The Shaman Within

Claude Poncelet is a physicist specialising in nuclear physics, astrophysics and cosmology, who has also been involved in sustainable development and has taught shamanism for 25 years all over the world. In this excellent book, he brings these disciplines together in a comprehensive account of many dimensions of the subject, based on his own experience of how the principles of shamanism can be adapted to the 21st-century. He brings together scientific and intuitive ways of knowing and a common understanding of interconnectedness in both science and spirituality. He explains the concept of impeccability as the manifestation of authentic being in everything we do in our lives, quoting Coomaraswamy as saying that art is the making of things well, which can also apply to life.

There is a good chapter on the art of dying as a key to the art of living and its fundamental challenge to the ego. We can prepare for death through shamanic practices, as the author illustrates through an initiation process of his own. He sees healing as a form of transformation and explains the nature of shapeshifting into different identities. The second part of the book applies shamanic principles to life, illustrating this with rituals, and to science in terms of a more comprehensive understanding of reality. Towards the end, there is an important chapter on transforming the modern attitude to nature by transcending limited and separative concepts so as to collaborate with other species in restoring the natural environment.