Day ClassCurrent moon phase Friday, 30-Jul-2010 13:33:43 CDT
What is Shamanism?
"What exactly is shamanism? According to the definition of religious scholar Mircea Eliade, it is a 'technique of ecstasy.' It is a form of spiritual practice that runs like an undercurrent through many of the world's religious traditions. It is also a spiritual experience or process that is so widespread it may well be fundamental to the human soul itself.
"The shaman is a religious specialist whose gift and whose duty it is to serve his people and his tribe by mediating between them and the Otherworld. He travels to the Land of the Gods in search of visions. He journeys to the Land of the Dead to help and assist those members of the community who must take the fearsome road to those shrouded realms. He is part magician and part physician. He possess the knowledge of herbs and other traditional healing arts. His ceremonies and rituals are typically undertaken to cure the sick.
"The word "shaman" is Siberian in origin, for shamanism was first defined and described among Siberian tribes, but it is universal in character. It can be found in a more or less "pure" form among Siberian and Native American tribes, but it also appears as an element in the spiritual practice of the Chinese, Tibetans, Polynesians, Hindus, and ... among the pre-Christian mythologies of Europe. It may well be the oldest of humankind's religious practices, for it was almost certainly fully formed by the time the present-day Native Americans left Siberia and wandered into the New World ...
"Inasmuch as shamanism represents one of the most ancient and fundamental experiences of human spirituality, it is also one of the most persistent. Among traditional peoples, various shamanic practices often continue, as a kind of spiritual substratum, long after the missionaries have supposedly 'converted the natives.'
"... Because shamanism is a spiritual experience rather than a formal religion, it continues and endures while specific faiths come and go. Shamanism was practiced among the cave painters of France; it was practiced by the Neolithic farmers who raised the megaliths; and it was a strong force in the Indo-European religions of the Greeks, the Celts, and the Norse ... the European peasants who suffered during the Burning Times died for the sake of the world's oldest spiritual path."
Kenneth Johnson, North Star Road, ISBN 1-56718-370-0, pages 8-9
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