and said, “I haven’t that was just what was shown to me.” She then explained that culture’s practice and how similar mine was to theirs but with key differences unique to me. Turns out that I was shown to do something close in practice to a practice thousands of miles away with people I had never seen, spoken with, or even thought to look up.

After that discovery I did look them up just to see their history and why I would be shown something so similar to them. It turns out those practices are derived from the Siberian people, and my Paternal Haplogroup from my DNA test shows that my father’s paternal line also comes from the Siberian people. I am specifically linked to the Siberian Mal’ta Boy through my Haplogroup. What was shown to me was something rooted in my blood and ancestry which transcended Cultural barriers. And because it wasn’t rooted in Culture, I learned a variation of the practice that is more defined for me and how I work energetically. Crazy stuff like that happens all the time in my practice. 

Haplogroups, I should define now, are genetic markers that go beyond the last 8 generations when you do a DNA test. When you do a DNA test, typically you get the strongest results up to 8 generations back in your lineage. The percentages you see in those tests shouldn’t be used to say how much. It is rather to say how recent. The higher the percentage the more recent a lineage appears. The lower the percentage, the further in the past it is. That is why even with the DNA tests you get a good picture of where and when you came from, but it still won’t be complete. You can have trace ancestry which shows a very low percentage so very far back in your history. Trace ancestry would be like 8 to 10 generations ago. Haplogroups go back much further. This will show when specific genetic markers or mutations happen as people split off from one group to form another. Then there are Paternal and Maternal Haplogroups. 

Paternal Haplogroups are genetic markers passed down from Father to Son. Daughters do not inherit Paternal Haplogroup markers. Why? Science still doesn’t fully comprehend it so I will not pretend or fake an explanation. One of the best working theories is because of XY vs XX chromosomes but it is still only a theory and not completely solid yet due to XXY, XXX, XYX, and XYY variations. Paternal Haplo-grouping defines where and when the males of your lineage are descended from. Women can learn their Paternal Haplogroup though from either their Father or Brother(s) doing the DNA test as well. Just know that if you are a woman you cannot pass it on to your children. They will receive their Father’s haplogroup instead. But that does mean they will have somewhere in their blood and your blood the ancestry of those people still. It will just cease to show up on DNA testing. 

Maternal Haplogroups are passed from Mother to all of her children. Sons and daughters each receive their mother’s haplo-grouping. But sons cannot pass it down to their children. Maternal haplogroups can become a bit more convoluted to trace because of this. At the same time, it is through maternal haplogroups we have been able to trace our primitive origins more fully than if we were to try and trace through paternal lineage. Because you can take any human remains and DNA test them to find maternal lineages. If the DNA is from the remains of a female though there will not be paternal lineage data.

My maternal line from my lineage branch ends with me and my siblings. How? On my mother’s side, my great-grandmother had one boy and two girls. The two girls; my grandmother and my aunt carried the maternal lineage. My grandmother had one girl and two boys. My aunt had one boy. My mom carried that maternal lineage. My mom had three boys. We cannot pass down that maternal lineage to our children. So effectively our maternal line has ended with us. But there is the possibility of far-removed cousins who continue the line. I would have to look up the branches of my great-grandmother to see if any other women could have continued the line along another branch. 

My brothers and I now carry my Paternal line. As long as we have sons we will continue that line. If one of us has only daughters then his branch of the paternal line ends with him ending both our maternal and paternal lineage from his branch. Our children still have those DNA ancestries but they will not be “visible” with current scientific techniques. The entire genome sequencing and field of science is truly fascinating and I can’t wait for more breakthroughs as we restore the painting of humanity. 

All of that is why Haplo-groupings are important. They show the history that has shaped you and how you can tie back to really ancient ancestries and even Dynasties through history. The regular DNA with the percentages again shows how recently you have lineage to groups around the world.

My Paternal Haplogroup can be traced to ancient Siberians. My Maternal traces to the Ancient Empire of Persia. Therefore I have Siberian and Persian Ancestry. Moving up to my most recent Ancestry (up to 8 generations ago) I have:

• British and Irish at 53.5%

  • This would include Scottish, Welsh, and all of those islands' lineages

• Scandinavian at 1.4%

• Finnish at .2%

• Italian/Sicilian (going deeper on this in a bit) at 37.7%

• Spanish and Portuguese at .6%

• Nigerian at .8%

• Broadly European

  • Northwestern European 3.5%

  • Southern European 1.7%

• Broadly Sub-Saharan African .1%

• Trace Ancestry of Coptic Egyptians at .1%

There are sub-classes or groups too and I will use my Italian/Sicilian Ancestry to better explain how distinctions like that matter.

Generations, in terms of DNA, are not the same as saying Millennial or Gen X. 8 generations would be how many parents to grandparents ago. This would not include me though. So 1 generation ago is meaning my parents. 2 would be my grandparents and so on. So again the percentages don’t show how much lineage you have, they show how recent that lineage was. 

An example is my Sicilian/Italian DNA which is at 37.7%. This means that 1-3 generations ago someone was as close to 100% as genetically possible for Italian ancestry. While Nigerian, being at .8%, means that someone between 5-8 generations ago was as close to 100% as possible. It doesn’t mean I have less or more of either, it just means how far back did it first show up. The Ancestry still exists regardless of whether it is 30% or 2%. Trace Ancestry is usually a smaller percentage because it is 8 or more generations ago represented by the Coptic Egyptian at .1%. That means others are so far back they did not show up on the percentages. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist which is why sub-classes or sub-groups are important.

When I look at my DNA results and go to my Italian ancestry, the highest concentration is the Sub-Group Sicilian. Sicilians are Italian by definition because of country borders. But they are a distinct group. Sicilians have some Roman-Italian DNA through the conquest of the group. The Island of Sicily, before the Romans had three distinct groups who lived relatively peacefully with each other. The Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the native people of the island whose origins are largely unknown. Of the natives, there were three tribes and one of those is who the island was named after. The three tribes, the Phoenicians, and the Greeks tenuously got along from what historical records show. And there was intermingling. Eventually, the Western part of the island became Carthage as what was left of the Phoenicians left. Rome went to war with Carthage because Rome wanted to seize control of the island as a hub for trade and Mediterranean control. And Rome won. People with Sicilian Ancestry are distinct from mainland Italians because of that mixing pot on the island. Giving Sicilians Phoenician and Greek ancestry as well as the native tribal ancestry which is set apart from the different tribes of Italy that existed before the Roman Empire. Even though Phoenician and Greek did not show up in the report explicitly, knowing the history of the different markers that did appear tells me what “hidden” ancestry exists too. 

Ancestry is the piece of your Heritage that overcomes these hard lines we draw in the sands of time. Your Ancestry transcends the barriers that Culture tries to impose. As you can see, Ancestry can be measured by scientific testing of genomes. It can be recorded in family trees for documentation. Of the two, Ancestry is more tangible than Culture. 

What is Culture?

Culture can be both supportive and/or a hindrance to one’s ancestry. The reason for this is because Culture is more nuanced compared to the measurability of Ancestry. Even the growing popularity of the concept of “spiritual ancestry” can still be more measurable than Culture.

Ancestry can play a light part in Culture. For example, my Sicilian ancestry says that 1-3 generations ago was someone who was nearly 100%. Well, I know who that was. My great-grandmother was a Sicilian immigrant. She was born here before naturalization was a thing. She and her parents and siblings had to go back to Sicily for a few years before they could fully immigrate as citizens. She spent some of her earlier years in Sicily and was raised by her parents of Sicilian descent. When I was a child she would teach me things about Sicilians that I have to this day never seen or heard anyone else do. What she taught me were traditions, folklore, superstitions, etc. She taught me Sicilian culture. 

My grandparents, the generation after her, taught some too but it was second-hand learning because it came from her and her parents who had lived in Sicily while they never had. So I have Sicilian culture right? I have two younger brothers. They quite obviously have Sicilian Ancestry. But they are lacking in Sicilian culture. My brothers are 4 and 6 years younger than me. By the time my first younger brother was born, my great-grandmother had begun a slow but steady decline into Alzheimer’s Disease. My youngest brother was born when the disease started to reach its peak. By the time the two of them were able to fully comprehend and interact with the world she was placed in a nursing home. She was not around to teach them the things that she had taught me. And some of the things she would do were not done by my grandparents or parents. I have the Culture from the direct influence of my great-grandmother. My brothers simply do not. If I were to talk about some of the things she did, my parents would probably say, “Oh yeah! I remember that.” My brothers would be clueless.

That’s how nuanced Culture can be and why we need to be careful of claiming cultures that are not ours to claim. We also need to understand that some of the cultures we might put down are cultures we belong to. Making us just as much of the problem instead of the solution. 

A prime example of this is people calling out Western culture. Western culture is generally accepted to be European and American Caucasian culture. That generalization allows for people to shift focus and blame off of themselves. What do I mean by that? Black Americans like to claim they are of African Culture. African people usually vehemently oppose that notion and claim Black Americans are culturally appropriating from them. This is not inaccurate because Black Americans are a part of Western Culture, not African Culture. Again, there are nuances and degrees to this so it is not meant to say all Black Americans have no African Culture. There is going to be some influence from African Culture but that is why there is a distinction of Black Culture in America as well. Black Americans, who are generationally tied here due to the gross inhumane events in America’s history, will have the two Cultures of Western Culture and Black American Culture. In contrast, I have the two Cultures of Western and Sicilian-American. Which is different from Italian-Americans because Sicilians do things differently than Italians. For me, a cannoli is filled with sweetened ricotta cheese. Northern Italian tradition fills them with sweet cream. There was once a Northern Italian foreign exchange student at my high school who called me a “dirty Italian” when she found out I was Sicilian. 

Culture and cultural differences matter. And to claim a culture you have to be invited and accepted as a part of that culture learning the different customs and traditions. Foods, sayings, gestures, holidays, etc. All of this is a part of a culture. Ancestry plays a role but is minimal in the grand scheme. My first exposure to this realization was from Africans which is why I spoke on it. I was invited in my mid-twenties to go to a Story Circle. A Story Circle is when different people of Africa come together to share food, stories,  music, and lore from their various groups. It is a beautiful event where different cultures are freely shared because knowledge should be freely shared. By doing this, one group may have experienced a problem and found a solution which can be imparted to another group who is just starting to experience a similar problem. An example would be a food shortage, by sharing various foods they can show other recipes to better utilize what is available. 

But yes, I got invited to go to this event by an African man who was a teacher at a University in South Africa. He was leading a group of African students on a tour through schools in America. They had decided to do the Story Circle during their stay in New Orleans because of the history of the city. They chose a Bead Tree (look it up) on one of the college campuses to hold the event around. I was nervous and worried I would be an outsider and feel shunned. It was the complete opposite. Everyone there was so welcoming and warm. To this day it is still one of the best things I have ever experienced. I noticed there were other Caucasian attendees and a few Asian American attendees. Anyone who was black-skinned though was from Africa and not a local of New Orleans. I asked the guy who had invited me and that’s when he explained how Black Americans are not welcomed or invited to these events because they came with, as he called it, “...an air of entitlement to take our stories as if they are their own. They haven’t lived our lives so they are not the same as us. They try to steal our lives to justify their own.” I was taken aback because this guy was a Philosophy teacher saying what I, at the time, interpreted to be kind of harsh. 

The more I learned about Culture and Anthropology though, the more I understood.

While Black American Culture DOES have minor African influences, a Black American has not experienced African Culture as an African. Just as I, a Caucasian, can know of Black American culture but not have experienced it. Culture is shaped by a community with shared experiences and the traditions, solutions, practices, etc. that have been learned because of those experiences. 

You can gain a new culture through immersion. By seeking out a group of people respectfully they can choose to welcome you into their culture. You can learn their ways and the why behind those. You can experience life as they experience it. Let me be clear, talking to someone over the internet from a different culture is not the same thing. Immersion is the only way to gain a new cultural affinity. I have Siberian Ancestry, but I am not of Siberian Culture. I have Egyptian Ancestry, but I am not of Egyptian Culture. 

I have Alphabet Soup Culture (LGBT+) but I do not have Lesbian Culture. Just as a Lesbian will not have a Gay Man culture. We have an umbrella culture and then we have sub-cultures. There’s Sicilian-American culture and then there is Italian-American Culture. There is Latino Culture and then there is Mexican Culture, Honduran Culture, or Mexican-American culture. Where you were raised and the experiences you have had shape the cultures you have. And yes, you have more than one culture. Everyone has more than one. I can’t go out and get an injection and gain Pacific Islander Ancestry but I can go and spend time and learn and experience what life is like to a Pacific Islander and gain that culture.

Heritage

There is a beautiful trade-off between Ancestry and Culture. One can be measured but is kind of stuck. Your kids can get ancestry you don’t have but you can’t, biologically speaking, gain new ancestry. Culture cannot be measured and is more nuanced but we each can learn and gain additional cultures respectfully and rewardingly. The merging of Ancestry and Culture is called Heritage. Your heritage marries your Ancestry and Culture so that when or if you reproduce your children can inherit both from you so long as you teach them the cultures you are a part of. That also means Cultures can die though. In Louisiana, especially now in the year 2024, finding someone who speaks true authentic Cajun French is nearly impossible. Cajuns were so hated and treated unfairly by the rest of the Caucasians that they began to refuse to teach new generations the language and all of the traditions. The idea was that if their kids didn’t know those things they would be safe from lynching or other mistreatments. And it worked. The Cajun French ancestry survives but at the cost of the near extinction of the culture. 

Hawaii is another example of this but even worse. Native Hawaiians faced near genocide for years much like Native Americans. Younger generations are now putting forth the work and effort to both learn the Hawaiian language and then teach it to others so that it can survive to pass down that cultural Heritage. You could say Heritage is like the gift of time being passed from person to person. The gift gets bigger each time it is passed down because each generation adds its own experiences and wisdom to it. The larger the gift of heritage becomes the less divisive we as a society become. When we put up and hold those strong lines that say, “THIS IS MINE NOT YOURS YOU CAN'T HAVE IT,” the gift starts to shrink. The less it is passed the less it grows until eventually it becomes outdated and useless in contemporary societies. Continuation of that mentality inevitably brings cultural death. This is always a loss because if you have a tradition in your culture and someone shares a tradition from their culture you can fuse the two and evolve the tradition into something more relevant to today. Remember, honor the past but move on to the future. I hinted at this in Energetic Memories. 

Heritage keeps culture and ancestry alive and relevant. By passing it on, by inviting others in, by willingly and freely sharing we build new and better things for the future generations to pick up and continue. False claims of appropriation, on the other hand, are the biggest threat to heritage.

Appropriation

Appropriation is understood to be the theft of culture. Which is true but it is more than just that.

Appropriation occurs when someone is not invited to be a part of a culture and begins to use the traditions of said culture as their own usually for gain. It is also when something someone adopted and then turned into a weapon against others utilizing it as was mentioned in the last post. 

But the worst part of appropriation is the false accusation of it. That is such a damaging accusation and should never be dished out lightly. If you get caught making that accusation under false pretenses or information it will double back on you so hard. Which will then destroy your integrity and verity amongst peers. 

The way to not get caught up in that hurricane of consequences is to first understand completely what you are talking about. Historical context is important. For example, a Black man and a Philipino Trans Woman once came at me for reading Tarot and Astrology charts. The Philipino woman was the one that stuck out to me as she laughed and said, “I find it so funny when white people try to act like they know Astrology better than people of color.” She then tried to give me some basic ass astrology information and I countered and cut her ass down to size on the subject. What is interesting to me is that they were trying to accuse me of “cultural appropriation” of two practices that ORIGINATED IN EUROPE. Tarot was initially developed in Italy in the 1400s as a game for nobility to pass the time. It was later adopted more seriously into spiritual practices. Astrology, of the Zodiac we are all familiar with, was developed in Greece by Greek Mathematicians which is why each of the Zodiac signs is equated to a Greek constellation and mythos. Unlike the woman, I DO NOT find it humorous when people put down another culture by taking and weaponizing their heritage against them. I was accused of appropriation by people who were in actuality guilty of appropriating. Now, had the woman said what she said about Chinese astrology and I was head-long trying to practice one of the different beliefs involving that then 100% she would have been right. 

That was of course a bit more of a petty example of people who ultimately were inconsequential to my life or the lives of others. But that is just one small stone along a mountain of these false accusations. Not personally against me as was the case in that example. The problem I am referring to is “influencers” stepping up to give their opinions and not having a full background in the information they are spreading. My last post was on the origins of belief, Animism, and how Shamanism is an umbrella term for practitioners of that. Since that is fresh let me use that as an example for what I mean.

Again, I am not going to name names because it is the behavior I am calling out more than the person. A YouTuber released a video about Shamanism and, at first, there was some “historical” information that could have been accurate. However, I took issue with what was being said because the YouTuber was divesting all of their information from a single source. Anytime you want to give information you need multiple sources. None of my posts are based on one single source of information. That was issue one but a minor one and a personal peeve of mine rather than a big major issue. 

Issue number two was the blame game they began to play against Caucasians for the hunting down and murder of Siberian Shamans. It was undisguised direct blame. First off, the blame game never helps anyone. Secondly, the facts were not complete. Siberian, Tibetan, and other Animistic tribes of that area were indeed hunted down and killed to implement forced conversion to religions such as Christianity. I say “such as” because it was not just Christians and Caucasians responsible for this. The other group that hunted down and killed shamanic leaders of that area were extremist Buddhists. When you research the history of China you realize there was never a centralized “religion” or belief. The stories told are regional, folk, and from personal familial beliefs. Buddhism waged a “belief war” across Asia much like Christians waged the same across Europe. This “belief war” destroyed tons of Chinese folk traditions, it was more responsible for the near genocide of shamanic people in the northern Siberian expanse, it uprooted the “unofficial official” spiritual practice Onmyodo of the Japanese government, and assimilated or demonized the different spirits of Shinto shrines across Japan much like Christians did with the spirits venerated by the Celtics and other European Animistic traditions. 

Christianity and Caucasians did have a small part to play in the persecution of Siberians and shamanic people. The Sami people in the Finland area of Europe are the ones who got hit hardest by Caucasians though, not the Siberians. It got so bad in China that the Chinese government outlawed ALL religions, not one or the other. ALL religions were banned from China from 1966-1976. Slowly, religions of all kinds were made tolerable in China in degrees until religious freedom was enacted. That process started in 1995. But to curb the violence caused by religions, Chinese officials did what they felt best to do at that time.  Extremist Buddhism is still alive and well as of 2024. 

All of that was to say that the YouTuber’s single source material they were using completely disregarded all of that history and placed the blame solely on one group of people. Which only exacerbated the misinformation and reinforced a false narrative of appropriation which was the next segment of the video. The Youtuber decided to attack, and yes that is the correct term, the founder of Core Shamanism in the United States, Michael Harner. Now, it’s one thing to speak ill of the dead who have done terrible things when they were alive. It's another to posthumously attempt to “demonize” someone who enacted efforts to improve the world. And the latter is what this YouTuber attempted to do. It’s going to be easier to outline this rather than put it in paragraph format.

• Claimed Michael Harner appropriated the Siberian people’s practice to create Core Shamanism and that he only worked with one group of people to develop his philosophies.

  • Michael Harner was an anthropologist who lived, studied, and worked with Native Americans, Native South Americans, Sami people of Europe, and Siberian people. But was not limited to those groups and traveled the world learning about Shamanic practices.

• Claimed Core Shamanism is a Westerner appropriation of strictly tribal practices.

  • Core Shamanism, as developed by Harner, takes only the common elements found across the world in every animistic community’s practice to form a basis for people not of those communities to utilize and develop a personal practice. By using this method people can uncover long-forgotten secrets of their ancestry to revive practices lost through the ages. Again, every ethnicity/people of this world practiced Animism before the rise of Pantheism and Religion. We were all tribal and we all had it, quite literally, beaten out of us. 

• Claimed it was ironic that Harner’s ancestors were the “cause” of Siberian Shamanism’s decline yet part of Harner’s foundation was established to teach new generations of Siberians core shamanism.

  • This isn’t ironic at all! 

  • As discussed, Caucasians were not the only ones responsible for the attempted genocide of Siberian shamans. 

  • We are not our Ancestors or their actions. If we have ancestors who were not the greatest people in the world, it is not our responsibility to take on their blame or guilt. What is important is what we do today. 

  • Siberian shamanic tribes lost so much in their persecution and to teach the younger generations Core Shamanism allows them a gateway and tool for the basics to reconnect with their heritage. 

    • When we are talking about loss for Siberians and even for the Sami people of Finland, we are talking about the destruction of tools like drums, sacred objects and clothing, artwork to tell stories, etc. It wasn’t just people cut down. The entirety of their way of life was being destroyed.

  • Harner’s organization was the first to realize the loss and suffering and try to help them bring it back piece by piece. 

    • Before Harner, most anthropologists studying Animism and Shamanism had dismissed the practices as being led by Schizophrenics or Psychotropic Plant abusers. Harner was the first to sit and learn with these community leaders. He learned that the reason for the psychotropic plant use was not for the leaders but for the people they were trying to help. A way to get the non-initiated into the same spiritual planes the leaders could access at will. After learning that, Harner decided to go further and learn how to access the planes without the use of those things.

    • Without Harner’s studies and immersion techniques, shamanism would still be a “joke” to most schools of psychology and anthropology. It was because of Harner’s research that the drumming practice, utilized across the globe by people who never met, was studied and found to psychologically induce the brain wave state of Theta which is related to the dreaming state of sleep. 

To summarize all of that, shamanism went from being a scientific joke in anthropological and psychological communities to something worth studying. Had it not been for Harner, this could have still become reality but at a much slower pace as Harner began to teach core shamanism in the late 70’s early 80’s. However, the Youtuber’s claims were false and very damaging because they based their opinion on a single source and took that as a “verifiable source.” Even though I have defended Harner, I also don’t subscribe to all of his teachings either. This example serves to illustrate just how fine of a line you walk when you start to throw out wild accusations without first having the knowledge base to back your shit up. And that was from a YouTuber with a worldwide following. While I didn’t call them out by name I do hope this gets back to them at some point so they can re-evaluate their behavior and create healthy content instead of pandering to misinformed bandwagon ideas. 

That YouTuber is one of the reasons I have said repeatedly in this blog to not just follow one person’s teachings. You have to figure out what works best for you. If Animism/Shamanism calls to you, nothing is stopping you. It’s a worldwide practice not tied to any one specific culture. 

I have said a good bit so far about what has NOT been appropriated. What about an example of something that has been? That’s easy. Christianity is the number one appropriated belief system in the world. I will go into that more in-depth in a dedicated post because there is a lot of history to unpack there. To simplify for the sake of this post, Christianity was not originally a religion, it was a spiritual movement that began in the Middle East. The rise of it was rapid though and it was a spiritual movement for the common person not for the elite. The Romans, at that time, first killed Christians as a way to try and stop its rise in popularity. When the fear tactic didn’t work, an emperor adopted it and turned it into the official religion of Rome. The Roman pantheists then converted and codified Christianity forming the Catholic Church. It was then weaponized for the Roman Empire’s expansion efforts. The Animistic people of Europe faced forced conversion from the Romans, meaning if they did not convert to Christianity they were murdered. 

The point is that appropriation does happen. But it's usually not subtle and often dangerous. Christianity’s appropriation by the Romans led to terror and decimation of cultures. People going to indigenous regions and coming back with specific practices that they aren’t permitted to perform usually involve a degree of ingesting toxic substances to induce a trance-like state. That isn’t shamanism, it is euphoric drugging disguised as spiritual ascension. And the more mainstream those practices have become the more people who have come forward denounce “shamanism” cause they got addicted to the charlatans’ drugs. Shamanism doesn’t use drugs as the primary source of practice though. That is a major distorted perception caused by people who really are appropriating the practices. That is why accusations of appropriation need to be fully researched before they are let loose because the more you scream, “APPROPRIATION,” at people who are not guilty the more you desensitize the real issues surrounding real acts of appropriation.

One way this is manifesting is in the talks around “Closed” practices. There’s no such thing. That’s a new term and only serves to further complicate the problems we are facing today as a people. I would say there are such things as “Protected” practices. Again those practices can be learned and used by “outsiders” if they are learned respectfully and healthily. That can go back to my talk about immersion in a culture. To not just go witness it and say, “OH I CAN DO THIS TOO NOW!” But to live among those people who experience life the way they do, learn the why and how behind the practices, learn how to perform the practice, and then receive permission to perform the practice. Following up with that would be to use the practice and eventually get permission to teach the practice as well. Most of the animistic cultures are going to be discerning of who they allow in but once they do they are all too happy to share. They understand that without sharing the practices, sometimes with outsiders, the practice runs the risk of dying altogether. By sharing their practices with someone who has a different practice they can receive knowledge too and can improve upon their skills. It is transactional. It is not just a give-it-away mentality. There is an exchange happening. 

The argument of “Closed” practice because of blood is another false narrative. I spoke of Native Americans using the “seagull mentality” on something that is and at the same time is not their own, the word shaman. Being a Caucasian man, if a Native American were to come to me, after reading all this, and reject the historical facts of animism being a worldwide practice and say to me, “You’re not indigenous and don’t have the blood to practice that.” I could laugh in their face. Sounds harsh but is still true. Remember the Mal’ta boy of Siberia? That figure’s DNA has been found in most Native American people. We are not the same but we share a common ancestor. We are cousins, far far far removed cousins, but still come from the same bloodline. The ancestry argument will rarely hold water in appropriation accusations. We are all cousins in one way or another. Cases of possible appropriation need to be handled with care because we don’t know everyone’s background or what they have been permitted to do. Just claiming a person is conducting appropriation because of their ethnicity is not an accurate process. 

Even with the Story Circle I described earlier. While I understand the reasoning behind the exclusion of Black Americans I still don’t condone it. Because a Black American who is a recent-generation American could still have viable reasonings for going to an event like that. Maybe their parents, grandparents, etc. taught them things about African life and expressed the differences they experienced moving to America. That is a perspective the African people of the event will not receive from the Black Americans because of their choice to exclude them. Instead of hearing it from first-hand experiences, they would have to experience the culture shocks the hard way if they choose to also move to America. 

There is so much to learn and appreciate when we freely share our cultures and experiences. The more we close off or choose to limit the people who are “worthy” of such exchanges the more we continue along this path of devolution we have been trudging along. Things in society are only getting harder because we are making them harder. We are shutting off from each other when we should be coming together. We have been weaponizing Ancestry and Culture to further create divisions among ourselves when those differences should be expressed in celebration. When those differences are laid bare we see how little difference there is. 

I feel I can now confidently move on from this, just be aware there will be more case-specific examples in the subsequent posts. This has been the longest post I have typed up, but it all needed to be together in one place. We will get back on track in the next post as we start talking about the first thing to arise from Animism, Polytheism. That post will begin to explain why the differences we experience exist.

Until then, I wish you well. I hope the information above did cause some introspective self-dialogue. I hope you come to understand yourself and where you come from. And I hope you find the path designed for you and be damned anyone who says you can’t. Thank you for reading.