Shamanism: Agony Before the Ecstasy
or: Give me that Old Age Religion
(originally printed in Converging Paths, 1987 Fall Equinox)by Scarecrow 

There is an old Central Asian story of the time that Nasruddin Hoca, the Sufi teacher of Anatolia, was given a duck by a friend of his who was passing through the village. Ducks were rare in that part of the world, and the delighted Nasruddin made an excellent roasted duck dinner, saving what was left for soup. In a day or so, many people stopped by Nasruddin’s house, each claiming to be a friend of the man who brought him the duck. Nasruddin was obliged by custom to feed each of them. As one might imagine, the duck soup got thinner and thinner. About a month later, a man came to Nasruddin saying that he was a friend ofa a friend of a friend who had given the duck to Nasruddin. Nasruddin stepped into the kitchen for a moment and returned with a bowl of soup. The man drank it, saying “But Nasruddin, it tastes like water! Where is the duck?” Nasruddin answered “My brother, that is the soup of the duck. That is all that is left.” With that in mind, let us discuss shamanism.

As is true fo any religion, the Craft (Wicca) has myths of origin and function. The early origin myth that portrayed the Craft as a European, Paleolithic faith that was practiced and preserved across the millennia, only to go “underground” during the “Burning Times”, before being resurrected by Gerald Gardner (and others) in the 1940’s has now been largely replaced by the newer myth that modern Wicca is functioning as a (mainly) white, middle class Euro-American Pagan shamanic system. A popular corollary to this second myth is the notion that shamanism can be purchased, learned and absorbed in a weekend or week-long workshop.

Margot Adler, Isaac Bonewits and others have discussed the nature of this first myth at length. Culturally, there is no more continuity between the religions of the Cro-Magnon culture of Europe and British Wicca than there is between Christianity and the Paleolithic religions of Egypt or Arabia. I might add that the entire cultural and religious lifestyle of a Paleolithic gathering and hunting faith is inappropriate to most of us, as dinner is more often provided by McDonald’s than by McMastadon’s.

This more recent myth (modern Wicca as shamanism) is not useful to the Craft, as it fosters the inaccurate and offensive notion that the participants attending these weekend seminars have had the training, and developed talents on a par with those of the native peoples with shamanic medicine systems, such as the Jivaro of the Amazon, the Sioux of North Dakota, or Tibetan Bon lamas.

It should be remembered that Pagan cultures have religious initiatory societies that are not shamanic, and that the majority of religious specialists are not shamans. Healing, drumming, dancing, Vision Quests, working with power animals/spirits, and going into trance for extended periods of time are not the exclusive province of shamanism.

There are many different paths to enlightenment, and not all paths are possible for all students. Just as not all health professionals can or should become neurosurgeons, it is not beneficial to think that all of the Wicca and Neo-Pagans can benefit from shamanic training. Truth be told, none of the material currently offered to Crafters/Neo-Pagans at large even remotely approaches the requirements for shamanism.

The term “shaman” ultimately derives from the Sanskrit word “sramanas”, meaning an ascetic, or one who practices a form of denial. This term was borrowed by the Tungus peoples of Asia, who called their elite religious practitioners of magic, healing, psychology and spiritualism “shamans”. The notion of denial and the practice of asceticism figures pre-eminently in shamanic systems of training and initiation.

As a religious system, shamanism can be traced to the Upper Paleolithic (c. 25000 BCE) with some assurance, and evidence exists to indicate that something very much like shamanism existed as far back as 250,000 BCE. Some of the distinguishing features of shamanism would include x-ray art (seeing through the body to the skeleton, and perceiving the energy flows within an organism) and a unique ability to journty to the Otherworld.

Shamanism is, above all, an ultimate expression of the practical talent of being able to integrate the physical and spiritual realms, and fully master both worlds. Not surprisingly, the path to shamanism begins with a catastrophic lack of harmony, i.e. illness. Most tribal, village and band structured societies lack the notion of a split between physical and mental ills. The entire person was sick, and needed healing. So strong is this connection between the physical and spiritual components of the person, that damage to one portion of the whole, whether physical or psychic, manifests in the “other” realm.

A potential shaman was oftentimes a person who was seriously ill, usually near death. During the process of dying, the physical body undergoes states that are accompanied by corresponding psychic stresses (astral and ethereal encounters, if you will). At a point of major crisis within the process of death, the Gods/Spirit Guides/Power Animals are represented to the person through the symbols and myths of that specific culture. During this condition of crisis, the person dies, or is cured, by being given the information that they need to be healed, along with certain mystical techniques. (This is one major difference between the shaman and one who merely undergoes a near-death experience — the latter cannot long retain or communicate their knowledge to others.) The shaman returns to life in a miraculous fashion. (They then spend time learning the formal techniques of shamanism from another shaman, to complete their training.)

Now, the shaman has returned, but not as the same person. Their world view and mind have been shattered and re-integrated. They have survived death, and returned as masters of the Divine flame. They can cure, blast, divine, manifest states of physical control and abilities that are far beyond those of ordinary members of their society, and send out their spirits. They can conduct others to the realm of the spirits to be healed, or taught.

This is the easy method for beginning on the shamanic path. Now, let us examine the more difficult, but more common method:

A member of the society (or a visiting anthropologist doing their MA or Phd fieldwork) feels the need, or receives a divine sign that they need to become a shaman. (This is well described in Michael Harner’s book, The Way of the Shaman) The candidate prepares for initiation by undergoing a preparatory phase that generally involves some sort of extreme physical hardship, such as running for days, going without sleep for extended periods, piercing the body with needles or thongs (as with the Lakota Sun Dancers, or Yogis) to cause exhaustion/pain and create a physiological condition where one can survive and experience a shamanic vision quest.

The hopeful initiate will then go through an ordeal of body, soul and spirit. Through whatever means (continuous drumming, cognitive inversion, lengthy trance dances, and, occasionally, entheogenic substances like peyote or amanita) the would be initiate is stripped, one layer at a time, of their comfortable images of the world and the self. This process is not without certain dangers of its own, as individuals with no previously known history of epilepsy often go into seizures characteristic of grand mal episodes. (It should also be noted that such physical states do not, of themselves, indicate the attainment of any desirable spiritual state.) The mechanisms of the conscious mind that classify sensory information into objects and concepts (thereby shielding the person from a direct knowing of reality) are bypassed or overridden.

I should try to clarify some of the terminology and concepts associated with these “non-ordinary” states of consciousness and awareness. All of the states that have been discussed so far are classified as “trance” by the anthropological community. Trance states can be loosely defined as any state of awareness that bypasses the normal information processing of the conscious mind. This category can also include any activity of a repetitive nature that induces a feeling of timelessness in a person. It is also recognized that trance states differ in depth and/or intensity. The capacity to enter trance states is (seemingly) present in all humans to one degree or another. Manifestations of trance states in an individual generally depend on the attitudes of the particular group towards trance. During trance states, many different sorts of activities can occur. These include:

• Mediumship, or “Channeling” information or a personality that is not normally accessible to the person.
• Being “ridden” by a deity (as in Haitian Voudon or Brazilian Santeria) and manifesting the traits and attitudes of that deity.
• Possession, or the state that results in the temporary displacement of the personality by an outside entity without the permission or control of the vehicle.

 

In many, many cultures, conditions required for a shamanic initiation require that the psyche and body perceive the nearness of death. I am not referring to a symbolic or ritualistic representation of death, but to the actual process of dying. At the point of no return, when a union of the entire being has been attained, the shamanic vision quest will begin. The term “Vision Quest” is used rather sloppily in Neo-Paganism. Anthropologically, it refers to a vigil where one is presented with the underlying symbols that form the basis of that particular culture. This (hopefully) results in a journey back to the pristine, or original condition of human existence, where people, animals, plants and gods share a oneness of being.

This journey is often facilitated and directed by chanting the old legends, or, in the Huichol Mexican Indian culture, by actually assuming the identity of a god or ancestor and walking back through sacred and real space to the land of their origins, which they call Wirikuta. (See the book Peyote Hunt by Barbara Myerhoff for details.) In this culture, a candidate lives the legends, actualizing them anew here on earth. The Huichol are well prepared for their experiences and visions by a lifetime that has been spent hearing the old tales, and living with their religious symbols daily.

A common motif in shamanic initiations is to feel that the flesh is dissolving off of the bones, or sense that a spirit monster is slowly eating the body, until the candidate is reduced to a skeleton. The body is then reconstructed by the God or spirit-helpers, giving the shaman a body that is of divine origin. In a similar vein, the Australian Aborigines undergo a ritual procedure where they feel that crystals are actually replacing their internal organs, and while experiencing this agony, feel that their bodies assume the properties of crystals. In many cultures that have shamans, crystals are seen as either solidified light, or the souls of long dead shamans.

As the Vision Quest begins, one of several possibilities will occur:

1. The person may die of fear.
2. The person may die of physical injuries, and/or drug overdose.
3. The person lives, no shamanic experience occurs, but becomes insane from the unresolved stresses the psyche has experienced.
4. The person lives, but no initiatory experience occurs.
5. The person emerges as an insane shaman, with talents, but no integrated personality.
6. At the moment of crisis, the person may either be given, or find the tools and spiritual helpers they need to heal themselves.
7. They ascend from the underworld to the crystalline blue sky where the gods dwell, returning to the world with a knowing of the wholeness of the universe that is seen, interpreted, and realized through the attitudes, symbols, and myths of their culture. The initiate has become the first shaman, the first initiate, who can perceive the numinous unity of all things.

 

Following the criteria suggested by Jilek (see bibliography), a shaman can be distinguished from other religious specialists or ordinary members of a Pagan society by the following criteria:

1. A shamanic _vision quest_ is of greater commitment, longer duration, and is more demanding of body and spirit than the vision quest of a layman that occurs as either a rite of passage or initiation into a medicine society.
2. A true shaman _has mastered the collective wisdom_ and knowledge of the society. A shaman possesses a complete knowledge of hunting, gathering of plants, healing herbs, as well as the psychology of the society, and has a vocabulary that is far greater than that of others in the society. Many are artists, in addition to whatever profession they may practice.
3. A shaman will obtain abilities and talents from many different _guardian spirits_ or deities. Members of a Pagan society that has a shamanic religious complex normally obtain one or two power animals during their lifetime, but shamans have an entire mythic realm of animals, plants and natural forces at beck and call. Hence, they have a complete understanding of the myths and stories of the society due to their direct, experiential knowledge of them.
4. A shaman is able to manifest _extraordinary abilities_ as needed. Examples include night vision, the physical balance and leaping abilities that shamans can exhibit (cited as a direct proof of their kinship with the messenger birds of the spirit world) or the ability to juggle knives, heal simple damage to their bodies, or endure physical hardships that would injure or kill most humans.
5. Shamans have a mastery of the divine fire of creation.
6. The curing techniques available to a shaman are unique, and are not shared by other healers.
7. A shaman can simultaneously operate on several levels of reality.
8. A shaman can conduct others to the realms of the gods (or the sky) for healing, and only a shaman can retrieve a soul that is wandering.
9. The shaman possesses his spirit helpers. Unlike Santerian or Voudoun possession (where the orixa/loa takes over the body and shares consciousness with the medium), the shaman takes over the body or spirit form of his familiars or gods.
10. In short the way of the Shaman is fraugh with perils and traps to catch the unwary. The journey from near death crisis to ecstasy requires time, patience, and agonies of spirit and body. Mircea Eliade has observed that shamans suffer more than any other member of a society. They are only rich in their understanding of the unbroken wholeness of being, and in their abilities to live within this garden of Eden, experience a kinship with all of being; deliver its apples to other mere mortals, or transport them there for a visit.

 

For reasons that I hope are clear, one cannot call seminars that are currently available to Neo-Pagans true “shamanic training”. The psychic, physical and emotional scars that a teacher of shamanism would need to inflict on his students would be illegal, foolhardy, and generally not useful in our modern society. Putting a feathered headband over a pastiche of Hindu tantra, American Indian ways of healing, and poorly understood Traditional Wicca and then terming it “Shamanism” is offensive to Native Americans (and others) who have invested years of their lives and endured numerous personal hardships to attain their enlightenment.

As my Mexica, Apache, and Pima acquaintances have reminded me, the descendants of the people who raped their women, killed their men, and raised their children to despise the religion of their tribe should not expect to be handed the secrets of their model of the Universe on a platter, and have no right to their ceremonies, practices, or wisdom.

That said, I believe that there can one day be shamans among the Wicca and Neo-Pagans. There are means within a Euro-Asiatic heritage to actualize the goal of shamanism. The shamanic complexes of Europe and Asia are probably less well known to us, due to the relative scarcity of material, and of living practitioners. Close reading of the Finnish “Kalevala”, the Norse “Lay of the High One” or the Saga of Hrolf Kraki, as well as Irish poetry and legend can suggest a variety of approaches to a European shamanism.

The oldest musical instruments that we find associated with, say, the Irish or the Morris Dance are clearly ritualistic. The bodhran, bull- roarer, and simple whistles are quite useful in attaining altered states of consciousness. (However, whatever technical means are chosen, they are only shamanic if the criteria for shamanic initiation have already been satisfied by the practitioners. Otherwise, the techniques are “Pagan”, “tribal”, “European” and “medicinal”. This in itself is a difficult and very respectable practice. I applaud those who understand this distinction, and who have brought some of the “Medicine” of Europe back.)

The methods of old Europe and Asia seem to have been designed for a solitary practitioner, or a very small group. At a minimum, the initiate must discover, actualize, and travel through the world tree/cosmic axis to a place that is no place, at a time without time, and realize the unity of all things.

It should be realized that tribal Europeans and Asiatics possessed spatial, color and time perception that is very different from that of us moderns. While our rational and scientific culture knows that the world is round, our ancestors of seven thousand years ago dealt with the reality of curved space. While our society uses rectilinear spaces that are then filled with objects possessing straight lines and angles, many Pagan cultures of Europe and Asia structured their living environments around the motifs of the spiral, ellipse, or circle. An examination of the art of the early Minoans, Celts and others reveals a strikingly fluid artistic style. Symbols and spatial concepts appropriate to a Pagan culture should be experienced on a daily and frequent basis to effectively communicate to the subconscious mind their importance. After all, these symbols and spatial concepts will enable reintegration of the self during the shamanic vision quest. Anthropologists who have spent ten or more years living within a tribal culture report that while they do indeed see things during vision quests, the gods, myths and spirit helpers are very vague to them, compared to the experiences natives have.

One possible plan for shamanism would involve a series of rituals designed to determine whether or not the person actually needs this path. That decision made, intense work with the music, symbols, tools, deities of the religious framework (Finnish, Norse, British or Continental Celtic or Germanic, etc.) that one has chosen would then be needed. This undertaking will require years to allow the rituals and myths to effectively penetrate to a level of subconscious understanding. {Hint: If you cannod do a full ritual in your tradition perfectly (_without_ the book and preferrably during a flood while rebuilding a car engine), you aren’t ready for the next step.}

As Pagan cultures celebrate the joys of the physical body, disciplining and achieving an understanding of the physical human potential is a vital step. The entire being will undergo the process of initiation, and must be prepared. Our culture has encouraged us to forget the senses, strengths and capacities of our bodies. A discipline such as ultramarathon training, ritual(istic) dance, or a high level of attainment in a traditional martial arts discipline (iaido, Shaolin Wu Shu, or Pentjak Silat) are probably the simplest approaches available in modern America.

Many traditional dance and martial arts systems can teach at least the physical and psychic fundamentals needed for shape shifting, which was one of the traditional attributes of an Old World {that is, European/Asian} shaman. An analysis of the traditional dances of Europe can prove very enlightening. The quadrilles, waltzes, and rounds were, after all, credited to the Witches in earlier times. I might mention that the term “dosedo” means “back to back” — the obscene dance of the Witches is thus revealed as the ancestor of modern square dancing. An anlysis of the prana or chakra flow interactions in dance (or ritual) might prove interesting.

Close examination of the rich symbolism of the paraphernalia of the shaman (i.e., the Tungus shamanic costume, rattles ritual trees, poles, masks) can provide insight into how a Northern Asian shaman interrpets the World. Their fifty pound costumes mirror the structure of the cosmos, the shaman’s relationship to it, and portray the journey up the cosmic tree, or the descent into the underworld. There is much here for those who choose to look and learn.

In summary, shamanism is not an easy path. Let us hope that those who choose it have the desire and honesty to climb through the tree that connects all, and recover the divine fire. Far too many “New Age” people claim abilities and talents they do not have, while they are just selling the stolen soup of the soup of the duck. They are merely shams, and not shamans.

 

Selected Bibliography

• Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Mircea Eliade. Princeton Pr. 1964
• Art of the Huichol Indians. Kathleen Berren, ed. Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco 1978
• Stones, Bones and Skin: Ritual and Shamanic Art. Anne Trueblood Brodzsky, Rose Daneswich, Nick Johnson, editors. The Society for Art Publi- cations 1977
• The Way of the Animal Powers. Vol. 1. Joseoph Campbell. Summerfield Press 1983
• Indian Healing: Shamanic Ceremonialism in the Pacific Northwest Today. Wolfgang G. Jilek, M.D. Hancock House Publishers Ltd. 1982
• Divine Horsemen: The Voodoo Gods of Haiti. Maya Deren. Dell Publishing Co., Inc. 1970
• Teutonic Mythology. Jacob Grimm. Dover. 1966 (originally published 1883)

 

Special Thanks to:

Murtagh an Doile and Morven Forest for many long hours of discussion, and their many suggestions and thoughts that helped with clarity. Much gratitude to Morven for editing my many drafts.

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Original publication: Converging Paths, Fall Equinox 1987, pp. 9-15.