[4] As a graduate student in 1956-57 he undertook field research on the culture of the Jívaro (Shuar) people of the Ecuadorian Amazon[5] and began to pursue a career as an ethnologist.

His doctoral dissertation, "Machetes, Shotguns, and Society: An Inquiry into the Social Impact of Technological Change among the Jivaro Indians" (U California-Berkeley 1963), became the basis for his book, The Jívaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls.

[5] In 1966, having taught at UC-Berkeley and served as associate director of the Lowie Museum of Anthropology, Harner became a visiting professor at Yale and Columbia University and in 1970 joined the graduate faculty of The New School for Social Research in New York City.

Walsh and Grob note in their book, Higher Wisdom: Eminent Elders Explore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics, "Michael Harner is widely acknowledged as the world's foremost authority on shamanism and has had an enormous influence on both the academic and lay worlds.... What Yogananda did for Hinduism and D. T. Suzuki did for Zen, Michael Harner has done for shamanism, namely bring the tradition and its richness to Western awareness.

[12] Influences cited by Harner also included Siberian shamanism, Mexican and Guatemalan culture, and Australian traditions, as well as the familiar spirits of European occultism, which are said to aid the occultist in their metaphysical work.

The Foundation received financial support primarily from the Core Shamanism courses and workshops he taught, supplemented by private donations.