NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES, SHAMANISM AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Nevertheless, the shaman remains the dominating figure; for through the whole region in which the ecstatic experience is considered the religious experience par excellence, the shaman, and he alone, is the great master of ecstasy.
Mircea Eliade 1
Psychologists up to this point have generally avoided contact with shamanism. . . . But once they open the door experimentally and start going inside that other dimension to explore and map the territory, it is really going to be an extraordinary and revolutionary development.
Michael Harner 2
This article discusses what is clearly the highest form of ecstasy, that which is found in shamanism. Shamanism is the most advanced form of ecstasy because it is the shaman who has become, in the words of a late professor of religious studies, Mircea Eliade, “a master of ecstasy.” That is, the shaman one who has learned to enter into the ecstatic state at will and with intention. There are strong connections between shamanism and the other ecstatic experiences and the connection between NDEs and shamanism may be the clearest of all. In answer to the question of whether an NDE is similar to a shamanic journey, Michael Harner, the man widely recognized as the leading authority on crosscultural shamanism in the world stated: “Yes. The shaman's journey starts with an experience of going through a tunnel of some kind, usually with a light at the end, and this is very similar to descriptions of the so-called near-death experience. But the shaman goes all the way through the tunnel and explores the world into which it opens at the end, the world that people feel themselves passing into at the time of death.” 3
Shamans also experience the ecstatic nature of this realm. Harner says that new shamans often cry “tears of ecstasy” during and shortly after their experiences and “talk with mutual understanding to people who have had near-death experiences.” 4 Although students and practitioners of shamanism have been quick to understand and comment on the connection between their own field and modern research into NDEs, the same cannot be said for those in the area of near-death studies. Only Kenneth Ring 5, and more recently I, 6,7 have written in more than a passing comment about the overlap between NDEs and shamanism. Ring notes that the NDE is a shamanic experience "whether or not the NDEr realizes it." 8 He even goes so far as to describe NDErs as "modern day shamans." 9 However, he carefully qualifies this statement by saying that the NDE is an initial excursion into the shamanic realm and does not impart full status as a shaman on the individual.
Nevertheless, his point is accurate. The NDEr has briefly and unexpectedly entered into the same realm that the shaman has learned, sometimes through great effort and over many years, to be able to enter at will and for a specific purpose. While the NDEr has visited this realm, he does not always have the ability to reenter it at will. The shaman's experience often, although not always, begins with a close brush with death. Following the shaman's initial excursions into this realm, he or she then becomes an apprentice to a master shaman. The young initiate is then taught all of the techniques that comprise the art of shamanism.
I have suggested that the possibility exists of developing a methodology of inducing direct spiritual, transcendental experiences that could be used therapeutically. We now come full circle and find that, not only is this possible, but precisely this has been the art of the shaman for centuries.
Shamanism
Shamanism is the most ancient of spiritual traditions and has been shown to have influenced the mystical wing of most major religions. It is also a method healing that is believed to be at least thirty thousand years old. Although all but stamped out in “advanced” cultures, shamanism has been an important part of many tribal and preliterate cultures throughout history and continues to be to this day. Despite cultural differences, as well as vast geographical and time differences, many of the basic practices and techniques which comprise shamanism are amazingly similar crossculturally. As anthropologists fanned out throughout the globe during the last two centuries, they were often surprised to find quite similar religious and spiritual beliefs and practices in cultural groups that were known to have had no contact for thousands of years, if ever. The question this raised was why would groups of people who were so different in so many other ways develop spiritual beliefs and practices which were so strikingly similar? The most convincing answer is that in all of these cultures people were experiencing similar ecstatic states, and because the beliefs and practices were based on these experiences, those practices and beliefs were also similar.
The master shaman is a medicine man, a soul doctor, who has acquired a great deal of knowledge and information about ancient techniques of healing a variety of physical, psychological and spiritual problems. Through their long apprenticeship, the shaman learns a number of healing techniques that they use in helping members of his community. Although there are a number of different types of practitioners, a person is generally not recognized as a shaman unless he or she engages in the shamanic journey or soul flight.
The Shamanic Journey
During a shamanic journey, the shaman enters into an altered state of consciousness and wills himself to have an OBE. While out-of-body, the shaman travels to one of three different realms for a specific purpose. During the journey, the shaman will do one of three basic things: either he will contact one of his helping spirits to gather useful information for his client, he will find a missing aspect of the patient's spirit and encourage it to return with him, or he will extract or take out a spiritual intrusion that has penetrated the patient and is causing disease or discomfort.
Through repeated journeys, the shaman becomes familiar with both the geography and the inhabitants of these different realms. While doing so, he enlists the aid of helping spirits, often in the form of animals, who assist the shaman in learning the various methods of curing illnesses.
Shamanic cosmology describes three different but interpenetrating realms of existence usually referred to as the lower world, the middle world and the upper world. Shamans believe that these worlds are populated by spirits that are accessible to people at death or in an altered state of consciousness. By actively entering into the world of spirits and interacting with them, the shaman enlists their aid and instruction in how to help care for the lives of the people who come to them for help. The shaman’s interaction with these spirits constitutes on ongoing relationship with them. From the shamanic perspective all things are thought to be endowed with spirit: animals, plants, even minerals possess a spiritual essence and it is the shaman who has the ability to communicate directly with these spiritual entities.
Shamanic View of Illness
In the shaman's view, many illnesses are the result of being literally dis-spirited; that is, either the person's spirit has left their body and not returned, or the individual has lost the aid of one of their helping spirits. In either case, the shaman will undertake a shamanic journey in order to find and bring back the missing spirit. If the shaman is successful in doing this, the patient should then be relieved of their symptoms and restored to health.
The shaman is also a psychopomp, a conductor of souls between this world and the world of the dead. Shamans believe that people who have recently died, especially under sudden circumstances, are often confused and disoriented in the afterlife. The shaman enters the ecstatic state, travels into nonordinary reality, finds the wandering soul and helps direct it to where it can find help.
The shaman is also a see-er; that is, one who engages in divination to see into the future in order to help those in his community. This is often done with the help of a quartz crystal. The shaman will stare into the quartz while focusing his intention on a particular question and "see" the answer within the rock.
Dreams also play a major part in shamanism. The shaman believes that there are two different types of dreams: ordinary dreams and nonordinary dreams which are also known as "big dreams.” Harner describes a big dream as a "dream that is so vivid that it is like being awake, an unusually powerful dream.” 10 (italics added). This comes very close to the definition of a lucid dream. Transpersonal psychiatrist, Roger Walsh has also commented on the connection between shamanic journeys and lucid dreaming: “Perhaps the closest experience to shamanic journeys that most of us have had is lucid dreaming. These are dreams in which we know that we are dreaming. Here too there is partial control of the state and experience. Strange worlds and scenes seem to arise spontaneously, but we are usually able to control our responses to them and, if we wish, to awaken from the dream at any time. The shaman's control during journeys is similar, and lucid dreams may well have provided inspiration for early shamanic journeys.” 11
Harner comments on this altered, heightened consciousness which he refers to as shamanic state consciousness (SSC): “In the SSC, the shaman typically experiences an ineffable joy in what he sees, an awe of the beautiful and mysterious worlds that open before him. His experiences are like dreams, but waking ones that feel real and in which he can control his actions and direct his adventures. While in the SSC, he is often amazed by the reality of that which is presented.” 12
Shamanism is, then, basically an applied therapeutic methodology. It is, however, a methodology based on a different, expanded view of reality and dependent upon the practitioner's ability to enter into this altered state of consciousness and successfully execute his or her task. And one thing is clear: people who have had a deep NDE, or have learned to repeatedly enter into other ecstatic experiences, are excellent candidates for further training in shamanism. While many people who seek out shamanic training undergo difficult, even dangerous initiations, in the case of the NDEr, the worst has already happened! The NDEr has died, been to the other side and returned. And they often return expressing a deep desire to enter into the helping professions. What better way to express this than by building on their experience and training to become a shaman, training now is available in the Western world.
Western Shamanism and the Work of Michael Harner
Michael Harner is an anthropologist by training who, since the death of Mircea Eliade, is considered the leading authority in the world on shamanism. Harner is more than an armchair authority on the subject, having himself been initiated into shamanism while conducting field work among the Conibo Indians in the Upper Amazon.
It is interesting to note how Harner himself was initiated into the world of shamanism. While living among the Conibo, Harner's ethnographic fieldwork was progressing well. However, he found the Conibo reluctant to discuss their religious beliefs. After repeatedly questioning them about their spiritual views, he was told that in order to learn about their religion he would have to experience it first hand by taking ayahuasca, a powerful psychoactive substance used in their religious ceremonies.
Harner agreed to undergo the initiation and the ceremony started late in the afternoon. As the drug began to take affect, Harner had a number of visions, one of which was of a large vessel with a dragon-head prow filled with figures which looked like ancient Egyptian depictions of birdmen. Harner wrote that at that moment, "Although I believed myself to be an atheist, I was completely certain that I was dying and that the birdmen had come to take my soul away on the boat." Later in the experience he relates that:
"Now I was virtually certain I was about to die. As I tried to accept my fate, an even lower portion of my brain began to transmit more visions and information. I was 'told' that this new material was being presented to me because I was dying and therefore 'safe' to receive these revelations. These were secrets reserved for the dying and the dead, I was informed." 13
Again we find the overlap between the ecstatic experience and the theme of death, Harner's being a psychedelically induced ego death, rather than a physical death. Since his first initiation, Harner has worked in other shamanic traditions and discovered that, although powerful psychoactive substances are used in some cultures, most do not use these substances. Many Westerners can easily learn to journey by using sustained drumming, rattling, singing and dancing in order to gain access to the shamanic realm.
Harner has been very instrumental in making shamanic techniques widely available to Westerners. Through his workshops he has exposed thousands of Westerners to these ancient techniques. He reports that over 90 percent of his students have some success with shamanic techniques even after brief exposure. Many people report their journey experiences are very real in nature and easily distinguishable from fantasy or imagination. And although some people have more innate talent, Harner maintains that anyone can learn to enter into the shamanic realm with practice.
Harner teaches what he refers to as core shamanism, which is his own distillation of the basic techniques practiced by shamans the world over. He differentiates between what he refers to as Ordinary State Consciousness (OSC) and Shamanic State Consciousness (SSC). While OSC is the consensual reality that most of us share, the shaman is also able to enter into SSC which puts him or her in touch with the shamanic realm.
Soul Loss, Soul Retrieval
Sandra Ingerman is one of Harner's closest colleagues, and an accomplished shaman in her own right. And Ingerman is not only a shaman; she is also an NDEr. Below she discusses her own NDE and how it impacted the development of her shamanic skills:
"Traditionally shamans have been people who have had a near-death experience, life threatening illness, or a psychotic break. In my case, I almost drowned, and this near-death experience showed me the way to the other side. Many survivors of near-death experiences report going to a great blinding light that pulsates only love. In my own near-death experience in 1971, I too, was received by the light. For me, this light represented the Father and Mother God. I started thinking about God's being pure light. The Bible says that God created man in his own image. What that means to me, then, is that we are really balls of light. I started to experience myself as being light surrounded by matter, the body. We are a body; we have a mind; and we have this beautiful light that shines in us that is Spirit, which connects us to the divine." 14
Author of the books Soul Retrieval 15 and Welcome Home, 16 Ingerman discusses her work as a modern shaman helping those who suffer from soul loss. Soul loss in our culture is often the result of traumatic events such as incest, abuse, loss of a loved one, surgery, accident, illness, miscarriage, abortion, the stress of combat, addiction, verbal abuse, or divorce. Although the accepted treatment for most of these disorders is psychotherapy, Ingerman points out that from a shamanic perspective, psychotherapy cannot be effective if the aspect of the personality we are addressing is not present.
In retrieving a soul, the shaman's task is to enter into nonordinary reality and first locate the soul. Once the soul has been located, the shaman must then convince it to return to ordinary reality and reintegrate with the individual involved.
Ingerman discusses the case of a man named David who came to her for a shamanic healing. He was in a very poor physical condition at the time, with Epstein-Barr virus as well as a number of other infections. He mentioned that just prior to his becoming sick, his girlfriend, whose name was Suzanne, had committed suicide. This alerted Ingerman to the possibility that this might be a case of not just soul loss, but soul stealing. The following is also an excellent example of psychopompic work, during which the shaman helps the deceased soul become better situated in the afterlife. As Ingerman enters into the shamanic trance using sustained drumming:
"I repeat my intention to focus myself. As I walk, I come to a tree where I see David tied by a rope around the trunk. He looks very forlorn and spiritually beaten. His head hangs down, and his soul shows no vitality. I don't like what I see, and I feel sensations of deep anger in my solar plexus. I yell out in nonordinary reality for my power animal to come and help me. No sooner do I call than he appears. He is just in time! Suddenly a woman jumps out from behind the tree where she is hiding and lunges at me with her imposing nails aimed at my face. My power animal steps in front of me, creating a force field around us that she can't break through. She repeatedly lunges at the field in anger but keeps being thrown backward into the leaves. Finally, when she is exhausted, we carefully let the field down and walk close to her. She bursts into tears and begins sobbing. She is Suzanne." 17
Ingerman asks the woman whether she knows that she is dead, and she answers yes. Ingerman tells Suzanne that she can help her move to a more comfortable place, but in order to do so, she will have to agree to release David's soul. She refuses. Ingerman then turns to her power animal for help and is told to keep the conversation going:
"David is dying back in ordinary reality, because you are keeping his soul captive. 'That's good, she replies. 'I want him to die, so he can keep me company here. I want him to stay with me forever.'" 18
Although the shaman is able to intervene, she is not able to impose her will on others. Ingerman now has to convince the woman to release the soul:
"I reach into my pocket and pull out a quartz crystal and hand it to her. She loves the sparkling light, which starts to whirl around and through her. She obviously is soaking it up. 'I can take you to a place where the light shines all the time and will take care of you.' She asks, 'How do I get there?' 'Give me back David's soul, and I'll take you there.' Suzanne looks at the crystal and then at David and then at me. Seconds go by that seem like hours, and finally she agrees to release David. I untie David from the tree. He slides to the ground, lying still; his breathing is shallow. I leave him there in the care of my power animal. I put my arm around Suzanne's and we float upward. We continue to move up and out of this place and travel through space, surrounded by planets and stars. Suddenly we come to a skin membrane, which we break through. Our pace quickens as we continue to rise, going through layer upon layer of clouds. In the distance there is a blinding light. I know I can go no further. 'Suzanne, go to the light.' At this point I push her up, watching her disappear into the all-encompassing golden rays." 19
After returning with the soul parts, the shaman will then blow them back into the client's body and seal in the parts by rattling around the person. In his case, David felt an immediate rush, his eyes brightened, and his physical condition gradually improved. Ingerman reports that he continues to enjoy good health to this day.
Shamanic Extractions
Often shamanic healings call for the extraction of some foreign object or element from the body. Shamanic practitioner Larry Peters 20 has written about an extraction he performed while in the country of Tuva, where he was traveling as part of an expedition for Michael Harner's Foundation for Shamanic Studies. One evening the exhibition members, who were all shamanic practitioners, were invited to a gathering. When they arrived, they were quickly ushered on to a stage where a man with a serious heart condition had been brought. The man was so ill that he had come directly from his hospital bed to be seen by the visiting shamans. As the group stood in a circle around the man, Peters describes his experience:
"Our group began drumming quickly, each singing our own spirit song softly. After possibly ten to fifteen minutes of intense drumming, Gajandra (his teacher) appeared to me in a vision. He came out of the sky as a thunderbolt that struck my heart. I found it difficult to breathe. My body began to shake, first my belly, then the rest of my body. The rattle in my hand moved with nervous energy. I wanted to shout "Stop!" But I was overwhelmed and couldn't stop. My whole body was shaking. Gajandra had penetrated into my being, into my body. In the vision, I heard Gajandra say, 'Get up, get up, get up.'" Tears flowed from my eyes, as I saw in the vision a golden nugget emanating light, first in the sky above. Then I was standing outside myself, observing myself, and the golden light was now encircling my head, now in my heart, now surrounding my body. I heard bells ringing on my feet, and I saw myself dancing. I was witnessing a person who looked like me. Was that me dancing? Then I looked down on the circle of drummers, and I watched myself dancing for a long time, circling the patient and the drummers." 19
This is an excellent description of the ecstatic nature of the shamanic experience. Ten to fifteen minutes into the drumming and singing, Peters has left his body and is witnessing the scene from above. When he returns to his body, he finds himself transformed:
"I'm not exactly sure how I returned to my body, but I became aware I was kneeling next to the patient, clawing at black poisonous spiders and other insects I saw crawling in his veins. I saw large wasps with huge stingers in his heart. I growled and hissed as I jumped at the insects. I thought to myself, 'I'm behaving like a tiger.' Suddenly I was an orange, black, and white tiger with large saber fangs--the tiger Gajandra had taught me to be, the tiger that bites and sucks flesh at healing ceremonies. I bit and sucked out the insects. I felt their sharpness inside my mouth, then spit them out. There were so many I thought I'd never get them all. I sucked the man's back. I bit and sucked his sides and rolled his body over. Saliva covered my face as I growled and bared my teeth. Picking up his shirt, I went straight for his heart.
At the time, I didn't know how long I had worked on the man. As I shape-shifted back into ordinary reality and fell back into my seat in the circle of drummers, I was exhausted. Sweat was pouring from me. I felt dazed and unbalanced. I remember feeling out of time, and I kept holding onto my colleagues for reassurance. The patient was visibly shaken. His hands and body continued to tremor as he was hurriedly escorted back to the hospital ambulance that brought him." 20
Although Peters was deeply concerned, he later learned that the man's condition had improved dramatically. In fact, when he visited with the man and his family a week later, he was vibrant, smiling and joking and embracing his wife. He sat tall and said he felt no pain. It was as if he were another person and he talked about going back to work. He had developed a passion for life, had changed diet and stopped drinking alcohol. 2
Active Dreaming
Another dramatic healing comes from the work of Robert Moss. Moss, the author of Conscious Dreaming 22 and Dreamgates, 23 described the experience of a woman named Wanda who was a natural healer and who had worked with Moss for several years. Over a period of twenty years Wanda had a recurring dream during which she was told that she would die at age forty-three. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at age forty-three. The cancer was thought to be spreading quickly and she underwent a modified radical mastectomy and chemotherapy. During and following the chemotherapy, she was having a very difficult time. Moss journeyed on her behalf:
"One night in a hypnogogic dream state, I journeyed to check on her. I found her in a night setting, near a cave that was also a temple. A circle of women were performing a ritual nearby, but Wanda was not part of it. She was frozen, paralyzed in terror of some shadowy, snakelike forms that menaced her on all sides. I grabbed two of the 'snakes' and wound them into the form of a caduceus. Instantly, the healing staff came brilliantly alight in my hand. It radiated intense golden light. I touched Wanda with it. She promptly vanished." 24
Wanda later told Moss that she had also had a dream that night, a dream in which he had 'flooded her with light.' Following the dream she also felt buoyant and released from the malaise of the past weeks. Apparently, this dream energized Wanda and prepared her for a dream that she had on the night before her forty-fourth birthday, a dream that Moss writes quite literally, gave her a new lease on life." Wanda dreamt:
"I am climbing to the top of a mountain where an awesome presence is waiting for me. I know that this powerful being sent the messenger who told me I had to leave Earth. It moves like waves of light. It conveys its wishes and emotions by thought. I am terrified, but I never back away. The entity reminds me that I agreed before I came to this planet that I would leave at forty-three. I acknowledge this is true. I am shown a contract with my signature on it. I argue that this contract should not be executed. I tell the entity that I didn't want to come here when I made the contract. But now I have people that I love and people I believe I can help to heal, because of my own experiences. I tell him, 'You must know this, because you allowed me to discover my illness through dreams before my time was spent.'
There is a time lapse. It seems like an eternity. Then I am presented with a new contract. I am given more time to help others." 25
Awakening from this dream, Wanda found herself trembling and crying with joy. Later, she told Moss that the dream was unlike any she had ever had before because she was both awake and asleep at the same time.
Shamanism and Mental Health
Shamanic techniques have also been applied with a great deal of success in mental health. Psychotherapist and shamanic pracitioner Myron Eshowsky was supervising an intern who brought to his attention the case of a woman who was being treated for chronic schizophrenia. The patient was hearing voices, had attempted suicide a number of times and had been repeatedly in and out of psychiatric hospitals. She had been tried on a number of medications, all without lasting benefit. Also pertinent to the woman's history was that she often reported hearing the voice of her son who had been killed tragically some years prior to her becoming ill. Eshowsky told the woman's therapist he was going to try an experiment and would inform her when he had completed it. The therapist was then to report back to him if she noticed any significant change in the woman's clinical status. Below Eschowsky describes his journey on the woman’s behalf:
"I journeyed to see if the young boy's soul had not yet left the Middle World. I found him in the house where he had lived, calling for his mommy. He was quite frightened and I spent much time calming him down. He told me many details of what had happened (details previously unknown to me, which I later was able to confirm). Then doing psychopomp work, I was able to help his soul leave the Middle World. The results were staggering. My student reported that her client, by all parties' reports, had stopped talking to or about her son. It was as if a cloud had been lifted from her and she had awakened. The suicide gestures stopped and over time she was able to live in a group home and work part-time in competitive employment. With counseling, she began to grieve the loss of her son." 27
For those of us involved in the treatment of the chronically mentally ill, this is nothing less than incredible. Chronic schizophrenics are assumed to be, and in most cases are, suffering from a brain disorder. The standard treatment for someone like the woman Eshowsky describes includes major tranquilizers, supportive psychotherapy and often requires psychiatric hospitalization when the patient's symptoms or behavior becomes unmanageable.
All of this is expensive, time consuming and, in reality, not very effective. For example, the major tranquilizers are medications which help relieve the symptoms, such as hearing voices, but do nothing to alleviate the real problem. And because they have unpleasant side effects, many patients refuse or discontinue using them. (In fact, an additional medication has to be taken to counteract the side effects of the primary medication.) Supportive psychotherapy is just that--it is designed to help the person deal with what is assumed to be a chronic illness, but does nothing to help overcome the illness itself, which is assumed to be incurable. I don't point this out to be critical of my own profession or others involved in mental health. For someone who has a degenerative brain disorder, this is simply the best treatment we have to offer at this time.
However, what has become increasingly clear is that a subset of those diagnosed as schizophrenic are not suffering from a brain disorder. Rather, they are going through a spiritual emergency, a crisis which is spiritual in nature but is often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia or another psychotic condition. The fact that this is actually the case is beginning to be acknowledged within the field of mental health as we are becoming more sophisticated in differentiating between true psychosis and spiritual emergency.
Looking at this case in retrospect, and including a shamanic perspective, an intellectually honest reappraisal suggests that this woman was not schizophrenic, but was actually hearing the voice of her dead son who was trapped in the Middle World and unable to move on. Because she was never provided with a shamanic intervention, prior to Eshowsky's involvement, she endured many years of suffering which would have been unnecessary if she had been provided with treatment at the level of her disorder--the spiritual level. I can't help but wonder how many people, like Eshowsky's patient, and patients I see every day, would benefit from shamanic interventions. If even ten percent of the chronically mentally ill-many of whom make up our homeless population--responded to shamanic interventions, we are talking about millions of people who can be helped.
Shamanism
Shamanism is the most ancient of spiritual traditions and has been shown to have influenced the mystical wing of most major religions. It is also a method healing that is believed to be at least thirty thousand years old. Although all but stamped out in “advanced” cultures, shamanism has been an important part of many tribal and preliterate cultures throughout history and continues to be to this day. Despite cultural differences, as well as vast geographical and time differences, many of the basic practices and techniques which comprise shamanism are amazingly similar crossculturally. As anthropologists fanned out throughout the globe during the last two centuries, they were often surprised to find quite similar religious and spiritual beliefs and practices in cultural groups that were known to have had no contact for thousands of years, if ever. The question this raised was why would groups of people who were so different in so many other ways develop spiritual beliefs and practices which were so strikingly similar? The most convincing answer is that in all of these cultures people were experiencing similar ecstatic states, and because the beliefs and practices were based on these experiences, those practices and beliefs were also similar.
The master shaman is a medicine man, a soul doctor, who has acquired a great deal of knowledge and information about ancient techniques of healing a variety of physical, psychological and spiritual problems. Through their long apprenticeship, the shaman learns a number of healing techniques that they use in helping members of his community. Although there are a number of different types of practitioners, a person is generally not recognized as a shaman unless he or she engages in the shamanic journey or soul flight.
The Shamanic Journey
During a shamanic journey, the shaman enters into an altered state of consciousness and wills himself to have an OBE. While out-of-body, the shaman travels to one of three different realms for a specific purpose. During the journey, the shaman will do one of three basic things: either he will contact one of his helping spirits to gather useful information for his client, he will find a missing aspect of the patient's spirit and encourage it to return with him, or he will extract or take out a spiritual intrusion that has penetrated the patient and is causing disease or discomfort.
Through repeated journeys, the shaman becomes familiar with both the geography and the inhabitants of these different realms. While doing so, he enlists the aid of helping spirits, often in the form of animals, who assist the shaman in learning the various methods of curing illnesses.
Shamanic cosmology describes three different but interpenetrating realms of existence usually referred to as the lower world, the middle world and the upper world. Shamans believe that these worlds are populated by spirits that are accessible to people at death or in an altered state of consciousness. By actively entering into the world of spirits and interacting with them, the shaman enlists their aid and instruction in how to help care for the lives of the people who come to them for help. The shaman’s interaction with these spirits constitutes on ongoing relationship with them. From the shamanic perspective all things are thought to be endowed with spirit: animals, plants, even minerals possess a spiritual essence and it is the shaman who has the ability to communicate directly with these spiritual entities.
Shamanic View of Illness
In the shaman's view, many illnesses are the result of being literally dis-spirited; that is, either the person's spirit has left their body and not returned, or the individual has lost the aid of one of their helping spirits. In either case, the shaman will undertake a shamanic journey in order to find and bring back the missing spirit. If the shaman is successful in doing this, the patient should then be relieved of their symptoms and restored to health.
The shaman is also a psychopomp, a conductor of souls between this world and the world of the dead. Shamans believe that people who have recently died, especially under sudden circumstances, are often confused and disoriented in the afterlife. The shaman enters the ecstatic state, travels into nonordinary reality, finds the wandering soul and helps direct it to where it can find help.
The shaman is also a see-er; that is, one who engages in divination to see into the future in order to help those in his community. This is often done with the help of a quartz crystal. The shaman will stare into the quartz while focusing his intention on a particular question and "see" the answer within the rock.
Dreams also play a major part in shamanism. The shaman believes that there are two different types of dreams: ordinary dreams and nonordinary dreams which are also known as "big dreams.” Harner describes a big dream as a "dream that is so vivid that it is like being awake, an unusually powerful dream.” 10 (italics added). This comes very close to the definition of a lucid dream. Transpersonal psychiatrist, Roger Walsh has also commented on the connection between shamanic journeys and lucid dreaming: “Perhaps the closest experience to shamanic journeys that most of us have had is lucid dreaming. These are dreams in which we know that we are dreaming. Here too there is partial control of the state and experience. Strange worlds and scenes seem to arise spontaneously, but we are usually able to control our responses to them and, if we wish, to awaken from the dream at any time. The shaman's control during journeys is similar, and lucid dreams may well have provided inspiration for early shamanic journeys.” 11
Harner comments on this altered, heightened consciousness which he refers to as shamanic state consciousness (SSC): “In the SSC, the shaman typically experiences an ineffable joy in what he sees, an awe of the beautiful and mysterious worlds that open before him. His experiences are like dreams, but waking ones that feel real and in which he can control his actions and direct his adventures. While in the SSC, he is often amazed by the reality of that which is presented.” 12
Shamanism is, then, basically an applied therapeutic methodology. It is, however, a methodology based on a different, expanded view of reality and dependent upon the practitioner's ability to enter into this altered state of consciousness and successfully execute his or her task. And one thing is clear: people who have had a deep NDE, or have learned to repeatedly enter into other ecstatic experiences, are excellent candidates for further training in shamanism. While many people who seek out shamanic training undergo difficult, even dangerous initiations, in the case of the NDEr, the worst has already happened! The NDEr has died, been to the other side and returned. And they often return expressing a deep desire to enter into the helping professions. What better way to express this than by building on their experience and training to become a shaman, training now is available in the Western world.
Western Shamanism and the Work of Michael Harner
Michael Harner is an anthropologist by training who, since the death of Mircea Eliade, is considered the leading authority in the world on shamanism. Harner is more than an armchair authority on the subject, having himself been initiated into shamanism while conducting field work among the Conibo Indians in the Upper Amazon.
It is interesting to note how Harner himself was initiated into the world of shamanism. While living among the Conibo, Harner's ethnographic fieldwork was progressing well. However, he found the Conibo reluctant to discuss their religious beliefs. After repeatedly questioning them about their spiritual views, he was told that in order to learn about their religion he would have to experience it first hand by taking ayahuasca, a powerful psychoactive substance used in their religious ceremonies.
Harner agreed to undergo the initiation and the ceremony started late in the afternoon. As the drug began to take affect, Harner had a number of visions, one of which was of a large vessel with a dragon-head prow filled with figures which looked like ancient Egyptian depictions of birdmen. Harner wrote that at that moment, "Although I believed myself to be an atheist, I was completely certain that I was dying and that the birdmen had come to take my soul away on the boat." Later in the experience he relates that:
"Now I was virtually certain I was about to die. As I tried to accept my fate, an even lower portion of my brain began to transmit more visions and information. I was 'told' that this new material was being presented to me because I was dying and therefore 'safe' to receive these revelations. These were secrets reserved for the dying and the dead, I was informed." 13
Again we find the overlap between the ecstatic experience and the theme of death, Harner's being a psychedelically induced ego death, rather than a physical death. Since his first initiation, Harner has worked in other shamanic traditions and discovered that, although powerful psychoactive substances are used in some cultures, most do not use these substances. Many Westerners can easily learn to journey by using sustained drumming, rattling, singing and dancing in order to gain access to the shamanic realm.
Harner has been very instrumental in making shamanic techniques widely available to Westerners. Through his workshops he has exposed thousands of Westerners to these ancient techniques. He reports that over 90 percent of his students have some success with shamanic techniques even after brief exposure. Many people report their journey experiences are very real in nature and easily distinguishable from fantasy or imagination. And although some people have more innate talent, Harner maintains that anyone can learn to enter into the shamanic realm with practice.
Harner teaches what he refers to as core shamanism, which is his own distillation of the basic techniques practiced by shamans the world over. He differentiates between what he refers to as Ordinary State Consciousness (OSC) and Shamanic State Consciousness (SSC). While OSC is the consensual reality that most of us share, the shaman is also able to enter into SSC which puts him or her in touch with the shamanic realm.
Soul Loss, Soul Retrieval
Sandra Ingerman is one of Harner's closest colleagues, and an accomplished shaman in her own right. And Ingerman is not only a shaman; she is also an NDEr. Below she discusses her own NDE and how it impacted the development of her shamanic skills:
"Traditionally shamans have been people who have had a near-death experience, life threatening illness, or a psychotic break. In my case, I almost drowned, and this near-death experience showed me the way to the other side. Many survivors of near-death experiences report going to a great blinding light that pulsates only love. In my own near-death experience in 1971, I too, was received by the light. For me, this light represented the Father and Mother God. I started thinking about God's being pure light. The Bible says that God created man in his own image. What that means to me, then, is that we are really balls of light. I started to experience myself as being light surrounded by matter, the body. We are a body; we have a mind; and we have this beautiful light that shines in us that is Spirit, which connects us to the divine." 14
Author of the books Soul Retrieval 15 and Welcome Home, 16 Ingerman discusses her work as a modern shaman helping those who suffer from soul loss. Soul loss in our culture is often the result of traumatic events such as incest, abuse, loss of a loved one, surgery, accident, illness, miscarriage, abortion, the stress of combat, addiction, verbal abuse, or divorce. Although the accepted treatment for most of these disorders is psychotherapy, Ingerman points out that from a shamanic perspective, psychotherapy cannot be effective if the aspect of the personality we are addressing is not present.
In retrieving a soul, the shaman's task is to enter into nonordinary reality and first locate the soul. Once the soul has been located, the shaman must then convince it to return to ordinary reality and reintegrate with the individual involved.
Ingerman discusses the case of a man named David who came to her for a shamanic healing. He was in a very poor physical condition at the time, with Epstein-Barr virus as well as a number of other infections. He mentioned that just prior to his becoming sick, his girlfriend, whose name was Suzanne, had committed suicide. This alerted Ingerman to the possibility that this might be a case of not just soul loss, but soul stealing. The following is also an excellent example of psychopompic work, during which the shaman helps the deceased soul become better situated in the afterlife. As Ingerman enters into the shamanic trance using sustained drumming:
"I repeat my intention to focus myself. As I walk, I come to a tree where I see David tied by a rope around the trunk. He looks very forlorn and spiritually beaten. His head hangs down, and his soul shows no vitality. I don't like what I see, and I feel sensations of deep anger in my solar plexus. I yell out in nonordinary reality for my power animal to come and help me. No sooner do I call than he appears. He is just in time! Suddenly a woman jumps out from behind the tree where she is hiding and lunges at me with her imposing nails aimed at my face. My power animal steps in front of me, creating a force field around us that she can't break through. She repeatedly lunges at the field in anger but keeps being thrown backward into the leaves. Finally, when she is exhausted, we carefully let the field down and walk close to her. She bursts into tears and begins sobbing. She is Suzanne." 17
Ingerman asks the woman whether she knows that she is dead, and she answers yes. Ingerman tells Suzanne that she can help her move to a more comfortable place, but in order to do so, she will have to agree to release David's soul. She refuses. Ingerman then turns to her power animal for help and is told to keep the conversation going:
"David is dying back in ordinary reality, because you are keeping his soul captive. 'That's good, she replies. 'I want him to die, so he can keep me company here. I want him to stay with me forever.'" 18
Although the shaman is able to intervene, she is not able to impose her will on others. Ingerman now has to convince the woman to release the soul:
"I reach into my pocket and pull out a quartz crystal and hand it to her. She loves the sparkling light, which starts to whirl around and through her. She obviously is soaking it up. 'I can take you to a place where the light shines all the time and will take care of you.' She asks, 'How do I get there?' 'Give me back David's soul, and I'll take you there.' Suzanne looks at the crystal and then at David and then at me. Seconds go by that seem like hours, and finally she agrees to release David. I untie David from the tree. He slides to the ground, lying still; his breathing is shallow. I leave him there in the care of my power animal. I put my arm around Suzanne's and we float upward. We continue to move up and out of this place and travel through space, surrounded by planets and stars. Suddenly we come to a skin membrane, which we break through. Our pace quickens as we continue to rise, going through layer upon layer of clouds. In the distance there is a blinding light. I know I can go no further. 'Suzanne, go to the light.' At this point I push her up, watching her disappear into the all-encompassing golden rays." 19
After returning with the soul parts, the shaman will then blow them back into the client's body and seal in the parts by rattling around the person. In his case, David felt an immediate rush, his eyes brightened, and his physical condition gradually improved. Ingerman reports that he continues to enjoy good health to this day.
Shamanic Extractions
Often shamanic healings call for the extraction of some foreign object or element from the body. Shamanic practitioner Larry Peters 20 has written about an extraction he performed while in the country of Tuva, where he was traveling as part of an expedition for Michael Harner's Foundation for Shamanic Studies. One evening the exhibition members, who were all shamanic practitioners, were invited to a gathering. When they arrived, they were quickly ushered on to a stage where a man with a serious heart condition had been brought. The man was so ill that he had come directly from his hospital bed to be seen by the visiting shamans. As the group stood in a circle around the man, Peters describes his experience:
"Our group began drumming quickly, each singing our own spirit song softly. After possibly ten to fifteen minutes of intense drumming, Gajandra (his teacher) appeared to me in a vision. He came out of the sky as a thunderbolt that struck my heart. I found it difficult to breathe. My body began to shake, first my belly, then the rest of my body. The rattle in my hand moved with nervous energy. I wanted to shout "Stop!" But I was overwhelmed and couldn't stop. My whole body was shaking. Gajandra had penetrated into my being, into my body. In the vision, I heard Gajandra say, 'Get up, get up, get up.'" Tears flowed from my eyes, as I saw in the vision a golden nugget emanating light, first in the sky above. Then I was standing outside myself, observing myself, and the golden light was now encircling my head, now in my heart, now surrounding my body. I heard bells ringing on my feet, and I saw myself dancing. I was witnessing a person who looked like me. Was that me dancing? Then I looked down on the circle of drummers, and I watched myself dancing for a long time, circling the patient and the drummers." 19
This is an excellent description of the ecstatic nature of the shamanic experience. Ten to fifteen minutes into the drumming and singing, Peters has left his body and is witnessing the scene from above. When he returns to his body, he finds himself transformed:
"I'm not exactly sure how I returned to my body, but I became aware I was kneeling next to the patient, clawing at black poisonous spiders and other insects I saw crawling in his veins. I saw large wasps with huge stingers in his heart. I growled and hissed as I jumped at the insects. I thought to myself, 'I'm behaving like a tiger.' Suddenly I was an orange, black, and white tiger with large saber fangs--the tiger Gajandra had taught me to be, the tiger that bites and sucks flesh at healing ceremonies. I bit and sucked out the insects. I felt their sharpness inside my mouth, then spit them out. There were so many I thought I'd never get them all. I sucked the man's back. I bit and sucked his sides and rolled his body over. Saliva covered my face as I growled and bared my teeth. Picking up his shirt, I went straight for his heart.
At the time, I didn't know how long I had worked on the man. As I shape-shifted back into ordinary reality and fell back into my seat in the circle of drummers, I was exhausted. Sweat was pouring from me. I felt dazed and unbalanced. I remember feeling out of time, and I kept holding onto my colleagues for reassurance. The patient was visibly shaken. His hands and body continued to tremor as he was hurriedly escorted back to the hospital ambulance that brought him." 20
Although Peters was deeply concerned, he later learned that the man's condition had improved dramatically. In fact, when he visited with the man and his family a week later, he was vibrant, smiling and joking and embracing his wife. He sat tall and said he felt no pain. It was as if he were another person and he talked about going back to work. He had developed a passion for life, had changed diet and stopped drinking alcohol. 2
Active Dreaming
Another dramatic healing comes from the work of Robert Moss. Moss, the author of Conscious Dreaming 22 and Dreamgates, 23 described the experience of a woman named Wanda who was a natural healer and who had worked with Moss for several years. Over a period of twenty years Wanda had a recurring dream during which she was told that she would die at age forty-three. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at age forty-three. The cancer was thought to be spreading quickly and she underwent a modified radical mastectomy and chemotherapy. During and following the chemotherapy, she was having a very difficult time. Moss journeyed on her behalf:
"One night in a hypnogogic dream state, I journeyed to check on her. I found her in a night setting, near a cave that was also a temple. A circle of women were performing a ritual nearby, but Wanda was not part of it. She was frozen, paralyzed in terror of some shadowy, snakelike forms that menaced her on all sides. I grabbed two of the 'snakes' and wound them into the form of a caduceus. Instantly, the healing staff came brilliantly alight in my hand. It radiated intense golden light. I touched Wanda with it. She promptly vanished." 24
Wanda later told Moss that she had also had a dream that night, a dream in which he had 'flooded her with light.' Following the dream she also felt buoyant and released from the malaise of the past weeks. Apparently, this dream energized Wanda and prepared her for a dream that she had on the night before her forty-fourth birthday, a dream that Moss writes quite literally, gave her a new lease on life." Wanda dreamt:
"I am climbing to the top of a mountain where an awesome presence is waiting for me. I know that this powerful being sent the messenger who told me I had to leave Earth. It moves like waves of light. It conveys its wishes and emotions by thought. I am terrified, but I never back away. The entity reminds me that I agreed before I came to this planet that I would leave at forty-three. I acknowledge this is true. I am shown a contract with my signature on it. I argue that this contract should not be executed. I tell the entity that I didn't want to come here when I made the contract. But now I have people that I love and people I believe I can help to heal, because of my own experiences. I tell him, 'You must know this, because you allowed me to discover my illness through dreams before my time was spent.'
There is a time lapse. It seems like an eternity. Then I am presented with a new contract. I am given more time to help others." 25
Awakening from this dream, Wanda found herself trembling and crying with joy. Later, she told Moss that the dream was unlike any she had ever had before because she was both awake and asleep at the same time.
Shamanism and Mental Health
Shamanic techniques have also been applied with a great deal of success in mental health. Psychotherapist and shamanic pracitioner Myron Eshowsky was supervising an intern who brought to his attention the case of a woman who was being treated for chronic schizophrenia. The patient was hearing voices, had attempted suicide a number of times and had been repeatedly in and out of psychiatric hospitals. She had been tried on a number of medications, all without lasting benefit. Also pertinent to the woman's history was that she often reported hearing the voice of her son who had been killed tragically some years prior to her becoming ill. Eshowsky told the woman's therapist he was going to try an experiment and would inform her when he had completed it. The therapist was then to report back to him if she noticed any significant change in the woman's clinical status. Below Eschowsky describes his journey on the woman’s behalf:
"I journeyed to see if the young boy's soul had not yet left the Middle World. I found him in the house where he had lived, calling for his mommy. He was quite frightened and I spent much time calming him down. He told me many details of what had happened (details previously unknown to me, which I later was able to confirm). Then doing psychopomp work, I was able to help his soul leave the Middle World. The results were staggering. My student reported that her client, by all parties' reports, had stopped talking to or about her son. It was as if a cloud had been lifted from her and she had awakened. The suicide gestures stopped and over time she was able to live in a group home and work part-time in competitive employment. With counseling, she began to grieve the loss of her son." 27
For those of us involved in the treatment of the chronically mentally ill, this is nothing less than incredible. Chronic schizophrenics are assumed to be, and in most cases are, suffering from a brain disorder. The standard treatment for someone like the woman Eshowsky describes includes major tranquilizers, supportive psychotherapy and often requires psychiatric hospitalization when the patient's symptoms or behavior becomes unmanageable.
All of this is expensive, time consuming and, in reality, not very effective. For example, the major tranquilizers are medications which help relieve the symptoms, such as hearing voices, but do nothing to alleviate the real problem. And because they have unpleasant side effects, many patients refuse or discontinue using them. (In fact, an additional medication has to be taken to counteract the side effects of the primary medication.) Supportive psychotherapy is just that--it is designed to help the person deal with what is assumed to be a chronic illness, but does nothing to help overcome the illness itself, which is assumed to be incurable. I don't point this out to be critical of my own profession or others involved in mental health. For someone who has a degenerative brain disorder, this is simply the best treatment we have to offer at this time.
However, what has become increasingly clear is that a subset of those diagnosed as schizophrenic are not suffering from a brain disorder. Rather, they are going through a spiritual emergency, a crisis which is spiritual in nature but is often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia or another psychotic condition. The fact that this is actually the case is beginning to be acknowledged within the field of mental health as we are becoming more sophisticated in differentiating between true psychosis and spiritual emergency.
Looking at this case in retrospect, and including a shamanic perspective, an intellectually honest reappraisal suggests that this woman was not schizophrenic, but was actually hearing the voice of her dead son who was trapped in the Middle World and unable to move on. Because she was never provided with a shamanic intervention, prior to Eshowsky's involvement, she endured many years of suffering which would have been unnecessary if she had been provided with treatment at the level of her disorder--the spiritual level. I can't help but wonder how many people, like Eshowsky's patient, and patients I see every day, would benefit from shamanic interventions. If even ten percent of the chronically mentally ill-many of whom make up our homeless population--responded to shamanic interventions, we are talking about millions of people who can be helped.
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