Your tone is accusatory and judgmental. If you want to convince people, it is a better method to try and come to understandings, not lay down broad judgments i.e. “He was a profoundly confused and misleading individual and a false prophet. ” This is your opinion. Who is to say who is a legitimate prophet? Is there some test for this? Who is to say our entire society isn’t confused and mislead? And I don’t believe McKenna called himself a prophet, ever. Before you attack a dead man’s legacy you should be careful of the judgments you pass.

And please, stop trying to enforce your ownership of the word “shaman.” It is a word that was used by westerners to describe a whole swath of people who communicate with spirits for the good of the community (usually).

Here are some ideas from the book Nierika that I am about to publish…

“Visionary art is evidence of a world that does not yet fully exist; a world that we are calling into being through the very act of creating and participating in the work. This is not an art that will support the present system of environmental exploitation, social alienation and spiritual commodification. This art is not just painting–though it is that–not just poetry, nor just music, nor just something for a target audience to consume. This art is an integration of creative manifestation and daily life; of technical craft, spiritual practice and cultural experimentation. Visionary art is dissolving the boundaries between audience and performer, between work and play, between activism and prayer. In this way we are returning to the tribal, shamanic roots of art, tapping into an endless potential for healing, community and transformation.”
Eve Bradford, synergenesis.org

Inspiration is a textured energetic field. It is coloured and transparent. From the quantum void (the field of infinite possibilities) the essence of this fabric (the matrix of creativity) weaves itself into alchemical correspondence through the artist vessel and into the physical world as visionary work of art. The artist vessel is an empty recipient: feminine yin force. The muse fills the empty vessel with inspiration: masculine yang force.

“The shaman transmutes the visions seen under states of trance through sacred art; these methods of communication are at the basis of the shamanic path.” Terrence Mckenna, Foods of the Gods

Art is connected to life and to breath. The word inspiration communicates drawing air into the lungs and is related to the primal breath. Pneuma from the ancient Greek word soul πνεῦμα, signifies breath, wind, spirit. The word etymology comes from the Greek etymon; true meaning, from ‘etymos’ true and logos, word. Inspiration is the blessing of transmitting a message and communicating through the sacred language of art.

“The term entheogen derives from a Greek word meaning “to realize the divine within” and was used by the ancient Greeks to describe states of poetry or prophetic inspiration. Greek knowledge is seeing. The word physis derives from the Greeks and means originally to see the essential nature of all things.” 
Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2073597992/chemical-theatre

There would be many more questions one could raise, but despite the fact that the hypothesis of ‘Upper Paleolithic artist shamans’ is rather tenuous, it has had a tremendous impact – Lewis-Williams and Pearson have traveled with their neuropsychological model into the Neolithic, some scholars have started to use the magic word ‘shamanic’ for prehistoric rock art images or just geometric forms in different parts of the world.
Would love to hear your answers and thanks for your time.

What is a Shaman remains a fascinating question for some of us; for me, it is connected to my own questions about my relationship with spirits. I am still early in a process of learning about the spirits that are drawn to come through me to help and heal. And my relationship with ‘dark’ spirits that feed like mosquitoes on strong emotions and pain. I consider myself a family shaman (not speaking of it openly), working on the energetic present, past, and future of my spouse and children. My limited energy is best focused close to home. Yet even within this limited realm, I have found there to be spirit energy along ancestral lines that is much more than I can heal and acceptingly compost back into the smooth fabric of life supporting dream. So I try to get out of the way and let the helping spirits do the work.

All of the above is prelude to this perspective: We are all shamanic beings (plants, animals, and all of creation included) whether we know it or not. Every thought and interaction has spirit dimensions. We are all living a remarkable shamanic adventure with daily initiations, quests, and heroic journeys. Armed with humility, acceptance, and gratitude: Fare well Sisters and Brothers!

Some people have these complex relationships and are not concerned with being considered shamans by themselves or others. One such is a Grandmother in the Santo Daime tradition who brought the Umbanda rituals, beliefs and influence forward into the syncretic SD mix. As a little girl a powerful shaman had a profound influence on her, and while she is now an elder, or a Madrinha in the SD church, she doesn’t present herself as a shaman. She incorporates many different beings from the spirit realms during large ceremonies where healing is administered to others, calls into the ceremonial works the Umbanda spirits from that tradition, Saints from the Catholic tradition and spirits of the Amazon forest where she lives. There is absolutely no question when your working with her that she is masterful and competent in her relationships to the spirit world. She would qualify in any category Steve has listed above and yet isn’t interested at all in the question of what she is, but only concerns herself with individual, personal, community and Global healing.

http://www.grandmotherscouncil.com/about.html#maria_alice

Although the element of collective shamanism is often used to refer to those doing works in the SD tradition, that doesn’t make everyone involved a shaman, but it is also very possible that together they are performing as an individual shaman might, affecting many of the same outcomes as a shaman would, and using many of the same methods, only doing so together and as a group. It’s collective shamanism, and it’s shamanism of a new kind, and it has many elders within it who would easily qualify as a shaman should they choose that function and relationship to their community as an individual. In my experience with them the room is not full of shamans, but instead can, at times, and even without an elder present, affect clear shamanic outcomes for the benefit of those present.

I don’t think we need to soften the definition of a shaman in any way to encompass shamanic style relationships with spirits. I don’t think simply applying shamanic techniques to a situation classifies that person as a shaman and yet that all those applications may have very beneficial outcomes. I don’t think that having classic types of shamanic experiences signifies one as a shaman either. I think those experiences come with the territory when practicing indigenous animist spirituality and that the spirits interact in similarly archetypal and informative ways.

One important element I didn’t see mentioned above in the list is initiation, both by an existing shaman as he or she passes the mantle to the next generation and everything involved in that transfer, and also the all important initiation undertaken by the spirits themselves on the one becoming a shaman. With both it is only undertaken after much training has taken place and the elder, or spirits, or both together decide it is time. When the gift of a lineage is bestowed in this way then you have a shaman with all the attendant responsibilities to his or her community, and one with a conscious relationship to the guiding and helping spirits who will dictate how that relationship should be carried out.