As a relatively green and young shaman, i come to ask the more experienced here. Are symptoms, such as energy healing happening sparodically throughout the day, sometimes lasting milliseconds, other times hours, normal? Or perhaps visual distortions, or non-external auditory stimulation? I have been meditating upon my chakras and been getting more involved with energy work and shamanic studies for about 9 months now. I feel I was a shaman/light worker/whatever-you-call-it in a recent past life, and I am naturally drawn to it. it is amazing the progress I have made, but now I come to one of the final challenges. Letting go. Not just releasing, but full out, over-the-edge, take-the-plunge let go. Next time I get the chance, do I see how far the rabbit hole goes, and risk delving into becoming insane, literally, full-blown insane?? Do I keep a few fingers to pull myself back up, but possibly miss out on the most fulfilling experience of my life?
completely losing control is not something that happens in shamanism as far as i understand. the idea of shamanism isn't to be completely out of your mind insane, but rather, to be stable and to be able to communicate with energy and transfer that into something useful and workable. but i'm really not someone who has much background in studying this so i may be wrong. but just thinking about it, it does make more sense that whatever road you go down, it should be something that you can learn from and draw from- there's not much true meaning to random energy and senselessness.
You have to be able to be open, at least temporarily, to chaos, to the unknown. It's there that energy resides. It is on the other side of it that vision comes. It's a question of getting out of one's mind, quite literally. Outside the whole set of definitions etc which we place on the universe. It's only by letting go entirely the 'known' order that a new and spiritual one can arise. But we don't like letting go. We fear chaos. Often we fear energy too. So I think you need a certain kind of resiliance, impeccability even. If you try to go into chaos and still retain cherished beliefs,or if your energy is deployed in dubious areas, you may experience resistance because the mind is actually still putting up barriers to THAT which is seeking to gain control. THAT though, you may eventually find is about your best friend. Closer even than your best friend. Why do you fear insanity? What do you think you might see that would make you mad?
oh yeah i completely agree with you. i guess what i was saying, probably poorly, is what you said about needing resilience and also about this state possibly being temporary. it isn't just a case of madness=wisdom or chaos=enlightenment. despite the fact that it might be so far on the other side, it still needs to have something. that's just important to keep in mind.
You're right that it isn't a case of madness = wisdom. The aim is more to attain complete sanity! My experience makes me think that a lot of what leads to mental imbalance is mainly personal stuff. So really it's necessary to work through issues that come up, areas of personal darkness, past trauma, rigid or wrong beliefs, and so on. It's a process that takes time - years even I think. But as one makes gradual progress, one can become more and more clear. I guess this is part of what we call healing. Or psychic integration.
That's good to know. I've always felt a connection with the unknown, with chaos-magick, and the like. I do have personal issues, which I now understand it is best and probably necessary to work through before I attempt to progress further along this road.
While delving into shamanism, it would be very, very wise to have a teacher or mentor for the journey who is more experienced. They can help guide you on the path and help you to know how to step over the boundaries and still be able to come back. Shamanism is a very deep world, and it seems to me that it would be best to have a partner or a teacher to assist you in your growth!
Healing ecstasy To heal ecstasy is difficult and a paradoxical concept, and it is hard to do without ending all joy, but really what we are trying to do is balance the karmic aura around the concept of ekstasis and cleanse the spirit so that ecstasy which is natural, incredibly wholistic healthy and also a bit of a wild card, in honestly, so that ecstasy can be made whole and non harming, ecstasy is a JOURNEY OF THE SPIRIT through the trees and through the spiritual pathways which are more aptly described as veritable fields, huge non linear voids who energetic processes, where qualites and form are taking to their waxing. over time, we find the concepts and traditions around our lives, like the plants and the seasons wane and wax, through our understanding of them and their interaction of the group around them, and the way energy flows. we find the same words have subtley different meanings, or the same things have a different effect, as time unfolds. Only the things which are very deeply rooted, and immortal, though this is a childish exagerration probably, but NOT CERTAINLY! maybe its better to say only the things which are fully understand and rooted in the ones own being, remain indefinitely and are a constant source of wisdom, in regards to that which changes when reverting to the amorphous ground of being, which is an experience common to all creation everything changes, things are easier to mold but we should not try to mold but let them come across on their own which is why God is a dangerous concept the shamanic story of our lives, in tune with the society, and the universe, is constantly redeeming and being redeemed by, the surroundings and the whole, in which all things are possible and all things exist everywhere, but its a matter of our shamanism that we percieve what we do, our way of life, our spiritual path, our life path what could give the right perspective and true serendipity, even truth is a very abstract term unless encountered directly, and it usually is very obscured by the time it appears in this physical world, i believe through religion we have set ourselves back because this terms have obscured the truth, through appearing so obviously in the physical world, when in fact they are blatant corruptions, from a healing perspective though and from the stand point of faith, and magic, this is alright because constantly they are being healed, even at a fractal and microscopic level, ultimately the true nature always flows forth and is the reason as we see the way things are and do things, we encounter the gardeners, and the planters, and all that is the process of growth, we understand, while sacrificing social standing, we come to truths which are hidden from everywhere else, unfortunately, conception of the world changes and there is no longer a true ground on which to stand ecstasy is truly there, we look into the ancestral realm, where all the free spirit resides, and participate in that knowingly, shamanism is an incredibly freeing experience which is spoken on mostly by fools, it took me a long time to realize this, but it is so, when one knows, one finds the river, one is surrounded by false healing, a taoist inbalance, deep into the landscape and into the mind it goes, until one realizes this, religion have nothing to do with shamanism though it is a path to true knowledge and understanding, which is divine knowledge, for one who is a shaman, religion has no use though interspersed within religion, there are shamanic messages its just our religions are corrupted with so much foolishness at this point, no one knows truly what is religion and those who know don't talk about it, there is no trust, there is no true life to the precepts, the compassion, one love maybe in some very ethereal sense, but it lives here, right now throughout all things, it does not fit within language, but flows throughout, its not controllable it is in all of us, and all things it wanders in an unknowable mysterious way in all that which one does not think of does not expect but yeah it doesnt have to do with religion as its commonly understood or it wouldnt neccesarily be recognized as religoin or religious, even though the person might have a religion or not, it has more to do with just who you are When we shamanize, we put the little I aside and become the universe or we always were the universe, suddenly we realize it, and everything makes so much more sense, you know what to do try to keep in mind how many of these terms were passed down to me by other shamans in moments of teaching and i cant say i fully understand how they meant them but in my own experience they mean something and in yours they are bound to mean something, probably the idea is that a shaman just knows, a shaman is one who knows you come into this world knowing, and you realize you know all of it is shamanic and when we just say shamanism or shaman this is not actually anything but a small peice, like a key in something which ultimately cant be spoken, which is greater than all the parts and involves all things and experience, you could say shamanism is the journey to this and all possibility
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1FDTEXB6 - not something to be proud of http://www.yogamag.net/archives/1981/ajan81/amar.shtml
i used to feel and still feel my old band was pretty shamanic, my main hope is to one day shamanize well enough to be in a band like that again, in terms of feeling you can listen to it at www.myspace.com/littleflowermusic
interlude with herbal friends who spoke, from a vast and wild expanse of perfect freedom morning a blanket of eternal moments there is some virtue in those old trickster shamans yet! hypocrisy is no matter of survival we all go along I show the truth from deep in my heart! I don't care what others may think NONE SUFFER IN REALITY!!! NONE SHALL SUFFER IN REALITY!!!!
i regret having participated in this thread, i regret having come to this site if not for the post on repentance
Hi Spiritchalist----I know we used to communicate more---sorry I haven't been on in a long time. Here is a good book to read, and you might be able to find it in a used book store cheaper---I have found it twice in used bookstores and both times bought it as a gift: 'Shamanism. The archaic art of ecstacy.' I might have the second part off a little bit. It is by the famous anthropologist, Eliades, and it is a classic. Most of the book is based on Siberian shamanism (which is where the word 'shaman' comes from), but he compares it with other indigenous spritualities around the world, in regards to the medicine person who performs the same function as the shaman in Siberia. He discusses the initiation aspect considerably. Will you go crazy? Typically the shaman, through his/her initiation goes through a death/rebirth experience. Coming out of this experience makes the shaman very mentally fit. This is an issue that troubles some psychologists, and leaves others mortified, and others simply don't believe in what happens. In many cases the shaman experiences a mental breakdown of sorts prior to the death/rebirth experience---this the part that puzzles psychologists. For the shaman, is mentally ill, and then comes out of the experience, according to Western science, self-healed. But how did he heal himself? A shaman would respond that he did not heal himself, He was killed and reborn by spirit and that healed him. In other cultures, and sometimes the same cultures, shamans experience epilepsy as their spirit-calling, which is healed through this same death-rebirth experience. In other cultures (and again, sometimes the same culture), this life-death experience is physical. For example, someone who survived a lightning strike. Or someone who became very ill and experienced a Near Death Experience, and met with spirit in the process. A Lakota who is to become a medicine may be called by spirit to be buried alive, during hanblechiya (Vision Quest). I was told that spirit does not guarantee that you will survive this---but that you go through a death rebirth experience. The only way to survive this is to actually be called by spirit to do it. It is one of the final steps in becoming a medicine man, if that is what spirit decides you must do (And of course there are different levels of medicine people, and they are required to go through different experiences, or individually they may be required to do different things by spirit based on their level of ability). There are people who were not meant to do this, but they tell people that spirit called them to do this for egotistical reasons---spirit takes them away (i.e. they do not survive the experience). If you would like to see the type of spirit calling that the Lakota go through, read Black Elk Speaks. He talks about visions he had as a child and later in life, and experiences related to them. It seemed to him like he was going crazy. His son had them, and his great grandson has similar experiences today. Black Elk did not always have the proper people to work with him, during his time the medicine men were persecuted and thrown in asylums, or forcefully converted to CHristianity. His son had medicine people to work with, as does his great grandson. (Speaking of books, if you read Castaneda looking for spirit calling info and so forth, don't put too much credence into the books---Don Juan was his own creation). My wife's family came from healers. She is a Filipina, and I spent five years in the Philippines with her. The Spanish destroyed all of those traditions. But her family feels that they have inherited 'abilities' from their great grandparents. I have one brother-in-law who had a mental breakdown when he was young. He is still mentally ill today as Western medicine was unable to heal him. I have a stepdaughter who also had a mental breakdown at a very young age, Doctors told us that it would be very hard for her to be cured, and take many years, and possibly even institutionalization----she was in a semi-catatonic state. I suggested we find a healer who used the pre-Spanish methods. We did and he said that she was too young and did not understand what she was being asked to do (by her recently deceased biological father). He cured her within less than a minute. This does not mean that you need to be mentally ill to become a shaman. In fact, the Siberian methods, which are being taught in the West, tend to give anyone a ticket into the spirit journey. And there are all kinds of people that are using shamanic techniques to heal. Modern objective rationalism, and Christianity and other organized religions, have destroyed modern man's connection to spirit. Perhaps these things are coming about to reconnect mankind to spirit despite the lack of cultural context. It would be best to have a teacher. But ultimately the death/rebirth experience has to be experienced within your own psyche. It is a healing experience. If you have a spirit guide or spirit animal, you need to trust it, and ask it to keep you safe, and not allow any harm to come upon you. But a typical death/rebirth experience often involves your spirit animal ripping you to shreds, and then reconstructing you from the cleanly picked bones. There are plenty of other motifs too, but that is a common one. If you were to develop problems, I would seek out a medicine man or other shamanic healer to help you with it.
I'd second that - it's an excellent book, probably one of the best around on the general topic of shamanism.
