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Question: What is shamanism? Is it:· An ecstatic practice of drumming and summoning visions of an invisible spirit world? · An ancient way of worshiping? · An organic religious system that reveres nature, and has no sacred texts, no dogma and no church hierarchy? · A collection of techniques—similar from culture to culture—for healing physical or spiritual sickness? · A profoundly human, cross-cultural religious impulse to invoke direct unmediated contact with divine forces, as manifested in the natural world? · A mystical spiritual practice that anyone can learn for accessing his or her deeper or higher self? · A tribal social system in which the shaman is but one small link? · A throwback to superstitious primitive times? · A kind or theater in which a trickster/magician/ventriloquist/con artist convinces an audience that s/he has invoked the aid and assistance from invisible spiritual powers? · A dangerous, narcissistic, new age spiritual practice through which naïve urbanites may delude themselves into to believing they are magical, wise, powerful, and closer to the benevolent forces of nature than other city dwellers? · The clearest empirical evidence that all religions are born in, and draw their sustenance from, the human imagination?
Answer: All of the above.
In the last 30 years or so, shamanism has experienced an explosion in popular interest. Books abound: ones that that paint shamans as wise healers from a forgotten primordial world, ones that teach “shamanic techniques” to the urban neophyte, ones that spin startling tales of a “normal” person’s dramatic entrance into the world of the shaman. Thousands of anthropological studies of all kinds pack library shelves and web sites. Weekend workshops flourish. Urban shamans have emerged to teach and heal clients. Citizens of the industrialized West rush in growing numbers to villages around the world seeking the wisdom of indigenous healers, their cultures, and their hallucinogenic plants. Therapists, social activists, preachers, teachers, musicians, poets, actors, painters, dancers, ritualists—all are often referred to as shamans.
Regardless of how much you know about shamanism, regardless of what you believe about spirits, animal guides, out-of-body journeys, trance states or rituals of healing, one fact is clear: shamanism (whatever it is) has caught our culture’s imagination There is a theological need in our culture that is somehow being met by the image we create for ourselves of “The Shaman.”
It is important to hold these things in mind when delving into shamanism:
· The word shamanism is a vague—some would say dangerously so—word that tries to invite a stunning variety of religious practices under one umbrella. Some researchers claim there exist a string of cross-cultural techniques employed by all types of shamans, including the use of trance, the mystical “journey” out of the body to another world, and the relationship and guidance of spirit helpers. “Shaman” is a word made up by Western researchers (based on a Siberian tribe’s word saman) to denote any kind of indigenous religious worker that fits into their (the Western researchers’) reasonable categories. When we use the word “Shamanism” we should be conscious that we are talking about ourselves and our own theology, not a tribal, indigenous religious practice. There is no such thing as “shamanism.” · Shamanism is a recent phenomenon. While some modern shamanic practitioners claim direct descendance from indigenous practices, and direct links to ancient beliefs and systems, the fact is that all religions evolve over time. The context of American neo-shamanism makes it a wholly new theological endeavor, unlike anything seen in the jungle, the tundra, the forest, the ice cap, or the prairie of old. Shamanism springs from the spiritual needs of mostly urban, industrialized, educated—and mostly white—modern people. Seekers who are attracted to shamanism generally have deep theological needs that they feel go unfulfilled by the guiding theologies of Western culture. Some of these needs include: -Acquiring a deeper, interactive spiritual kinship with nature, including the cyclical flow of the seasons; -Direct mystical experiences; -Models of the divine that go well beyond God the Father or God the Mother, and may include god the non-human; -Worship in small groups (as distinct from large congregational gatherings) -A rejection (or redefinition) of “mainstream” religious concepts such as sin, redemption, heaven, hell and prayer; · Any mystical spiritual practice is fraught with danger when pursued without a teacher or community to provide guidance, feedback, and correction. The beauty, power, wonder, wisdom and fulfillment offered to seekers of the shamanic path are accompanied by a long history of death, revenge, insanity, and chicanery. · Anything a spiritual teacher tells you should be subjected to a scrutiny of mind, heart and ethics.
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