Study

This great archive, unique in the world, is preserving endangered shamanic knowledge for future generations. Progress continues at the SKC, under the direction of Sandra Harner. A comprehensive catalogue has been compiled with detailed descriptions of items in the Conservatory’s Western Collection. The collection includes nonordinary reality maps, transcriptions, Three-Year student homework, general submissions, and researched data.

The Foundation has acquired over 65,000 indexed pages related to shamanism and shamanic practices worldwide. There are five categories culled from 396 cultures: shamanic healing, about shamans, cosmology, eschatology, and divination. To ensure the survival of this irreplaceable depository, much of it has been digitally preserved, with copies stored in various locations against a future calamity. In addition to the indexed pages, the collection contains books, manuscripts, artifacts, drums, and various audio-visual media. Though much has been accomplished, much more work remains to be done to properly catalog and preserve this invaluable collection of shamanic knowledge.

Through its network of faculty members and field associates, the Foundation engages in research and experimentation for publication and to increase understanding and knowledge of shamanism and core shamanic methodologies worldwide. Research includes rediscovering and testing lost shamanic knowledge, which is also essential to creating, updating, and adding depth to Foundation training programs.

The Legacy Project is devoted to the preservation and organization of the SKC materials as a scholarly and teaching resource. It focuses on the non-MONOR materials (see description of MONOR below), including thousands of books and periodicals, shamanic artifacts, field notes, photographs, slides, and audio-visual media, and other materials collected over the past century by Michael Harner.

Substantial progress was made in 2017 when the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, invited Michael Harner to donate his personal papers and library of over 5000 books and 3000 periodicals. Transfer of the materials is ongoing. The Bancroft will preserve the unique collection as a gift from the Harners and the Foundation, making this immense body of shamanic knowledge accessible to the public and to scholars and researchers.

The Foundation’s MONOR project contains the world's foremost database of cross-cultural accounts of shamanic journeys, near-death, and other nonordinary explorations. The longterm goal of this endeavor is to begin to construct a map of the hidden universe discovered and rediscovered by shamans and others through the ages, independent of culture. This requires a great deal of anthropological experience and knowledge in order to accurately compare these shamanic experiences cross-culturally.

Beginning in the early 1970’s Michael Harner began collecting the experiences of Westerners engaged in shamanic practice, with special attention to their shamanic journey experiences to the Upper and Lower Worlds. As this collection expanded, the FSS established its MONOR Project especially to discover what, if any, cross-cultural regularities existed in the experiences of shamanic journeyers, both in the West and in indigenous societies. Today the collection includes:

• Over 70,000 pages of researched data on cross-cultural shamanism and shamanic healing, and over 6,000 books and journals regarding the same.
• Over 35,000 pages of voluntarily submitted descriptions of shamanic journey and other visionary experiences of contemporary Westerners. The collection began with audio recordings of Dr. Harner’s experiential and experimental workshops in core shamanism, both nationally and internationally. Found nowhere else in the world, the collection includes the very first shamanic journeys contemporary Westerners have experienced.

Dr. Harner’s book Cave and Cosmos: Shamanic Encounters with Another Reality contains several of these descriptions of shamanic journeys. Some of the contemporary narratives are compared with the rare written accounts of indigenous shamans of the past.

The Foundation studies the effectiveness of shamanic healing methods to help deal with illness and other problems of daily life. Significant findings become incorporated in the training offered to medical doctors, psychotherapists, and others through the Foundation's educational programs. (Reference to appendix D in C&C, Core Shamanism and Healing: Information for Physicians and Health Professionals.)

The ongoing Shamanism and Health Program collects, studies, and archives reports of healing and cures following shamanic treatment of physical, emotional, and mental disorders. Many anecdotal accounts have been collected. Further research, experimentation, and analysis is necessary to discover more about how shamanic practices complement mainstream medicine.