The art of the Shaman Options

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/7.gif) Alright I've decided I'd start down the path of a shaman, and I'm not quite sure where to begin. Any other shamans willing to point me in the right direction? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/banana.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Greetings!

The following is a posting I made on another forum which outlines the very basic concepts of shamanism. It is by no means a complete explanation, but it will give you a rough insight into the principles:-

"Origins of the word SHAMAN are from the Siberian Tungus word 'Saman' which means exalted or excited.

By definition it refers to a person who uses specialised ecstatic techniques to meditate between the human world and the realm of the universe known in popular circles as the realm of spirits - daemon or god.

Before the establishment of priesthoods, the role of the Shaman was that of priest-healer-magician-diviner-seer. Basically, a vitally important character in tribal society.

Because they touch a common note in all of human experience, the salient features of Siberian Shamanism are paralleled in all human societies. Shamanism involves the ritual separation from the everyday world, and the acquistion of the ability to see through and beyond the normal human boundaries of time and space. This separation is usually attained by an initiatory journey to an isolated sacred place, a place of power where the the boundaries between the realms of the mundane and the transcendental are weak (my place was Glastonbury Tor) ...

At his or her intitiation conducted at the appropriate place and time, the new shaman was said to be adopted by a spirit - usually in animal form - through whose agency the magic, divination and healing would be accomplished (mine was a scrawny Magpie).

The nature of the spirit is interpreted and it becomes clear that the Shaman has access to knowledge and powers concealed within the inner parts of nature and direct access to the living one which is the universe.

Traditionally, when initiated, The Master would then give the New Shaman the clothing and paraphernalia of his craft - a drum, staff and other magical objects. Then the Master Shaman would reveal to the initiate the locations and the character of the different classes of spirits, along with the methods of befriending and outwitting them.

In different cultures, the Shaman's inititiation has taken different forms. Some have even involved the dangerous practice of self torture.

Spontaneous Shamanry has always been highly important too and it remains today in modern cultures where shamanism has been dismissed as worthless heathernism. However, shamanism is inherent in the human constitution and is present in every generation

Once chosen, by whatever means, the Shaman undertakes Journey's Of The Seer in order to make direct contact with the transcendental power which underly existence ... and through these journeys both on the physical plane and on the astral plane, the Shaman is brought into contact with the deep ecology of this world and that of other worlds too ... becoming at one with the one.

Inner and outer experiences will merge to transcend both and it is by these means that the Shaman re-integrates his/her experience with that of the animals, whose unseparated experience of the world is ever present.

When in any self-induced state of bodily or pyschic extreme, a shaman can often communicate with the inhabitants of the non-material world and it is from this dangerous terrain that the shaman can gain knowledge which is valuable to himself or herself and the human race in general.

Through specially self-developed techniques, shamans re-intergrate themselves into the natural world in a manner not possible through intellectual thought alone.

One of the more important of all bridging tools available to the shaman is the Runes. The runes offer a means of transcending the gap between the human world and the otherworlds ... since the runes are also shamanic in nature ... having been gained by the Nordic god Woden who underwent a form of shamanic self-sacrifice.

Woden was hung for nine days and nine nights upon a tree after which he fell screaming, from it with a full understanding of the wisdom of the runes ..."