Shamanism and the Wounded West

Shamanism, humanity’s oldest healing system, is today undergoing global resurgence. The origins of shamanism can be traced back to our ancestors some 60,000 to 200,000 years ago—who left evidence of their familiarity with two aspects of the shamanic cosmo-vision: the mastery of fire and the symbolic transcendence of death. Amid our current global crisis, there seems to be a need to investigate shamans, and this need reflects an emergent quest for something. That quest speaks to the unmet spiritual hunger of the West.

Shamans participate in a millenary tradition that involves the cultivation of relationships with “the invisible world”. The shaman’s power derives from spiritual or supernatural dimensions and entails mastery of hidden forces or energies, both positive and negative. Embracing a shamanic fate brings a life of ordeals and hardships, requires extensive training, and demands intimate acquaintance with pain, discipline, death and solitude, which become the shaman’s true masters. The shaman engages the dynamics of life-death-rebirth, in which death is regarded not as a final end but a passage to a different state of consciousness or reality. The command of certain psychic and physical techniques endows shamans with the special ability to exit ordinary reality, enter extraordinary reality, and return bearing gifts from sacred dimensions. A special aspect of the shaman’s training enables entry into the interiority of other beings, including plants, animals and stones; via this metamorphosis, wisdom is gathered from more-than-human forms of embodiment.

The shaman masters the art of transmutation—the ability to unite and connect, in order to transform. The shamanic task is always to transform something—an individual, community, or eco-niche that has become imbalanced and whose vitality is threatened. The shaman is a guardian of the traditions and the psycho-physical balance of the community, with an ability to restore balance through profound knowledge of the laws of the universe. The shaman heals by becoming a master of imagination and the energetic world, capable of generating a harmonious reorganization of the energetic structure of living beings and systems.

by Karen Jaenke in ReVision Magazine, Spring/Summer 2019