I agree and disagree with you. I agree with the whole spiritual mission to save the world thing, the guy seems a bit puffed up. Joseph Campbell likes talking about the cosmogonic cycle which is the destruction and saving of the universe but it's not literal, it's the destruction/rebuilding of one's symbolic worldview. Some people take things a little to literally. Like the Mckenna quote in the article, the guy is telling us that he needs the archetypal shaman identity for a personal saving but extends it to the rest of the world. Noble in intention but perhaps a bit misguided in my view.

You're right, someone who goes through the Dark Night isn't necessarily a shaman and that's what the article is saying. Shamans, as I understand it, are people who go through that experience in a profoundly, existentially terrifying manner but then are able to cope and heal their inner emotional/psychological maladies so they can in turn help others do the same, to face one's Jungian shadow and embrace it.

Just because things are devastating your life doesn't mean you're going through a Dark Night of the Soul, although I can see where you're coming from with the Syria thing.

One can be a 'shaman' and fulfill the archetype in a lesser fashion but not be a 'Shaman' with formal training who literally induces and walks people through some sort of vision quest, if that makes sense. At least that's what I feel like the author is trying to get at.