I wish I knew the answer to that too. I guess the best place to do would be something in the medical field, but for me it is too late to get more schooling of that magnitude. Heal the world!....

Ha Ha -

Unfortuanately most of the time the choices are not so great.

Sad to say I think minimum wage retail is where you will find most "western" shamanic types working includng myself. If we are lucky we can score a head shop or medical marijuana dispensary gig..I have noticed that psychedelic use is not prominent among well educated individuals....most likely because they have been brainwashed that psychedelics are "drugs" and nothing productive can come of taking them.


I have worked at nightmarish jobs. I breifly worked at a terrible job when I was a teenager selling hearing aids over the phone to the elderly....they trained us to cup our hands over the muthpiece and scream into the reciever as loud as we could because if you got an old person on the phone that could not hear you then you had a potential sale...


I will say though that psychedelics are capable off opening your mind to more creative options...though they may not seem realistic by societies standards, for example LSD made me want to become a rock star....Now I'm not one by a long shot, but the idea and dream is still enjoyable to persue.

Best advice I can think of, is go to school and learn something you can be happy with. Take on a career you feel like is conducive to the psychedelic lifestyle, something you can feel good about that's helpful to society as a whole. Counseling is something that one day, and in my lifetime I feel, psychedelics will be accepted alongside with in treatment. It is very likely if someone was a counselor and also had some Ethnotany/Antrhopology experience one day they will be a step ahead of the game to work beside a psychiatrist who dispenses these prescriptions. But by all means this is a dream I have, and quite honestly if this is ever fulfilled counseling would be a tough position to have, and if it is not your calling you need to find what is your calling, reach out and grab it. I am getting old friend, and I wish everyday I had gone back to college earlier, but slowly I'm building up nerve to go, as my friends always tell me " your never to old to go back to school! "

Amateur shamans should choose a field free of random drug tests.

I disagree.

I think it is important to do what makes you happy. You may like spice but can be a painter or musician for a living. I also am sure there are many in the chem industry or related.

I, myself wouldn't be really able to keep on one day-by-day career because I like to vary. I think the best answer would be to mix pleasure with business any way possible.

I don't think there are too many workplaces that are going to drug test for very many of the plant teachers that are discussed here, so I'm fairly certain Amateur shamans are in the clear on most occasions.

Every professor or extremely intelligent person I have ever met has done a psychedelic such as LSD at least once. All the professors who I have gotten to know personally has done LSD at least once. So saying that psychedelics are not used among the more educated crowd is not true. I'd say the opposite is true. Just helping you out there!

Here is another career option, academia, that is my route and there are no conflicts in this space. Especially in philosophy or psychology, maybe even English.

The art world may be an option. Even if you're not an artist you could work in a gallery or auction house, as an art handler or something. Unless you are not into art, then it's a crap idea

Peace

Macre

~Savior~

Hrm. Interesting question. I myself work in the film industry. Didn't choose it, it kind of fell onto my lap. I was a cook beforehand, and worked in 5 or 6 restaurants as a busboy/server before I got into cooking. Ever since serious experimentation with Psych's(lsd, mushrooms, and more recently cacti and DMT) I have fallen in love with a combination of cooking/gardening. I have received and offer from an ethnobotanical gardener in Georgia of apprenticeship, which I would love, but am not currently ready to move there. Basically my passions are cooking as a form of displaying beautiful flavor combinations which I feel can be used to emulate emotion or feeling, and the gardening ties in because I like to know exactly how the ingredients I use are produced. I also feel the need to preserve and spread the knowledge of rare plants, everything from little known fruits, to ethnobotanicals that have been important in past cultures, but the magnitude of their healing abilities have been lost on modern society for the most part. Basically, I would love to be able to make my living with gardening alone and cooking for friends and family, or a kind of garden combined with a restaurant that I have full oversight of.

Do what you love regardless.

I work in landscaping mostly year around. I love working outside, and make decent money. DMT has had nothing to do with that.

I'm in community college right now, doing general studies for two years until I'm ready to transfer to somewhere else that has a major that I want to pursue. I'm a hippie, and really didn't want to go to school at first. I just wanted to live on a commune with other like-minded people and grow my own food and sing songs and love the sustainable, non-consumer life, but I decided to go to school to please my parents. I'm not entirely sure what I want to do yet, but I want to do something I love, something environmental. I was thinking maybe get into sustainable energy or something. I would really love to major in ethnobotany and do that for a living, but are there schools that have that as a major and are there jobs in that field?

I agree ARTs (Writing, Music, CGI, Traditional) is a great profession to get into that is very compatible with a shamanistic lifestyle.

I personally have been blessed with a very successful career and have been in the video game industry going on 16 years now as a 3D Artist (Modeler and Texture painter). Through the various companies I have worked at some of the most talented people I have met have or still do dabble in psychedelics.

Well at the time I was young I didn't know about DMT but I did do a lot of other psychedelics in high school and college. They influenced me GREATLY as an artist. As I am sure it would do for many other creative/thinking type professions.

Well.. don't have a career quite yet, going to school for that at the moment. Trying to find a career that satisfies my own wonderings/interests/passions/expressions while trying to help people/the planet. Right now my path is biology-oriented. Just don't want to be a cancerous cell as a career or person.

Edit: to be devil's advocate.. there must be death for life, so perhaps cancer cells aren't 'bad' in the sense I implied

I can wholeheartedly agree with this. If you're into this kind of thing, the only teacher I'd worry about would be Mary Jane. Her metabolic children linger too long. I work in a field with random drug testing and don't worry in the least, but I have to be OK with not dancing with her, because she most definitely kisses and tells. As for Dmitri and his chemycal cousins, they keep their secrets close when it comes to testing. DMT is fully metabolized in a few hours, and even if you did have to take a test in that time, NO drug tests will test for him because he's present to some degree in EVERY person's urine. Other tryptamines are possible to test for, but nobody's doing it. They're looking for Pot, mostly. They also test for cocaine, amphetamines, barbiturates, opiates... What they're looking for, basically, is prescription pain killers, speed, and pot. If you aren't doing these, you'll be fine.

The deeper question being asked, though, seems to be, "How do you go back to being IN the world after you've tasted eternity?" How do you live and work in a capitalist world when you just want to live like our ancestors in the primordial Eden of tryptamine induced bliss? For me, this question can only be answered as such: Pace yourself, be prepared to comprimise the ideals of eternity a little now and again, but keep it in mind at all times. See this world as a game yuou are playing rather than some deep project with any real, monitoruy outcome... Nobody ultimately "wins" accept God.

I've worked a lot of jobs, but one day, I would like to have an organic vegetable farm and a place to hold retreats for those drawn to the sort of therapy that I offer...

Ive had a few years of collage. Now i live at home and think i can do no wrong, so i figure ill start wondering the world with a guitar fishing pole skateboard. Isnt this what everyone does?

Amateur Shaman? hmmm, can you say "would you like fries with that?"

seriously, do whatever makes you happy. I owned a farm for a bit and enjoyed that, I did landscaping for a bit and enjoyed that, I am a Marine Engineer now, and I enjoy that too.

rw

My career path is in the medical field; occupational therapy to be exact. I'm still in school for it at the moment. I took a while to figure out what I wanted to do with myself.