Shamanism in its traditional form is a global phenomenon. Accounts from the past Our understanding of shamanism in indigenous societies is limited, but we do have reports from early European visitors to many areas of the globe, as well as current academic research.
- Recently, reports from shamans descending from traditional lineages from all over the globe have surfaced.
- Early European encounters with tribal shamans, which began in the 16th century, are significant records because they have shaped public perceptions of shamanism for generations, and continue to do so to some degree now.
- The Europeans were terrified by the euphoric rites, magical ceremonies, strange healing techniques, foreign chants, masks and ceremonial attire, drumming, trance dances, and weird visions.
- They associated shamanic activities with witchcraft and consorting with the devil, reflecting that dread as well as the Christian theological beliefs of the period.
- Later, during the Age of Enlightenment, most Europeans condemned shamans of being either tricksters and charlatans or psychotics and schizophrenics, in line with the new "logical thinking."
It took a long time for the western perception of shamans to shift.
Between 1930 and 1950, anthropologists, ethnologists, psychologists, and biologists started on a more intensive study of the surviving indigenous civilizations across the globe, learning their languages, interviewing shamans, and documenting their own studies.
- For example, in 1932, John Neihardt published the now-famous life story of Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux medicine man, revealing him as a great visionary, healer, and leader, and in 1949, Claude Lévi-Strauss, a renowned French anthropologist, compared shamans to psychoanalysts, emphasizing their vast knowledge of the human mind and finally putting to rest the notion that they were insane.\
- Most significant, anthropological studies revealed that, despite cultural variations, all shamans claimed to converse with spirits for the sake of their society.
Shamanism, however, did not get the recognition it deserved until the second part of the twentieth century:
- Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, published in 1951 and still a major reference work today, provided a synthesis of cross-cultural research while dispelling many misconceptions and prejudices, and coined the term "masters of ecstasy" to describe shamans' altered states and soul flights to other worlds.
While Eliade's book sparked professional interest, it was Carlos Castaneda's 1969 book The Teachings of Don Juan:
- A Yaqui Way of Knowledge that sparked unprecedented public interest and inspired Western spiritual seekers and researchers to live with indigenous peoples, "study" shamans, and participate in (mostly plant-induced) ceremonies and quests.
- Shamans functioned as psycho-spiritual and physical healers, ritualists, mythologists, mediums, and visionaries, utilizing their talents for the benefit of their tribes, according to later accounts, and were pioneers in investigating the human mind's broader potential.
Traditional shamanism's characteristics
These and other research have revealed that traditional shamans throughout the globe share similar cosmologies, working methods, and traits, while not being a culturally homogeneous group.
- Traditional shamanism is a global method for expanding awareness, connecting with energy other realms, and working with such forces for the good of a community and its members' health and peace. Shamans are therefore regarded as world-bridges and guardians of the group's spiritual, psychological, and ecological balance, as well as the individual members'.
- Shamans in indigenous cultures rely on nature, the spirit realms, and their tribes for survival. Indigenous traditional shamans, who either come from a bloodline or are "selected by spirit," are known for their dependency.
- Their initiation is lengthy and severe, and they often go through a time of change accompanied by a life-threatening mental or physical sickness, which leads to death and rebirth experiences in highly altered states of consciousness.
- Shamans had – and continue to have – a wide understanding of the natural and spiritual realms, which they use in their work as healers, visionaries, divinatory practitioners, ritualists and ceremonialists, mythologists, mediums, dreamers, psychics, psychopomps, artists, manifestors, and instructors.
- They utilize a variety of talents and methods to ‘fly' to the spirit realms, operate within them, and connect the worlds.
- Smoke and herbs, rituals and ceremony, power tools and clothing, trance dance and trance movements, merging with and shapeshifting into nature spirits and animal spirits, close connections with ancestral spirits and spirit allies, ingestion of hallucinogenic sacred plants, and the vibrations of drum rhythms, sounds, and voices are all examples of these.
You may also want to read more about Shamanism here.
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