What You Need to Know about Shamanism – Part 1

Characteristics of Shamanism

Ed. Note: This article is part of an ongoing series on the resurgence of Shamanism and what it is.

[Extracted from the authors’ book, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1995)]

Reader advisory: Some themes and descriptions in this article may be difficult to read. Approach with caution.

Info at a Glance

Description. Shamanism is an occult path claiming contact with supernatural entities for a variety of religious or, today, even secular purposes. Traditional shamanism is where the shaman functions as healer, spiritual leader, and mediator between the spirits and people. Shamanistic psychotherapy, a novel form of modern fringe psychology, is where shamanistic techniques are employed allegedly to produce “psychospiritual integration,” explore the unconscious, contact one’s “higher self,” and so on. Shamanistic medicine includes the application of animistic and various ancient witchcraft techniques to health care. It may involve either shamanism itself as a means to health and enlightenment (shaman initiation and following the shaman’s “life path”), or the varied use of specific shamanistic techniques in conjunction with a particular health program.

Founder. Unknown; the practice is found in almost all cultures throughout history. In the United States, the Native American religious tradition is representative.

How does it claim to work? Modern shamanism claims its methods will bring personal power, spiritual enlightenment, greater harmony with nature, psychological insight, and physical healing.

Scientific evaluation. Because of its occult nature, science has little to conclude concerning shamanistic claims. However, the methods and occult powers of shamans are studied parapsychologically, as is true for the spiritual cousins of shamans such as psychic surgeons, mediums, and channelers.

Examples of occult potential. Spiritism, spirit possession, kundalini^[1] arousal, psychic healing, and various occult practices.

Major problems. Shamanism leads to spirit possession and other forms of occult bondage. For example, in shamanistic healing the acquiring of true health demands both the practitioner and patient to be “energized” by his or her “power animal,” or spirit guide. Possession by one or more spirits for empowerment, enlightenment, personal health maintenance, and healing abilities is fundamental.

Biblical/Christian evaluation. Shamanistic practices involve pagan methods and beliefs that are forbidden (Exodus 20:3-4; Deuteronomy 18:9-12).

Potential dangers. Temporary insanity, demon possession, and tremendous physical suffering are some of the effects. Those treated with shamanistic techniques or methods may become converted to the occult.

Note: It should be said that using shamanistic techniques and methods in any given program is not equivalent to following the shamanistic path. Shamanistic methods can be used independently in a variety of ways; they may or may not introduce one to pursuing the path of the shaman. Shamanism also bears a significant relationship to modern cultism.

The Characteristics of Shamanism

First of all, what exactly is a shaman? A shaman is a religious leader who usually functions in an animistic^[2] culture to contact the spirit world in order to be empowered by it. He is expected to protect the tribe, cure illness, predict the future (divination), and offer practical advice. Initially, certain occult rituals are prescribed for the shaman initiate, which culminate in spirit possession and the resulting empowerment for whatever tasks may be at hand.

Throughout the world, shamanistic practices and experiences are highly uniform. In North and South America, Australia, Africa, and Asia, the shaman functions in a similar fashion, using the same techniques, achieving the same results. Anthropologists have long recognized this “remarkable” worldwide consistency of shamanism.

The late Michael Harner received his PhD in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been a visiting professor at Columbia, Berkeley, and Yale. He is described as “an authentic white shaman,” and taught anthropology courses in the graduate faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York. While serving as the president of the Center for Shamanistic Studies, Harner observed, “One of the remarkable things about shamanic assumptions and methods is that they are very similar in widely separated and remote parts of the planet.... [O]ne anthropologist notes: ‘Wherever shamanism is still encountered today, whether in Asia, Australia, Africa, or North and South America, the shaman functions fundamentally in much the same way and with similar techniques....’”^[3]

Following are some common characteristics or features of shamanism.

• The shaman works in darkness.

• The shaman must enter a trance state in order to “control” the spirit world and function effectively. The shaman employs specific methods for entering this trance state, or altered state of consciousness, which is necessary to contact the spirits. Two of the more common methods are ritual dancing with drum music or ingesting hallucinogenic drugs, although visualization, self-hypnosis, dream work, and other methods will also suffice. ^[4]

• The shaman employs “spirit flight” or out-of-the-body travels, into the spirit world, the “upper,” “lower,” and other occult realms. He enters these worlds as part of his initiation and regular occult work.

• The shaman is equally proficient in the practice of “good” or evil, e.g., “healing” or cursing work (“white” or black magic^[5]).

• The power the shaman claims to use is either that given by the spirits themselves, or a force conceptually differentiated from the spirits, but which is indistinguishable from them. And either may be said to be spiritistic manipulations of energy. Notable similarities exist between the power the shaman uses and that of many New Age^[6] energy concepts, such as chi,^[7] mana,^[8] kundalini, and prana^[9]. “Mana represents a supernatural impersonal power, also present in today’s so-called primitive religions; the manitou of the Algonquins, wakonda of the Sioux, orenda of the Iroquois—which could be appealed to for good or ill. The shaman or medicine man, by virtue of his special gifts and acquaintance with the supernatural world, was able to harness this force.” ^[10]

• It is essential for the shaman to contact one or more (sometimes dozens or hundreds) spirit guides. These are often viewed as nature spirits of various types, such as the spirits of plants, animals, or inanimate objects. “Spirit helpers” related to plants are often used in “healing” and are distinguished from the more powerful “guardian spirits.” The latter are often a personal “power animal,” from which the shaman derives his psychic abilities, spiritual assistance, and “protection” from evil forces. Basically, the power animal becomes the shaman’s alter ego. ^[11]

• Shamans acknowledge that spirit possession supplies their magical powers. In other words, apart from the spirits, shamans are impotent. As Harner observes, “Whatever it is called, it is the fundamental source of power for the shaman’s functioning…. Without a guardian spirit, it is impossible to be a shaman, for the shaman must have this strong basic power source....”^[12] In his impressive study and standard work on the subject, Shamanism, no less an authority than comparative religions expert Mircea Eliade points out, “All categories of shamans have their helping and tutelary spirits....”^[13] Anthropologist I. M. Lewis says the shaman is one who “permanently incarnates these spirits” into his own body, and thus “the shaman’s body is a ‘placing’ or receptacle, for the spirits.” ^[14]

• The shaman experiences temporary or extended periods of mental illness similar to psychosis and schizophrenia; extended periods of acute physical suffering and torture are also common. I. M. Lewis is professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and author of Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism. He observes that, in all cases studied, those experiences constituting shaman initiation “are certainly viewed as dangerous, even terrifying, experiences or illnesses. Experience of [mental] disorder in some form is thus an essential feature in the recruitment of shamans.” ^[15]

How do shamans enter their strange vocation? As Eliade points out, the most powerful shamans are produced either by heredity or election. The vocation is passed from generation to generation, creating a shamanic lineage from parents to children or, as we will see, the spirits personally choose the shaman, such as during a traditional vision quest. “In Central and Northeast Asia the chief methods of recruiting shamans are: (1) heredity transmission of the shamanic profession and (2) spontaneous vocation (‘call’ or ‘election’). There are also cases of individuals who become shamans of their own free will…. But these ‘self-made’ shamans are considered less powerful than those who inherited the profession or who obeyed the ‘call’ of the gods and spirits.”^[16] And this situation appears true for other forms of the occult as well. ^[17]

If we were to summarize the essentials of shamanism, it would include at least four basic themes: 1) altered states of consciousness or trance, 2) spirit possession, 3) experiences of severe physical and mental illness, 4) spirit travel. Although these are not limited to shamanism and, collectively, are found in much occult practice, without them, no one can become a shaman.

Endnotes

1. Kundalini is “the yogic life force that is held to lie coiled at the base of the spine until it is aroused and sent to the head to trigger enlightenment.” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kundalini)
2. Animism is the belief that natural objects, natural phenomena, and the universe itself have souls. (Dictionary.com)
3. Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman: A Guide to Power and Healing (NY: Bantam, 1986), p. 52.
4. Timothy White, “An Interview with Luisah Tesh Daughter of Oshun,” Shaman’s Drum, Spring 1986, p. 42; Richard Dobson, Natasha Frazier, “Trance, Dreams and Shamanism,” Shaman’s Drum, Spring 1986, pp. 38-39,49.
5. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 184.
6. “New Age:an eclectic group of cultural attitudes arising in late 20th century Western society that are adapted from those of a variety of ancient and modern cultures, that emphasize beliefs (such as reincarnation, holism, pantheism, and occultism) outside the mainstream, and that advance alternative approaches to spirituality, right living, and health.” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/new%20age)
7. Chi is “vital energy that is held to animate the body internally and is of central importance in some Eastern systems of medical treatment (such as acupuncture) and of exercise or self-defense.” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chi)
8. Mana is “the power of the elemental forces of nature embodied in an object or person.” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mana)
9. Prana is “a life breath or vital principle in Vedic and later Hindu religion.” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prana)
10. Walter Bromberg, From Shaman to Psychotherapist (Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery, 1975), p. 3; cf. Eliade, Shamanism, p. 475.
11. Harner, Way of the Shaman, p. 54.
12. Ibid
13. Eliade, Shamanism, p. 91.
14. I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism (Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1975), p. 51.
15. Ibid., p. 187.
16. Eliade, Shamanism, p. 13.
17. John Ankerberg, John Weldon, The Coming Darkness, eBook, pp. 207-215.