Paper short abstract:

The author as both scientist and shaman reports from inside the New Age agglomeration of recovered tribal knowledge and practices.

Paper long abstract:

This is a report from inside the New Age. After leaving an academic path in anthropology, the author joined the environmental revolution of the late 1970s and 1980s as a scientist-activist, advocate and lawyer, whilst at the same time undergoing intensive training in yogic and shamanic practice - the latter to better understand the nature of perception, risk and threat. He observed that battles and debates were affected as much by symbol and meaning as by any scientific index - yet western science claimed to be value-free and few of the participants on either side read any of the sociological analysis of knowledge. This paper will chart a course through environmental issues and human values as fought in court rooms and commissions all the way to the floor of the UN, ending with the preparations for a global ghost dance. The author still operates as a respected conservation ecologist yet also leads an international shamanic dance troupe in its seventh year of ritual trance dance. This paper offers a unique insight into New Age tribal consciousness - as reportage rather than academic analysis at a time when Anthropology is just beginning to integrate the insights of those academics who have entered the shaman's realm. This is a report from the other direction - a modern shaman's attempt to talk to anthropologists in a common language.