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Contemporary Shamanism By Leo Rutherford |
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Leo Rutherford is one of the UK's leading experts on shamanism. He runs the Eagle's Wing Centre which organises shamanism workshops and sells a number shamanism related books, tapes, and other materials. The Eagle's Wing Centre can be contacted on +44 (0)171 435 8174. Thanks to Leo for supplying this article. |
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The
word shaman comes from the language of the Tungus reindeer
herders of the Lake Baikal region of Russia. From the
Encyclopaedia Britannica it seems its derivation is from the
Tunguso-Manchurian word saman, formed from the verb sa-
meaning 'to know' as in the French word savoir and the
Spanish saber. The words witch and wizard come from the
indo-European root meaning 'to see or 'to know' and are
found in the French voir or the latin videre meaning to see
or the German wissen meaning to know. Anthropologists
researching healing practises the world over have applied
the term shaman to indigenous tribal healers and medicine
people. The meaning is sometimes quoted as 'to heat up, to
burn, to work with heat and fire' and sometimes as 'Wise
One' or 'One Who Knows', 'one who sees'. This brings us to
the most important characteristic of shamans. They are
masters of energy and of the fire which moves through the
human body, called by such names as kundalini in the east,
or mana in Hawaiian. They know that there is an energy,
normally invisible, which connects all that exists, and they
live with the knowledge of this energy and how to use it.
They are masters of altered states of consciousness in which
the normal rules of Newtonian three dimensional existence
are broken, and in which travel to other worlds,
pre-cognition, distant seeing are all possible.
The
origins of shamanism pre-date recorded civilisation and may
well go back 45000 years or more to stone age times.
Evidence of shamanic practises exists from the paleolithic
period and it is the oldest way in which humanity sought
connection with the realm of creation. Its practise is
shared by indigenous peoples the world over with an
underlying cosmology that cuts across cultural differences
and customs. Today shamanism survives on all inhabited
continents in less 'developed' regions in spite of the
relentless onslaught of western scientific materialism, the
treatment of the Earth and nature as something to be
dominated and exploited, and dogmatic male dominated
religion.
Shamanism
is not a religion, it is not about beliefs, in fact it is
not a belief system at all. It is a path or paths to
knowledge, which is gained through experience of many facets
of life, through rituals, ceremonies, prayer and meditation,
trials and tests. Knowledge is something that works, that
stands up to test, and to the test of time, that is known
from inside, unlike belief which is something taken on from
outside, from others. Wars are fought over beliefs, never
over knowledge.
The
shaman as visionary, prophet, healer, ceremonialist,
psychotherapist & often herbal doctor is the 'doctor of
the soul' for both the community and individuals. S/he is
always concerned with the health - the Spirit - of the
people and with keeping the vision alive of who they are and
where they are going. The shaman's primary task is to keep
the people 'in spirit' - inspired - and to assist any
individual who suffers from loss of spirit - or in our
language - becomes dis-spirited.
The
shaman is a 'Master of Ecstacy' - to quote Mercia Eliade - a
master of ex-stasis (from the Greek) meaning outside the
normal stasis of consciousness. 'Ordinary' people, to quote
the Armenian teacher Gurdjieff, live in a state of 'waking
sleep'. The shaman is someone who has woken up to true
reality, the reality of the 'nagual' or fifth dimensional
reality, the reality behind apparent reality, the reality of
imagination. (I-mage-a-nation...I-the Mage.) The statement
'Oh its only imagination' is a gross denial of the not only
the whole realm of the magical but of the any understanding
of how the Universe really works. It is in the imagination,
the thought or dream realm where all is conceived and of
which this familiar third dimension of gross material
reality is but a reflection.
It
is commonplace to consider 'life' to be what we experience
in interaction with the everyday world. But from a shaman's
point of view, this is only a reflection of the 'real world'
where all is created before it ever manifests externally.
Consider the room or building you are sitting in, or a
building nearby. What came first, 'reality' or the thought?
Surely the thought! Someone thought of the building, we can
say 'dreamed' it. Then architects came to convert the
vision, the idea, into drawings and then the quantity
surveyor to estimate quantities of materials which will be
required. Only lastly did the builders enter the fray to
create 'reality', the building itself.
From
the point of view of the longterm history of humanity and
how our ancestors have 'seen' the creation to be over the
ages, it seems we in this western rational, technological,
culture have picked up some extraordinary ideas. It is as if
we are blinded by the apparent reality, what's 'out there',
and have forgotten to look at whats 'in here' and have lost
a sense of the connection between the two. We look avidly at
the result and forget to give the cause any credence! We
have even created a 'god' that is half a god, all masculine
and no feminine. We have split good from evil as if one can
cut a coin in half and have a one sided coin, and we have
placed our object of worship somewhere out in the heavens
and most certainly not anywhere near the Earth. We have
condemned ourselves and our children as 'miserable sinners',
,judged wrong and bad even as we are born! We have grown an
elevated idea of ourselves as the superior beings on the
planet with the right to use, exploit, 'develop' whatever we
wish, and have even persuaded our 'god' to support us in
this fantasy. Surely we will be looked back upon by our
descendents as very peculiar ancestors!
The
rebirth in interest in shamanism and the wisdom of the
ancients is timely and important. If we are to survive the
human desecration of our Mother planet, we need all the help
we can get. We are collectively like a paranoid being,
terrified of parts of itself. We spent approximately one
trillion $ last year on weapons for defence. Defence against
who, what?? It is reckoned to require a mere 12 billion $ to
end global starvation and yet we spend over 80 times as much
defending ourselves from each other. We have holes in the
ozone layer, yet the numbers of cars on the road increases
daily as does the number of jets flying the air routes. The
rainforests are cut down, last year the size of a large US
state such as Oklahoma is reckoned to have gone. But the
rainforests are the lungs, the oxygen producers of the earth
and what will happen if we start running short of oxygen?
Meanwhile millions worship a god who they say will come and
sort out the mess, and all we have to do is believe and it
will be alright. What kind of sense of responsibility is
that?
It
is time for us to free ourselves of the yoke of old
fashioned male dominated religion of beliefs taken on from
others, of separation from the Source and the godforsaken
idea of original sin, and to make our own individual
connections with Spirit, with the Source, and thus gain back
our own power. This means accepting responsibility for our
actions and most importantly our actions regarding our home,
Mother Earth. We are supposed to be the caretakers of the
Earth, determiners of energy. We are the one species with
the knowledge of Self, and thus the power of conscious
choice. We are now challenged as never before to awaken to
our Oneness with All Things, our relationship to each other
as cells in the body of Great Spirit manifest in and on
Earth, and to use our power wisely.
