In preparation for writing this article, I reviewed both the notes I had compiled during my training with my teachers and the several dozen books I had read on the topic of shamanism.
What occurred to me is this: more often than not, what the teachers and writers addressed was more what the shaman/medicine man does and how he/she does it rather than offer a specific definition of the term or construct. This fact is beautifully exampled in the book entitled, Shaman, Healer, Sage, by Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., one of my first teachers/mentors. In this book I am hard pressed to find an actual definition of what a shaman is, only the multitude of descriptions of what she believes and does in service of herself, others and our world.
To begin, I find Western, contemporary society’s definitions of the term shaman to be limited, somewhat inaccurate, and unhelpful for a sound understanding of what a shaman/medicine man is.
For example, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd Edition (1992) defines shaman as: “A member of certain tribal societies who acts as a medium between the world and an invisible spirit world and who practices magic or sorcery for the purpose of healing, divination, and control over natural events.” It indicates the derivation of the term as Russian, Tungas, saman and Sanskrit, sramanas (ascetic).
The same reference defines shamanism as: “1. The animistic religion of certain peoples of northern Asia in which mediation between the visible and spirit worlds is effected by shamans. 2. A similar religion or set of beliefs, especially among certain Native American peoples.” (Animism means: 1. The attribution of conscious life to natural objects or to nature itself. 2. The belief in the existence of spiritual beings that are separable or separate from bodies). The 1969 American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defined shamanism as: “The religious practices of certain native peoples of northern Asia who believe that good and evil spirits pervade the world and can be summoned or heard through inspired priests acting as mediums.”
Different forms of shamanism and shamanic practices have been used for tens of thousands of years around the globe. They were used before any means of global communication, and developed independent from each other but shared the strong relationship with nature and the spirit world. The roots of all shamanism used both the organized, linear left brain, and also from the right brain, rich with imagination and intuitive knowledge. Thus, there are many similarities of practices and ceremonies globally, but they differ as does the language and culture in which they are practiced.
It has been and is my experience that Western, Judeo-Christian peoples (versus many Hindi peoples of the East, as but one example) typically view, pejoratively, such terms as: magic, sorcery, divination, evil spirits, and mediums. I myself take issue with terms such as magic and sorcery. To clarify, my mentors noted that the methods used by shamans and sorcerers (in this context, meaning practitioners of darkness) are very similar. What is most important is the intent of the practitioner. That is, the shamans’ intent is to do that which is in the highest good of the Divine, as well as the person they are serving, and also the highest good of all concerned.
The above mentioned definitions also suggest that shamans and shamanism is perhaps limited to Asian and Native North American peoples. In fact, as I had noted earlier, shamanism is a very ancient spiritual practice that is worldwide and practiced by people on every continent. My teachers themselves have said it is anywhere from 5,000 to - 40,000 years old, perhaps older (e.g., 100,000). It is referred to by some as indigenous energy medicine.
I have often been asked, “What is a shaman?” and as often have struggled how best to answer. As a model, I have investigated how other professionals are defined. A yogi, for example, is simply defined as a spiritual teacher. A priest is defined as a “Christian… clergy… authorized to administer the sacraments, a person authorized to perform and administer religious rites.” A physician is a person licensed to practice medicine; a medical doctor. So the yogi teaches, the priest performs and administers, and the physician practices medicine. In other words, each is, in great part, defined by their being: who they are/is what they believe and administers. It seems that’s what they are.
With this simple insight, I shall define the medicine man/shaman as: a spiritual and energetic healing agent. By healing agent, I mean to acknowledge the shaman’s understanding that he/she is only an instrument, used by Spirit (insert here whatever your conceptualization of a Higher Power is), to help affect healings and/or cures. By Spirit, I mean God, Divine Consciousness, Great Spirit, The All-ness/Oneness, Love, Creator etc., essentially, the One known by thousands of names and yet, The Un-namable.
Wallace Black Elk
The best of these spiritual and healing agents are the enlightened people, embodied to serve humanity. According to psychiatrist David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., such enlightened beings are relatively few. I suspect the majority of healers function within a range of awareness of the Divine which determines his/her effectiveness as an instrument. It is believed that each person is led to the teacher that is most useful to him/her and that said teacher will have a level of consciousness that is most suited to the student. Most importantly the shaman is a person committed to working with Spirit, and variety of emissaries, (e.g., angels, Master Guides, Power Animals) to help affect health, help and happiness (Wallace Black Elk, 1990) for the person, family and community for whom he/she works.
How and by what means the shaman accomplishes his/her services are the subjects of many, many volumes of writings across the ages and this material will be presented and discussed in forthcoming updates to this blog. However, I shall say this: The medicine man has learned that everything in the cosmoses is connected. Everything in nature has consciousness, even the rocks, trees, creepy crawlers, the finned, the furred, the winged, the four-legged, and two-legged creatures on the Earth. This is a central and consistent underpinning of shamanism and is shared globally.
Through altered states of awareness, the shaman develops his/her ability to communicate with these sentient beings and with the beings who reside in other dimensions such as the astral and causal worlds (see for example, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda 1946, 1998). The shaman “mediates between the visible and invisible worlds” (Villoldo, 2002, personal communication.) The medicine man tunes into the “non-local, undivided consciousness” or “collective unconscious,” as Carl Gustav Jung (a Swiss psychiatrist who founded Analytical Therapy, 1875-1961) referred to it, to access the information useful and needed to help effect the healings and/or cures needed and wanted. To Western people, the term intuitive or psychic might describe this ability. The medicine men and women, the shamans, the yogis all acknowledge that they work with Spirit, the God Head. Some understand their superconscious mind (High Self) taps into Divine omniscience. Others, such as the Lakota medicine men, say that the information they come to know is given to them by personal, helping spirit guides (who are the intermediaries for the Divine). Villoldo, who studied with and lived among the Q’ero shamans, often said: “When you call Spirit, Spirit comes. However, you must remember, when Spirit calls you are obliged to show up.” This means you are obliged to work according to Spirit’s time, not yours. This is the shaman’s contract with Spirit. Shamans also journey through time and space at will, often times, to find and retrieve parts of a person’s soul that have left or split off, so to speak, due to traumas it had experienced either in this current incarnation or in past lifetimes. Soul-retrieval is a central practice among shamans. Similarly, medicine men assist souls stuck in the Middle world (a dimension of our material world), to pass on back to the Light.
In the Q’ero tradition, there are soul parts that are external to us and others (Fluid entities) that are held within a person’s body. Those within are typically close relatives or people with whom the person was close and who passed away from their physical bodies.
All the work that medicine people and shamans do is done in what is referred to as sacred space. After purifying and preparing oneself, the helping spirits, who are of the Divine consciousness (versus those of the darkness or evil spirits), are called into the presence of the healer and patient from the four cardinal directions as well as from above and below. They facilitate the healing or assist in it. More importantly, they are present because the shaman prayed for them to come in and help.
Shamans are also able to conduct healings remotely. That is, by accessing the connectedness of everyone and everything beyond linear time and space, the shaman can diagnose the energetic sources of problems and effect clearings of those energies from a distance, be that 1 mile or 10,000+ miles.
Lastly, for the purposes of this article, I shall note that there are those shamans, yogis, and medicine people who are of such a high level of God-consciousness that merely being in their presence affects healings in others. Such highly evolved souls are relatively few, yet they do exist. (See Yogananda, 1946, 1998 and Hawkins, 2001, 2003.) More commonly, though, one may encounter a healer who is very masterful and whose level of ability can activate the potentials within you, thus enabling you to more easily affect the changes that you are of a mind and will to accomplish.