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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
Magical Mystery Tour
    #9342739 - 12/01/08 09:13 AM (15 years, 3 months ago)

Common Ground - December 2008 Issue
By Dani Katz

Magical Mystery Tour
Give your left-brain the slip, drop centuries of ancestral baggage and follow your four-legged synchronistic spirit guide into the wild and wooly world of urban shamanry

Shamanism, schmamanism. These days, it seems like you can’t throw a rune without it bouncing off the turban-wrapped skull of some bead-draped, hemp-swaddled seeker billing himself a shaman. Indeed, if my life is any evidence, these past few years have witnessed somewhat of an urban shamanic revival, as I’ve worked regularly with a number of shamans in many different capacities. Having graduated from weekly soul retrievals, and traumatic sessions in which we removed otherworldly entities and healed ancestral karma, I now consult my local shaman (well, my two local shamans — different flavors, for different issues) for subtler work, wherein together we refine energies, shift vibrations, tune up frequencies and clear blocks. It’s kind of like therapy — only infinitely deeper, weirder, more complex and powerful.

Now, if you find the ideas of light-leaching entities and four-legged spirit guides hard to swallow, just stick with me. There exist myriad worlds of wonder and magnificence beyond the clawing grasp of our logical left brains. Worry not, I’ll be gentle.

Let’s start simply: What is a shaman? For our intents and purposes, a shaman can be generally described as a medicine man (or woman). He or she is a person who has acquired the ability to travel between the worlds of spirit and matter, generally for the purpose of healing members of his tribe or community. Moving freely between states of non-ordinary reality, the shaman works with animal spirits, elemental energies and a slew of other unseen allies to maintain the wellbeing of his community.

What’s to differentiate a real deal, true blue shaman from your friendly, neighborhood Reiki master? The primary difference between a shaman and a healer is the shamanic initiation — an unforeseen and harrowing (usually) physical challenge that takes the shaman-to-be to the brink of death where, faced with his own mortality, he not only gleans lessons from the threshold of his own personal eternity, but is forced to heal himself to come back.

“When you face illness, you confront your mortality, and in that confrontation, you develop a rapport with the other side,” says Charisse Landise, an LA-based shamanic healer who has endured the physical traumas that distinguish the shaman, including an extended dance with rheumatoid arthritis and a childhood bout of penicillin poisoning that’s rendered her wrists immobile. An illness or injury is the shaman’s initiation, serving to cleanse the body, which in the process becomes a purified vessel for spiritual transmission.

The shaman does all his magical, mystical healing, rain-making and buffalo tracking by way of the Dreamstate, an unseen realm just beyond the reach of our five senses. According to late ethnobotanist Terrence McKenna, to be a shaman is to be “a kind of sanctioned psychotic… able to move into states of mind so extreme that their immediate social efficacy is arguable.” The shaman accesses this “appalling, complex, ontologically challenging, scientifically impossible reality” by way of drumming, rattling, humming, lucid dreaming, song, hypnosis, heat, sensory deprivation or the ingestion of psychotropic plants.

This non-ordinary reality is a realm, or a series of realms, in which the shaman has access to “everything that’s ever been known [and] everything that can be known,” writes Michael Harner in his book The Way of the Shaman. The Theosophists call this sort of all-access pass the “Akashic Records,” the universal filing system that contains every thought, deed, word, feeling and intent that has ever occurred or will ever occur.

Badass, right?

Walk on the Wild Side

The Dreamstate can be both dazzling and dangerous. “It’s like the difference between living in a poem, or living in a newspaper,” says seasoned shamanic journeyer James Mathers, by way of a knowing grin delivered from beneath a well-worn straw hat. “It’s an elevated context beyond temporality, reason, black and white, good and bad.”

These realms, accessed by way of a monotonous drumbeat or the sacred sip of a long-brewed sacred vine are, as many shamans will attest, not deviations from reality. Rather they are indeed the true reality that is hidden to us while we, the non-initiated, slumber in the illusion of the senses.

“This means that, culturally, we are living out some kind of schizophrenic delusion,” writes McKenna, “because we live our lives totally ignorant of these possibilities.” McKenna’s words are backed up big time by quantum theory, which purports that 99 percent of our physical, third dimensional reality is unseen, while the density of empty space indicates that there is infinitely more going on in the invisible world than in the visible one.

Unbound by sensory illusion, the shaman knows — not by faith, but by his own experience — that there exists beyond what he can see, feel and hear, dimensions, realms and entities that have a direct correlation to this material existence. But, what of these realms? Are shaman the only ones with access?

Not by a long shot. Still, as Mathers points out, “most people lack the courage to depart from the agreed-upon reality.” And those who do might not necessarily have the tools they need to navigate these states.

All spiritual traditions are rooted in tribal shamanism. Back in the days of harmonized moon cycles, copious condors and a flaw-free ozone layer, the neighborhood shaman was generally the only one nibbling the strange spotted mushroom growing on the cow patties, or sun-gazing post-sunrise sweat so as to slip into a another dimension to heal the village consumptive or to soothe the angry winds.

The flower children churned out of the freewheeling ’60s dabbled in far more than free love and body paint. Many of them took full advantage of the emergence of psychedelics and the subsequent experimentation with organic and chemical compounds that could expand the mind and quell the ego. All of a sudden, these previously uncharted realms of non-ordinary reality were welcoming the uninitiated into their strange and magical landscapes.

The popularity of psychedelic exploration by way of entheogens has opened the gateway to courageous seekers wanting a glimpse behind the veil. For some, like Mathers, this calls into question the necessity of the shaman all together. At their worst, says Mathers, shamans are like “some sort of precious control freak, taking credit for your discovery.”

Bad Medicine

It’s true that the traditional shaman/patient relationship necessarily disempowers he or she who would seek to be healed. In traveling between worlds to retrieve information and assistance from the spirits for his patients, there’s an implied authority; the shaman appears to have keys to our own personal mysteries that we don’t have. And just as we all have our dark sides, so too does shamanism. There are charlatans and hacks who’ve gleaned slivers of mystery from their own dalliances with hallucinogens, meditation and yoga, and then wield their wispy crumbs of knowledge over the naïve and unsuspecting.

“They kind of hold you hostage to yourself,” says Landise, who speaks freely of shamans’ well-documented history of competitive, ego-driven in-fighting and hierarchical delineations of knowledge. “They don’t tell you things that strengthen your relationship with your inner world… They posture as if they have all your answers, and then you need them. They bank on it. They count on you needing them.”

It’s true that in-fighting between traditional shamans is legendary, and tales abound of black magic and curses being cast between medicine men of neighboring tribes and communities, as well as freeloading shamans fueling their own power by feeding off the energy of those they claim to heal. As someone who’s sniffed around the world of shamanic journeys, healings and apprenticeships for a while now, I’ve experienced firsthand this sort of questionable shamanic power play.

I’d spent the better part of a year working with a Dominican ayahuascero who used the sacred plant medicine of the South American jungle to induce states of shamanic consciousness in his followers. In addition to participating in several group rituals, I was initiated in a private Putz Yaj ceremony, a shamanic Mayan crucifixion ritual purported to clear fear and initiate the participant into deeper mysteries by way of an extraordinarily painful ritual that involved the violent thrusting of hand-carved wooden needles into my ayahuasca-infused body, while the shaman sang and chanted and prayed, and while I screamed and cried and begged for mercy.

A few months after the initiation, I participated in a pair of ayahuasca ceremonies with the same shaman in which the energies felt somehow not quite right. I dragged ass for months afterwards in a state of perpetual lethargy. Fate brought me to Landise’s massage table for a chakra healing, where she discovered the shaman holed up in my solar plexus, leeching my light, pulling on my energy, creating a scenario in which I would continue to call upon him for healing, when he, in fact, was the cause of my dis-ease. She, ultimately, was able to eject the shaman from my third chakra, but the battle took serious effort.

“Shamanism is absolutely necessary,” affirms Mathers, “but the problem with it is that the distinction [between shaman and charlatan] has been so exploited by would-be cult leaders and psychedelic control freaks that the word itself has lost its meaning.”

Perhaps it’s an issue of semantics. Traditionally, shamans don’t call themselves shamans. Like wearing white shoes after Labor Day, it simply “isn’t done” in traditional circles.

“We need a finer distinction,” says Mathers, “a new slang… how ‘bout synchronistic tour guide?”

Not entirely inappropriate, considering the shaman quite literally projects his consciousness into other dimensions, including atemporal realms where synchronicity abounds. But what I think so many of us fearless psychedelic explorers forget is that there is a massive difference between one who delves into shamanic realms for self-knowledge and inner excavation, and one who, by way of a higher calling and extraordinary challenge, not only deftly navigates these realms for the benefit of so many others, but actually inhabits a non-ordinary reality on a daily basis.

Shamanic Journeying is a Team Sport

While I have dabbled with my own share of Mathers’ “shamanic control freaks”, I’m currently working with two powerful and vastly different shamans who vibe high, light and aligned, and who straddle the lines between ordinary and non-ordinary realities with integrity and grace.

Los Angeles-based Durek Verrett, born of a Norwegian oracle and a Haitian father, trained in Israel, Egypt and Turkey and has survived several shamanic initiations, including kidney failure, a coma and a flatline. He’s cleared me of unwanted spirits, ancestral baggage and a slew of limiting beliefs with the help of a seemingly infinite array of shamanic tools, including animal spirits, sacred geometry, ascended alien masters, archangels, Hindu deities and Egyptian goddesses. Verrett allows various energies and spirits to enter his body, during which time they chant, sing, yell, laugh, rattle and drum, as well as shake, rock, tap and massage. The sessions are powerful and exhausting, and I tend to leave hoarse from all the coughing, as the energies favor my throat as an exit path. Humble to the core, and brimming with undeniable mojo even the most seasoned psychedelic warrior can’t deny, Verrett absolutely empowers his clients to heal themselves, and generously gives them the tools to do it.

And, then there’s Christiane Boslego, the understated shaman, gentle, loving and maternal, who works specifically with mudra and movement. She is the yin to Verrett’s yang, opening herself up to my own energies and taking the journeys into the realm of spirit, symbol and archetype for me — assisting me in assimilating the energies that allow me to raise my vibration; to manifest bigger, brighter, faster; to shift my consciousness and to open myself up to more magic and mystery in my own spiritual work.

In both instances, while the shamans are communing with energies and spirits on my behalf, we are absolutely working in tandem — me on one side of the veil, and them on the other. Working together, we are able to move energetic mountains and effect transpersonal change quickly and effectively.

I joked earlier about the ubiquity of the urban shaman. But behind the sarcasm, I’m watching this current revival of shamanic tradition speak to a new generation of community-minded luminaries. These points of light are seeking to awaken the healer within, while deepening their connection to nature, to spirit and to each other. Neo-shamanism, and the many offshoots under its umbrella, indicates a widespread resurgence of indigenous tradition that carries with it the potential to provide an extraordinary source of healing for humanity, and for an ailing planet that spins on the very brink of history-shattering transformation.

Let the spirits guide us safely there.

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Invisibletravelleler
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Registered: 08/30/08
Posts: 3,955
Loc: yonder mountains
Re: Magical Mystery Tour [Re: veggie]
    #9343286 - 12/01/08 11:12 AM (15 years, 3 months ago)

:thumbup: really fantastic read!! :thumbup:

there's some great information here


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"Whales have deep thoughts"

:sun:Dreams are the fuel of the soul:sun:

:peace:

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Offlineoxalic32
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Re: Magical Mystery Tour [Re: travelleler]
    #9343313 - 12/01/08 11:16 AM (15 years, 3 months ago)

I want to be a shaman.

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Invisibletravelleler
a horse-fart in a hurricane
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Registered: 08/30/08
Posts: 3,955
Loc: yonder mountains
Re: Magical Mystery Tour [Re: oxalic32]
    #9343350 - 12/01/08 11:25 AM (15 years, 3 months ago)

good luck :thumbup:  I hope you survive!


--------------------




"Whales have deep thoughts"

:sun:Dreams are the fuel of the soul:sun:

:peace:

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InvisibleOneMoreRobot3021
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Loc: the sky
Re: Magical Mystery Tour [Re: veggie]
    #9343368 - 12/01/08 11:28 AM (15 years, 3 months ago)

Thanks for posting, veg.


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Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake.

-Erik Davis

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Offlinetektonic
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Registered: 11/05/08
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Re: Magical Mystery Tour [Re: OneMoreRobot3021]
    #9343735 - 12/01/08 12:29 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

:bow2: :bow2: :bow2:


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Growery

Daily Tzolkin

:peace: :heart: :earth:

"If triangles' had a God, he would have 3 sides."

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