What You Need to Know about Shamanism – Part 3

Ed. Note: This article is part of our "Various Views of Jesus"

[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. 

Death Magic, and Other Forms of Murder

Michael Harner, Mircea Eliade, and others discuss parallels between shamanism and occult death magic. Harner observes the following practice among the category of the so-called “bewitching” shaman. “Shamans send these spirit helpers into the victims’ bodies to make them ill or kill them.... [T]he urge to kill felt by bewitching shamans came to them with a strength and frequency similar to that of hunger.”^[1] According to Eliade, “when the shaman wants to poison someone, he sends a damagomi [spirit]: ‘Go find so-and-so. Enter him. Make him sick. Don’t kill him at once. Make him die in a month.’”^[2]

However, because there are no absolute moral values exercised by shamans (or their spirit helpers), one discovers allegedly “good” shamans also use their powers for evil, whenever it suits their purposes.^[3] This is exactly what we find among so-called “good” witches.^[4]

Another illustration of how shamanism is used in killing or murdering others is seen in that the spirits which shamans cavort with enjoy “taking the heads” of tribal enemies, or even of innocent victims. Indeed, primitive shamanistic communities may undergo a crisis when civilization comes and takes hold of their social life and headhunting becomes outlawed. “Headhunting had been outlawed, and the people feared that the spirits would consume them because they were not able to feed the hungry spirits the heads of slain enemies.”^[5]

A television special on the subject was produced by Douchan Gersi, who had led the first successful expedition in history that crossed central Borneo through uncharted territory. Five previous expeditions had failed, and even in this one Gersi almost lost his life. On the TV special, one of the more understated personal sentiments he gave was, “Everywhere, invisible dangers.” At one point of incredible hardship, near death, he recalled, “Believe me, I started saying all my childhood prayers.”

Gersi discovered that the headhunting tribes he encountered, in common with most pagan religion, justify murder on the basis of the spirits’ own interests and perverted religious principles. He encountered some 350 of these shamanistic tribes and spent years living among them as a convert. One such tribe, the “Iban,” gather heads from other tribes and from explorers like Gersi. Why? Because the heads are believed to confer “social status” and occult power. Reminiscent of Western gunslingers, one native had 250 notches proudly carved out on his spear—one notch for each head. Indeed, for every major event (moving, marriage, etc.), a head must be sacrificed and publicly displayed on a pole. Thus, as the ritual ceremony for displaying the severed head approaches, “the people sense the presence of a thousand spirits” hovering around them, ready to relish the gruesome spectacle.

The religious justification for this is that human skulls are believed to be the home of living spirits, hence the supposed reason for the spirits’ interest in the displayed head. Human skulls are further thought to symbolize life, and so the tribe must be kept “healthy” by ritual sacrifice—the human sacrifice itself symbolizing life-giving power for the tribe. In harmony with other occult traditions of human sacrifice, it is also believed the person taking off the head of the victim receives the power from the spirit of the dead man.

Perhaps the most incredible part was Gersi’s pagan conversion and proud membership in the community. He no longer believes such people are primitive, but now is convinced they are spiritually advanced because of their “harmony with nature.” He concluded his television show by criticizing modern viewpoints and the encroachment of civilization for destroying such important cultures, using the wry phrase, “Progress is beheading Borneo.”

To summarize, there is no such category as a “benevolent” practicing occultist, whether shaman, witch, medium, psychic, or guru. First, because the urge to use power amorally is always present and people sooner or later succumb to it, even when their motives are good. Second, the Bible makes no distinction between “good” and “evil” practices of the occult. God calls all occult practice evil and an abomination to Him (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). That the spirits themselves are evil leads us to conclude that they will influence people in that direction, albeit often in subtle ways. Once people turn to the spirits, the spirits always get their way, sooner or later.

Spiritual Blackmail

The phenomenon of spiritistic intimidation is common to all categories of occultism. Thus, shamans who are “chosen” by the spirits as “healers” must either submit to the spirits or become ill—or even die. “The person called to be a shaman must learn to shamanize, that is, must take his powerful experiences and find a way to share the power with his people. If he does not shamanize, he will become ill again and may die, for the shaman is called to a certain kind of life, and if he does not lead it properly, his power will turn against him and kill him.”^[6]

In other words, to the spirits, human life is cheap. If their chosen host will not obey their wishes, they will destroy it and find another. Dr. Nandor Fodor discusses a similar condition among mediums. He observes that when a person neglects his mediumistic powers, illness results. Thus “mediumship, if suppressed, will manifest in symptoms of disease.”^[7] He cites the following illustration:

“The spasms seized the whole body; even the tongue was affected, blocking the throat and nearly suffocating her. When the patient mentioned that in her youth she tried table tilting, the doctor thought of the possibility that the mediumistic energy might block his patient’s organism. A sitting was tried. The lady fell into trance and afterwards slept well for a few days. When the sleeplessness became worse again the sitting was repeated and the results proved to be so beneficial that the chloral hydrate treatment previously employed was discontinued.”^[8]

This woman discovered that, like many shamans, she too had been “called” to her profession, and that unless she gave in to the process, she would suffer immeasurably.

Such spiritistic intimidation is common.^[9] Once the door has been broken down to permit spiritistic influence, whether by heredity, occult transfer, or personal choice, the spirits may aggressively pursue their evil agenda. Whether in mediumism, shamanism, or witchcraft, the person “has been caught by the spirits and must serve the spiritual world.”^[10] The following shamanistic examples, from Swiss psychologist, anthropologist, and ethnologist Holger Kalweit, show the true nature of the spirits. These examples, which come from a chapter having the incredible title, “When Insanity Is a Blessing: The Message of Shamanism,” reveal how dangerous it is to open the doors to the occult, and why those trapped often find it so difficult to escape.^[11] “Among the Siberian Tofa, too, shamans become sick before their initiation and are tormented by spirits…. [S]haman Vassily Mikailovic... could not rise from his bed for a whole year. Only when he agreed to the demands of the spirits did his health improve.”^[12] The wife of another shaman recalled the terrible experience of her husband’s call to shamanism. She warns, “He who is seized by the shaman sickness and does not begin to exercise shamanism, must suffer badly…. Therefore he is advised, ‘You must take up shamanism so as not to suffer!’ Some even say, ‘I become a shaman only to escape illness.’” Another shaman added, “The man chosen for shamandom is first recognized by the black spirits. The spirits of the dead shamans are called black spirits. They make the chosen one ill and then they force him to become a shaman.”^[13]

Kalweit comments that, in harmony with occult healing generally, the “healer” must suffer the illness of the patient:

“Resistance to psychophysical change and a disintegration of the normal structure of existence has always been part and parcel of the transformative process. Because of this, it forms at least a partial aspect of every rite of transformation.... Frequently the shaman enters a patient’s state so thoroughly that he himself experiences the symptoms and pains of the illness.... In the course of their painful existence, many shamans have physically experienced countless illnesses....”^[14]

Either way, the shaman cannot win. If he pursues his spiritistic calling, he suffers. If he does not, he suffers. The shaman who refuses his call in all probability “will be plagued by sickness the rest of his life.”^[15] Even one’s own family members may be tortured by the spirits as a means of forcing compliance:

“Often not only the shaman himself but his whole family are visited by misfortune.... The Koreans talk about a ‘bridge of people’ (indari) that comes into being when a member of the family is chosen to be a shaman and another member has to die as a result of this.... A God has ‘entered into’ the shaman and, in return, demands another human life.... But most families are unwilling to have a shaman in their circle, so the indari phenomenon occurs quite frequently. According to the investigations made by Cho Hung-Youn, indari occurs on average seven or eight times in every twenty cases of shamanic vocation.”^[16]

In a parallel to life of famous trance medium Edgar Cayce, we read:

“The Yakut shaman Tusput, who was critically ill for more than twenty years, could find relief from his suffering only when he conducted a séance during which he fell into a trance. In the end he fully regained his health by this method. However, if he held no séances over a long period of time he once again began to feel unwell, exhausted, and indecisive. In general, the symptoms of an illness subside when a candidate for shamanism enters a trance.^[17]

In the end, because of their power, the spirits will have their way. “In the end I became so ill that I was close to death. So I began to shamanize, and very soon my health improved. Even now I feel unwell and sick whenever I am inactive as a shaman over a longer period of time.”^[18]

Clearly, horrible torments, paralysis, drownings, insanity, extended sickness, being maimed, poisoned, and worse are the shaman’s lot.^[19] Perhaps this explains why even those sympathetic to the practice may issue warnings. Dr. Jeanne Achterberg writes:

“Any current thrust toward romanticizing shamanic medicine or folk medicine in general should be tempered with the knowledge that often the remedies prescribed were clearly wrong and harmful from the standpoint of physical wellbeing. Jilek-Aall describes birthing procedures dictated by custom in parts of Africa that defy the course of nature. The result is high infant mortality and a high incidence of epilepsy....

“The practice of shamanism is always regarded as being fraught with grave risk to the life and well being of the practitioner.... One particularly dangerous aspect of shamanism, “soul raising” is almost always practiced by women....

“A long standing debate has existed in anthropological writings on whether shamanism is a shelter for deranged personalities.”^[20]

Endnotes

1. Michael Harner, “The Sound of Rushing Water,” in Michael Harner, ed., Hallucinogens and Shamanism (New York: Oxford, 1975), pp. 17-20. ↑
2. Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 106. ↑
3.  e.g., Ibid, p. 184. ↑
4. John Ankerberg, John Weldon, The Coming Darkness, eBook, pp. 136-137,298. ↑
5. Joan Halifax, Shamanic Voices (NY: E.P. Dutton, 1979), pp. 24-25. ↑
6. John A. Sanford, Healing and Wholeness (NY: Paulist, 1977), p. 67. ↑
7. Nandor Fodor, An Encyclopedia of Psychic Science (Secaucus, NJ: The Citadel Press, 1966), p. 235. ↑
8. Ibid. ↑
9. e.g., Ankerberg and Weldon, The Coming Darkness, pp. 223-238. ↑
10. Stanislav Grof, Christina Grof, eds., Spiritual Emergency (Los Angeles, CA: J. P. Tarcher, 1989, p. 97. ↑
11. Ankerberg and Weldon, The Coming Darkness. ↑
12. Grof and Grof, Spiritual Emergency, p. 83. ↑
13. Ibid., p. 81. ↑
14. Ibid., pp. 93-94. ↑
15. Ibid., p. 87. ↑
16. Ibid., pp. 95-96. ↑
17. Ibid., p. 91. ↑
18. Ibid., p. 92. ↑
19. Halifax, Shamanic Voices, pp. 7-66; Alan Morvay, “An Interview with Sun Bear,” Shaman’s Drum, Winter 1985, pp. 18,22. ↑
20. Jeanne Achterberg, Imagery in Healing: Shamanism and Modern Medicine (Boston, MA: New Science Library/Shambhala, 1985), pp. 18-20. ↑