There is more to Shamanism than what CJB was talking about. What I was responding to was your statement that no trace (historical or archaeological) of any form of shamanism ever having been practiced in the UK. All the way back to Stonehenge. It never happened. There are many traces - in archaelogy, mythology, folklore and history - so in all probability it did, and for some considerable time as well. Perhaps it still does. Leafing through Mircea Eliade's Shamanism - Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964) the universality of Shamanism is inescapable, and one chapter at least (Shamanic Ideologies and Techniques among the Indo-Europeans) brings it very close to home.

Anyway - by way of the Merry Season, there is one fat, jolly old man dressed in fur-trimmed red whose Shamanistic provenance is oft discussed (& oft disputed) certainly with respect of that old tradition of inbibing the distilled urine of reindeer fed on similarly hued fly-agaric mushrooms...

Santa Claus Was a Shaman

Wassail!