Shamanism is the most ancient spiritual and healing practice known to human beings: it dates back over 40,000 years and, as archeological findings have demonstrated, it was widespread all over the world. “Shaman” is a Siberian word and describes a man or a woman who has the power to heal the community by accessing alternative dimensions of reality.
What is a Shaman?
In order to fully appreciate the ongoing revival of Shamanism in contemporary urban contexts, a phenomenon that goes under the name of “neo-Shamanism,” it is necessary to know what basic tenets underlie the shamanic worldview.
First and foremost, according to the shamanic practitioner, the soul is life force and essence: something that can be weakened, fragmented, retrieved and healed. As a result of trauma, an individual’s soul can split and some of its fragments flee in other dimensions in order to be able to survive the painful circumstances. It is the shaman who, through his/her healing and visionary powers, can go into trance-like states of consciousness as they perform a shamanic journey into other worlds, as they seek to restore health and perform a soul retrieval.
The shaman performs his/her task of bringing back knowledge and healing from the hidden dimensions, through the help of spiritual guides and power or totem animals. While the first manifest to the shaman’s consciousness as human in form, the second represent the archetypal qualities and essence of specific animals.
According to the shamanic worldview, the universe human beings inhabit is multidimensional. Vertically, Shamanism distinguishes between the "Lower World," the "Middle World" and the "Upper World." Horizontally, the four directions and the center are considered sacred points of access and contact with the spiritual realms.
As with all earth-based spiritualities and religions, Shamanism states that all of life is an interconnected web of spirit, and therefore it is not possible to disconnect one’s actions from their wider context. If this happens, all sorts of illusions and evils happen: environmental pollution, consumerism, egoism, and illnesses, to mention just a few.
Practicing Modern Shamanism
The resurgence of Shamanism today is a phenomenon that has been brought about by anthropologists and researchers, first among all, Michael Harner and Sandra Ingermann. Although it draws on cross-cultural studies of many tribal and native cultures across the world, “core Shamanism” as they created it, stresses the common characteristics of the various world traditions.
Shamanic revivalists argue in various ways that now more than ever the shamanic worldview is precious to save the world from environmental disaster and human beings from insanity and greed, as it makes for the feeling of connection and belonging, of fellowship with nature. Today many shamans operate in the cities, as the modern living conditions require, because the city is the place where people tend to feel more alienated and lonely.
Scholar Mircea Eliade wrote an extensive book on the subject of Shamanism, describing it as an ecstatic path of direct contact with the powers that shape and permeate the universe. However, his Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, first published in 1951, has been criticized for not being based on direct and reliable sources.
As for contemporary manifestations of Shamanism, their practitioners strive to bring alive again that lost connection to a complex, multidimensional world of meaning and being, in which human identity is also complex and multi-layered. Yet, it can be difficult to test the authenticity of some shamanic practices, without having read any well researched study on the subject. Neo-Shamanism is therefore a contemporary adaptation of ancient knowledge and practices.
Sources:
- Eliade, Mircea. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton University Press, 2004.
- Ingermann, Sandra. "Shamanism. Healing of the Individual and the Planet", in Alternative Journal of Nursing. July 2008, Issue 17.
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