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Shamanism
Shamanic
Journey
Shamanic
Healing
What
is shamanism?
If
you speak of shamanism to most Westerners, they will likely think of
traditional healing
techniques,
shamanic journeys or the medicine men of the North American Indian
peoples (who were, interestingly, not necessarily shamans).
 But
shamanism and shaman are not words used by Native Americans
even though it has been practised there for many thousands of years,
and quite possibly far back into the Paleolithic period (perhaps even
50,000 or more years ago). Neither is the word shaman used by most
of the world's remaining shamanic cultures:
some other names
for shaman include sangoma among the Zulu, babalawo among
the Yoruba, and kahuna in
 Hawaii.
Shamans of the Mapuche
people of Chile are almost
always women and are known as Machi.
The
word
shaman,
itself, seems to have originated from the
 šaman of the Tungus and
Evenk peoples of Eastern Siberia, but there is much debate and
confusion, for the word is very similar to the Tokharian word samāne,
which means Buddhist monk. The Tokharians were a Buddhist people
of European descent and lived in Asia until around the tenth century,
and it is very likely that they were a shamanic culture.
But
shamanism actually predates the Tokharian buddhists by thousands
of years.
The ancient aborigines of Australia practiced shamanism 10,000 years ago
and probably even long before that. There is evidence that European pe oples also practiced shamanism during the last ice age
some 15-30,000 years ago. What is becoming clear is that shamanism is
probably the world’s oldest healing tradition and, based on recent
archaeological findings of drumsticks and ritually-used animal bones
throughout the world, it is reasonable to believe that shamanism has
been practiced by all cultures for at least 50,000 years.
So, what then, exactly is shamanism?
This is more difficult to answer, but
there are many parallels between the shamanism practiced by the Siberian
peoples and that of the American and Australian ancient cultures. The
most important similarity is that everywhere, shamans are required to
travel to other worlds, parallel to our own, to seek the help of
spirits, often the spirits of animals: this feat is performed through
states of altered consciousness and is commonly called a shamanic trance
or ecstasy. Many people today believe that shamans need to be actually
possessed by the spirits, but this is not a prerequisite of the world’s
ancient shamanic practices. Mircea Eliade, a Romanian historian of
religion who taught at the Sorbonne and later at the University of
Chicago gave us the standard definition of shamanism and clearly
contradicts this issue of possession:
“The specific element of shamanism
is not the embodiment of spirits by
the shaman, but the ecstasy induced
by his ascent to the sky or descent
to the underworld; incarnating
spirits
and being possessed by spirits are
universally disseminated
phenomena,
but they do not necessarily belong
to shamanism in the strict
sense”
(Eliade, 1964: p.499-500).
Shamanic Journey
In
simple terms, shamanism is a technique that requires an altered state of
consciousness in order to travel to 'other' worlds to communicate with
spirits and helpers or allies. This is the shamanic journey. During this
journey, the shaman can experience events relating to this life and past
lives, and can often see elements of future possibilities also. The
shaman can see what is causing problems for his patient, whether they be
physical or psychological/emotional. The shaman 'journeys' on behalf of
the patient to help with these issues.
Some shamanic cultures use drugs and or alcohol to enter the trance
state, but this cannot be recommended: it is highly dangerous and also,
it is impossible to control the trance while under the influence of
mind-altering substances. Many Westerners are intrigued enough to want
to experiment with the Amazonian plant
Ayahuasca which is, indeed, used by
many
 shamanistic cultures to enter trance. Although these cultures are
doing
what they can to defend their millenia-long use of Ayahuasca,
it has been
outlawed by the United Nations because of the dangers
associated with its use.
More commonly, the shamanic trance is achieved
through the use of the drum, rattle or dance, often accompanied by the
scents of incense or sage.
Many people claim
that shamanism is the world's first religion, while others claim that it
is not a religion at all. Some claim that it is witchcraft and some say
that it is the irrational delusions of schizophrenics. These
claims are complex and form a part of the training
programs that I offer, but I will try to post some
articles that might
shed a little light on these and other questions - please check from
time to time!
Shamanic Healing
In shamanism,
everything has a spirit that can be healthy or sick: every person, animal, tree, flower, rock,
stream and sea – even the
earth.
The shaman can communicate with all spirits, good and bad and must
decide with which spirits to work. Traditional shamans must learn to
“control” the spirits: they must tame them and domesticate them so that
they are willing to work for the shaman: this is not an approach to take lightly
and it requires many years of apprenticeship with one or more
traditional shamans if you wish to work in this manner.
My approach is to
work with the spirits as equals and with total respect, getting myself
'out of the way' so the spirit guides can do their jobs! The concept that
everything has a spirit is known as animism and is considered by
many as the ancestor of all religions. For many people, the word spirit
mistakenly has a religious connotation and can even be off-putting
to some. When
we speak of shamanistic cultures, the meaning of spirit is
clearly a form of supernatural being, but this is a
spiritual belief rather than a religious belief: it is a way of life for
shamanistic cultures. For me, there is a very clear distinction between
spiritual and religious - I consider myself very
spiritual
and quite a-religious. The point for many people is that when
we perform spiritual healing, we are dealing with energies, energies
that science has yet to understand. We do not need to be religious to
benefit from spiritual healing: spiritual healing works for atheists as well as for the
religiously devout.
The shaman can see
when the spirit becomes sick: the health of
the physical is always related to the health of the spirit, so all
illnesses have a spiritual cause. This is especially so for people:
- The spirit can
have a lack of energy due to poor connections between the human and
his or her spirit
helpers and power animals.
- The spirit can
be affected by an intrusion, or something not natural to the
spirit: when the spirit is weak, it cannot easily resist these
intrusions which quickly manifest in physical form. An intrusion is
like an infection of the spirit, like a tumor.
- In
some cases, the intrusion can be a parasite, such as a spirit
entity. The spirit entity can be there for ‘good’ reasons or
simply to cause harm, but in most cases, the presence of the
entity is neither good for the host spirit nor for the
parasite spirit. The only exception is particularly bad – when
the entity itself is inherently evil - a dark spirit or a demon
- the entity becomes stronger by draining the life force of the
host spirit until the host spirit can no longer survive.
-
The process of removing an entity is usually known as
“depossession” or “dispossession”. It can also be called
“exorcism” though this is more normally reserved for the
Catholic technique (which has become watered down
dramatically during the past 1,000 years or so).
Shamanically, this is a dangerous technique that can lead to
the shaman becoming possessed by the entity if not
performed with extreme skill.
- The
shamanic healing of an intrusion is known as “extraction”
- There
can be “holes” in the spirit, like abscesses. These occur when
the spirit loses soul fragments, or has fragments taken away by
force.
- The
shamanic healing for soul loss is known as “soul retrieval”
With
the aid of Spirit and/or spirits, the shaman psychically heals the spirit or
the soul of the person, by providing a harmonious balance between the
mental, physical and spiritual bodies.
Most importantly - it works!
Please
contact me here if you wish to arrange a shamanic healing session.
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