shamanism

Shamanism is really the American equivalent of paganism. It is another great movement in the human spiritual endeavour, and another stream which is very closely related to nature. Of course, it makes sense that the more primitive cultures were closer to nature. It is only through technologies and cities, the urban way of living, that we have moved away from nature. So shamanism, the spiritual tradition of the native American Indians, before Europeans invaded the place, has the same close link to nature as its European equivalent of paganism.

In this little episode I want to highlight a couple of the other features of shamanism. Actually, they may also have been present in paganism. Paganism has really been lost in pre-history, so we don’t know much about it. But shamanism has survived, to some extent. The natives in the Americas, although they were slaughtered in their thousands, were not totally exterminated by the invading Europeans. Some of their traditions have survived, perhaps somewhat modified – we can’t be sure – but at least we are given some hint of what their ancient, spiritual traditions must have been like.

One of the key points about shamanism is that it focusses not on the material bodies of animals and people, but on their spirits. It puts all the focus on the spirit, and this is key to spirituality of course, by definition. A particularly beautiful aspect of shamanism is that it rejoices in the interaction between spirits. It celebrates the fact that the human spirit can be influenced, can be inspired by animal spirits; and not just animals – the trees, the plants, the oceans, everything carries a spirit. So, in the mysterious world of the spirits, we are not isolated from the other animals. It is a beautiful model and one which the modern world would do well to adopt.

There is another aspect of shamanism which I would like to talk about and that is the role of the shaman himself, the medicine man. This would be a professional, full time, spiritual man within the community. As his whole energy was focussed on this area of life, of course he could develop strong connections with the spirits and he would perform rituals. It is beautiful that a community can evolve to the point where one or more people are devoted entirely to the spiritual aspect of life. In this way the shamanic model can be seen as beneficial to the society. But there is a downside too: As soon as we have a full time professional spiritual person, that person tends to stand between the common man and God. He becomes an intermediary and the great risk is that the other people no longer pursue their own spiritual endeavour with the same vigour as is needed. Once there is someone there to mediate for us we become lazy, we just pass the responsibility on to the other. Of course, this does not just go for shamanism but all the religions which involve priests. So the existence of the shaman is a good sign in that it shows a society is taking its spiritual aspect seriously, but it is a worrying sign as well, if it means that the majority of people are not putting their own energy into their spiritual quest.