Ep.42/ Shamanism, Hallucinogens & Non Ordinary Reality
Shamanism is one of the most ancient practices for self knowledge, transformation and healing. The power and wisdom of non-ordinary reality are available to all of us through the simple spiritual practice of the Shamanic journey.
Many find it helpful to journey with ayahuasca, peyote or other hallucinogenics. Renee talks about core Shamanism, cultural appropriation and shares her own bumpy path to becoming a Shamanista. You will find a guided introduction to the Shamanic journey below.
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Shamanism is one of the most ancient systems for self-understanding, healing, and spiritual exploration. Shamanism is practiced in almost every continent across the globe and if you follow back along ancestral lines, most cultures have some shamanic practice in them. In the most traditional shamanic systems, the shaman was a healer or wise person who served the community in a range of ways as a spiritual advisor and intercessor as a medical doctor or healer and often is the village psychologist, depending of course on the skill set in the personality of the shaman.
From a modern perspective and certainly in my work in spiritual psikology, Shamanism is a tool and a very effective and powerful tool for a personal growth transformation, inner wisdom, and guidance. And one of the primary tools in the shamanic toolbox is the shamanic journey. And the shamanic journey is a method easily learned by anyone which provides tremendous insight and information, transformation, and healing.
The shamanic journey provides direct access to higher consciousness, whether you understand that is something within yourself or something external and could I suppose be seen as a form of channeling. I was asked recently if I had always had an easy relationship with shamanism, and the answer is a resounding fuck no.
I come from New England and even the word shamanism sounded way too woo woo for me but I do consider myself intensely practical. It was only by experiencing the benefits of shamanic practice that I became a fan. Talk is cheap show me the money, and shamanism delivers.
So, in shamanic journey work, you listen to some kind of a rhythm usually a drum although can be a rattle or a didgeridoo or there is lots of different ways to create rhythm. The rhythm is fairly particular generally between 4 to 7 Hertz if you are a music nerd and what the rhythm does is it helps create an Alpha state and when you listen to this consistent rhythmic drumming in a relaxed state with your eyes closed like a meditation, it creates Theta waves or a Theta state which alters your consciousness. So, the drum is actually a tool to help you enter an altered state and generally in shamanism there are some pretty specific instructions about what to do depending on where you want to go or the kind of information you are trying to receive. The drumming has a beginning and ending, and the basic idea of the shamanic journey is to leave ordinary reality or ordinary consciousness to move into altered consciousness higher consciousness or non-ordinary reality to interact in that transpersonal realm and then to return and bring back what you learned or received or to come back transformed from the healing or transmission that you received in non-ordinary reality.
So, there is a lot of talk these days about cultural appropriation and I have spent some time with native people in Alaska and in Utah. I certainly hold my share of collective guilt as a white person for the devastation that colonialism has wreaked upon native people, but I have to say, the two native spiritual teachers that I have had intimate relationships with are both incredibly generous with their practice and were actually excited about the work that I am doing, I do not know about other people. That said, I don't call myself a shaman for two reasons. First, out of respect for a very traditional path of training in initiation that is long and arduous and second because a traditional shaman operates differently than I do. A traditional shaman operates very much, from my perspective, like a priest or a medical doctor. A traditional shaman is an intercessor between the person that seeking help and the spirit world. In the way that I practiced shamanism, we can all be shamans. We all have access to this information, and I am interested in teaching people how to have direct connection without anyone in between. That is why my new community is called open door rather than pay me an entry fee because we all have access to this information if we are willing to do the work and put in the time to get there.
So, in traditional shamanism, the shaman actually receives the information or the empowerment from their guides and teachers and then they transmit it to the client or the patient. And often the person receiving the healing does not even know what is happening or need to understand on a deeper level, just like a medical doctor can do surgery on you or give you drugs, and you do not have to understand what those things are about to receive the benefit from them. In the way that I was trained at the foundation of the sacred stream, calls people to their own self responsibility. And the purpose of my practice in spiritual psychology is to actually elevate people's consciousness by taking this self-responsibility for their own healing and giving them the tools to access the power for that healing directly which is what I love about the shamanic journey because it gives you direct access. And the journey itself is an initiation, no pre-requisites required because the spiritual reality is available to all of us not just the shaman.
So, I tend to use the words shamanic healer. I was introduced to the term shamanista from the shaman Dome camp at Burning Man. Burning man is this amazing 10-day event that happens every year in the desert when we are not having a pandemic. And the shamanista is a spiritual practitioner, a body work or a medium who honors all spiritual traditions and helps people heal themselves by putting them in touch with the spirits that are already within them.
So, I was trained in what has been called core shamanism. Out of a tradition created by a man named Michael Harner who founded the foundation for shamanic studies. And Harner was an anthropologist and an archaeologist and in the 40s he came in contact with native people in South America. And basically, through intellectual curiosity, he got Introduced to their shamanic practice through the use of ayahuasca and he had such a profound experience that even the native people said to him “you could be a great shaman, we've never seen anyone have such a powerful first experience”. And so, he started to study shamanism in different cultures throughout the world and what he saw was a similarity in practice, that the methods that were being used in these really varied places in Russia and Mongolia, in South America had a lot in common. Again, usually the use of a drummer or a rattle and often the use of hallucinogenic drugs to create an altered state by which people could have powerful transformative transpersonal experiences. Like me, Harner came in a skeptic and became a convert because of the powerful experiences that he had because of this very simple practice of the shamanic journey.
Although Michael Harner has passed away, the foundation of shamanic studies is still incredibly active and if you are interested, I will leave a link to their website. There were wealth of classes and information and training in core shamanism.
And core shamanism is this essence of the method of shamanic practice minus the cultural trappings and each culture has their own color, flavor, texture, rituals, language, mythology around their particular shamanic practice. In fact, the word shamanism itself comes from the Russian tradition of shamans and core shamanism just uses that basic practice that I believe is accessible to all humans, to connect with the transpersonal and spiritual realms that have only our highest good in mind. Which is why I do not consider the way that I practice shamanism, cultural appropriation although I certainly have nothing but respect and gratitude for those who have gone before, and it is part of the reason that I do not call myself a shaman.
Ep.42/
Shamanism, Hallucinogens & Non Ordinary Reality
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