Ask any passer-by on any street to describe shamanism and the result will probably be blank stares. Most people are surprised to learn that shamanism is not a religion but the oldest spiritual and problem-solving technology on the planet. Even more surprising is the discovery that it's the precursor to most major world religions, including the Judaeo-Christian and Buddhist traditions, and that it has been practised on every inhabited continent on earth for at least 40,000 years and possibly very much longer. Historically, shamanism was a significant survival tool of prehistoric humans. Our hunter-gatherer forbears decorated the stone walls of caves and cliffs around the world with carved and painted images drawn directly from shamanic experience. We no longer live in caves or in very small communities whose members are all known to us. Most of us live far longer, healthier lives than our ancient ancestors, but our brains, that part of us capable of fearing the dark and asking for help from things unseen, hasn't changed in almost a quarter of a million years. What made the uncertain lives of prehistoric people easier still works today because, although the world may have changed, fundamentally we have not.
Ask what a shaman is and the question may evoke a few words about Native American 'medicine men' or perhaps the word 'witchdoctor'. In fact, what a shaman is and does is simply explained. In the Siberian Tungus language which produced the word, 'shaman' means 'the one who sees' and refers to a person capable of making a 'journey' to alternate realities while in an altered state of consciousness in order to meet and work with spirit helpers. What the shaman 'sees', what she realises, during this experience of meeting spirits is that there is no separation between anything that is: no separation between me writing and you reading these words, between a dog and cat, between life and death, between this apparently material reality and the non-material realities of the spirit worlds. This idea of 'oneness' is common currency in contemporary culture and increasingly given credence by certain quantum physicists working with sub atomic theory, though of course it is a predominantly physical, rather than a spiritual, oneness that such scientists are attempting to describe. However, where most of us can only think about the notion of 'oneness', shaman's actually live it through the experience of the shamanic 'journey' and direct, personal interaction with spirit.
Described as a 'breakthrough in plane', in physiological terms the journey begins as the shaman redirects the primary cognitive process from the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain to the right, through the corpus collosum - that is, from the structuring, organising hemisphere, to the visualising, sensing one. In the overwhelming majority of traditions around the world this 'breakthrough' will be assisted by the use of percussive sound, such as drumming, rattling or clapping. Although hallucinogens, such as ayahuasca, are widely advertised in the West as a means to help alter consciousness, in fact only about 10% of traditional shamans use plants in this way. Metaphysically, the journey begins when the shaman's consciousness shifts from the here and now and enters worlds visible only to her. These worlds, which vary with each culture and tradition around the world, are described as 'alternate reality', 'the realm of the spirits', or 'non-ordinary reality'. Some traditions call shamans 'the walker between the worlds' because they are the bridge between 'here' and 'there'.
Although often considered primitive or seen as a 'religion' of less developed peoples and cultures, shamanism is both subtle and paradoxical. The 'worlds' of shamanic journeys are utterly real - they exist and can be felt, smelt and experienced as clearly as this 'ordinary' reality. At the same time they are qualitative spaces, states of being that reflect and support the reason for the shaman's journey - to ask for help, healing or information from the spirits. Contemporary research in the cognitive sciences suggests that the human brain is hardwired to see the 'unseen' and the mystical; even the Lower, Middle and Upper Worlds of the shaman - translated into Hell, Earth and Heaven in later tripartite cosmologies - are seemingly a natural part of human perception.
Not surprisingly, one of the questions most frequently asked by students being introduced to shamanism is, "What are spirits?". Perhaps because Western society has mostly avoided thinking about spirituality for many generations we lack a clear, objective understanding of such things as spirits. These days it's a one-size-fits-all word encompassing entities, energies, ghosts, angels, ancestors, the undead, elves, fairies; the list is seemingly endless. Personally, I have two understandings of the concept of spirit and though the two coincide, they are not the same and yet they work for me. The Core Shamanic, or Western, tradition which underpins my own practice and teaching, describes spirits as part of all that exists. I am a spirit currently inhabiting a physical body in order to have a human experience. The spirits I meet on my 'journeys' are dis-embodied and therefore have an existential overview unavailable to me, but we are essentially the same: particles of infinite universal energy, fragments of the Great Spirit. We all come from this energy, exist within it and return to it. It is actually living this perspective which allows a shaman to experience the absence of separation between things that ordinary-reality considers very separate indeed, such as life and death or health and disease.
My second understanding of spirit is more psychological and archetypal and was very simply explained by CG Jung in his autobiography 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections'. Describing his personal experience of spirit helpers Jung wrote, "Philemon... brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon represented a force which was not myself." This is a beautifully lucid explanation of how it can feel to interact with spirit during a shamanic journey. More prosaically, I describe the process of journeying to my students as having one's imagination harnessed and directed by something external.
So what is the purpose of all of this and how can shamanism help us, here and now? What is the shaman's intention when she sets out to make a journey for man with cancer, for a young woman needing to make changes in her life, for a river whose spirit is dying because of pollution, or for an animal grieving the loss of its mate? For the shaman, all disease and distress is caused by dis-harmony and dis-order. In the world of the shaman all physical and mental ill-health are caused by one of two things: something being present that should not be, such as a depression spirit, or something that should be present being absent, such as part of the person's own soul or energy. Virtually everyone I work with has some kind of power loss, most as a result of simply living their lives. A large part of any shaman's work will be Extraction, the removal of intruding spirits, or Retrieval - such as Soul Retrieval or Spirit Helper Retrieval - finding or replacing missing parts of the sick person's own soul or power. Soul Loss can be experienced by anyone or anything, including animals and the natural environment.
One of the things that I find happens to someone after a Soul Retrieval is that their perception of the world becomes more positive. When I started on the shamanic path more than a decade ago I enjoyed Nature but felt little personal connection to it. Now, as a result of journeying and knowing my own spirit helpers many of whom are animals and plants, that perspective has completely changed; even a walk in a London park can be a magical experience. Finding the magic in what we once thought was ordinary is a gift that the practice of shamanism offers the planet at a time when it is sorely needed. It would be a difficult thing to poison a lake or cut down a forest if you felt that doing so would also destroy yourself. Fortunately there are still shamans walking between the worlds as they have done since the earliest days of our species and every day more of us are re-discovering how shamanism can positively affect our own lives and the world around us through its unique blend of practical support and true enchantment.
Zo Brn PhD is a Core Shamanic practitioner, author and educator. To find out more about Core Shamanism http://www.shaman.uk.com and http://www.shaman.uk.net
