An academic coverage of the different types of medicine powers found among the North American Indians, both historically and currently. Includes the view that such powers are real versus the result of primitive superstition. Includes many references in the bibliography, and has an index for Indian names/words and a regular index for all other terms.

The initial discussion on the reality of shamanism is based on quantum physics discoveries, in particular Bell's Theorem/Bell's Inequality. In addition, in order to dismiss medicine powers, one is required to prove that they do not exist, which was never done. During the 19th century proof of such powers were presented, but dismissed by science because the proofs were not mechanistic. As it turns out, medicine powers do not operate on a mechanistic level, rather on a quntum level.

In former times every tribal member sought out an individual medicine power. Those who had no power were seen as unfortunate. Those who had more than usual power were classified as shamans. The range of different individual medicine powers is limited only by the human imagination as they come in many different forms. Shamans were of two basic varieties--those who dealt in herbal medicines and those who had spirits do their bidding.

The text includes many specific examples of the various medicine powers, such as a modern healing ceremony.