Shaman Sickness in a Society Without Shamans, Part 6
Conclusion
The Long Road Of Wonderland — To Nowhere
Through this paper, we established a working definition of shaman sickness as it relates to a sole experiencer living in a contemporary society. Key symptoms and stages of this high initiation were identified that assisted us to form a model of the process and flow of personal developments, challenges, and trials most similar and relevant to the experience. From these factors, We painted a more colorful, yet still wanting, image of shaman sickness, what an initiated person faces, and the consequences that erupt without cultural understanding and support.
By doing this, we gained access to a very small glimpse into the hidden realms of the lonely shaman. We have an idea about what to expect for all of us as we develop and evolve to include richer perception and wider sensory processes. We know the harassment of ancestors and spirits is more likely sign of a rapid development process of the senses and the possible training regime provoked and/or assisted by beings and entities outside our average perception. So we have a new idea about what gives the initiated access to what lies behind the veil that currently separates us from the “other.”
Now that we have gained such insights, it’s time to poke some holes in our working experience-based model. Why? To make sure we do not fall into belief when thinking about possibilities. Too often we look at a presented idea, happy it makes some sense to our experiences or to some enigmatic phenomenon, that we never bother to analyze it. We can not limit ourselves in such a manner. As the writer and a first-hand experiencer of such events of high strangeness, I feel duty-bound to point out the areas that aren’t addressed and highlight the assumed mechanisms that don’t seem to always cover the function ascribed to them.
To be clear, this paper and the topics addressed in it do what they are meant to, increase awareness, present a somewhat working model, and present common experiences and processes of a rapid development process that closely resembles or is exactly the high initiation, shaman sickness. However, there are several key aspects that do not add up. When looking at the process, the approach, and the result, we can see that this type of high initiation is, at the very least, producing some incorrect results, Again, that is, if we dare assume we know what the results are supposed to be.
During this conclusion chapter of our paper, we are going to look at the shortcomings and some further implications and possibilities stemming from the content we discussed. Many of the highlighted aspects are presented as informed speculation from personal and shared experience, and through reports. Hopefully, the decision to color this last installment to reflect the namesake for which, I of ALICE, proudly honors, doesn’t put anyone off. Remember, these are the Rabbit Hole Experiences that lead many into a wonderland of contradiction, revelation, and ultimately a seemingly eternal curiosity about ourselves and reality.
More Holes than a Rabbit’s Warren
To sum up from where we are starting this end; many will notice or feel that the points explored here shred the relevance and reason of the entire paper. I assure you it doesn’t. As with any theory about this topic, it is simply a theory — one that seems to be a good container for actual experiences. However, like the rest of the related theories, there are a lot of considerations that just do not fit.
This and related phenomena are being experienced by us on a global level. This leads me to think that such developments and experiences will eventually be ubiquitous within the human condition. My hope is that in writing this, readers are properly prompted to think deeply on the subject and even more so, incited to explore even deeper, contributing to our limited understanding through research of your own. Without further ado, let’s look at some of the aspects that need further consideration and information.
Go Ask Alice, I Think She’ll Know
The first rather large hole in this paper is assuming the intended outcome. Because Shaman Sickness fits my own experiences and the experiences reported by others with similar events and outcomes, it seems like a no-brainer. However, as those who study the phenomena of high strangeness know, assuming is the first mistake.
For instance, let’s start with the entire premise that shaman sickness is a high initiation that grants the initiated the ability to heal themselves and others. We can’t really verify this. For all we know, it could just be a side effect caused by interaction with other-than-human entities, instigated by other entities for their own benefit, caused by inhaling fungal spores, or simply a lineage thing that, in our society, has long forgotten to track. Hell, it could be a side effect of tapping your toes while patting your head and reciting a commercial slogan backward for all we really know.
Eat me, Drink me, But Don’t Just Walk Away
We’ve also established that once the shamans’ abilities have been gained by individuals, many might not recognize them, fear them too much to acknowledge they exist, or for any number of reasons never give them a second thought. There is a good chance they may not even connect the initial sickness to any “strange goings on around” them.
Furthermore, many experiencers of this initiation have been lifelong experiencers of high strangeness. This might suggest that they already had higher perception to an extent and that something has caused the high strangeness to, “flare up.”. This would account for the increase in reported UFO/UAP and cryptid sightings. On the other hand, there has been a rising interest and awareness of a specific Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon(UAP) that has been given the name, Intelligent Plasma Spheres. The introduction to these beings and their sightings has been prolific before hints of shaman sickness started to rise.. This tidbit definitely leaves a few questions hanging.
You’ve Been Called To The Tea Party, Here Have Some Wine
Another blatant ass-making assumption would be that people who experience shaman sickness have been called to a path. Again, many may not even associate the sickness with a high initiation. A large number of individuals choose to ignore experiences, insights, and empathetic information gathering as if it isn’t happening. Others may not realize that invisible entities labeled in our culture as ghosts, aliens, and boogeymen are attempting to connect with them. And, also, we have to account for those that would have to be hit with a 2x4 board before they attend to anything normal, let alone paranormal in nature.
There are many reasons initiates might miss the call, if it is a call: never believed in any of this, never knew this existed to believe in it in the first place, too tired and focussed on surviving life so to speak, or even that they might already be taking or adding a prescription medicine that calms it down. There is an old adage that addresses this, though I’m not sure it was meant for the same reasons,
“Many are called but few will answer”
This leads us back to the original sentiment — Called to what? From my own experiences, I have come to know the call only after at least a good year to two years of pain, frustration, depression, and fear that I, myself, was going insane. But for knowing more about mental health and mental illness was I able to reality check along the way. This kept me from labeling myself as mentally ill, but it did not help me cope with the experiences. Only once I put the pieces together was I able to assume that it all fell under shaman sickness.
As for being called for the great work or the shaman, healing, for me there is no selected path that lays before me. My life isn’t dedicated to the healing arts, subtle energy work, Reiki, mediumship, or empathetic talks. In fact, for me, it is more like here and there, a stranger is put in my life as if to say,
“Here, take this and do something.”
Like being on call for a job for which I didn’t apply or sign up. It isn’t something in which I have any say. Typically, some events will connect me with a passerby. That event leads to a much longer interaction time of weeks or months. Within the first four days, I know why the stranger, who has no reason to continue conversing with me, is someone that is having or will start having symptoms of perceptual integrations and spirit contact. Usually, the individuals are emerging from a giant dust cloud of destruction that was their life. Many discuss a sickness such as cancer, some glandular disorder, headaches, or other debilitating ailments, but not all. Some are emerging from an unfathomable amount of simple bad luck that holds a consistency enough that they really should chain their name to Charlie Brown because life really decided they would be Lucy holding the football for them. And others are just starting to talk about some great trauma that sent them into becoming the “Mad Hatter,” for a while and they decided I look like the kind of stranger with whom they should share all the most intimate details.
I Was Very Much Myself Yesterday, But I couldn’t tell you Who I am Today
One such individual, I found through conversation, was AWOL from the army. He had left on leave and could not bring himself to go back. He had gotten into a car accident coming home for leave. Already highly discontented and confused, the accident and his entire belongings were jettisoned from the car, scavenged by clothes as he was riding home with someone going that way. By the time he returned to collect his things, notta. If I remember correctly, I think even the good tires were gone along with his clothes, souvenirs, laptops etc. He was tapped, so to speak, and trapped in a five-by-five invisible space of confusion and self-doubt until conversations lead to the stinging of odd occurrences like pearls on a necklace that painted the bigger picture.
Others that somehow show up or are “referred” to me somehow, include a serious percentage of individuals who have just left or are shortly going to be in a Behavioral Health Unit or Psych Unit. This is why I spent so much time hinting at this phenomenon. There are many who were at the time of introduction heavy into self-medication, homeless, or even more lost than that. When these visits occur, even before I realize I’m supposed to start discussing the topic, I never feel a concern for theft of my belongings, fear of the individuals, or any type of warning. When they arrive in my life, they are quite respectful and grateful for the resources and information I provide (I spent 20 years in human services and can direct people to main housing, medication, and services if they need them and strategize workarounds).
Eventually, something comes up about an odd experience and the passers-by divulge much of what has been going on relative to shaman sickness, or I make a lucky guess and then they do. When this occurs there is time spent informing the individuals of what is occurring. Almost every time, there is an increase of experiences and phenomena separately and shared together giving me an opportunity to share the prevailing assumptions and hypothesis about the phenomenon at hand, whether it is spirit contact, a sighting, or PSI Phenomena.
Now That I am On Time, I Am Late
Within a month but no longer than three, the new person disappears with a better knowledge of possibilities. Where to? Some just go away, some start rebuilding their foundation and get back to life, some go to the Psych Ward, and some leave fearing that I am causing the phenomena. My argument for this is that they show up to me and in every case the high initiation has already started.
As far as calls go, there isn’t much ring to it. Many do not identify any pattern like this and it truly seems they were simply called to be aware of other entities and increase their abilities to skills, or they “fail,” become heavily medicated or self-medicate and return a few times to the Behavioral Service Unit. A few smart individuals, or those with the most fear of this phenomenon, get sober, go to church, and never speak of it again. Their lives seem better but can anyone really tell? I mean, if they were forced into it, is it a good life? Was that their call? To clean up so they bypass some overdose or accident so they can complete a task at a later date? Or, are they finished with the initiation simply by the act of getting their shit straight?
We can not even speculate as to what the call is and what specific healing is relevant or why. Couple this with the real and most common circumstances of an initiated individual regrouping and reestablishing their life in a way that rarely includes their old social supports. This would suggest, what? I don’t know..
The Walrus and the Carpenter: A Cluster F$#k of Ideology and Narratives
Without a lineage or heritage to refer to, and given that most already have established cultural biases and familial beliefs, it’s impossible to convince others of the symptoms and patterns as being outside their chosen religion, culture, or acceptable experiences. If one has gained a strong propagandized belief that anything unseen that is annoying you must be a demon, there is no way to prove otherwise. Nor should anyone try. The experience of shaman sickness in contemporary society is a singular and individual set of experiences, possibly curtailed to use the person’s beliefs, biases, and thresholds to carry it out.
One thing is for sure — Never argue a delusion with anyone, this is as true for those struggling with mental health and those trying to cope as best they can with these out-of-the-world experiences the best they can with what they know. Besides, with the number of holes in this paper, who am I to say I am right? I know the phenomena happen and are real, but I have no idea if shaman sickness is the answer that wraps it all up in a nice box. It obviously hasn’t
Oh, We’re All Mad Here. I’m Mad. You’re Mad…
The online courses for shamanism typically do a great job identifying different abilities and modalities to use that can be considered for the three tools of a shaman, Healing, The Reading of Signs, and Spirit Contact. However, learning these skills doesn’t give you access to any guarantee at all. To me, there is no doubt, though, that a person going through such training will be leveraged at one time or another by whatever drives discovery and experience of phenomena of high strangeness.
So what’s the difference? I don’t know, except, initiation through shaman sickness seems to be preselected (maybe). Also, the Three Tools of the Shaman, are highly personalized to the initiated. Learning through courses doesn’t guarantee the tools you learn are the tools best used for your community or specific path. Further, you may attain visits from spirit guides, but aren’t they just a fraction of the spirits and ancestors you may come across during shaman sickness?
Do any online, structured, Shaman-Making, pay-for apprenticeships or courses honor Experiential Credits for life experience? That’s my way of snidely asking, do any incorporated businesses teaching their version of shamanism acknowledge those who have been initiated through shaman sickness? We all know the answer to this.
I do not have a problem, at all, with people learning in this fashion. If they gain something enlightening for themselves and can offer positive experiences to others, from these courses, I’m in. I am very happy to support any endeavor and any learning that results in that outcome. This section may make it look otherwise, though that isn’t the intention. The voice of this section is to highlight the internal personal struggle with which people are left through such experiences and the almost ironic fact that a paying person can be logged officially, to one extent or another, as a shaman, the initiated can not. Again, if initiation is actually happening.
This section is left as confusing and short, because this topic is confusing and short. We can make long winded arguments for both sides and the its floor, ceiling and other to walls, but it still comes down to the one statement for everyone trying to
“I Don’t Know”
You’re Nothing But a Pack of Cards: A Shaman Named, Nobody
As discussed in part one, the title of the shaman is arrived at by the consensus of the tribe or community. So in essence, without a recognized lineage, being chosen or identified by another shaman or shamans, the sole experiencer of shaman sickness doesn’t even graduate with a title or name. A shaman doesn’t entitle themself as, a shaman.
Here, a person’s life has been upheaved and tossed about. Their day-to-day most probably has become a series of unfortunate incidents or tea parties with door mice and dust bunnies. The scarier characters and citizens of Wonderland keep dropping in uninvited, while they’re trying to figure out the tools that have quite literally just appeared in their hands from nowhere.
The sole experiencer and initiate, has no merit, no title, no tribe, no lineage, and seemingly for some time, no reason. As put forth throughout this paper, part of this high initiation is ego death. A common saying is that a Shaman, or the respective title of whichever culture, must die over and over several times. For us, it means going through periods of unrest and instability that remove from us the identity we’ve come to adopt, disband the social circles within which we find acceptance, and crumble stability into pebbles of uncertainty when we get too comfortable in normalcy and material living. Through all of this, they still have no name.
How do community members know to find him or her? What happens when one declares they have been initiated through shaman sickness? What if they find themselves caught in the crosshairs of a litigious culture? What if they decide to go traipsing throughout the neighborhood knocking door to door and telling people they are a healer? What happens when they are eventually given one of the big red marks of, “DANGEROUSLY PSYCHOTIC, OBVIOUSLY ON DRUGS, TOO OUT THERE TO TALK WITH ANYMORE, or, JUST NOT RIGHT?”
As it is in my case, maybe the newly initiated aren’t supposed to promote their wares. Maybe it is the intelligence/s beyond the veil, so to speak, that directs the new shaman to their tasks or “patients.”. Is it possible this is how it is for shamans in tribal communities and cultures, also? It makes sense to me, but that doesn’t mean it’s how it works. Still, for a person not to be able to put a label of reason on their trying experiences, never really allows them to move past them very well.
Here is another kick to the teeth for the shaman named Nobody. The word Shaman is a generic placeholder of a name. This means we use the word shaman when we don’t know or ignorantly choose not to find out what a culture’s medicine person’s role is called. So the shaman named Nobody actually translates to Generic Nobody. I guess this helps us remain humble.
Well Now That We’ve Seen Each Other…
Is there, or should there be, a map identifying everyone that fits the criteria of developing the ability to heal, a new understanding of occulted signs, and is having contact experience with unseen or seen entities including ghosts, Greys, Intelligent Plasma Sphere, UFOs/UAPs (because I am not so convinced they are the same as greys or other reported alien beings), and the like? If this is the case, it goes beyond shaman sickness and includes anyone achieving these abilities regardless of the modus.
Something to consider is the fact that much of this paper was written using the experience of other individuals that have the common symptoms and traits seen in shaman sickness, including myself.. nine of these individuals live within 20 miles of me, four of which live in the same town. Two live less than a few blocks from my home. All of us live in very small rural areas. When I refer to my town, it is actually classified as a village with surrounding hamlets. This blows the theory that shaman sickness happens to assure each area or community has a mediator for the ancestors and spirits. It still can hold water if we think of the smaller social circles within our predefined communities, though much less.
What a Curious Plan
If it were possible to map it out we may be able to identify a pattern. We would be able to identify areas or overlapping individuals. It could give a social support system to those experiencing these changes. We could identify the consensus idea and beliefs of a group like this to see if there is something to the paths of learning. We could involve volunteers in research and test the limits, learn how to better hone their skills, and find the best function for them, but is that what should happen?
I would be most interested in knowing the story behind the high initiation for all those who have developed the three tools of a shaman. Other than that, being able to see how many individuals recognize their gifts for what they are and identifying a pattern if possible in the locations of the newly initiated and established would shed light on this phenomenon. If it isn’t location-based, is it a familial pattern of lineage? Well, that is an idea being researched currently about UFO/UAP and “Alien” contactees. But then again, out of the nine people closest to my location, another 2 individuals who have experienced the hallmark symptoms of shaman sickness have been part of my close social circle for decades. I refuse to say that the experience is like a contagion, though their symptoms began during the same time they were supporting me through my own. Regardless of how or why, this suggests it’s not just lineage.
Could it be that the symptoms and process we have been discussing have more to do with priming us to be able to communicate with other entities by which the ability to heal along with the extra abilities are just side effects? And again, the majority of the initiated I spoke with, all testify to having lifelong episodes of anomalous events of high strangeness. Does this represent a lineage, preselection, or geological effect? This is probably the only good reason to map out individuals who have experienced shaman sickness. In my opinion, there is more of a risk to individuals who experienced these changes than benefit if ever there is a mapping of the high initiation and initiated.
I Could Hardly Afford To Lose My Head Today
During this current tumultuous time of our world (could time be of a world more than outside of it? Probably not but whatever), there is a strong push to bring down the decades-long Truth Embargo (thank you Steven Bassett for the perfectly correct term) related to UFOs/UAPs and other than human entity interactions that was established primarily by the U.S. government. Though this is long overdue, the effects of bringing the embargo crashing down do pose a potential problem for individuals with extra-ordinary abilities that seem to have a causal relation to other than human entity interactions, aka — contact with spirits and ancestors.
Long suspected but only recently accepted, is the correlation of paranormal phenomena, PSI abilities, and increased healing abilities with “alien” contact.” Because there is some truth that revealing the fact that we have interactions with other than human entities will insight certain communal groups to negative action. Such a revelation has the potential to evoke a fear response in any of us, but primarily in those with possible deep religious beliefs with which they might overlay these entities. Though hard to believe, the “it’s a demon!” factor has prohibited research, understanding, and revelation of almost every aspect of these phenomena from remote viewing to entity contact. Some of these groups (not to mention pocket groups connected through deep prejudice) could seek out individuals with these abilities and relate them with the “demons.”
Further, though the government established the Truth Embargo, there is plenty to suggest at least some departments have monitored some citizens with such experiences and abilities. Establishing a mapping system for such people could prove to be a horrible mistake and cause a very long bad day for them. This, of course, is just speculation, though I must say, it is informed speculation.
Just an extra point. When I write government, I do not mean it as a whole entity, but rather, specific departments within the government structure, primarily, most likely, defense-related.
Conclusion: Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast
These are just a few things to consider. We may not be able to put everything in that tight and neat little package everyone strives to put things in and we may never get to that point. I hope that the information and topics presented in this paper are salient and invoke curiosity or cause the reader to think hard about this topic. It is hard for the majority to imagine such things happening to individuals. Though it is challenging, it seems that these experiences, among other anomalous events of high strangeness, are on the rise. Isn’t it better to be aware of the possibility and what to expect?
This leads us to the last consideration I’d like readers to ponder. What does this mean for all humans in all countries, all societies, and all communities? If this is on the rise, as other phenomenal events of high strangeness are, which it is, why is it? What does it suggest that more people are rapidly developing increased perception and sensory systems? Are we on the road to a tipping point for all of us?
Will this reach critical mass and at the very least evolve societies in a way that incorporates their own brand of shamanism? In a way, the U.S. and other countries do, at least for those carrying a certificate they paid for acknowledging their chosen brand of healing. Even now, government entities and insurance companies are devising approvals for those that can best, a “neat little package,” healing abilities to be time-limited, state or government-certified, insurance company approved, and billable offerings hiring healers as fee for service employees or contractors. It’s a start. Human healing abilities are being recognized as valid and valuable. But, is this the right way for them to be recognized? Wouldn’t it be practical to consider this and other possibilities before such experiences become more common?
By reading this paper, you have gained a deeper understanding of these and other possibilities. You have given yourself the ability to recognize the process and symptoms of shaman sickness and some of the more interesting and most off-putting aspects one may experience through it. This alone puts you in a position to at least support individuals you may know that are initiated in such a way. At the very least, you entertained the possibility of reality being bigger and much more mysterious. May you always entertain such a notion and never refrain from the curiosity that leads you to this conclusion.
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Effects of Liminal State Experiences: Possible Effects of Liminal Abductions and Liminal Other-Life Recalls
Thanks for Reading!
D.J. Rees, July 2023
