ABSTRACT
The previous selection focused on the sunny side of shamanic healing, showing how the appearance and performance of spiritual healers, including clowns, play upon the mechanisms involved in the placebo effect and positively influence the treatment process. In this selection, Brown emphasizes the political context of shamanic healing in indigenous societies, where the power of shamans comes from the same source as that of sorcerers and therefore brings an uncomfortable, unstable mixture of distrust and esteem to those who take on the burden of helping others. The benefits of shamanism in terms of individual well-being and social solidarity come at the cost of uncertainty and ambiguity projected far into the future, for each healing ritual reinforces the need for other shamanic treatments.
