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Shamanism, like many other "isms," is a Western construct, and issues of gender and sexuality play into this construct in various ways. Shamanism has been used since the eighteenth century to describe various people in indigenous ("tribal") communities who might also be termed "medicine men," "witch doctors," "healers," and "sorcerers"; those people who engage with "spirits" for certain socially sanctioned tasks.

Shamans may be identified as such from birth, through an initiatory sickness, or a calling from the spirits; only rarely is the vocation taken up voluntarily. Shamanic practices may include healing the sick, controlling game, altering consciousness, journeying to other worlds, speaking to spirits or becoming possessed by them, even forming marriages and sexual relationships with powerful "spirit-helpers."

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Historically, shamanism has been confused with schizophrenia by anthropologists because shamans often speak of altered state experiences in the spirit world as if they were "real" experiences. While the shaman and the person in a psychotic episode both have unusual access to spiritual and altered state experiences, shamans are trained to work in the spirit world, while the psychotic person is simply lost in it.

But in many traditional cultures, psychotic episodes have served as an initiatory illness that calls a person into shamanism. Mircea Eliade writes:

      The future shaman sometimes takes the risk of being mistaken for a "madman". . .but his "madness" fulfills a mystic function; it reveals certain aspects of reality to him that are inaccessible to other mortals, and it is only after having experienced and entered into these hidden dimensions of reality that the "madman" becomes a shaman. (Mircea Eliade. Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries. New York: Harper and Row, 1960. Page 80-81)

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As the person accepts the calling and becomes a shaman, their illness usually disappears. The "self-cure of a psychosis" is so typical of the shaman that some anthropologists have argued that anyone without this experience should be described only as a healer. The concept of the "wounded healer" addresses the necessity of the shaman-to-be entering into extreme personal crisis in preparation of his/her role in the community as a healer (Halifax, Joan. Shamanic Voices. New York: Dutton, 1979)..

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When someone is called to become a shaman this Call
is often accompanied by a period of physical or mental distress or
illness. A potential shaman may then elect to avoid that calling or
may decide to seek training and begin to shamanize. (Among the Tungus
of Siberia, from whom the word 'shaman' originates, the word is in
fact used both as a noun and as a verb. In English, the verb form is
'to shamanize'.)

The first task the new or prospective shaman must face then is to
master his or her own condition and this experience becomes an
essential part of what resources may thereafter be drawn upon when
shamanizing or engaging in shamanic healing or other activities. The
personal experience of those shamans who do encounter
such an initial period of 'shamanic sickness' is characteristic of
the role of personal experience in the way of shamans worldwide.
Overcoming this initial period of illness or distress, when it is
encountered, and which may be brief or last for many years, provides
shamans with the type of experience which is considered absolutely
necessary for their work as shamans. As self therapy, it also enables
the shaman to participate in the day-to-day life of the community
(which may not have been possible while in the throws of shamanic
sickness.)

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deimya said:
The scar of the shaman grows different in its intricacy. It takes shape in the shaman's habits and discourses and his pact with the community depends only slightly on his particular mystical experiences. He's an oak amongst the ferns, producing a different sound when the wind blows.

In that sense it might be that his spiritual and physical healing aptitudes, if any, depends more on swaying one's mind and body away and steer it back to rest in a hopefully diseaseless state, rather than targeting a particular ailment using diagnostics. Kick the patient over the forest instead of making him crawl along a convoluted path. In both cases you lend somewhere anyway.

That's my 2?

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Mufungo said:
I don't think there are many occupations in the modern age which haven't come a long way from their initial roots.

Does it really matter if a shaman of today isn't like a shaman of long ago (assuming that there really were "shamans" long ago)?  I guess it might depend on one's own values around tradition.

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Wikipedia said:
Shamanism is a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. A practitioner of shamanism is known as a shaman, pronounced /ˈʃɑːmən/, /ˈʃeɪmən/, (|ˈshämən; ˈshā-|) noun (pl. -man(s)).[2] There are many variations of shamanism throughout the world and several common beliefs are shared by all forms of shamanism. Shamans are intermediaries between the human and spirit worlds. According to believers, they can treat illness and are capable of entering supernatural realms to provide answers for human beings.[3]

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Kickle said:

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Mufungo said:
I don't think there are many occupations in the modern age which haven't come a long way from their initial roots.

Does it really matter if a shaman of today isn't like a shaman of long ago (assuming that there really were "shamans" long ago)?  I guess it might depend on one's own values around tradition.

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True that. I'm speaking from my personal values and my cultural surroundings.

I get the feeling that most everyone who posts here shares my culture, though. And in our culture, the shaman of old would be incredibly ineffective, except for purposes of stroking the ego. "I'm magic" and all that, which in my opinion, isn't about healing.

And yeah, a lot of my personal values are  being interlaced.

Just saying it how I see it.

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Maybe psychedelics are meant to be underground in modern society, and maybe that is what makes them genuinely existential. I believe that too. Indeed, its almost silly to imagine of any other reality.

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Existentialism is not a rule of language, but a card that can be played when necessary.

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b0red5tiff said:
a shaman never proclaims himself to be carrying that title: the people surrounding him gradually realize he/she is different or has some unnatural abilities.

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b0red5tiff said:
in most ancient cultures a shaman wasn't someone who worked towards becoming one but a diseased (mentally or physically) person who nearly died due to the sickness but then recovered "miraculously". once healed he (or she) started to perform feats which were unusual. thus the surrounding populous treated that person as a holy man and called him a healer, shaman or something in the lines of that.

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b0red5tiff said:
taking pride in being able to have such powers seems strange to me because the insights the shaman supposedly possesses deflate the ego quite a bit. plus pride would give very little to his craft imo.

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what's to prevent a person from going through such a sickness, performing miraculous feats

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deCypher said:

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b0red5tiff said:
in most ancient cultures a shaman wasn't someone who worked towards becoming one but a diseased (mentally or physically) person who nearly died due to the sickness but then recovered "miraculously". once healed he (or she) started to perform feats which were unusual. thus the surrounding populous treated that person as a holy man and called him a healer, shaman or something in the lines of that.

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I know, but what's to prevent a person from going through such a sickness, performing miraculous feats, and then recognizing his own shamanhood?  Does one necessarily have to get society's approval before one can call one's self a shaman?

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b0red5tiff said:
taking pride in being able to have such powers seems strange to me because the insights the shaman supposedly possesses deflate the ego quite a bit. plus pride would give very little to his craft imo.

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Would it be safe to say that Brujos and Curanderos fulfill the shaman role?  If so then Brujeria would definitely involve some form of egoistic pride IMO.

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OrgoneConclusion said:
Um, because miraculous feats are impossible.

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OrgoneConclusion said:
Um, because miraculous feats are impossible. Shamans were never in touch with the Spirit World, they were just adept at selling that idea to the populace.

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OrgoneConclusion said:
How long you been here now?

Miracles are relegated to an age when men were less rational and superstition was rife.

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BlueCoyote said:
A miracle sometimes can only be explained by a (yet) hidden cause. We also could simply call that coincidence before we know the cause.
Getting in touch with a spiritual world doesn't make sense of course if one lacks the concept of a spiritual world.

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if a statue of a madonna cries tears of blood

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b0red5tiff said:
point being a person on his way becoming a shaman is on his own and once the initiation appears to have ended there is no need to "prove" anything to anyone but develop his craft and try to help people out.

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b0red5tiff said:
i don't think no one is gonna call himself "shaman". it's not a car mechanics class that you graduate, get a title and then get on with your job. i think the society starts calling him a shaman because that's what everyone thinks a shaman does.

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Aren't these contradictory statements? 

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Kickle said:

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OrgoneConclusion said:
Um, because miraculous feats are impossible. Shamans were never in touch with the Spirit World, they were just adept at selling that idea to the populace.

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I've always found the folie a deux phenomenon to be interesting in this context.

What makes an individual who is near a schizophrenic individual, begin to see what the schizophrenic sees? Close interpersonal relationship seems to be a must, or trust if you will. Also, by todays standards, social isolation or a lack of societal explanations.

Trust and a lack of alternative explanation = both people experiencing the delusion?

Can we really be convinced of reality so easily? Does it merely take someone telling us what we're seeing, or should be seeing, in order for us to see it? Can the mind really create what it feels it should see? If so, how can we ever be sure that society is accurate in any way, regardless of time period?

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If you own an xbox, you are not a shaman.

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If you own an xbox, you are not a shaman.

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So a Shaman is defined as being someone who helps others through spiritual methods?

Hmm.

That's too bad, I've always thought of myself as being a Shaman.. but only in the healing sense. I don't think I could ever see myself being some sort of psychic who "channels spiritual power" to heal the mind. My version of "shamanism" is helping people by having spiritual experiences with them, using psychedelics like mushrooms or lsd to help them open their mind and to mend it.

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And when I say "I've always thought of myself as being a Shaman.." I mean more or less that I've thought over time that being a person that helps others by having spiritual experiences with them is something I'd love to do. I'm a people person and a problem solver, I love psychedelics and have already realized their importance in my life, and I can only think of no better way then to put all these together then by being a shaman. So, am I wrong or right about that? Is what I'm going after a shamanism idea or is it something completely different?

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I guess in a typical sense how it would be is like, I have a clinic with a bunch of rooms and "shamans", who sit down with you for a period of time to go through a spiritual experience aided by psychedelic substances. Using proper methods and techniques I think something real could happen with this - you know, helping people. That's all I want to do; I want to improve the quality of living for others.

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Would you want a Catholic priest to give you a vasectomy?

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Old world shamans, for the most part, took the roll of both preacher and doctor... since science as we know it had not yet been invented and the people of the time did not see any difference between either field. Now we do. Would you want a Catholic priest to give you a vasectomy?

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b0red5tiff said:    Quote:
  these days a psychologist is a shaman. the old goddesses and gods have been turned into archetypes and inner selves. i have seen a lot of people on these boards looking for an "authentic" image of a shamanic session. this is a pitfall of absurdity imo, there is no authentic shamanism. shamanism has never been a school or a course, it's been a spontaneous event taking place on different places on the globe without each others aid.
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daytripper23 said:

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Kickle said:
Does it merely take someone telling us what we're seeing, or should be seeing, in order for us to see it?

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That is a psychological study I would be interested in seeing.

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OrgoneConclusion said:
Shamans were never in touch with the Spirit World, they were just adept at selling that idea to the populace.

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I think the concept of the *Spirit World* is attached to certain cultural definitions and literal interpretations more than it should be.  We can only speculate on the spectrum of infinite possible experiences a shaman has and relates to his tribe--from fraud to psychosis to an encounter with a legitimate plane of reality.  To accurately define the subjective experience of another being is impossible and to believe that one has done so is simply egotistical.  Maybe shamans ARE schizoid and that *malformed* state of awareness IS the *spirit world*?

To me your quote is akin to claiming that a wise person who had a dream about someone is his community never really went to sleep and had that dream, but only was good at convincing that person he did.  Or like saying that the philosopher who experiences ego death and information exchange with psilocybin mushrooms did not really have that experience yet untruthfully told his book club all about it.

I do not know what the *spirit world* is. I only know of the realms I have been to and find useful to accomplish my goals...

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There is much that the subconscious can do and be aware of that lies far outside our normal experience of officially-sanctioned 2004 American reality. These, I’ll put into the category of psychic abilities or the parapsychological/paranormal interface with the exterior cosmos. However, that is not the subject of this discussion, for those activities are notoriously hard to pin down, perhaps by Design. What is the subject of this paper has already been determined by the intrinsic trajectory (aforementioned) of symbols themselves – that is, of reversion, reflection, the precession of simulacra: symbols unmask the essential fraud of the real in deference to the barebones machinery that renders our experience (of the real) to us, namely the brain-body complex. Symbols are the broomsticks of the child magician Mickey Mouse, getting out of hand by virtue of their ease of replication under the influence of the undisciplined mind, coping not with its tumultuous, overwhelming potentials. There are so many cultures, with their gods, so many ways of parsing the world, such a mesh (read: mess) of languages within languages, dialects, intonations and timbres of being, that it beckons the wizard’s return to tranquilize the din, and show the simple way to the markedly unmysterious mysteries of shamanism.

Before embarking on what ways a shaman achieves his magic, let us explore why anyone would ever want to be one of these fellows, and how the role came about. In some ways, it’s like the role of a director of motion pictures: when it comes down to it, everyone else’s job on a movie set takes care of every possible responsibility, so a director really has no job, no role. Yet, he is the single most important voice and vision in most pictures. He is not actually literally in the picture, but influences every part of it; he is like the wind that can’t itself be seen except through the leaves it blows about. He is the vision that actively if invisibly manifests itself by virtue of inherent magnetism, the surrounding community like iron filings, drawing into place magically. He is a manifester, a mediator. He stands alone. He takes the risk, and the blame. He sees visions, and uses the grammar of dreams to formulate a transmissible myth. He is a storyteller, of the tale that wags the dog (his community). He is the messenger that is the message. He gains power only through the tacit consensus of his people, and yet he has thereby ultimate power over them. He probes his subconscious so they don’t have to (only thing is, in delivering the performance, he’s probing and influencing theirs). The magicians of cinema wield a wand made of holly wood (it’s true, look it up), and in so many ways, they are the precise correlate, in quite different trappings, of the prototypical, primal madman shaman.

So again, why would a man want to be no man, the outsider, the in-betweener, the dreamer and fallguy? Who would want all the responsibility and risk, with no commitment of loyalty from anyone outside himself? Well, of course, he can’t help but to not be anything but exactly that. He is chosen by his own neurology, aka the spirits.

The shaman hallucinates outward his own traumas and self-image. He projects and relives universal birth traumas and that of his own death by ‘shamanic illness’ during the period of his ‘calling’ as a process of healing the other. He is the resurrected ‘wounded healer’, having suffered severe hysteria, epilepsy or schizophrenia, followed by psychological reintegration as one variation on the general theme of taking ill and undergoing the ordeal of self-healing. This process is echoed in the shaman’s astral journey of consciousness – employed for spiritual insight into the universe or for healing or divination – where death, dismemberment and devouring by spirits; subsequent reassembling, recharging and revivification by same; and rebirth into a renewed superself are experienced as a prodigious drama. The shamanic call process may, in a case like this, continue as increased internal anxiety followed by erratic behavior and social withdrawal, or it may consist of dreams, visions, or inner voices (Wright 4). In any case, seizure-like behaviors or periods of deep trance or unconsciousness may also be part of the awakening metamorphosis of the shaman.

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So, the first, and most divine call of the shaman is spontaneous epilepsy that forms the neurological substrate for cultivated shamanic trance skill. This ‘shamanic illness’, cropping up maybe at age 9 or very likely around 20, even 45 in some cases, but usually in youth, is the most blatant, cut and dried indicator to the community that this person has a destiny. And, sure enough, epileptics tend to have the personality traits that draw them into the role. In fact, by reputation, a shamanic session generally looks like he’s having a fit, right down to frothing at the mouth, violently striking out at unknown assailants, speaking in tongues, and finally collapsing unconscious only to be aroused moments later with total amnesia (to the amazement of his tribesfolk, keen to hear of his amazing ‘journey’). If no epileptics are available, schizophrenics, the unstably overly-anxious, hysterics, and any other clinical weirdoes will suffice. The shaman must be an outsider, for the realm outside of which he sees is the reality box that sits squarely over his regional culture, of which it is largely unaware. His shaman’s legs are spring-loaded to clear leap over the pseudo-walls of their linguistic, symbolic social mouse maze.

No wonder he discerns his own sacred language. They call it the language of the birds (what else?). Often it will be gifted by an elder shaman, if it is the type of lineage or tradition that emphasizes apprenticeship. Other times, it will spontaneously erupt as glossolalia during ecstasy or seizure, in which case it is the dreamtime spurging out through his loose mouth in gross vocables. Likewise, his hallucinations (aka visions) slice and ramble onto the carefully manicured, crystallized through habit, comfortable and reliable realities of the rank and file members of his group. A prisoner to his loneliness, he is the freest of men. He has no real friends, but feels intimately the cosmic fibers that feed him and bind him to the infinite brotherhood. He is outside of time, while trudging through it. He is the only one kicking and screaming, because everyone else seems to take it so calmly in stride.

Again, who would want this role? For it is true some who aren’t explicitly selected genetically by the gods do choose it and inquire about the study of its mysteries. A shaman’s magic functions largely on the power of his reputation (This speaks volumes about the nature of the magic employed, most by implication and power of suggestion, group field effects.). He is a frustrated, temperamental ‘über-reflection’ of his society at large. He is the mocking exaggeration of their zeitgeist in which he is embroiled (only less so than the rest of the human herd). He is the transgression into the universal, eternal humanness, stripped of all bearings and headings of culture. He simulates the artificial structures of his people: anything solid is his to dissolve into seething dream, his dance a crazy mimic. He breaks unseen boundaries like language, taboo, and, legend has it, gravity. Yes, he is the free fool. And the power in this free fool who is the simulation itself (of both physical and cultural trappings) is that he is physically a constant reminder of the body-machine and culturally the tail that wags the dog. By rearranging and reordering and subverting the symbols and roles and expectations of his particular culture, he dispenses through his charisma a magical social lubricant which, because it’s so patently insane, reinforces the coherency and integrity of the group. He is the sounding board echoing from the fringe that reminds everyone of their living identity.

He can play his culture like a game, and his intuition is perked to sense the nearest sore nexus of social stagnation or repression, an excessive element begging to be slapped back into place, the node from which huge cultural pivots can be made, time and place; he can turn the tide. He is a leader among men. Some would want this role. Some would rather be shaman than chief, for the shaman is anointed by the higher authority of nature, crowned by fate, obvious to all in his airs, aura, and actions. The chief or king relies on clear symbols like headdress or crown and scepter, a throne. He dares not tinker with the accepted illusional vestments of power. The shaman clown on the other hand adroitly specializes in exactly this tinkering and tweaking of the social fabric. He is often at the same time rival to and right-hand-man of the chief. His bread and butter is an artistic and cosmic knowledge of the field of social constructs that the chief re-invokes daily, administratively.

Given this, how does the shaman literally manifest magical effects and perform miracles? The keyword is ‘effects’, and the answer is: any way he can. Placebo, hypnotic, suggestive, implicative, shocking, no matter, the effect is primary, and his target is the nervous system. In contrast to the western doctor who, pinned under this thoroughly modern (again invisible) edifice of the dogma of science, does not recognize much effect his own experience, mindset, languageing, and social behavior has on the healing proceedings, the shaman uses his own nervous system to assert change in that of his onlookers. It is well established that many if most shamans use a degree of illusionary magic, trickery, or outright fraud in their performances and healings. The general anthropological consensus is that this makes them fakes, and invalidates shamanism. However, in light of modern science telling us that a placebo works 8 times out of 10 as often as an aspirin in providing relief, it really seems it’s the lack of standardization, centralization, replicability, and, well, hygiene in shamanism that offends western, science-based mentalities.

Two case examples will elucidate the suggestive mechanism at work in a shaman’s magic. But first, a note on framing the experience. As Claude Levi-Strauss has said, “the efficacy of magic implies a belief in magic.” The magic must be framed with three components that play off each other: 1. the shaman’s belief in the efficacy of his magic, 2. the patient’s belief in the shaman’s power, and 3. the faith and expectations of the group that recognizes the shaman’s role in relation to those he works his magic on, which validates, defines, and locates the relationships therein (24). I carefully note that essentially this ‘group’ need not even exist, for it only functions by implication perceived in both the mind of the shaman and that of the patient. It includes all generalized preconceived fantasy ideals the patient may bring of the powers of shamans from legend as well as a sense of this particular shaman’s reputation (i.e. he has merely ‘heard’ that this shaman is highly respected by his people). All this boils down to the bypassing of the patient’s protective mechanisms so as to create a state of high suggestibility. The virtues of this state are the untapped powers of the subconscious for spontaneous remission of many types of diseases, which is covered at length in Dr. Andrew Weil’s Spontaneous Healing.

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b0red5tiff said: As Claude Levi-Strauss has said, �the efficacy of magic implies a belief in magic.� The magic must be framed with three components that play off each other: 1. the shaman�s belief in the efficacy of his magic, 2. the patient�s belief in the shaman�s power, and 3. the faith and expectations of the group that recognizes the shaman�s role in relation to those he works his magic on, which validates, defines, and locates the relationships therein (24).

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