What kind of shamanist and how do you experience spirits?

[thalassa]

So in paganism its reducing intellectual level of education even as Anthropology and other formal sciences resists its continued usage as a global description and concept.

Erm...they aren't so much resisting its use, as debating it. And either way, the word still gets used in academia.

I think that is part of the problem. We collectively have allowed it to be dumbed down because we don't say "NO, That is Not what it is!"

Words get used in different context all the time. Gay used to just mean happy. Kleenex=tissues. Language evolves.

Or, this:

That's because native beliefs AREN'T shamanism. Native beliefs are native beliefs. Some of which happen to have elements and practices that resemble practices written about by Michael Harner and his associates.

'Shamanism' is a modern (and very non-native Western) term which derives from the Tungus word that certain tribes of Siberia used to describe their spirit workers. Anthropologists observed these spirit workers... then observed other spirit workers and healers of other cultures and noticed that some of the practices were similar. So they started calling ALL spirit workers, healers, psychopomps and medicine men/women 'shamans'. Then Michael Harner wrote a book detailing all the practices and techniques that he had noticed various 'shamans' from various cultures doing... and posited that if we strip the cultural context from them (cultural context = belief, tradition, mythology, society etc) then we have a set of core techniques and practices which can be called 'shamanism' and practiced by anyone, anywhere.

Shamanism isn't a belief system. It's a set of techniques.