Why Are So Many People Turning to Shamanism?

Over the past decade, interest in shamanism has skyrocketed in the UK. The 2021 census recorded a tenfold increase in people stating shamanism as their religion. But why? What’s behind this shift?

Crisis sparks questioning. As the world faces mounting uncertainty—climate change, political instability, artificial intelligence, many are realising that something fundamental is missing. The modern day ways of living, of understanding ourselves and our place in the world, are no longer working. And so, people are searching.

Western civilisation offers few real answers, built as it is on unstable foundations. Yet beneath it - before the rise of modern society - there was a way of living in harmony with the Earth that made sense. Many indigenous cultures still honour this way of being, showing us that we don’t have to look far to remember and reclaim what was once known.

Shamanism, an ancient and deeply rooted spiritual practice, is emerging as the answer.

My Personal Awakening

Everyone has their own story of how they came to shamanism. Here’s mine.

I was in my early thirties and had a successful career working in corporate sustainability but work was incredibly stressful. Despite achieving everything I had set out to, something wasn’t right. From the outside, my life looked fine. But inside, I felt lost and was falling apart. My decisions weren’t bringing me happiness. My future felt just as overwhelming - big mortgage, relentless 60-hour workweeks, travelling away from home, losing touch with myself. My health, relationships and quality of life were diminishing.

My role was to educate big businesses about climate change, but it felt like carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I could clearly see the urgent action required, yet the response was slow, inadequate, and far from the scale needed to make a real difference. The stress was immense, and at night, I was plagued by apocalyptic nightmares.

I now know this feeling has a name: climate anxiety. Back then, I just felt terrified for the future. I had to remain calm and encouraging in my professional role, but inside, I was breaking.

This crisis - both personal and global - forced me to ask the big questions. What is this all really about? What is the bigger picture?

That questioning led me back to spirituality. I had tried various spiritual paths over the years since leaving my Christian faith as a teenager, but nothing I explored truly resonated. Until one day, in a mentoring session, someone introduced me to the idea of earth-based spirituality - a fusion of my two topics of interest: Earth care and spirituality.

That was the moment everything clicked. It felt like coming home.

The Ancient Wisdom We Left Behind

I sought out teachers who could guide me. Not all were the right fit, but as the saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. In time, I was fortunate to find some fabulous teachers I could learn from and who supported me through the transition in my life that followed.

Now, this awakening is happening at a larger scale. Shamanism is no longer a niche interest - it’s a growing movement.

People are waking up and realising they’ve been disconnected from nature, from each other, from themselves. They sense a void they can no longer ignore. They’re no longer satisfied filling it with material distractions, such as alcohol, food, shopping, endless scrolling on social media. They’re looking for something real.

And that’s why shamanism is rising.

The Lost Connection

Our severance from nature began long ago, even documented in the Bible in Genesis, Chapter 1, where humanity was set apart from the natural world. But it wasn’t always this way. Alternative accounts of that time speak not of domination, but of entwining with nature, like lovers, deeply connected and inseparable. Then, shift from hunter-gatherers to farming introduced ownership, hierarchy, and control. Over the last few thousand years this has gone through several phases bringing us to the present day. Now our disconnection from nature, from the Earth, has a clinical name: Nature Deficit Disorder.

But the great awakening is here. People are remembering. They are rediscovering the wisdom of the land, the spirits, the Otherworld. They are finding their way back home.

What Shamanism Offers

Shamanism is rising because it provides exactly what modern life lacks:

And perhaps most importantly, shamanism offers a way to stand strong in the face of crisis. In a world filled with fear - climate change, AI, political upheaval - shamanism helps us find our centre, our calm in the storm. And when we get knocked down, we have the tools to realign ourselves once again.

The Transformation: From Disconnection to Deep Belonging

We see the transformation in our Mystery School members. When the results from the 2021 census became public, we reached out to our members to ask how shamanism has helped them in their lives. Before shamanism, they described feeling:

It’s a game-changer. In times when so much feels out of our control, this is a path to reclaiming what truly matters.

The Path Forward

The growing interest in shamanism is not a trend. It’s a reclamation: a remembering of what was lost.

The answers have always been here, waiting for us in the land beneath our feet, in the whisper of the wind, in the guidance of the animals, in the old stories and sacred places and in the Otherworld.

If you feel drawn to this path, trust that feeling. It’s calling you home.

The wisdom has always been there, waiting for you to listen. Let’s take this journey together.

Spreading the word

If you know someone who would benefit from this blog, feel free to share it with them. Your support in spreading the word means so much!