White privilege in the UK Shamanic Community?
Compared to my teachers and mentors, I haven’t been walking this shamanic path all that long, although I am well on my way to heading deep into my second decade of practice. It’s not a path I have simply dabbled in. I feel I have been dedicated to this path, in fact sometimes downright obsessive about it - that’s because I love it and the practices really work for me in a multitude of ways.
And now I am a little longer in the tooth and after a period of healing and growing around my Indian and cultural heritage, I have been reflecting on what it means to be a British Indian Shamanic Practitioner, and what diversity and inclusion currently looks like within the UK Shamanic Community.
I read somewhere in 2018 that shamanism was the fastest growing new age spirituality in the UK. Since I began this path until now, shamanism has moved into the mainstream not just in this country but in many others across the world. It is beautiful to see. But there are some misconceptions about what it means to follow a shamanic path, and I feel some of these misconceptions are rooted in the colonisers perspective or perhaps just a white perspective. To be clear, I am only talking about the UK and perhaps more specifically England, as that is where I was born, where I have trained and where I have always practiced.
Like many others, shamanism found me and once it did I was obsessed with the techniques, wisdom and energetic principles. In the beginning, this learning wasn’t rooted in a particular tradition or lineage, and the training was linked directly to my spiritual and psychic experiences. I guess there was a naivety and perhaps even an innocence in that. For me, shamanism really is an ancient philosophy that we are all connected to the intelligent conscious beings of Mother Earth and our relatives helping us to stand in our rightful place of living in harmony with nature. This philosophy does not belong to only one tradition or lineage, it belongs to all of us as humans.
But one of the questions I get asked the most as a practitioner, by potential clients and other practitioners, is if I have been to the Amazon.
I have not.
And when I give this answer I am always left with the very distinct impression that I am deemed as less ‘authentic’ as a practitioner because of it. And honestly, this question only ever comes from an English person.
My point is this. To be in a position to travel to the Amazon requires privilege. There is no two ways about it. For those who do not know the meaning of privilege in this context: privilege means to have societal and economic advantages over another community, white privilege means that advantage is due to the colour of your skin.
Did I have the same opportunities in life as someone who was fair skinned, blond, blue eyed with an English name? Do I even now?
If we are really honest with ourselves we all know the answer to these two questions.
I am not going to go into all the ways that I have been affected by white privilege, but in terms of our UK shamanic community I think about the many ceremonies I have been to that have been run by my white counterparts, and the lack of diversity in the room compared to my ceremonies - there is a distinct difference. Ok, perhaps this is because the English crave to be more connected to their ancestral spirituality and the land we stand upon so their attendance is higher, and South Asians have an abundance of open spirituality and unbroken lineage so we do not crave this connection in the same way.
Or perhaps what is happening in society bleeds into the shamanic community. Perhaps the unconscious biases, the cultural appropriation of Indian practices, the lack of addressing the history of British colonisation and its detrimental impact on India, and the historical treatment of South Asians in Britain, means that we have many shamanic practitioners in the UK shamanic community who cannot appropriately and competently hold healing space for us. In fact the space does not even invite us in. And as a result of that, practitioners and ceremonies are less inclusive.
Did you know that according to the 2021 census, eighteen per cent of the population in England is made up of people who are non-white, and that South Asians make up approximately fifty per cent of them? How many in our UK shamanic community are non-white?
I sometimes think about the prices of apprenticeships and consultations of some of the more well known practitioners and again am struck by the privilege required to be able to afford their services. By no means am I diminishing the worth or quality of the practitioners and what they offer, I am simply pointing out that we are living in a society which is still set up, unconsciously and consciously, to benefit those who are white. And yes, changes and growth are happening but several recent and separate experiences with other shamanic practitioners tell me we aren’t there yet or even close to being to where the playing fields are level. And that is just within the shamanic community.
So maybe I would be more successful if I went to the Amazon and could put up pictures of myself there, sitting with the indigenous to give me this ‘credibility’ that so many English people seem to require to make me ‘authentic’. But then again maybe I would be more successful if I was white.
Yet, we are perhaps forgetting to address something much more profoundly important. My family have already crossed an ocean. I am the first generation born in London, UK. Do I really need to cross another ocean to be accepted into a community that preaches acceptance? Or should I be spending my time loving this land, where shamanic teachers have found me, where the Plant Kingdom has lovingly embraced me with deep heart opening and welcoming support, so I can put down my roots which are new and tender, for me, for the next generations of my bloodline, so we may balance ourselves after the trauma of colonisation and separation from our motherland.
So when I ask the Plant Kindgom here in England if I need to go to the Amazon, they always give me the same answer: ‘We are your rainforest’.
So how can you help be the change?
Educate yourself about diversity and inclusion, unconscious bias and the real history of British colonisation.
Lean into your ancestry and family history. Your soul chose your bloodline. It has medicine for you.
As a practitioner take some formal training on Diversity and Inclusion and include it on your website.
Acknowledge, embrace and celebrate our differences.