Shamanism
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- This article is about the practice of shamanism; for the band, see Shaaman.
Shamanism is a range of traditional beliefs and practices that involve the ability to diagnose, cure, and sometimes cause human suffering by traversing the axis mundi and forming a special relationship with, or gaining control over, spirits. Shamans have been credited with the ability to control the weather, divination, the interpretation of dreams, astral projection, and traveling to upper and lower worlds. Shamanistic traditions have existed throughout the world since prehistoric times.
Shamanism is based on the premise that the visible world is pervaded by invisible forces or spirits that affect the lives of the living. In contrast to animism and animatism, which any and usually all members of a society practice, shamanism requires specialized knowledge or abilities. Shamans are not, however, organized into full-time ritual or spiritual associations, as are priests.
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Etymology
The word shaman originated among the Siberian Tungus (Evenks) and literally means he (or she) who knows; the belief that the word may be derived from Sanskrit is perhaps due to a confusion of the words 'shamanism' and 'shramanism', from the sanskrit shramana, Pali and Prakrit samana; but the samanas were ascetics, not shamans.
It has replaced the older English language term witch doctor, a term which unites the two stereotypical functions of the shaman: knowledge of magical and other lore, and the ability to cure a person and mend a situation. However, at the present time this term is generally considered to be pejorative and anthropologically inaccurate. Medicine man is preferred, especially as not all traditional peoples approve of the use of shaman as a generic term, given that the word comes from a specific place and people.
History
Shamanistic practices are thought to predate all organized religions, and certainly date back to the neolithic period. Aspects of shamanism are encountered in later, organized religions, generally in their mystic and symbolic practices. Greek paganism was influenced by shamanism, as reflected in the stories of Tantalus, Prometheus, Medea, Calypso among others, as well as in the Eleusinian Mysteries, and other mysteries. Some of the shamanic practices of the Greek religion were later adopted into the Roman religion.
There is a strong shamanistic influence in the Bön religion of central Asia, and in Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhism became popular with shamanic peoples such as the Tibetans, Mongols and Manchu beginning with the eighth century. Forms of shamanistic ritual combined with Tibetan Buddhism became institutionalized as the state religion under the Chinese Yuan dynasty and Qing dynasty. One common element of shamanism and Buddhism is the attainment of spiritual realization, at times mediated by entheogenic (psychedelic) substances.
The shamanic practices of many cultures were virtually wiped out with the spread of Christianity. In Europe, starting around 400 CE, the Christian church was instrumental in the collapse of the Greek and Roman religions. Temples were systematically destroyed and key ceremonies were outlawed. Beginning with the middle ages and continuing into the Renaissance, remnants of European shamanism were wiped out by campaigns against witches. These campaigns were often orchestrated by the Catholic Inquisition.
The repression of shamanism continued as Christian influence spread with Spanish colonization. In the Caribbean, and Central and South America, Catholic priests followed in the footsteps of the Conquistadors and were instrumental in the destruction of the local traditions, denouncing practitioners as "devil worshippers" and having them executed. In North America, the English Puritans conducted periodic campaigns against individuals perceived as witches. More recently, attacks on shamanic practitioners have been carried out at the hands of Christian missionaries to third world countries. As recently as the nineteen seventies, historic petroglyphs were being defaced by missionaries in the Amazon.
It has been postulated that modern state campaigns against the use of psychedelic substances are the offshoot of previous religious campaigns against shamanism.
Today, shamanism, once universal, survives primarily among indigenous peoples. Shamanic practice continues today in the tundras, jungles, deserts, and other rural areas, and also in cities, towns, suburbs and shantytowns all over the world. This is especially widespread in Africa as well as South America, where "mestizo shamanism" is widespread.
Many recent efforts have been made trying to link shamanic practice and knowledge with Western, scientific beliefs. Anthropologist Jeremy Narby has proposed that shamans take their consciousness down to the molecular level, working with DNA and viruses that they see as the twin serpents or malicious "darts". The holomovement theory proposed by David Bohm is often seen as an approach to create a scientific foundation for concepts such as parallel worlds and alternative ways to traverse time and space.
Aspects of the Practice
Different forms of shamanism are found around the world, and practitioners are also known as medicine men or women, as well as witch doctors.
Initiation and learning
In Shamanic cultures, the shaman plays a priest like role; however, there is an essential difference between the two, as Joseph Campbell describes:
- The priest is the socially initiated, ceremonially inducted member of a recognized religious organization, where he holds a certain rank and functions as the tenant of an office that was held by others before him, while the shaman is one who, as a consequence of a personal psychological crisis, has gained a certain power of his own. (1969, p. 231)
In effect, shamans are mystics; their initiation is not one of office or ceremony. The shaman has direct contact with the spirit world, and goes there often.
A shaman may be initiated via a serious illness, by being struck by lightning, or by a near-death experience (e.g. the shaman Black Elk), and there usually is a set of cultural imagery expected to be experienced during shamanic initiation regardless of method. According to Mircea Eliade, such imagery often includes being transported to the spirit world and interacting with beings inhabiting it, meeting a spiritual guide, being devoured by some being and emerging transformed, and/or being "dismantled" and "reassembled" again, often with implanted amulets such as magical crystals. The imagery of initiation generally speaks of transformation and granting powers, and often entails themes of death and rebirth.
In some societies shamanic powers are considered to be inherited whereas in others shamans are considered to have been "called": Among the Siberian Chukchis one may behave in ways that Western clinicians would characterize as psychotic, but which Siberian culture interprets as possession by a spirit who demands that one assume the shamanic vocation. Among the South American Tapirape shamans are called in their dreams. In other societies shamans choose their career: First Nations would seek communion with spirits through a "vision quest"; South American Shuar, seeking the power to defend their family against enemies, apprentice themselves to accomplished shamans.
Practice and method
The shaman plays the role of healer in shamanic societies; shamans gain knowledge and power by traversing the axis mundi and bringing back knowledge from the heavens. Even in western society, this ancient practice of healing is referenced by the use of the caduceus as the symbol of medicine. Oftentimes the shaman has, or acquires, one or more familiar helping entities in the spirit world; these are often spirits in animal form, spirits of healing plants, or (sometimes) those of departed shamans. In many shamanic societies, magic, magical force, and knowledge are all denoted by one word, such as the Quechua term yachay.
While the causes of disease are considered to lie in the realm of the spiritual, being effected by malicious spirits or Witchcraft, spiritual methods as well as what we would consider physical methods are used to heal. The shaman often will enter the body of the patient to find the spirit making the patient sick, and heal the patient by removing the infectious spirit by the patient. However, many shamans have expert knowledge of the plant life in their area, and an herbal regimine is often perscribed as treatment. In many places, the shamans claim to learn from the plants directly, only being able to determine the effects of a plant and use it to heal after meeting the spirit of the plant and getting permission. In South America, individual spirits are called through singing icaros; to call the spirit, the spirit must teach you their song. The use of totem items such as rocks is common; these items are believed to have special powers and an animating spirit. Such practices are presumably very ancient; in circa 368 bc, Plato wrote in the Phaedrus that the "first prophecies were the words of an oak", and that everyone who lived at that time found it rewarding enough to "listen to an oak or a stone, so long as it was telling the truth".
The belief in witchcraft and sorcery, known as brujeria in South America, is prevalent in many shamanic societies. Some societies distinguish shamans who cure from sorcerers who harm; others believe that all shamans have the power to both cure and kill; that is, shamans are in some societies also thought of as being capable of harm. The shaman usually enjoys great power and prestige in the community, renowned for their powers and knowledge; but they may also be suspected of harming others and thus feared.
In engaging in this work the shaman exposes himself to significant personal risk, from the spirit world, from any enemy shamans, as well as from the means employed to alter his state of consciousness. Certain of the plant materials used can kill, and the out-of-body journey itself can lead to non-returning and physical death; spells of protection are common, and the use of more dangerous plants is usually very highly ritualized.
Shamanic technology
Generally, the shaman traverses the axis mundi and enters the spirit world by effecting a change of consciousness in himself, entering into an ecstatic trance, either autohypnotically or through the use of entheogens. The methods used are diverse, and often are used in conjunction with each other. Some of the methods for effecting such altered states of consciousness are:
- Drumming
- Singing
- Fasting
- Sweat lodge
- Vision quests / vigils
- Dancing / Spinning (game)
- Use of "power plants" such as
- Tobacco
- Fly Agaric
- Psychedelic Mushrooms Alluded to euphemistically as "holy children" by Mazatec shamans such as Maria Sabina.
- Peyote
- San Pedro Named thus (St. Peter) by Andean natives because he's the guardian of Gates of Heaven
- Ayahuasca Quechua for "Vine of the Dead"
- Iboga
Shamans often observe special diets or fasts and taboos particular to their vocation. Sometimes these have physical purposes beyond effecting a change in brain state or taboo; for example, the diet followed by shamans and apprentices when drinking Ayahuasca includes eating foods rich in serotonin as well as avoiding foods rich in tyramine, which could cause a hypertensive crisis if ingested with an MAOI such as Ayahuasca.
Gender and sexuality
Most shamans are men, but there are societies in which women may be shamans. In Old Norse Religion, shamanism was seen as un-manly and practiced mainly by women (see Völvas and Wiccas). However, in Old Norse mythology, the supreme god Odin was also seen as the foremost shaman. In some societies shamans exhibit a two-spirit identity, assuming the dress and attributes of the opposite sex from a young age, this may include a man taking on the role of a wife in an otherwise ordinary marriage; this practice is common, and found among the Chukchee, Sea Dyak, Patagonians, Aruacanians, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Navaho, Pawnee, Lakota, and Ute, as well as many other Native American tribes. Such two-spirit shamans are thought to be especially powerful. They are highly respected and sought out in their tribes, as they will bring high status to their mates.
Shamanism and New Age
The New Age movement imported some ideas from shamanism as well as Eastern religions. As in other such imports, the original users of these ideas frequently condemn New Age use as misunderstood and superficial.
At the same time, there is an endeavor in occult and esoteric circles to re-invent shamanism in a modern form drawing from core shamanism, a set of beliefs and practices synthesized by Michael Harner and often revolving around the use of ritual drumming and dance; various indigenous forms of shamanism, often focusing on the ritual use of entheogens, as well as chaos magic. Much of this is focused upon in Europe, where ancient shamanic traditions was suppressed by the Christian church (see Inquisition) and where people compelled to be shamans often find it improper to use shamanic systems rooted in other parts of the earth. Various traditional shamans express respect for this endeavor and in this, separate it sharply from "light" New Age shamanism.
Sometimes people from Western cultures claim to be shamans. This is considered offensive by many indigenous medicine men, who view these new age, western "shamans" as hucksters out for money or affirmation of self. Many shamanistic cultures feel there is a danger that their voices will be drowned out by self-styled "shamans"; citing, for example, the fact that Lynn Andrews has sold more books than all Native American authors put together.
Periodicals
See also
External links
- Buryat-Mongol Shamanism (http://www.buryatmongol.com/shamanism.html)
- DMOZ's Religion and Spirituality : Shamanism (http://dmoz.org/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Shamanism/)
- General shamanism page with American traditions dominant (http://www.deoxy.org/shaman.htm)
- Flight of the Condor - Contemporary Shamanism (http://www.kondor.de/indexe.html) Large collection of essays and teachings from a contemporary shaman
- The story of Tantalus (http://www.haidukpress.com/tantalus/index.html) a shamanic story from Greek mythology.
- The Two-Spirit Tradition (http://www.androphile.org/preview/Culture/NativeAmerica/amerindian.htm) Two-Spirit Shamanism in North America.
- Places of Power (http://www.religiousbook.net/Lectures/Places_of_Power.html) - Lection about using special geographical zones in spiritual development.
- Improvised Music and Siberian Shamanism by Tim Hodgkinson (http://www.hulu.de/en/trance_siberia/music_shamanism.htm)
- Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (http://www.breakingopenthehead.com) - Complements book (see below) and offers public discussion forums.
- Scandinavian Center of Shamanic Studies (http://www.shamanism.dk) - Dedicated to the contemporary practice of shamanism
Further reading
Books
- Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, Penguin Books, 1976, trade paperback, 528 pages, ISBN 0140194436
- Ellwood, Robert S. Civilized Shamans: Sacred Biograhpy and Founders of New Religious Movements, (1997) article that appeared in the book New Religions in a Postmodern World edited by Mikael Rothstein and Reender Kranenborg RENNER Studies in New religions Aarhus University press, ISBN 8772887486 (2003)
- Daniel Pinchbeck, Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism, Broadway Books, 2002, trade paperback, 322 pages, ISBN 0767907426
- Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Bollingen, 2004,ISBN 0691119422
- Michael Harner: The Way of the Shaman, HarperSanFrancisco, 1990, ISBN 0062503731
- Joan Halifax: Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives, Penguin, 1994, ISBN 0140193480
- Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley, Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge, Tarcher, 2004, ISBN 0500283273
- Piers Vitebsky, The Shaman: Voyages of the Soul - Trance, Ecstasy and Healing from Siberia to the Amazon, Duncan Baird, 2001, ISBN 1903296188
- Andrei Znamenski, Shamanism: Critical Concepts, 3 vols, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0-415-31192-6da:Shamanisme
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