Origin and Types of Shamanism - Essay Example

Origin and Types of Shamanism Introduction Since centuries, humans have endeavored to understand their origins, their purpose of life, etc and to resolve ambiguities in human life. In such effort, religion has played an influential and leading role in providing answers to many queries that has resulted in the status of religion as something very sacred and important. In specific, spirituality and communication with spirits have been some of the major notions of every religion that facilitates in providing a platform that can enable humans to communicate with entities outside physical dimension. Shamanism has been working on the same notion in which, spirituality, spirits play enormous role in different concepts and beliefs of Shamans, and this is visible in their rituals and practices as well (Jakobsen, pp. 23-25). In specific, this paper will endeavor to discuss some of the major beliefs and concepts of Shamanism along with their brief history that will allow a more effective understanding of this religious entity. In particular, Shamanism is an imperative component of religious perspective of a number of individuals, especially traditional tribes and prehistoric societies that still portray ancient representation of humans until now. The term ‘Shaman’ depicts the region of Siberia and few central Asian regions; however, analysis has indicated that Shamanism was a part of Americans as well, and still, few Americans practice Shamanism in their religious lives. Moreover, In Asia, a majority of females is part of the composition of Shamanism, especially in Japan and China where spirits have remained a major notion of attraction since centuries (FSS, 2009). In addition, medicine or healing is an imperative and crucial part of Shamanism that is another reason of its followers in China and Japan due to huge significance of healing methods in such countries. Interestingly, experts especially trained and educated Shamans have been able to trace back the origins of Shamanism in every religion of the human history. Origin In order to understand beliefs and concepts of Shamanism, it is imperative to be aware of its fundamental structures. In this regard, heredity is the major factor of existence of Shamanism’s followers until now as Shaman families have been passing this spiritual philosophy to their generations since centuries. Besides heredity, trained Shamans educate and teach individuals interested in beliefs and concepts of the religion that is another way of becoming a Shaman. In addition, significance of medicine in Shamanism and importance of medicine and healing in science is another crucial factor that attracts individuals to become Shamans in their lives. Whenever an individual becomes a Shaman through vocational training, experts have noticed a strange alteration in his/her behavior that indicates the involvement and interference of spirits in that person’s life. A major practice of Shamans after passing their training is to go into backwoods alone and away from the materialistic world (FSS, 2009). This bizarre practice usually seeks an indication or spiritual vision from the spirits or a guiding reality, essential for utilization of learnt spiritual powers in the human life. In this regard, every Shaman goes into wilderness to seek such spiritual interventions for attaining powers. In some countries, it is an observation that females and most often, blind females inquire about Shamanism due to its characteristic of spiritual powers. In this regard, females that are still weak members of the society seek to become Shamans in their lives to become powerful with the help of guiding spirits. In terms of dressing, Shamanism instructs for complicated dresses like robes and hats that Shaman drummers usually wore to acquire their dazing experiences. Analysis of the literature regarding Shamanism has indicated that all the practices of Shamans are based on two basic concepts or responsibilities that every Shaman has to fulfill in his/her life. Firstly, it is the responsibility of a Shaman to begin his/her spiritual dream with the help of vision from the guiding spirit and reach the state where he/she can speak to the gods, ultimate stage for a Shaman. In this regard, Shamanism has provided a number of practices and rituals that facilitate Shamans in implementing this first concept in their religious lives that is essential to perform their second responsibility, equally significant in Shamanism: healing the ill. Literature of the Shamanism converses comprehensively on methods that can heal the sick with the help of spirits and gods (FSS, 2009). Types Besides responsibilities, Shamans exist in two different kinds: possession and travelling Shamans. The first type of Shamans usually stay under one shelter and perform their rituals, such as drumming, dancing, etc and endeavor to communicate with spirits and gods from the same place without going somewhere for the spiritual indication. Usually, such Shamans bring down spirits during their spiritual performances and witnesses have seen them creating an ecstatic environment that allows gods and spirits to use lips of Shamans to speak. Interestingly, spirits communicate with Shamans in their original human voice that is an extraordinary feature of Shamans’ performances (Jakobsen, pp. 29-33). Due to such factor, a number of families admire Shamans as they bring souls and spirits of their departed family members that can communicate and speak to them in their own voice. As earlier mentioned that healing is the most important responsibility of Shamans, therefore, the process of communication with gods and spirits is one of the steps that enable Shamans to acquire guidance from the gods and carry out the process of healing in an effective manner. In other words, Shamans through their spiritual performances and experiences, bring gods in their bodies that heal the sick accordingly (Ingerman, pp. 61-64). On the other hand, literature of Shamanism converses about the other kind of Shamans that travel during their ecstatic experiences with spirits. Some scholars have even indicated existence of bizarre Shamans that can fly in the air, as well as drop under the land to visit deprived spirits and lost gods in the surroundings. Such kinds of Shaman portray a higher tendency of bizarreness and peculiarity due to such behavior. This is one of the reasons that experiences of travelling Shamans often become dramatic sequences and public take it as performance for the masses rather than an experience involving gods and spirits. In some cases, travelling Shamans often climb straight trees depicting their travelling to the heavenly bodies and spirits in the sky. In this regard, analysis has indicated that physical portrayal of spiritual experiences is an imperative and significant notion in the Shamanism that plays the role of indicator of spiritual level of Shamans accordingly. In the dramatic sequence of tree climbing, Shamans usually update the public and people standing down about his/her experience on each level and regarding dimension that he/she enters at every level. This shows that Shamanism gives valuable importance to physical realm, as an essential factor to reach the spiritual stage. Another example of Shamanism’s concepts is ritual of Eskimo Shamans that use the tool of sound and music effects to depict their travelling under ice towards lost spirits and gods (Jakobsen, pp. 47-59). Healing A major concept of Shamanism relates to sickness and it is observation that in the ancient times, scholars portrayed sickness as an outcome of lost soul. Thus, in order to heal sick persons, Shamans used to dramatize their travelling in the other dimension towards lost soul of the sick person. In such healing process, dramatization has remained an important and essential requirement that brings reality to their experience. For example, in recent times as well, Shamans dramatize their combats with evil spirits and their travelling from jungle, rivers, deserts, etc. In the end of this dramatization, Shamans indicate finding of the lost spirit while bringing it back to the sick person (Edson, pp. 71-83). This was the spiritual and dramatic process of healing in Shamanism in the ancient times, and studies have indicated that still a number of Shaman families carry out this healing process to heal their sick loved ones, even in this era of science and technology. For a non-Shaman, this is a common question of how such a dramatization may heal the sick individual. However, the basic reply to this query lies in the basic belief of followers of Shamanism that believe that evil spirits invade an individual that brings sickness and devastation in the lives. Similar to Christianity where Father reads holy scriptures to bring the evil spirit out of the patient, trained Shamans perform the same by their spiritual dramatization of soul seeking and driving it out of the patient’s body, and in some cases, trained Shamans even suck in the evil spirits to heal the sick person (Lewis, pp. 79-82). In other words, such practice is a clear indication of Shaman’s worldview that expresses the role of evil spirits and gods in sickness and deterioration of humans physically. Due to their worldview of this kind, Shamans have always played a leading role in healing sick persons with their ecstatic performances, and thus, they have been significant in contributing towards the culture of human society to health the sick individuals rather than leaving them away. In ancient cultures, Shamans have played the role of psychologists, doctors, and spiritual healers that shows the thoughtful influence of Shamanism in the field of healing and medicine (Walsh, pp. 67-73). In brief, this healing concept of Shamanism has facilitated and enabled Shamans to encounter gods and spirits existing in the other hidden dimension while staying as a part of physical human realm. Shamans believe that such performances and contributions with the help of spirits and gods is a significant contribution for the nature and human race. Some Shaman healers and scholars have even indicated that science and contemporary forms of healing have used the techniques of Shamanism to heal the sick and ill people. For example, some of the movements of Shamans are quite similar with the movements performed by aroma therapists (Ingerman, pp. 36-39). Shamans carry out different movements during their dramatic performances, drumming and dances that are ‘Shamanic’ and a number of contemporary healing methods, such as Reiki, raindrop therapy, etc have integrated similar movements that indicate the impact of Shamanism on contemporary medical science and healthcare. Medicine In religions and cultures of the shamans, a medicine is something that acts as a magical physical object or an observance, for example the medicine bag that has the purpose of alleviating the communication process with dead to help the process of healing. The term medicine also implies to capability of an object to possess magical powers that serves the purpose of monitoring, controlling, and guiding the spirits of the dead (Jakobsen, pp. 49-55). The items included in medicine have their association with different spiritual capabilities, as the bag is usually a subject of extreme security in the traditional customs of different tribes, called as vision quest. This observance involves various personal sacrifices, going though hard physical and mental training, keeping fast for days, sticking only to prescribe food, getting isolated from the respective ethnic groups, and usually includes hallucinogenic drugs (Lewis, pp. 56-59). The sole aim of this practice is to communicate with the dead spirits and supernatural forces that would alleviate people in quest of their destinations and help them realizing their own talents and potentials. These spirits would help the practicing person to collect scattered magical items, gaining more knowledge, and help personal development. Core Beliefs Shamans have their existence in every phase of the history around the world. There are some very certain set of core beliefs and faiths that are grounded in base of every shaman throughout the history of the world. These core beliefs holds the credit for bring meaning to people’s life, comfy, and knowledge to many learners across the globe. 1. The core belief that says everything and every person in this world are function of a complex pattern, and hence interlinked (Ingerman, pp. 48-51). 2. The firm faith in existence of alternative world usually cited to as the spiritual world or as supernatural world by modern mystics. 3. The faith in the capability of individuals to obtain surpassing states of awareness and admit into the world of spirits for troubleshooting and healing purposed subjected to oneself and others. The firm desire of achieving and experiencing the spiritual world accompanies this faith (Ingerman, pp. 48-51). 4. The faith that the soul healers and spiritual teachers exist and they reside in the world of spirits or alternate reality. Though, many modern occults try not to interlink themselves with coordinated religions, Jesus used to be the great teacher of spiritual world, having strongest of powers, and most confess the faith in spiritual awareness. 5. The faith that everything that includes living and non-living penetrates the essence of personal mystic and spiritual forces. Thus, everything happening around has some degree of awareness in this regard. 6. The faith in existence of a neutral power or life-sustaining force that penetrates in all the things and is the driving force in living things. 7. The faith in existence of a personalized source of energy, that acts as a body having an aura. The enhancement of this body is also possible with the help of different energy booths within (Ingerman, pp. 48-51). Concepts Today The New Age movement has taken many thoughts from shamanism and especially from the core shamanism. However, in spelt like these, the master users of the core thoughts reject this New Age movement as mostly misunderstood and trivial. At the very moment, there is a wave of effort with respect to mystic, supernatural, and private groups in order to recreate shamanism to a modified class extracting from core shamanism, numerous endemic classes of shamanism, and the magic of chaos (FSS, 2009). This endeavor centers its attention chiefly at Europe, where the Christian church eradicated the old shamanic taboos and cultures, and where the forced and obliged groups of people usually find it inappropriate to utilize the systems of shamanism in other divisions of the world. Numerous cultural and hard-core shamans also exhibits regard and respect for this strive and in this regard, differentiates it critically from the New Age Movement in shamanism. Many people in the western culture call themselves as shamans. The thing is when the self-claimed shaman does not use language of the Tungusic-speaking cultural group of people; the person is most likely to be a chaffer feeding himself from the knowledge of followers of the New Age movement (Edson, pp. 68-75). Usually, they describe themselves as Cherokee or Sioux ancestry, the Cherokee because the ancestors of this ethnic group are a usual discussion in one’s family tree, and the Sioux because of the reason that all Western people belong to the group, particularly Dance with Wolves. There is always a risk factor in getting teachings from such people because their most prime interests include, making people lose their money, rapes, illegitimate use of people, and even death. However, for the people belonging to India, the drowning of voices is the most significant risk involved in learning from self-described shamans (FSS, 2009). Conclusion Shamanists across the globe exercise with souls and spirits of the dead, alleviate and help the transformation from life to death, and behave as the intercessor in communicating between the living people and their loved ones. Most of the people are unaware of this fact, and they do not reckon the Shamanists as people who can do things for them in this regard. The way of practice of Shamanism has the strongest and the deepest spiritual curing, thereby the purpose of practicing shamanism and communicating with the dead is to render guiding service, providing information, and the phrases or words that would alleviate in healing the injured and broken heart, and spirit of the grief-stricken (Drury, pp. 70-71). While learning about Shamanism, we studied that the oldest cultures felt a need of communicating with souls of the dead people. Shamans are the people, who are most likely to do this job. Moreover, in the antediluvian cultures, Shamans used to employ themselves in a sacred exchanging with dying people in the most active and proper manner. They have the identical pursuits, worries, and stakes as that of the shamans found in today’s world. Mostly, the presently found shamans, similar to that of the old ones, undergoes loads of developing stages and introductions in their past, use the techniques and exercise that clients belonging to any ethnic group of the world feel comfortable. Though, we have studied and learnt about the practices of old shamans, it is thus important for the present learners to understand and make translation of the profound knowledge, interesting customs and traditions, exercise and patterns of the ancient shamans into a class that does not restrain the will of guidance or helping of any person. Works Cited Drury, Nevill. Shamanism. Element, 2000. Edson, Gary. Shamanism: a cross-cultural study of beliefs and practices. McFarland, 2008. FSS. Foundation for Shamanic Studies. Retrieved on November 15, 2009: http://www.shamanism.org/ Ingerman, Sandra. Shamanic Journeying. Sounds True, 2008. Jakobsen, Merete Demant. Shamanism: traditional and contemporary approaches to the mastery of spirits. Berghahn Books, 1999. Lewis, I. M. Ecstatic Religion: a study of shamanism and spirit possession. Routledge, 2003. Walsh, Roger. The World of Shamanism. Llewellyn Worldwide, 2007. Read More