What is a Shaman?

[Guest lambo]

What is a Shaman?

"Whether what we call 'ecstacy' be not dreaming with our eyes open, I leave to be examined." - Locke

Farewell...

[This message has been edited by lambo (edited 21 December 2001).]

[Guest mandragora]

l

Edited April 17, 2007 by mandragora

[woof woof woof]

A shaman....is a person that has a good connection/understanding with/of the spirit world/universal consciousness.

He can therefore acces the other dimentions....either to cure or to curse, control/influence the elements.

Some use plants ,others just need a drum or a simple act of will to vist the spirit world.

This is my understanding of what a shaman is.

[Guest mandragora]

l

Edited April 17, 2007 by mandragora

[Wazron]

A Shaman? In my (biased) view of the world I would define a 'Shaman' as a person who intuitively understands that reality is a perception based on the limitations of the senses: and who also understands that alterations in apparent reality are the key to developing a greater sense of relevance in the True Great Picture. Hence the typically Shamanic activities of drumming, chanting, herb use etc., to divorce the consciousness from the corpus.

I would define a 'witch' (although I am loathe to use the term, it beats 'magic-user') as someone who channels their will or 'force' to make alterations to their environment and/or relationships. Hence Shamanism is essentially experiential and Magic use affective. That is not to say that each is completely cut off from the other.

[Guest mandragora]

Hi lambo,

no not only to heal others. A shaman is in my point of view a "person" who has the power to look behind, to whom nature is speaking, or better to say who is listen to nature, because nature speaks everytime to us.

This feeling for nature and the harmonie of his spirit and his body with nature makes him able to heal, and so he is supporting people who want help.

And I think that every person has this in her/himself, but education, technic, or only growing up brings us away from that, but some people can save that.

[Gwydion]

"Shaman"- Tungus word for chap with a big coat with lots of iron sewn into it who dances around, sings, heals, might even take drugs (agarics, etc). We know this type.

The word is derived from the Sanskrit (thru Pali) word "samana", meaning "practicer of austerities". These austerities may give certain powers, or, more likely, a deeper, broader, understanding of the universe.

People such as curanderos, vegetalistas, etc are not 'technically' shamans, in the strict linguistic sense. They, as you can see, have their own names, and, accordingly, their own practices. I doubt that a Tungus shaman (or female shaman, a 'shamanka') would be imbibing 'huachuma' or 'ayahuasca', and this almost definately means that their 'magic' and cosmology are very different to those of other cultures.

So, we can lump them all together as 'shamans' if we want, but we have to remember that it's only a term of convenience. Where possible, there is no real substitute for the original local name.

Mircea Eliade, whose work is something of a classic on the subject, got it right when he called his book; "Shamanism: Archic Techniques of Ecstasy".

Whether through drugs or otherwise, the end goal almost always seems to be to enter an ecstatic state.

So maybe we should call them 'ecstacists". ;-)