My Notes on Neo-Shamanism
It seems like everyone is calling themselves a "shaman" these days, but what does it actually mean? Let's take a crash course on this subject.
Originally posted on the Spirit Dreams Hypnotherapy blog on OCTOBER 10, 2022. This is a short, generalized perspective meant to introduce people who have little to no knowledge of the subject to the relationship between wisdom-keepers and their communities.
The role of the shaman has been described by scholars and anthropologists as a “religious actor” who holds a particular wisdom that is revered by their community. Shamanism is an animistic results-oriented practice that can be found in Asia, Europe, Africa, Australasia, the Americas and the Caribbean.
“Shamanism is as varied as those who practise it. Its practitioners range from indigenous lineages who have passed down their craft over thousands of years to the modern ‘plastic shamans’, who represent no specific culture but have adapted shamanism to meet the demands of metropolitan markets. However, there is a common theme to shamanism wherever it is practised: the use of spiritual (or shamanic) trance to facilitate journeys to a non-ordinary reality.”
THOMAS T. HILLS; MASTERS OF REALITY; READ THE ARTICLE: HTTPS://AEON.CO/ESSAYS/WHY-DID-SHAMANISM-EVOLVE-IN-SOCIETIES-ALL-AROUND-THE-GLOBE
Wisdom as Medicine
A shaman is sometimes a plant-medicine person, but they don’t necessarily have to be. In a nutshell, their role is to convene with the Spirit realm and the nature spirits to gather wisdom that will benefit the community. Shamans are usually elders who personally knew the tribe’s previous generation, know about their ancestors, and remember the stories of the tribe. Through the knowledge and experience that the elder carries, they know of sickness because they have seen sickness, or at least, they have learned about it from an elder. Therefore, they know how to fetch the remedy. If they don’t know the remedies, they take their time to commune with the ancestors and nature spirits to gather the wisdom that the community needs at that time.
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