HERE WE CONTINUE WITH THE STUDY OF SHAMANISM. Continued from St.Lawrence 13. At this point we are discussing different plants used to induce a transcendent state.
Banisteriopsis Caapi. The bark of this plant is brewed to make a beverage which allows direct contact with the supernatural realm. This enables contact with ancestors or helper spirits, or revelatory visions. This drug induces telepathic powers, and flight of the soul, as well as dramatic visions. Those who use encounter supernatural beings. These claims of the inducement of powers seem to have a foundation.
The native seekers frequently use this drug sitting together, and as a group, decide on a specific quest, to visit a certain city, for example. Together they embark on astral flight.
This drug is also used to recover lost souls. Sickness is believed to be caused by the loss of the soul. This drug is used to induce a transcendent union with Creation or God.
definition: phratries- a tribal subdivision.
definition: exogamy- marriage outside the group.
Banisteriopsis is also used as a simple medicine in the treatment of most diseases. The natives believe sickness is caused by evil, or bewitching spirits.
Tobacco. Tobacco is used as an intoxicant, and a source of power. It is considered a magical power.
San Pedro Cactus, as a drug, dates back three thousand years as a ritual sacrament. It continues to be used for divination, to treat illness, and in psychic warfare. Using this cactus as a medicine, the shaman transcends his limitations. His senses are activated. He projects his soul and spirit, ascending or descending to other realities. He identifies and does battles with illness. He “sees”.
The sacred mushroom is said to embody a powerful and holy supernatural power.
Christ himself is said to heal and teach through these supernatural plants.
Several different shamans are mentioned here in a chapter entitled “The Shamans Speak”.
Black Elk: As a true visionary, like unto St. John the Divine, who composed the Bibles “Book of Revelations”, Black Elk, is transported to heavenly realms. He is given many resplendent and prophetic visions about the future of his people, the Native Americans. He is awarded profound powers through the Grandfathers, as his souls is swept from his body. He receives his sacred instructions, visions and powers.
Lusiah Teish: Teish has learned, from her mother, of a white magic. Her beliefs have a Christian undertone. For example, she might make a love potion from holy water, sugar, urine and perfume. She has the spirits of her ancestors as allies, and the gods of African tribalism. Practicing dance, she travels out of body. She teaches a universal sort of religion, of man’s harmony with man, and harmony with nature. +.
Brook Medicine Eagle: As a bridge between cultures, her teaching points the way back toward the traditional ways, but she has been educated in a western university, in holistic health therapies.
In the Black Hills of South Dakota, Brook Medicine Eagle embarks upon a vision quest. A Spirit Guide, an apparition of light and rainbows, grants Brook a vision, and imparts a special message. This message has two parts. The first part is that man must become more feminine and nurturing. The second part is that the white race and the Native Americans must achieve a harmonious balance. With the Native Americans imparting heart while the Whites impart a mind centered intellect. The whole of man needs to bring itself into balance.
Sun Bear: His goal is to teach all to walk in balance with the Earth Mother, to restore people to their personal power, and to increase ecological awareness. Sun Bear believes that in teaching people to be centered within themselves, within their fellow man, and upon the earth, in showing people how they can draw power from the Universe, he is the vehicle of healing.
He shows group participants how to take a vision quest, to fast, pray, and use a sweat lodge to purify oneself. Prior to journeying to the sacred mountain, one digs a hole and pours into it their anger and frustration, and then covers the hole with dirt and a prayer. Sun Bear says his role is teaching people how to make prayers and ceremonies for communication with natural and spiritual forces, so that they can learn to restore their own power and restore their balance in life.
Carlos Castenada: Carlos Castenada studied magical healing and sorcery from a healer named Don Juan, in Mexico, in the 1960”s. The writings of Castenada define the art of healing, psychic seeing, and spiritual phenomena. However, the legitimacy of his work has been questioned. Though his work remains controversial, it is generally accepted as an accurate description of sorcery and psychic healing.
Castenada’s writings include details of visionary encounters with the peyote god Mescalito, astral transformations into the form of a crow, and sessions ingesting datura and smoking sacred mushrooms.
On the face of it, “The teaching of Don Juan” seemed like a serious work, and it was published by the University of Southern California. However from the beginning were doubters and cynics.
Having been through many psychic episodes and experiences, I do not find the experiences of Castenada unbelievable. I do not find Castenada’s reports difficult to believe.
Author Michael Harner stated that while Castenada may have borrowed from other sources on shamanism, he wasn’t inventing. “The Castenada books are an essentially accurate account of how a shaman might be expected to act. Castenada is to be thanked for bringing the awesome realities of the shaman’s universe in to the notice of the general Public.+.
“So what emerges from the Carlos Castenada debate is that Carlos himself is probably the actual visionary and many of the perspectives have been implanted in the personage of the real, partially real, or unreal being known as Don Juan. The work is authentic”.
Lynn Andrews comes along, in the roll of a female Castenada. Her work is heavily laden with mystical insight, and like Castenada, her authenticity is challenged. Her work is to promote shamanism as a form of woman’s studies, according to women the duty of restoring the planet.
Andrews believes world healing is a responsibility of the women of the west. The Sisterhood of the Shields is a secret society of women who work toward self realization. The society is based on the ancient traditions of women. “All over the world, the language is the same. We communicate without words”. She believes that male energies play a lesser role in shamanism. However, most contemporary writers on shamanism view gender issues as less important than the exploration of mythic consciousness in general. The strength of Andrew’s viewpoint is an insight that that the world needs a strong dose of planetary awareness. She make the point,” we are no longer hunting buffalo, we are trying to survive a nuclear age. Traditional wisdom must be integrated with the ways of modern society.
SHAMANISM IN THE WEST
Michael Harner has an impeccable reputation as the world’s foremost authority on shamanism. He has studied native cultures world wide. He has placed his knowledge, which is considered accurate, in a language westerners can comprehend.
His techniques involve visualizing a spirit canoe, and the beating of a drum, and the shaking of rattles.
The participants relax in darkness, and visualize a huge tree whose branches reach up to Heaven, and roots go deep into the netherworld. The tree becomes a tunnel in the upper and lower worlds.
The participant meets a spirit guide in the form of an animal, who has the power to restore health or instill special knowledge.
Harner believes the monotonous drum beat, which simulates a heartbeat or the galloping of a horse, is a most effective way of attaining a mystical start of consciousness.
He teaches that the shaman as healer takes a healing spirit in the form of an animal into his chest, and then blows into the head and chest of the one to be healed. The formerly dis-spirited person then rises, and dances as the newly received power animal would dance, once again, to a drumbeat.
The recipient of shamanic healing can receive a dramatic transformation. When the dance is completed, the shaman steps out of the canoe, signals to the four corners of the universe with his rattles, and his healing ceremony is completed.
A SHAMANIC WORKSHOP
Different people , in the same workshop, will have different experiences. One woman reports being absorbed into the womb of a spirit mother. She learns to use less will in her work.
“Simply by using the technique of drumming, people from time immemorial have been able to pass into realms that are reserved for saints and those near death”. There are realms of upper and lower worlds where one can get answers to puzzling questions or problems. The imagining of the shaman has a place in reality. What a shaman sees on a spirit quest is real in the spirit realm, and definitely representative of what is going on in the material reality.
Michael Harner has also worked with native peoples, restoring knowledge that was lost through missionary activity or colonization. He works with these people to restore “core shamanism”, general methods consistent with those used by their ancestors.+.
CAN WE BE SHAMANS IN THE WEST?
Becoming a shaman is more than taking a few spirit voyages, or donning a head dress and smoking a pipe. Shamanism, traditionally, is the religious expression of nomadic hunter gatherers. However, most westerners live in cities. We have a comparatively settled existence. Shamanism originates in isolated, preliterate cultures, and does not transpose well onto our lives in the west.
However, there is a basic world view, an approach to our planetary existence, which can be integrated into the context and belief structure of modern society. Regarding the mythical tree through which one travels, one uses it to journey into a realm which might be otherwise inaccessible. Shamanic technique opens up the possibility for each of us to discover out own inner realm, our own dream time. We find our own inner gods, the voices of our souls. Religion becomes personal, pure, and true, based on what we know.
Through shamanism, all experience the sheer aliveness of the universe.
“Gone is any distinction between animate and inanimate. The universe is ablaze with energy, a flowing and ebbing pulse and vibration. All forms are perceived as inner connected, with a universal life force underlying all”.
“This in turn becomes a truly holistic vision, because energy is matter, and matter is spirit”.
“Our purpose in integrating shamanism into our lives becomes one of finding our individual purpose within the matrix. A way we can assist the universal flow.
We must become our own inner truths, heed our inner voice, and take responsibility for our actions. There are uncharted waters for all to explore. We can discover the awesome sacred realms, and experience the transformation of our lives. We discover God within.
“We need to strive for a balance of male and female energies, and recognize the sanctity of nature”.
Shamanism, if nothing else, is a religious perspective that venerates nature.
One, as a modern shaman, finds a core of simplicity in life; the basic perception that we all share a common destiny on this planet. We are all born of mother earth, and accountable to each other and future generations to work toward balance between human kind and nature.
The book concludes saying; “As Sun Bear has said, we all shares the same Earth Mother, regardless of our race, or country of origin, so let us learn the ways of love, peace, and harmony, and seek the good paths in life”.+.
EXTRA CREDIT ESSAY- From college studies- More on Shamanism.
Insanities Unseen Logic.
I have been diagnosed with both manic depressive and schizophrenic disorders. I have talked or listened to scores of others diagnosed as mentally ill. Inherent in the phrase “mental illness” is the notion that those afflicted by this supposed illness are known by behaviors that lack coherence or purpose
However, at the root of illness are three important issues I can identify now. The paranoia of paranoid schizophrenia has its roots deep within. It is a mortal issue, at the core of one’s being. It is a battle against the loss and damnation of the soul. The mind and soul, fearing eternal death, drive the afflicted, without time for rest or restoration. With endless strictures, psychic pain builds steadily. Building momentum, the inner sanctum is invaded with pain. The manic state is the fearful soul in flight. On one hand flying from damnation. On the other hand is psychic sacrifice, fleeing to immortality. After weeks, months, or even years, the mind yields to endless pain. This is where the break occurs. And insane behavior takes over. Oppressive pain vexes judgment, as psychic gifts begin to manifest. Judgment vexed will cause any number of unexplainable behaviors. Manic phases or paranoid schizophrenic phases could be called “a soul on fire”. It is not all undesirable, for fire both purges and destroys.
The soul of the afflicted knows that inner change and growth are necessary. In a logical decision, the afflicted chooses to drive himself into enlightenment and purity. Deliberately, the path of hard labor, prayer, and fasting is chosen. It is only a short time before the afflicted finds himself in uncharted territory without a guide. The spiritual territory laying beyond the horizons of psychiatry are incorrectly labeled insanity, and treated with medications. Unfortunate use of medications inhibit continued growth, and can leave the subject stranded part way to the goal.
To recapitulate, insanity may be an uncharted psychic and spiritual realm, brought on by deliberate sacrifice, in an attempt to achieve purity and wisdom.
Insanity may be the search for wisdom with no holds barred, and unchecked zealousness. The afflicted becomes the sacrificial fire, or the ‘mast’, drunken with the excitement of penetrating the ultimate frontier. The mind engaged in the eternal struggle of light and dark, good and evil, may experience confusion. But it is the confusion of a soldier in battle. A battle that must be fought if it is to be won. Light is liberated by the afflicted, and released upon his world. And to this end, great sacrifices are made. +.
To simplify, mental illness is bound to the fear of damnation, and the flight to salvation. Where psychic pain or confusion dominate, so does insanity. Confusion is a battle of forces within the mind. Is a symptom of illness, and sometimes brought on by psychiatric medications.
A shaman is one who performs a spiritual service. Teaching, healing, perhaps casting out demons. He achieves sufficient resource to intercede for the restoration of others, serving as priest or minister. He is repeatedly successful in his intercessions. He dispels poverty and ignorance. He has attained a state clear and powerful enough to assume the burdens of others.
VIOLENCE-KARMA- OBEDIENCE Is violence always evil?
I will begin this essay asking the question, “is violence always sinful?”
There are many who consider any taking of life to be wrong. There are those who would condemn catching and cleaning a fish as sinful.
But what about defending ones family, or home, or nation? Or defending against the police force, when the police are out of line.
David, Samson, and Moses all took lives, yet they were prophets of God.
In Hinduism, Krishna and Arjuna fought in battles. Yet the Hindu text says they accrued no guilt, as they were in divine will.
Evidently, warfare is justified against the enemies of holiness.
While murder is the unjustified elimination of another human being, there are occasions in the real world where evil or godless antagonists need to be eliminated. And this unfortunate reality will remain until the coming of the Kingdom.
The next question is, “is it ever appropriate to curse an enemy?”
Let us look at Psalm 149. Versus 7,8, and 9.
“The saints execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments to the peoples. “
“To bind their kings with chains and nobles with fetter of iron”.
“To execute upon them the written judgment. “.
“This honor have all the saints”.
“Praise the Lord”.
The definition of a saint would be very similar to the definition of a shaman. Though peace is more desirable than war, and love more desirable than a curse, it is given to some, in sinless obedience, to use both physical violence and the spiritual curse.
I am not saying that every war is justifiable, but there are times when killing occurs without piling up karma.
In fact it may be one’s duty to defend home and homeland.
NOTES ON THE “WAY OF THE SHAMAN” by Michael Harner. Harper and Row, NY.1980
Shamanism, not steel or concrete or evil, is based on care, trust, and sharing on a deep emotional and interpersonal level.
Shamanism as ancient and universal, and often of greater value than modern medicine. Learned from a master, or directly from the Spirit. Creating, maintaining, and restoring personal power. The shaman is able to move between states of consciousness. An altered state may enhance one’s ability to survive.
Fast traveling is traveling over long distances quickly. As did Elisha, or Elijah in the Old Testament. The status of shaman is conferred upon those who assist in matters of healing and power. It is success in shamanic work that determines who has become a shaman.
Visualization, of different forms, journeys, projecting light in different ways is the work of the shaman.
There are dangers in entering psychic battle. Danger on the spirit level, the community and social level, and one must be aware of the danger of psychiatric assault. I must interject right here that one using a mind altering drug should have a knowing partner to guard over the experience.
The author prepares himself for a psychic voyage with prayer and fasting.
Guayusa is a euphoria inducing tea “Once tasted, one will always return to the jungles of Ecuador”.
The author travels deep into the South American jungle, to where the most powerful shamans live. This is to learn, first hand, to be a shaman. The author apprentices himself to a shaman named Akachu, and his helper Tsangu, who guides the author deep into the jungle, to bathe at a secret and sacred waterfall. The author becomes lost in the wilderness, but finds the waterfall. There he is united with his guides.
He enters the cave behind the waterfall shouting “Tau, Tau,Tau”. This is to attract the Grandfathers.+.
As night falls, he imbibes another hallucinogen called maiku, and prepares, with the help of his guides, to again enter the spirit world. He is forewarned that he will encounter demons, of which he must not be afraid. His guides assure him that they will stay sober and guard him. As the drug takes effect there is lightning, thunder and an earthquake. Then with a hurricane wind, a demon appears.
I wonder if the storm and earth quake are the opening of new areas of the subjects mind. It is a privilege to learn.
A shaman does his healing and teaching with helpers, like the butterfly, jaguar, and serpent.
Some shamans use drugs, some do not. He restores the health of his patients, and eliminates evil powers.
Entering an altered state, he ascends to the heavenly, or down to the nether worlds. He learns to navigate the spirit world, to find the needed plant, animal, or power object. He has business to do in the spirit world, and must learn to navigate successfully, and return to the ordinary with the needed powers.
Or perhaps perform a blessing or curse while in the non ordinary realm.
The shaman is a self reliant explorer of the endless mansions of a magnificent hidden universe.
He sings, and dances, and drums. He works in the dark, seeing what others cannot see. He peers into the future, and the secrets of others. He may manifest what modern medicine would call a manic-depressive syndrome.+.
Crystals Burning Light
Animal Spirit Helpers,
seeing in pure darkness.
Tsungi, the first shaman.
Drum beats cease.
As does my heart.
Sustained by the energy of pure darkness.
I await my Spirit friends.
The butterfly,
the falcon,
the fish.
My primordial ally returns.
The heron,
who knows me like no other,
these come to me.
And the drum beat resumes,
the heart beat of my mother.
I can,
in a light that knows no darkness,
know this mystery.
Shamans descend to the netherworld. By following tree trunks, animal burrows, or hollow trees. The path to the surface is kept open by the souls of his namesakes.
Outstanding shamans not only in travel in the altered state, but also hear, feel, and experience communications and sensations beyond the ordinary state of consciousness.
The shamanic journey:
When calm and relaxed.
No drugs or alcohol.
A time of fasting.
Visualize an opening in the earth.
Cover eyes.
Drumming at 205 beats per minute.
Descend through tunnel.
Examine landscape.
Observe carefully.
Don’t fear.
Return.
Archeological evidence suggests Shamanism is 20,000 to 30,000 years old. Shamanic methods in different places are very similar. It existed in Europe until the Catholic inquisition.
The shaman is able to transcend the human condition, and pass freely between different cosmological planes.
In the absence of science and technology, the prescientific cultures were compelled to develop the mind and technique of shamanism.
The shaman’s power is supplied by his guardian and helping spirits. He uses a vision-guardian complex. A guardian spirit is acquired by embarking on a spirit quest in the deep wilderness, to a cave, waterfall, mountain top, or isolated path at night. It is the guardian spirit that allows the shaman to function in the altered state. Both the ordinary and the non ordinary realms are affected. The guardian spirit takes on the spirit of an animal.
The Javiro tribes people believe that all children have guardian spirits. However, only the shaman works with his spirit allies.
Both men and woman can become shamans. But in some cultures the women are too busy with childrearing to do so until later in their lives.
The shaman is called the magical athlete of the state of consciousness, the middle man between realities.
The two basic shamanic powers are, taking out harmful energies, and restoring beneficial ones.
Some shamans use mind altering drugs, many do not. +.
Phases of initiation are experiential and gradual. The first phase is learning to use the shamanic state, to see and journey while there. Then the initiate must come to know his guardian spirit, and how to enlist its assistance. As the shaman continues to practice, he becomes more certain of his powers and helpers, and how to use them. As knowledge is acquired, the shaman becomes a guide for other people.
The shaman will never doubt the validity of another’s experience, whereas the scientist will often label as fantasy those things that do not conform to his perceptual model. However, both the shaman and the scientist are seeking understanding of life’s mysteries.
Many people can become shamans, though only a few are recognized as outstanding.
The ability of the master to function successfully in two separate realities is seen as evidence of power.
There are different depths of trance. Religious and magical. Music is used to attain the trance. The shaman does necessarily lose consciousness.
The drum and the rattle are used. The drum and the rattle become the horse or canoe, transporting one to the Lower or Upper World. Sound is the vehicle of travel.
Lab research indicates drumming produces a change in the central nervous system, stimulating the parts of the mind sensitive to low frequency sound. While rattling stimulates the parts of the mind sensitive to high frequency sound. The mind thus stimulated is moved into an altered state.
Full reality, not imagination, is ascribed to everything experienced in the Shamanic State. The shaman interacts with animals, plants, humans, spirits, and inorganic matter. He learns respect for all that is created, in all realms. “Plants and animals have a human form in another world”.
The “rock seeing technique” of the Lakota Sioux is an interesting and accessible technique of divination. First decide upon a problem for which you desire an answer. Then walk through a wild area until you find a stone the size of two fists. Pick it up and carry it to a place where you can be comfortable sitting down with it. Place the stone on the ground in front of you, and then pose the question for which you seek an answer.
Then carefully study the stone until you are able to see one or more living creatures formed by its lines, crevices, and irregularities. When you are satisfied that you have discerned one or more animals, plants, insects, faces, human forms, or other entities, then think about what the stone is trying to you about the problem you have posed. Fix your conclusion in your mind, and then turn the rock over. Repeat the same process of seeing and thinking on the new surface. If the stone is thick enough, do the same thing on the remaining two sides.
Contemplate how the images from each side can be combined.
Then with respect and thanks return the stone to the place and position it was found.
From the shaman’s perspective, there are animal beings in the stone.+.
The text continues with a discussion about power animals.
The possession of an animal as an ally does not draw upon a single animal, but an entire species. He may be connected to it however, through a single manifestation.
The shaman must have a particular guardian with which to do his work. This guardian animal is called a power animal. This power animal may appear in human form, as well.
When an animal speaks to an individual, it is considered evidence that this animal is ones guardian spirit. The shaman may transform into the form of his power animal, and back again.
The most famous method of obtaining a guardian spirit is the vision quest, or trip into the wilderness. One summons his power animals by dancing and drumming and shaking his rattles. Dancing is a way of praying and evoking the sympathy of the guardian spirits. One dances and acts the spirit he has called to himself. The animal power then makes its home in the novice shaman. Dancing the animal is an important method for keeping it content and making it reluctant to leave. There is a tradeoff, the person gets the power of a whole species, and the guardian is pleased to reside in a human body. It is believed that an animal spirit within creates a body powerful in resisting disease. When a person becomes weak, ill or depressed it is a symptom that he has lost his power animal. The shaman will then descend to the spirit world to retrieve the lost helper. The shaman may do his work while lying down.
The shaman brings back the power animal, and blows it into the chest of the patient, and then into the fontanel, at the base of the skull. The shaman while on ayahuasca, can see an inverted rainbow on the chest of one with a power animal.
Before journeying to find a power animal, one should acquire a power song. It is said that the best power songs are found in the solitude of the wilderness, and also in dreams.
One announces his desire to become a shaman to the spirit world with a dance to drumming and rattling. The initiate dances and rattles to the four quadrants of the compass, to the heavens and to the lower worlds.+.
The first journey to another world is simply for observation, to observe the technique used. In subsequent journeys one finds his power animals, as well as special plants, stones, and springs of water. He finds the knowledge of how to work with these things as well.
The initiate then descends or ascends to another realm to recover a power animal. A person can have up to two power animals at a given time, no more.
The steps again are:
The starting dance. Dancing the six directions, beginning with the east.
Welcoming an animal spirit to enter the chest and mind.
Dancing the power animal, with its special sounds and movements, to magnify its power within. These steps are all facilitated by dancing and drumming, in an almost dark place.
Facing east and shaking the rattle four times signifies the beginning, ending, or an important transition.
One must dance his animal regularly, and sing songs about it, to keep it strong within.
Guardian spirits usually only stay a few years, and then depart. A person in a long healthy life may have a succession of power animals without even knowing it.
The shaman, acting as physician, will recover the needed power animal to restore health to his patient.
The steps are:
1.) Plan with a partner and the infirm to spend a night together. Eat a light lunch, no dinner.
2.) Use a dark room, with only a candle in the corner.
3.) The person acting as shaman dances the six directions.
4.) He then whistles four times to call the spirits.
5.) Circle the patient four times to call the spirits, rattling slowly and strongly. Then stand beside him.
6.) Whistle your power song, until one senses a slight alteration in consciousness.
7.) Begin to sing the power song.
8.) When heaviness is achieved, lay on the floor, next to the patient. Put this off as long as possible.
9.) Push your body shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, foot to foot. Without delay, begin to shake the rattle as the drummer resumes his drumming.
10.) Lay on the floor, next to the patient, maintaining rattling until you clearly see the entrance into the lower world.
11.) When you go in the entrance, stop shaking the rattle. The drummer maintains the established tempo throughout the journey, until the shaman signals his return by resuming the rattling.+.
12.) Continue to visualize the entrance or opening to the earth, and then enter it. Follow the passage downward, passing through or around any obstacles. Avoid any voracious non-mammals. Avoid spiders, swarming insects, fanged reptiles, and fish whose teeth show.
13.) When you emerge from the tunnel you will find yourself in the lower world. It is here that you will search for a guardian spirit or power animal for your partner, patient.
14.) The needed power animal will appear at least four times from different angles. Beware of toothy non-mammals. The power animal is never an insect. Do not strain. If it is proper it will make itself known. It may appear in statue form.
15.) After seeing the animal four times, clasp it to your chest immediately with one hand. Having clasped the animal, pick up and sound the rattle four times. This signals a momentary cessation of drumming. Then shake the rattle very fast. 210 times per minute. Return t the room as quickly as possible. Thirty seconds or less, to avoid the accidental loss of the guardian animal.
16.) Set the rattle aside. Keep the animal clasped to your chest, and rise up to your knees. Immediately place your cupped hands containing the guardian spirit on your partner’s breast bone, and blow with all your strength through your cupped hands to send it into the chest of your partner. Then with your left hand, raise your companion into a sitting position, and place your cupped hands on the top rear of your partners head. Forcefully blow again to send any residual power into the head.
17.) Then pick up the rattle, shaking rapidly and sharply, pass it in a circle four times around the whole length of your companion body, making complete the unity of power within the body. Quietly tell your partner the identity of the animal you brought back. And tell all details of the journey.
18.) Assist your partner to dance his animal, in order to make the animal feel welcome by giving it the reward of experiencing its movements in material form, with rattles and drums.
19.) Shake rattle four times, signifying the end of the dance. Assist the patient into sitting position on the floor. Remind the patient to dance his animal regularly, so that it will stay with him.
20.) Your partner and you can change places, he journeying for you.+.
It is advised not to talk about ones power animals.
The author suggests descending to the lower worlds to ask the guardian animal questions. For example, how to treat another’s disease. This is called divination.
The power of a guardian can remain with you for about two weeks.
When you encounter your power animal, greet it cordially.
Shamanic voyages can be taken to preview the future – hallucinogens are used this way.
Keeping power involves regular dancing of the animal. An animal guardian that grows discontented will leave for long periods, which results in weakness and depression.
Shamans consider vivid dreams as direct communication with the spirit world, clairvoyant or precognitive.
A nightmare, the shaman suggests, should be acted out. This serves to disempower the nightmare.
While acting out a good dream may make it more powerful.
Many tribals believe that a person with a guardian animal is immune from accident, disease or death, except the scourge of disease.
Long distance healing requires facing in the direction of the afflicted. Visualizing the afflicted. And then journeying to the lower world to recover the needed power animal. Then mentally and spiritually sending the power animal to the sick person. Or to the sick person’s power animal. When the patient’s animal guardian is energized, healing occurs. +.
THE BONE GAME
One team hides the bone in their hands. The other team attempts to discern where the bones are hidden, psychically. A novitiate would seek the gift of psychic seeing by an invocation to the Spirits in a cave at night. The bone game was serious business for the Indians. They would bet the entire winter food supply, horses, or even their wives. It is considered a good way to develop the psychic powers. The hiding team members are also instructed to try to disrupt the concentration of the seer when their own side is hiding the bones.
The shaman will collect power objects. These will be things like bird feathers, fish scales, special plants and stones. The most highly prized and important is the quartz crystal.
The quartz crystal, among diverse shamanic cultures is singularly important. They are considered solidified light. The destruction of a large crystal would foreshadow the end of the world, according to tribal legend.
The quartz crystal has a place in modern physics as well. It is used in computers, watches, and communications.
EXTRACTING HARMFUL INTRUSIONS
Whereas animals serve as spirit guardians, plants tend to serve as spirit helpers. It is the wild animal or plant, however, not the domestic, that serves as an ally.
The plant helpers have two natures, ordinary and nonordinary. The nonordinary nature of a plant may be an insect form, a butterfly, for example.
With respect, the shaman picks a specimen of the plant he is drawn to. He eats four small pieces, and collects two more pieces in his pouch.
On a spiritual journey to the lower world, the shaman discovers the non-plant nature of the specimens he has chosen. They may become insects, spirits, or stones in the spirit world. The shaman eats them in their nonmaterial form, and then returns from the lower world.
In order to use spirit helpers, one should accumulate at least a dozen plants. These plants are, in their nonordinary nature, the Spider, Bee, Hornet, Snake, etc.
The shaman sees disease as the intrusion of an undesirable spirit or energy. He uses his animal spirit guardians as well as his spirit helpers. Spirit helpers are plants that have an animal nature in the S.S.C. non ordinary state, and in the lower world.
One anthropologist observes, “in order to extract evil spirits from the patient, the shaman is obliged to take them into his own body. In doing so he may be suffer and struggle more than the patient himself. +.
Illness due to power intrusion is manifested by localized pain or discomfort, often with increase of body temperature. This is similar to the western idea of infection. The patient should be treated both medically and through a shaman. The radiation of hatred and anger is connected with the spread of disease.
A shaman would say it is dangerous not to know about shamanism and how to protect oneself with spirit power. It is important to know that hostile vibes can damage another human being.
The shaman actually sucks power intrusions from his patient.
For example, a disease will have the shape of a creature like a spider or a bee. A spirit helper, a plant, having the same nature in the altered state as the intrusion, is used to draw out the negative power. The shaman sucks the intrusion, spider disease, into the spider plant, for example. Hence capturing the dangerous intrusion.
Before doing healing work, extracting intrusions, the shaman must alert and summon his spirit guardians and spirit helpers. This is done by drumming, rattling, and singing a power song.
SUCKING OUT INTRUSIONS AND DISEASE:
The shaman uses the technique of sucking out disease. First, he darkens the room, and light a candle or two. He then summons his guardians and helpers.
Lying face down with the patient, shoulder to shoulder, and hip to hip, his journey into the lower world is at the same time a voyage into his patient’s body.
The disease has the form of something evil, like black ooze, or a fanged insect. In the altered state , the shaman sets loose fresh clean water, sunlight or lights a cheerful fire, cleansing the patient and the lower world that represents the patient’s inner being. Both at the same time.
The text assures that a person with a natural potential for shamanic work will be able to overcome obstacles. He will manifest powers of light, air, water, and clean earth needed to destroy negative intrusions.
However, the technique of placing spirit helpers in plant form into the mouth to trap disease is a traditional technique that warrants mastery through study.
AGAIN: Step one. Draw out the disease, which is represented as an insect or spider, into a plant, which represented by the same creature.
Step two. Spit the disease, and the plant that carries it into a receptacle. Carry the receptacle out of the dwelling and dispose of it.+.
Native American healer, Essie Parrish, stated that when in a trance, power intrusions, like insects, could be heard as well as seen. She states that the dream and the vision can have the same power and purpose. She stated that “every time I treat a patient I become more powerful”.
The fact of shamanic breathing is that it is often necessary to lock onto, to lock in, or lock out, block or control disease intrusions through shamanic breathing.
Parrish knows when her powers are needed, because her middle finger begins to vibrate as if touched by an electric current.
The shaman exposes his soul to the patient, and exposes his power to the community. It takes courage for the new shaman to say “I can heal”. Especially since sucking with the mouth is associated with sensitive and special acts in life.
This shaman never advertised. Rather her people, guided by intuition, requested her help.
Parrish said her power could not be used on menstruating women, or in a house where a woman was in menses. She grew a special appendage in her throat to help her in sucking out disease.
The diseases must be sucked out of the patient, and then spit out into a jar. Sometimes they can be seen.
The author suggests the use of tobacco traps; little bags of tobacco sown by the shaman or his patient, into which emotional, spiritual, or physical disease are cast.
Sometimes, a group of patients sitting in a circle, will each sew a little tobacco bag. The little bags are tied to a common string. Disease, having been captured in little bags, is tied together, and brought out into the woods. The string is dropped over a tree and left there. The negative intrusions dissipate. The shaman leaves the area immediately. +.
Another technique is called “becoming the patient”. This should only be done when the shaman is full of power.
The shaman finds out everything he can about the disease he is to assume. From first symptoms onward. The patient’s hopes, dreams and attitudes are all discussed.
The shaman and the patient go out into the wilderness. When the shaman feels powerful, he and his patient exchange clothes. The shaman here concentrates on assuming the emotional, physical, and spiritual infirmities of his patient.
The shaman copies all the patient’s movements and gestures, as they dance together with rattles. The shaman then lays hands on the patient’s body until he absorbs all or as much of the disease as he can. The shaman may feel his patient’s sickness.
The shaman then runs several hundred feet away, and forcefully casts the sickness from him with gestures and shouting. The disease is beyond the distant horizon, until the shaman feels cleansed and relaxed.
He and the patient trade back their clothes, and singing a power song stand in the smoke of a fire of wild sage or cedar boughs. +.
“Becoming the patient “can also be done with a group. Out in the woods, the group surrounds the patient. The healers, if strong enough, take on a bit of the illness, having inquired as to the exact nature of the infirmity. The circle of healers join the patient in dance, mimicking his movements. The healers then, one at time, touch the sick person to absorb a bit of the disease. Then they run out into the woods to shout and shake off the disease.
All having returned to the group embrace the patient, and join in a joyful dance. A power song is sung, and healing here is accomplished. There is happy dancing with rattles and drums. A shamanic journey can then be done to retrieve a power animal and strengthen the patient.
When the dancer works up a sweat, the moisture can be wiped on the patient for its healing powers.
In modern medicine, scientific technology is approaching the understanding of why shamanic practices work. The shamanic techniques are reinvented by new agers, and include visualization, altered states of consciousness, aspects of psychoanalyses, hypnotherapy, meditation, positive attitude, stress reduction, and mental and emotional expression of will and desire for health and healing. Shamanism is being reinvented.
The shaman is typically a person who really cares, and for many days may work for the healing of a single person, calling on unseen and little known powers.
Shamanism and western medicine can complement each other. especially in visualization techniques.
By helping others, one becomes more powerful, self fulfilled and joyous.
Shamanism is a wealthy lode of precious ores. Much of this wealth has been forgotten. Though we can learn if we chose to keep an open mind. +.