Ask any passer-by on any street to describe shamanism and also the result might be blank stares. Many people are surprised to understand that shamanism is not an religion however the oldest spiritual and problem-solving technology on the planet. Even more surprising may be the discovery that it is the precursor to the majority of major world religions, like the Judaeo-Christian and Buddhist traditions, which may be practised on every inhabited continent on the planet for at least 40,000 years and possibly very much longer. Historically, shamanism would have been a significant survival tool of prehistoric humans. Our hunter-gatherer forbears decorated the stone walls of caves and cliffs worldwide with carved and painted images drawn completely from shamanic experience. We will no longer are in caves or perhaps very small communities whose members are typical proven to us. The majority of us live far longer, healthier lives than our ancient ancestors, but the brain, that portion of us competent at fearing the dark and asking for the aid of things unseen, hasn’t changed in almost 1 / 4 of a million years. What made the uncertain lives of prehistoric people that much easier works today because, even though the world may have changed, fundamentally we have not.

Ask such a shaman is and also the question may evoke several words about Native American ‘medicine men’ or word ‘witchdoctor’. In reality, that of a shaman is and does is merely explained. Within the Siberian Tungus language which produced the phrase, ‘shaman’ means ‘the individual who sees’ and is the term for an individual able to make a ‘journey’ to alternate realities when it’s in an altered state of consciousness to get to know and use spirit helpers. What are the shaman ‘sees’, what she realises, in this experience of meeting spirits is always that there’s no separation between whatever is: no separation between me writing and you also reading these words, from the cat and dog, between life and death, between this apparently material reality and also the non-material realities of the spirit worlds. This idea of ‘oneness’ is common currency in contemporary culture and increasingly given credence by certain quantum physicists working together with sub atomic theory, though of course it is just a predominantly physical, instead of a spiritual, oneness that such scientists are attempting to describe. However, where the majority of us are only able to consider the notion of ‘oneness’, shaman’s actually live it through the example of the shamanic ‘journey’ and direct, personal interaction with spirit.

Described as a ‘breakthrough in plane’, in physiological terms right onto your pathway begins because shaman redirects the principal cognitive process in the left cerebral hemisphere from the brain right, with the corpus collosum – which is, through the structuring, organising hemisphere, on the visualising, sensing one. From the overwhelming most of traditions around the globe this ‘breakthrough’ will likely be assisted by way of percussive sound, like drumming, rattling or clapping. Although hallucinogens, like ayahuasca, are widely advertised under western culture as a method to aid alter consciousness, the truth is just about 10% of traditional shamans use plants in this way. Metaphysically, right onto your pathway begins if the shaman’s consciousness shifts from the present and enters worlds visible just to her. These worlds, which vary with every culture and tradition all over the world, are referred to as ‘alternate reality’, ‘the realm of the spirits’, or ‘non-ordinary reality’. Some traditions call shamans ‘the walker between the worlds’ because they’re the bridge between ‘here’ and ‘there’.

Although often considered primitive or viewed as a ‘religion’ of less developed peoples and cultures, Psychedelics is both subtle and paradoxical. The ‘worlds’ of shamanic journeys are utterly real – they exist and can be felt, smelt and experienced as clearly because this ‘ordinary’ reality. As well these are qualitative spaces, states to become that reflect and support the cause of the shaman’s journey – to ask for help, healing or information from your spirits. Contemporary research from the cognitive sciences suggests that a person’s mental abilities are hardwired to see the ‘unseen’ and also the mystical; the Lower, Middle and Upper Worlds from the shaman – translated into Hell, Earth and Heaven in later tripartite cosmologies – are seemingly a natural part of human perception.

Unsurprisingly, one of many questions most frequently asked by students being shown shamanism is, “What are spirits?”. Perhaps because Western society has mostly avoided considering spirituality for most generations we lack a definite, objective understanding of things such as spirits. Nowadays it’s really a one-size-fits-all word encompassing entities, energies, ghosts, angels, ancestors, the undead, elves, fairies; the list is seemingly endless. Personally, I have two understandings of the concept of spirit and though both coincide, they’re not the identical yet they help me. The main Shamanic, or Western, tradition which underpins my very own practice and teaching, describes spirits within all of that exists. I am a spirit currently inhabiting an actual body to be able to have a very human experience. The spirits I meet on my small ‘journeys’ are dis-embodied and therefore offer an existential overview unavailable in my opinion, but we’re basically the same: particles of infinite universal energy, fragments of the Great Spirit. Most of us result from this energy, exist inside it and return to it. It is in reality living this attitude that allows a shaman to see the lack of separation between items that ordinary-reality considers very separate indeed, like life and death or health and disease.

My second comprehension of spirit is much more psychological and archetypal and was plain and simple explained by CG Jung as part of his autobiography ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’. Describing his knowledge of spirit helpers Jung wrote, “Philemon… brought the place to find me the insight there are things within the psyche i don’t produce, but which produce themselves and have their unique life. Philemon represented a force which was not myself.” This can be a beautifully lucid explanation of methods it might feel to interact with spirit after a shamanic journey. More prosaically, I describe the operation of journeying to my students as having one’s imagination harnessed and directed by something external.
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