Shamanism is humanity's oldest religion and healing art, dating back to the Paleolithic era. Originally, the word shaman referred specifically to healers of the Tungus people of Siberia. In recent times, that name has been given to healers in many traditional cultures around the globe who use consciousness altering techniques in their healing work.

The shaman's social role may be defined by a set of connected behaviors, rights and obligations as conceptualized by actors in a social situation and the expected behavior in a given individual within their cultural social status and social position.

Shamanism is a 'calling'. Individuals who are 'called' typically experience an illness of some sort over a prolonged period of time (aka. Shamanic Crisis). This illness will prompt the individual to seek out spiritual guidance and other shamanic healers. Such illnesses are usually not healed/curable by physicians and western medicine. The shaman heals through spiritual means that consequently affect the human world by bringing about restored health.



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)

Personally, I have met many people along my travels who I truly believe falls into this category of Shamanism. They are typically people who are looked at as either very wise, or very crazy. A few of them are here on the nexus, they would know who they are, but many prefer not to speak about it in fear of being judged.

I know from experience that there is no room for these people in western medicine, all of them end up diagnosed with a mental condition, and are then hospitalised or drugged up to the extent that they will not recover or cannot fulfill their role as a spiritual being. Its a very sad state of afairs, I hope that one day we will prove or realise that there is more to life than physical reality, that spirit entities do exist, that we all interact with that rhealm every day.

I would love to hear more of your experiences with spirits or with people you know who are much more aware of them than your average DMT journeyers.



Thanks for reading
Dimi.

SWIM had some very moving and deep experiences contacting dead relatives while on psychedelics. Its happened more then once. SWIM felt as if they were speaking to SWIM through SWIMs mind. It was very detailed.

Many years were spent wondering what these experience meant and whether or not they were real. SWIM concluded eventually that they were not real and were merely coping mechanisms to deal with the death of loved ones. These conclusions (among many others) led SWIM to eventually become an atheist and SWIM gradually lose all spiritual beliefs.

I think shamanism can be understood within the context of materialism. Many are just unwilling to think hard enough and challenge their own beliefs.

That is so very true.

"Many are just unwilling to think hard enough and challenge their own beliefs".

Good point. The thing is, that could apply also for those who stick with a materialist point of view of reality. Materialism is also a belief that has to be challenged.

Shamanism can be understood within the context of materialism, sure. But materialism can also be understood wthin the context of shamanism. To chose one of these options (or any other), you need to first put your faith in an axiom that becomes the basis of your beliefs.

I personally chose not to chose. I don't believe in absolutes. If we can one day explain the Truth, I think both materialism and the views of shamanism will be coherent into it's definition.

"Spirits" are an illusion that is utilized when an observer is so overwhelmed with confusing data that all they can do is blame it on something else. They are really the many aspects of you, for we are far more complicated than you will ever know.

There's a reason why shamanism is the worlds oldest religion, It's obsolete. We are moving into a new era of understanding. One, I hope, that is far from the trivial beliefs of dancing and singing ******* elves.

Try to be a little more observant with a little less labels. This is just what I've learned so far.

the trivial belief of dancing and singing __ elves?..

I kinda think thats a generalization when it comes to shamanims as a world wide phenomenon, but thats just me..there really isnt one single form of shamanism, and im using that term loosly here to describe a whole variety of practices of which arent always soo similar..

We can drop all the strange new age weirdness here and still find relevance in within the shamanic or animistic modality, when we look at it from an angle which takes cultural reference points and linguistics into concideration.

Cultural reference points and semantics are part of the problem here..since we dont even really know what is being reffered to specifically when someone from another culture uses a term as ambiguous as spirit. Within an animistic worldview everything is alive and its the cycle or web that ties everything together as one formless whole that is at the centre of belief. I dont really see these shamanistic cultures as subjective etc as they are made out to be..I think that is somewhat a mistake or misinterpretation on the part of many anthropologists. Yes they do strange thins and carry out violent acts of war etc based on alot of these experiences, but that is still not grounds to come to such defining conclusions about these peoples I think. They literally live in a world apart from us.

Would you treat you neighbour as if they dont really exist or are some illusion?..since at some fundamental level they very well may just be a part of that thing that everything else is also a part of?..I agree it is a good thing to keep in mind, but if that becomes the ONLY reaction to the situation I just cant see it being particularily useful.

The reality of the situation is that we just dont know the full nature of these things..and for now, for me, it does not matter. I have had a whole wide variety of contact experiences with various beings, spirits, aliens or otherwise..weather they are simply aspects of my own psyche, independant beings exterior to myself, or both I cant say. All I know is that whatever they are, they are seperate from the me that is typing this right now. As the higher dimensional aspects of self reflect down into this current level of self they very well may appear to us as the other, the alien etc..and on one level ARE the other, or alien etc..yet at the same time they are us..just as everyone else is us..

I tend to think it is all just levels of reflection..from one vantage point we see subjectivity, and work on that level can be useful, while on another level we see and find relevance in the acknowledgement of objectivity, other times its a complex conglomerate of both.

If my neighbor was all in my head and I could only visit them after using drugs then yes, they would be an illusion. :]

Prove it then...

Not my point really anyway. my point is that we cant be so sure that these shamanic cultures even see the world the way we are assuming they do. They very well may treat a spirit as simply an aspect of the mind run astray, yet they have a completely differnt set of linguistics through which they explain things, so there is bound to be mis-interpretations and mis-communications of this sort.

Look at the whole concept of soul-loss and soul-retrival..sounds more like jungian psychology to me, yet is born right form the heart of traditional shamanism.

House, what if your neighbor was available to you all the time and you could choose to talk to them or not? Would you then accept them to exist?
I suggest that there are no illusions. Everything is real, ALL THE TIME> our beliefs makes everything real, the universe is within & without.

These kinds of questions are arbitrary. It is my personal belief that humans easily mistake hallucinations they experience on large doses of neurotransmitters to be things like "beings" or "aliens" because they simply cannot even begin to really explain what is going on with their mind and body. Trust me, I know how convincing it seems! I believed all this for a long time until I chose to let go, and look deeper.

It's easy to say, "oh, it was them, they wanted me to go further, but I couldn't!" which is a direct archetypal and biological reflection of "You simply didn't smoke enough DMT."

The imagination runs wild on these drugs. More observation, less labels! I am in no way trying to attack anyone's beliefs here, simply just stating a subjective and experienced observation.

House.

What, then, tells you that the presence of your neighboor in your daily life is any more real than the one of a spirit in hyperspace?

Lets remember that our physical reality can only be grasped indirectly by the senses of the human body. What makes those senses any more "real" than the information received in hyperspace?

I found a cool recent article about the medicine systems in an amazonian tribe:

http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/5/1/27

What I found interesting in this investigation was that the traditional system has a very clear characterization of a wide range of diseases and treatments.

I say this to continue what Fractal is saying and provide some evidence that what hes stating is correct with regard to not necessarily understanding what is meant by certain terms.

I don't want to get to tied into philosophical digression with terms etc. But I try to only base beliefs on evidence.

There is no strong evidence for a spirit world.

What evidence do you have that the "normal" state of consciousness is real? (or any more real than the psychedelic experience)

The evidence of the reality of this state of consciousness can only be found if you look within that state.

The evidence of the reality of the psychedelic experience can only be found if you look within the experience itself.

I'm not saying you're wrong. Just wondering how come you put your belief in what information you receive in a state of consciousness and not in the others.

The information coming in from my senses is rather consistent. Furthermore evidence for this objective reality can be understood by objective analysis of the world. For example our eyes evolved to see certain wavelengths of light. But through science we know about the entire electromagnetic spectrum much of which is completely invisible to our senses yet we know it exists. Your computer wouldn't work if it didn't.

A DMT trip is not consistent. DMT alters our perceptions as do all psychedelics. They directly effect our sense perception machinery. There is no strong reason to believe that what you experience is real in any objective sense. Hence my skepticism.

Your brain evolved to be able to interpret information in the world around you in order to survive. If it was so far off none of us would exist. Our ancestors would have all been eaten. You couldn't survive if you were on a permanent DMT trip. DMT has some role in the body thats not what I am referring too.

The only thing that any of us know for sure is that we have subjective conscious experiences. No one among us has ever experienced any sort of “reality” outside of subjective conscious experience. Whether anything outside of conscious experience exists is speculation. And that includes what appears to be our “obvious” everyday objective reality.

We define reality to be a certain thing: when subjective conscious experiences have certain relationships or patterns, when there are certain consistencies or predictabilities, when there is persistence or regular repetition of subjective conscious experiences, we create an abstraction to explain these relationships, patterns, and consistencies that we call “objective reality”.

Some believe that the abstraction is real. Others don’t.

You can't have subjective conscious experience without a reality to have it in. I don't think its speculation. I think its speculation to assume that all there is, is conscious subjective experience. Its a little egotistical to don't you think? To think your all there is? To completely ignore billions of years of evolution the cosmos and think it all comes down to your existence.

This is going to get off topic. If we want to continue this discussion we should make a new thread. Although this topic tends to go around in circles...

In order to have subjective conscious experience there must be a reality – this is true. But that reality may consist entirely of consciousness. (The primacy of consciousness vs. the primacy of matter.) It would, by definition, be egotistical for me to say that only my consciousness exists. And although I can’t prove it, I believe that my consciousness is part of an all-encompassing Consciousness.

Evolution and all other natural phenomena are parts of the abstraction we create to explain our subjective conscious experiences. So when we study evolution, what we’re really doing is looking at patterns and relationships of said subjective conscious experiences.

Anyhow, my point wasn’t to argue for or against any particular view of reality. It was to emphasize that we really don’t have the whole picture and therefore there are things we can’t say with absolute certainty.

I have done a lot of crazy stuff under the spice and I have tried allot of things other than spice. I stand by the claim the most powerful and mind opening experiences I have ever had in my life involved the old ways. While technology in my mind does allow us to control aspects and break things down to gain mastery of them there is still a non linear part of the situation that math and science just cannot grasp. Not just the sweat lodge but other spiritual ceremonies. I can only suggest one try it themselves to see what I mean. You will find a connection with life and earth that exists long after the drug leaves your body. I am not saying technology cannot help but we should not forget what took eons for our ancestors to master either. Using both together in my mind is the best way one can go. After all we live in a world of technology but our minds are still designed for a cave man lifestyle.