Why Shamanism and smudging are a bad thing

Most people think of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples when they hear about Shamanism. And while it is found and practiced through out the world, many of those practices come from closed cultures, meaning that they are not allowed to be learned except by those either in the culture, or invited in and taught by those of the culture. Plastic Shamanism is a major problem in a lot of places, but specifically in the U.S. It is basically taking hundreds of cultures, and generalizing them down to one inaccurate culture. And this isn't fair to those who actually are Native. Most books on Shamanism talk about your animal totem (which is specific to Native Americans, a lot of people who do feel a connection to a specific animal will call it their patronus, or say that they are otherhearted, as in the animal is a kin of their heart) and this is upsetting to a lot of people whos culture does practice these things. As they have repeatedly asked us to stop, and are of closed cultures, our only choice is to respect that, rather than trying a bastardization of their culture. 

While Shamanism specifically is considered a bad thing, there are certain things that do happen in other cultures that are similar. A lot of Shamanistic books talk about travelling to another world, where as a lot of other cultures have astral travel. Shamanistic books also talk constantly about smudging, which is a specific ritual from a closed culture. There is however smoke cleansing or purification. So basically just do your research, and anything that says Shamism in it, stay away from. Try to figure out what it is specifically that you like or are wanting to do, and see if your religion has its own version of it, as it would probably be dearer to your Gods/Thoughtforms/Spirits/Entities to do something that honors them at the same time as your cleansing, rather than a practice from a culture they aren't of.