Shaman practitioners should be as equally respected as the allopathic physician would be. Medicine reflects patterns that run deep in our culture. For fifty thousand years shamans have used expectation and suggestion to help people heal. An important aspect of Shamanism is that it provides us with ancient means of solving everyday problems as well as lifes major issues.
Medicine which took shape in the second half of the nineteenth century was not devoid of this understanding although most doctors left it decidedly in the background. Compared to the spectacular physical effects of therapies such as antibiotics, vaccines, and irradiation, the minds effects seemed trivial. Moreover, by the middle of the twentieth century many authorities claimed there was simply no need for the concept of mind or consciousness, these terms were merely unnecessary symbols of the brain.
A shaman is a healer, a person who helps others. A shaman works with the energy that connects human beings to the incredible power of the Universe a work that involves journeying and shifting back and forth between realties.
Shifting mind sets or moving between worlds in full consciousness is a subtle and delicate process. Learning to do this requires the ability to change ones perception, to drop limiting assumptions, to allow for the possibility of an expanded reality. Shamanism is a way in which we can expand our knowledge by expanding our awareness of the world around us.
The wisdom of these indigenous, land-based people of the earth can help guide us to a re-balancing of our nature and of the natural environment that is necessary for survival in a world of increasing interdependency.
A shaman is defined as an individual who received the power to cure directly from supernatural beings through dreams, visions, or spirit possession. This opposes them to the bone setters, herbalists, etc. who derive their power to cure from a naturalistic knowledge of curative substances and techniques. The existence of these other types of cures in the native tradition shows that naturalistic philosophies are part of native Meso American thought and that shamans are just one type of healer. Yet, because they deal with an emotionally charged world beyond ordinary perceptions, they are often regarded as the most powerful healing specialists.
Shamans may also use non-magical treatments such as herbal medicines, but these are used within the context of an overall magical treatment. Although the patient may benefit from the biomedical effects of the herbs, he or she is led to see them as part of an overall magic solution to the problem.
A model of how the world is constructed lies behind shamanic healing. Shamanism is simply based on the laws of nature as Native Americans see them. This traditional world view is fundamentally animistic. People believe that an animating force is contained within all living things and moving objects. Animating forces are the essence of life. An animating force is usually called a soul al alma in European languages, but this translation distorts its meaning by adding irrelevant Christian connotations. Anthropologists have sometimes conceptualized the idea of animating forces as a visit by the shaman to another spirit world. The traditional shaman seeks greater awareness of what is in this world, not awareness of another world. Uncontaminated animistic philosophy is relatively simple. All things move and act because their animating forces give them the power to do so. In the native world view, no distinction is made between symbolic physical effects or between psychological and medicinal causality. All significant actions are the result of animating forces at work. The forces exist in a hierarchy of power with the sun and moon at the top and the stones at the bottom. The animating forces of humans are in between these two extremes. Humans have total power over stones, which have no animating force, but no power to change the motion of the sun or stars, which have powerful animating forces. Humans dominate animals. Beings that are more powerful dominate humans. The traditional shaman seeks knowledge of these forces. The traditional shamans quest for knowledge has its own spiritual rewards beyond being simply a practical means of curing. The community is drawn into the quest and support it as a religious calling.
When herbalists and shamans exist in the same community, the herbalists are enlisted for routine medical problems where sorcery is not suspected and where a positive outcome is likely. When illness proves to be more intractable, a shaman is called in to deal with the underlying animating force. The shaman, on the other hand, confronts the underlying animating forces.
Shamanic curing begins with a consultation. The consultation has several important dimensions. First, the consultation is a visit to a person with special professional knowledge. Second, by means of visions the shaman may also consult other more powerful beings. It is a necessary first step in a cure that links the patient to beings that can help him or her. For this reason, the consultation practically always includes prayers and offerings. The linking of the patient and shaman to higher powers is almost a reflective act in which the presence of the supernatural is constantly brought to mind through hundreds of small altars in houses, on the roadside, and in public places.
Diagnosis depends on the knowledge of how different illnesses manifest themselves. A shaman acquires such knowledge from study, visions, and experience. Each type of disease manifests itself in a different way. Each culture has developed different diagnostic traditions.
Weakness and depression, for example, can be interpreted as symptoms of a loss of animating force. The loss of animating force, soul loss, is a serious illness treated by practically all shamans. In many ways, soul loss is essence of illness. If the animating force cannot be returned, the patient will die.
Shamans in the East feel the pulse of the patient (pulsing) to determine the illness. They state that the blood of the patient accuses the sorcerer who has caused the illness. They say the crystals, made of quartz or colored glass, arrive magically and have the power to reveal an illness inside the body.
The visions of the shaman are always important. There are often times in the diagnostic process when the shaman will retire to receive visions. Shamans speak of certain symbols that they look for in their dreams. The vision symbols vary from shaman to shaman and from culture to culture.
Shamanic diagnosis and treatment go together. The shaman starts treatment as soon as the illness reveals itself. As more is learned, new treatments may be started or prescribed. Treatments are logically related to the way that an illness is conceptualized. Illnesses seldom are simple, so treatment can be complex. The patient and the patients family provide the material for the treatment. The shaman tells them what to buy and when the rituals will be held, and shaman receives a fee for his or her work.
The core of belief that supports shamanic healing is supported by myth. Each shaman has a personal myth that explains how he or she began to cure and how that power was acquired. This personal myth needs to be conceptually separated from the actual learning process that shamans go through to acquire skills. The personal myth usually tells of a dramatic trial in which the person almost dies and is forced to recognizing that he or she is destined to be a curer. To turn away from this path that the tutelary beings have set for one would bring their wrath down on the person and probably result in his or her death. The myth is widely told and serves to explain and enhance the shamans power to cure.
Other psychologists have recognized the uniqueness of shamanic consciousness and have sought to develop forms of therapy based on ancient shamanic methods. One of the most familiar forms of this is that of guided imagery. Basically, a shamanic journey can be considered of his own mind and guided imagery. It is the shamans diligent exploration of his own mind and consciousness that enables him to make these other world journeys and return with wisdom for his own path and for others.
Two stages of shamanic healing the strengthening of personal power, and the counter actions against power of the illness the shaman uses methods and medicines designed to encourage the sick person (mind, body and spirit) to participate in his own healing process. In shamanic healing both the shaman and the sick person share the view of the interconnectedness of all aspects of life. The task of the shaman is to make the sick person fully aware of the significance and meaning of the dis-ease. This awareness goes beyond physical and mental awareness into spiritual understanding of the cause and effect of the dis-ease. In the shamanic healing process, the shaman and the sick person share a level of awareness which they are able to communicate , spirit to spirit. At this level of awareness the sick person is able to choose to restructure himself toward health by redirecting his own energies, realigning with those of the universe. But most importantly, the sick person must be the one to choose this.
It is natural that this attitude is greatly misunderstood particularly in Western society which views the healing process in terms of success and failure. Shamanic healing may be best viewed as a process of awareness of choice. The outcome is viewed as a choice made, rather than a success or failure on the part of the sick person or the shaman. Scientists are striving to find a framework in which to understand, explain, or measure this process. Although such cases are exceedingly rare, they do exist and they do defy conventional measurement of definition. It may be that the interactive healing process of the shaman and the self healing of the sick reaches a level we can only speculate on metaphysically. Perhaps it is best to approach such phenomena in shamanic healing by remembering one thing: The shaman seeks clarification not verification. It is also useful to remember that self healing comes from the working connection of body, mind, and spirit. To follow the path of the shaman, we need only to open our minds and our hearts to the wisdom surrounding us.
The practice of medicine is both a science and an art. The first level of good medicine care is to do no harm. Much of the nutritional scientific dilemma involves differences of interpretation between the provers and the experiencers. I believe experience comes first, then proof.
A shaman practitioners dedication and spirituality are admired. They can fail to cure, they can disappoint some people, but by and large, they are respected like medical doctors in western culture.
Resources:
Dow, James W. (2000) Central and North Mexican Shamans http://www.oakland.edu/~dow/oersonal/papers/cnms/cnms.html
Dossey, Larry M.D. (1999) Reinventing Medicine
Haas, Elson, M. M.D. (1992) Staying Healthy with Nutrition, The Complete Guide to Diet & Nutritional Medicine.
Sams, Jamie. (1951) Sacred Path Cards
Sams, Jamie. ( 1988) Medicine Cards
Solomn.com (2000) Medicine Man http://www.solemn.com/shamanism.htmlWiggen, Rev. Nancy (2000) Spiritual Counseling, The Inner Center.
http://www.theinnercenter.com/shaman.html
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