Contemporary Shamanism
Ancient ways for urban, suburban and country people of today
By Leo Rutherford

The origins of shamanism go back at least 40,000 - 50,000 years to stone age times. Shamanism is the oldest way in which humanity has sought connection with Creation. All of us have evolved from shamanic cultures - shamanism is not imported, it is our roots wherever we live.

All over the world there is evidence of shamanic practices from as far back as the Palaeolithic period. From ancient cave drawings and such records it seems all indigenous peoples shared a similar cosmology, a similar understanding of how the Universe works. 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. As the unsustainable nature of Western civilisation is becoming visible, more and more people of the industrial world are turning to the old cultures for help and guidance in finding a way back to a greater balance with nature, with Planet Earth, and with themselves. Will we be in time? How can we do enough to change our polluting and desecrating ways?

The word 'shaman' comes from the language of the Tungus reindeer herders of the Lake Baikal region of Russia. Western anthropologists researching indigenous healing practises the world over have applied the term 'shaman' to indigenous healers, visionaries, seers, prophets and their ways, hence what we know today as shamanism. The anthropologist S. Shirokogoroff who was one of the earliest to explore the Tungus people stated "In all Tungus languages this term (shamen) refers to persons of both sexes who have mastered spirits, who at their will can introduce these spirits into themselves and use their power over the spirits in their own interests, particularly helping other people who suffer from the spirits."

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. In the history of Britian, witchcraft, wicca, wyrd, were all shamanic ways. Witchcraft in particular has many centuries of bad press and witch has come to mean something very different from 'to know', 'wise one' or 'wise woman'. Wyrd has been changed into wierd - strange. All this was part of the destruction by the Christian Church teaching to facilitate the imposition of this Middle Eastern-Judao-Greco-Roman religion.

Power, knowledge, vision, prophetic abilities are in themselves beyond morality. A shaman is someone who uses these abilities for healing and wholeness (holyness). Someone who uses these same abilities for gain at others expense, for evil, is often called a sorcerer, (although the original meaning of that is simply 'one who connects with the source')..Witchcraft was originally a 'white' path of healing but became corrupted by some and is remembered in the cultural folklore mainly as 'dark'. It is important to remember at all times that power is just power, an ability is just an ability. It is what us humans do with it that makes good of evil.

The meaning of shaman 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'. In the words of Mercia eliade, a shaman is a "Master of ectacy' - a master of ex-stasis (from the Greek) meaning outside the normal stasis of consciouness. They are masters of altered states of consciousness in which the normal rules of Newtonian three dimensional existence are no longer valid, and in which travel to other worlds, pre-cognition, distant seeing and healing, communication with the dead, are all possible and natural.

'Ordinary' people, in the words of the Armenian teacher Gurdjieff, live in a state of 'waking sleep'. The shaman is someone who has waken up to true reality, the reality of the 'nagual', the reality behind apparent reality reality, the reality of imagination (I-mage-a-nation....I-the Mage). The commonplace statement 'Oh it's only imagination' is a gross denial of not only the whole realm of the magical but of any understanding of how the Universe really works. It is the imagination, the thought or dream realm where all is concieved and of which this familiar third dimension of gross material reality , the 'tonal', is but a reflection, and, and it is there in the realm of cause that the shaman works....For example - Consider the room or building you are sitting in, or a building nearby. What came first, 'reality' or the thought? Surely the thought!

Shamanism is not a belief system. It is a path to knowledge which is gained through experience of many facets of life, through rituals, ceromonies, prayer and meditation, trials and tests. Knowledge is something that works, that stands up to the test of time, that is known from inside, unlike belief which is something taken from outside, from others. Wars can be fought over beliefs, dogma and doctrine, never over knowledge.

In tribal cultures, the shamen is the 'doctor' of the soul' for both the community and the indivuals. He/She is concerned with the health - the Spirit - of the community 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 as a whole 'in spirit' - inspired - and secondarily to assist any individual who suffers from loss of spirit/soul or in modern day language who becomes dispirited.

The shamanic understanding of sickness is loss of power. Power is energy, not might. It is power over oneself, being power-full. When we are full of power we are unlikely to get sick and from a classical shamanic point of view, bad spirits, intrusions, of darts sent from another person will not succeed in harming us. From a Western point of view this is the same as saying that we are vulnerable to sickness when we feel bad, when life is emotionally challenging and we are depressed when dealing with grief, jealousy, rage or major emotional upheaval.

Shamans say the main course of illness is 'seperation', meaning seperation from nature, from community, from the Source, from Oneness. Interestingly the original meaning of 'sin' is to be seperated from god, to 'miss the mark'. From a shamanic point of view, unaware 'seperated' people cause damage when their hostility, bad vibes, dark thoughts penetrate others. We send out thought forms all the time and when we send good thoughts, they bless and when we send bad thoughts they can harm. In the great web of life all things influence all things. Shamanic work is about contacting the powers of the Universe directly, about ending seperation from nature, from the Source, and therefore we can say it is about healing 'sin'!

There is a great need now to make our own individual connections with the Source - to Return to the Source - and re-empower ourselves. To accept responsibility for our own lives, our connections to spirit, our health, our actions in the world, and most importantly our actions regarding our home. Mother Earth. The shamans say we are supposed to be the Caretakers of the Earth. 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, to our relationship to each other as cells in the body of The Creator manifest in and on the Earth, and to use our vast power wisely.