Shamanic Vision

According to many traditional understandings, there is no such things as one monolithic world; that perception displays limited vision. Instead the mundane world we live in, the world we experience only through our 5 senses, is but one among the carious realms or places of existence. Although there may also be others, international conventional shamanic wisdom suggests that the following realms exist:

*Earth: the tangible realm of mortal people and creatures.
*Spirit World: the realm of deities and spiritual beings-angels, fairies, djinn, and so forth.
*Dreamland: experiences in dreams really happen; just on different planes of existence. 
*Realm of the dead: the after life.

These realms are not linear; instead they are simultaneous, parallel. They interconnect. You can communicated across realms; you can travel between them. Spirits go back and forth effortlessly; ghosts sometimes get stuck in the wrong realm and need a shaman to point them in the right direction, maybe giving them a little shove in the process.

Boundaries exist between these different realms, although precisely how permeable those boundaries are or aren't varies and is dependent on a number of factors, not least being something as simple as time of year. There are portals of entry between realms, if you can find them, if you can survive them, if you have the skill and knowledge to navigate your return. This is the soul-journey of the expert shaman. 

Greek and Roman myths tell of Odysseus' and Aeneas' journeys to Hades. Orpheus journeys to Hades attempting to escort his beloved Eurydice back from the realm of the dead. In Norse mythology, emissaries are sent to Hel to see whether beloved, deceased Balder could be released. Because these "journeys" are often understood only literally, as if one ventures to the Realm of the Dead in the exact same way one travels to Disneyland, they are too frequently understood as "mythic" only in the sense of being fictional. 

Shamanic functions include:
*Communication with other realms, including those of the spirits and the deceased.
*Soul retrieval and other forms of healing.
*Location of lost or stolen items, in particular buried treasure.

Shamanism may be the real first profession. The shaman is a unique specialist although there are cultures that support large multi-person shamanic societies-with "support" frequently being the key word. Typically a community provides for a shaman's needs in exchange for shamanic services, in particular in hunting/gathering or farming communities. 

Shamanism isn't easy; the experiences can be frightening, unpleasant, and dangerous, acquiring the skills painful, and simultaneously traumatic and exhilarating: typically the pivotal initiation experience is described as a spiritual "death". Some part of the spiritual anatomy, although not the physical body, dies-ripped apart or butchered by spirits, frequently cooked up in a cauldron, consumed by the spirits and then finally, hopefully, if one passes all tests, put back together and resurrected. The shaman is able to journey into the after-life because they have "died" and returned. The are a liminal figure who exists in several realms simultaneously.

Because it is dangerous, because there may be a lengthy apprenticeship and because skill comes from experience, the full-fledged shaman is often an older person, and very frequently a woman for a variety of reason. 

Although many enlist, many more are drafted. Very frequently the individual has little choice in the matter. The spirits choose you, their call manifesting through dreams, visions, illness, bad luck, and/or animal attacks. Traditionally, in some places, surviving bear, snake, or jaguar attacks was interpreted as a shamanic call.

Sometimes the shaman's refusal to heed the call affects the whole community adversely: bad luck spreads around, as in the biblical tale of Jonah. If the cause of misfortune is traced back to their recalcitrance, the community may insist that the shaman assume their role or risk ostracism, banishment, or worse-being sacrificed to appease the spirits.  

On the other hand, if shamanic aptitude or calling is recognized, a community may nurture the individual so that they may acquire their skills, providing them with the best material goods, and sometimes tolerating bad, erratic, unpredictable behavior because a powerful, consistently effective shaman in invaluable. The shaman is responsible for the community's well being and survival, its life and death. Shamanic services were perceived as crucial and integral to a wide variety of dangerous pursuits, including:

*Childbirth, spiritual initiations, healing, and funerals: dangerous on the spiritual plane because of intense contact with other realms. On the physical plane, risk of physical contamination frequently exists. 
*Hunting: eating meat involves killing a fellow creature, whose spirit guardians must be appeased to avoid disaster and maintain spiritual balance.
*Agriculture: digging holes or otherwise rooting around in Earth may be understood as rape if Earth hasn't expressly granted permission, which perhaps only the shaman can hear or interpret. Harvest maybe understood as murder, as in "John Barleycorn must die". Plants are fellow living creatures, possessing their own spirit guardians who must be propitiated and appeased to maintain spiritual balance. 

There is no need to accuse or ask whether someone is shaman. Their results speak for themselves. If things consistently aren't going well, a more successful shaman will be found. It's a little bit like traditional Chinese medicine, where a physician is desirable and respected only provided her patients remain healthy.

The shaman provides a needed service that, although fraught with spiritual danger, is expected to be reliable and dependable. The shaman must perform functions as needed: like a modern physician, she may be "on call" at all times 24/7. The popular version of shamanism as the role primitive societies invented for those with seizure disorders or the mentally unbalanced is incorrect, simplistic, and based on the notion that all other realms and spirits are "made up", because if they don't exist, then of course, the shaman's journey is pure fantasy or fraud.

Shamanism is performed in various ways, through soul-journeying or through ritual possession. The shaman summons spirits and ghosts and sends them packing -exorcism-as individual need arises. Their work may be enhanced by music, especially drums, chants, singing, dance, or silence. The entranced shaman may appear to be asleep or in a coma or even dead. For ancient people lacking scientific context, with no hospital monitoring equipment to measure life, the shaman who appears dead is dead, at least temporarily. They are a figure of tremendous power. 
The shaman may develop profound individual ties with animals, plants, spirits, or other allies. The ecstatic component of shamanism cannot be emphasized enough; the very word "ecstasy" derives from a Greek shamanic term "existanal" ("to put out of place" as in a soul out of body). At best, shamanism is an ecstatic, transcendent, rapturous experience, for the individual shaman and also for the community whom they lead in shamanic rituals. This intense, dynamic rapture can be experienced and witnessed through ecstatic music and dance, the best sex, ritual possession, some form of divination, or glossolalia, all of which may be components of shamanism.

The shaman is very likely also to be a solitary person, at least some of the time. The sol-journey, the psychic journey is an intensely private, individual experience. The shaman talks with animals; the shaman talks with ghosts and spirits who scare other people; the shaman may even be able to assume the form of animals. Some shamans mutter all the time. (A Slavic euphemism for witch is "mutterer")

New Age people are often dismayed to hear those from traditional cultures speak negatively of witchcraft and witches. Tolerance of witches is expected from these seemingly magic-tolerant societies. Of course, cultures that incorporate magical practices have also been known to burn witches. In these cases, "witch" is often understood to mean a shaman gone bad, a breach of a sacred trust. 

The shaman doesn't have to become corrupt to stop working full-time for the community. Eventually some suffer burn-out, at least temporarily, too tired or psychically drained. Maybe, for one reason or another, the spirits stop talking to you. Some shamans, perhaps following bad experiences, failure, emotional exhaustion, psychic torpor, or perhaps just as directed by the spirits, might retreat into privacy-a cave, a hut in the forest, a little home on a mountain top or in a swamp-to recuperate, replenish their energy and live a private, magical life. People would know the shaman was there, this person in the wilds. They might be frightening, they might leave her alone most of the time, warn their children not to bother them-who knows what they could do if provoked. But in a moment of desperation, when a magical solution seems like the only option, particularly when a private secret magical solution is required, one would know exactly where to go to plead or pay for assistance. 




*Credit to Judika Illes