I recently met a woman who believes in shamanism. She is a middle class lady with a degree from an Ivy league college with a regular job and a family and kids, who believes that she has an animal spirit protector that communicates with her on regular basis. It speaks to her in her dreams and sometimes passes clues on to her in the real world. Like she recently started dating after a long relationship ended, and she believes that the spirit inspired her to write "It's a start" on a piece of paper.

She is by all appearances a rational, normal individual. She has two children who do well in school. She has had a well paying job at the same location for more than a decade. She doesn't take any special medication for hallucinations, or have a history of mental illness or drug use.

She likes to hang out with other people who believe in shamanism. She points out that most tribal religions rely on belief in a spirit world, whether in South America or Australia, or Africa, or the Inuit tribes at the top of the world. To her, the common nature of these beliefs point towards an underlying, unifying set of truths. Other well educated people share her beliefs, and she has gone to meetings where more experienced shaman have explained how there are two dream worlds overlapping with our own that we can reach by using the right meditative states.

To me, it's all a bunch of bunk. I think her subconscious influenced her writing. I think that ancient societies believe in spirits because of a genetically driven tendency on the part of humans to look for an agent behind things we see in the real world.

But you know, it's no more ridiculous than Christianity to me. Christianity is pretty messed up too IMHO. She's just got a different set of fucked up. And I can't go around telling every Christian I meet that I think their belief system is a complete piece of crap. It's just not a good way to make friends and influence people. And I don't care enough really. And it doesn't seem to really have fucked up her life. So she'll spend a bit of money on a seminar or book that I think is a waste of time. What do I care? So she'll sometimes make decisions on the basis of dreams or signs she thinks she is seeing. Harmless for the most part.

Real bottom line: If it isn't fucking up their life in a major way, then I'm better off just leaving it the hell alone. It isn't and shouldn't be a major impediment to my being able to relate to the person in any number of other ways. And if I make a major issue out of it, it will be a major impediment to my ability to get along with that person. So like with everyone, I go, "You know. That's interesting, It's not what I believe, but I respect your right to believe it."

End of story.