Editorial policy
Ethics & Standards
Stated so they can be checked against the pages themselves.
Commitments
- Names
- Community terms lead every entry. 'Shaman' is identified as an external comparative label.
- Grading
- Ethnography, history, archaeology, comparative category, contested claim and modern movement are distinguished on every page.
- Restriction
- Ceremonial detail that source communities treat as closed is not published, even where colonial-era books printed it.
- Sources
- Missionary and colonial records are cited as evidence about their authors as well as their subjects.
- Modernity
- Neo-shamanism, core shamanism and retreat culture are covered as contemporary Western phenomena, never as Indigenous tradition.
- Correction
- Where specialists disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved by editorial preference.
What this atlas is not
- Medical, psychiatric or legal advice
- Ritual, journeying or trance instruction
- Dosing, preparation or sourcing information for any substance
- A directory, endorsement or vetting of practitioners
- A substitute for material communities publish about themselves
Safety
Ritual and psychoactive practice are not treatments for acute mental health crisis. If you are in danger, contact local emergency services or a crisis line. If you are considering a ceremony, these are the recurring warning signs in documented cases of harm:
- Guaranteed cures, or claims to treat cancer, infection or psychosis
- Advice to stop medication or avoid medical care
- Sexual contact framed as part of healing — never legitimate under any tradition
- Escalating payments, secrecy about money, pressure to recruit
- Unverifiable lineage or a self-awarded Indigenous credential
- No medical or psychiatric screening before ceremony
Cultural respect
Interest is not the problem; extraction is. The questions this atlas applies to itself are the same ones worth applying anywhere: who authorised this, who profits, is it accurately attributed, and is it published while the source community is still denied the same practice?