Plastic shamans, shamanism as a religion:
My understanding is that the core of shamanism are certain techniques that allow to enter a trance state to contact the spirit world. However that is embedded in a set of ethical codes and beliefs that are culture specific.
Still especially ethical codes are very important, because else the trance technique can do more damage than good. Allegedly, there are all types of spirits, not all of which are useful. I don't believe in bad spirits rather that a person who is power-greedy can damage him/herself by following some delusions.
Another thing are imposters. They are money greedy and have no real powers, other than being manipulative. True shamans/medicine people aren't manipulative in the sense of cult leaders,they rather try to support the patient in what he or she is.
Speaking about asian shamanism, a friend who is an ethnologist holds the opinion that in a number of asian countries shamanism became formalised. That means, the priests still do the dancing and singing etc of the original shamanic rites, but it has become external. Thus not too sure about shinto.
As what regards neo-shamanism and New Age, that's a broad field and I think it's wrong to condemn them all. But be suspicious if there is money involved. Also think about what you expect from those people.
An example. Recently a lot of people offer "Native American sweat lodges" here in the UK for money. AS I had come into contact with the sweat lodge in the 1980s through a friend, and out of sheer curiosity, I went to a comemricial one here. I am against paying (in this case £50), but it was worth seeing what they do. It used some external elements of the seat lodge how I know it, but it was very different. First,some of the ceremonial rules were given up. Second, a lot of other stuff was brought into it, some group-dynamic exercised, some mythology narration of allegedly Germanic mythology (the guy found the label "Native European Sweat lodge"). In conclusion, it was very much centered on teh New Age narrations on the importance and power of self transformartion. In the sweat lodge how I know it, however, you are asked to pray for others first, for you only last. Well, I have reservations against the New Age lodge, because I think if you wnat to do religion, do it 100% committed (and not against money), if you wanna do psychotyherapy, do it 100% (which involves money, but there it's clear that you pay to solve a specific problem), but not a mish mash of a bit of everything. But that's just me, the other people seemed to love it.
But then, looking at the training of the leader, he was maybe around 35 and said he had first come into contact with the sweat 10 years ago in the US, and then decided to bring it to Europe. Well, in the Lakota tradition, as I have heard it (I am white) if you want to become a sweat lodge leader, you can't just do it. You need to have a vocational experience, and convince an elder that this is true and not made up. Then you have to do a number of quite demanding ceremonies I don't wnat to list here because I am not Lakota and might have gotten it wrong, but teh point I wnat to get at is that it takes a long time, at least 8 years. And then you can open your lodge but are considered a beginner . The guy who was offering the seminar, however, already offers courses for quite a lot of money to train other people to become sweat lodge leaders in only three years. I am not saying there is an universal law how it should be, but clearly the New Age scene has a tendency to water down the standards of the spiritual practices they have picked up all over the planet. And try to make money out of it.
