The Predicament of Modern Shamanism
“The planet does not need more ‘successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds. It needs people to live well in their places. It needs people with moral courage willing to join the struggle to make the world habitable and humane and these qualities have little to do with success as our culture is the set.” H.H.The Dalai Lama
The Predicament of Modern Shamanism
Shamanism has re-entered Western consciousness primarily through the works of Mircea Eliades, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Ralph Mezzner, Stan Grof, Michael Harner, C. Michael Smith and many more who serve to bridge the gap between the modern world-view and the ancient ways. Each of these modern shamans found ways of bringing the shamanic practice into reach via historical context, myth, breath, entheogens, rituals and rites of passage that serve modern healers and seekers.
Each has found ways of delivering the insights and experiences to their students. Each are challenged with bringing a deep, mysterious practice into practical, everyday application.
For instance, although one of the early anthropologist-gone-native, Michael Harner strove to ‘Westernize’ the use of indigenous practices and rituals, his work and the work of his shamanic practitioners and facilitators still carries an indigenous look and feel that more rightly fits in South American rituals than in a Western practice. Still, many in the New Age and modern healing communities have embraced his methods, inspired to study with ‘native healers’ and take-on their ways.
This has lead to a culture of shamanic practitioners criticized by Native American’s and some other shamanic communities as a form of cultural appropriation and a distortion of indigenous practices. Many Westerners began to embrace rituals, dress and ways of acting that they experienced in training with Harner’s method or through their own experiences with native ceremonies, fueling the charges that Western shamanic practitioners were fakes, phonies and ‘snake-oil salesman’ or Plastic Shamans.
The underlying assumption is three-fold:
1) Westerners’ are not capable of invoking, developing and utilizing the shamanic within their nature.
2) Shamanism exists as a local, tribal manifestation only.
3) Everyday folks can’t invoke their shamanic healing abilities because greater, more powerful, more popular, more erudite and prolific healers (and their devotees) may take offense.
Peter N. Jones work, Shamans and Shamanism: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Terms Use in North America answered the criticism by showing that the term shamanism, beyond being a Siberian Tuvan term for their healing practice, has historically been used widely across the globe and wasn’t the domain of any particular tribe, culture or ethnicity.
In other words, the idea that any particular race, tribe or culture had exclusive rights or privileges to the term shaman or the practice of shamanism was not supported by facts. The issue of the authenticity of a shaman and a shamanic practice was put back into the immediate domain of experience and results, where it belongs.
All humans have the capacity to enter into altered states, connect with the Divine Source, journey, heal, and empower others. It is a shamanic aspect of all of our nature. The real determinant is how we live our shamanic potentiality.
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Shamans have suffered demonization by Western culture
Monotheism, capitalism and materialism have systematically attempted to wipe-out all competing systems of personal spirituality including the existing cultures of shamanic and folk healing in favor of an externalized source of God, an isolated and dependent citizenry, and a collective of fearful, disempowered, dependents who rely on products to soothe their fragmented and impotent souls.
Those who’ve survived have done so by keeping their tradition hidden and safe. There has been a long-term campaign against enlightenment and self-empowerment in our culture.
However, the imperative to be self-actualized and serve our fellow humans to heal and be self-empowered grows stronger and more irresistible.
Whether we find answers from the mystics or scientists, we find ourselves pushing against the fabric of established ways of being that have entrenched themselves into the power structure that operates our civilization from Church to State that establish rules, policies and public biases that boycott, subdue or drown-out the individuals’ efforts to become self-enlightened.
As a primary example, psychedelics (greek term meaning to make clear and visible, to lift the veils to Spirit) are categorized alongside such destructive drugs as heroine and crack despite the fact that there has been ample research and historical data supporting the positive values that these substances have on the individual psyche.
Regardless of medium, it seems that there has been and continues to be a concerted effort to demonize and punish all attempts to awaken from the cultural story-lines, the trance structures that are owned and operated by the dominant power structures of our society.
As GrandMaster Mantak Chia said, “Others will offer you a path to enlightenment but will co-opt you into their system in return. They give you what you already have and then demand your allegiance.”
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The shaman is the renegade aspect of our nature that refuses to be bound by any confining or subversive control that the outer world has on our minds, our bodies, our souls, our spirits and our connection with the spiritual aspect of each other, with Spirit.
We contain the Source of all knowledge within us. The Kingdom, the Tree, the Light, the Universe and the Way are within, whole and complete. It is a quantum, holotropic reality. No matter how you look at it, regardless of what perspective you take, the truth is the same, true freedom lies within and between each of us.
Now is the time to reclaim the power that flows through you and branches out into the heavenly realm of Spirit in it’s manifest and unmanifest forms. The only limitations are held within you and the way that you dance in the world. The shamanic imperative lives within you and all of us.
Luckily for us, we live in a time of vast and instant access to the most remarkable systems, processes, practices and rituals that can and do bring us back into our power that will guide us to higher and deeper states of enlightenment.
There are many shamanic ceremonies, systems and practices from many traditions that are being openly shared so that we can all do our part to bring the true Spirit back into the matrix of our lives. These are all keys to enter the truth that lies within you.
You simply have to find what works for you and create a practice. Spirit will do the rest. The Everyday Shaman blog series and website will include a growing collection of resources in the reference section (available online) that guide you to opportunities to design an empowering practice of inter-shamanic spirituality that works for you in your world.
This blog will highlight the practices that are shared by shamanic healers, therapists and coaches from around the world. The principles of shaman-hood will guide and temper your path. All that you need to do is integrate what agrees with your soul into your own ways, your everyday life and make magic. Enjoy the journey and be good medicine for your world.
