SHAMANISM

Introduction

Shamanism is the root of all magickal practices especially among the Indian and Eskimo peoples. Shamanism relies on trance states to achieve it's effects and at it's beginings the shaman used drugs like peyote and magic mushroom to achieve the neccesary trance states. In some places this practice was outlawed and alternatives had to be found. One of the most effective was the practice of drumming. A drummer would hold a regular pulse of about 210 beats per minute, the shaman would switch off his mind to everything but the sound of the drum, and use this as a vehicle to travel to higher or lower planes.

If the shaman imagined himself as travelling downwards, sometimes through a tree or cave with steps leading down, he would visit the lower realms and make use of power objects or power animals. The point being that he may find or 'discover' an object of significance. He would then try to find or re-create this object in his real life and this would then become an object of power, for him. A power animal would give the shaman specific powers relating to the nature of the animal.

If the shaman saw himself as travelling upwards, he would visit with, what could best be described as, his higher-self or higher-spirit. He would then recieve instructions on the best way to proceed with his life or a certain pressing situation.

The training of a true shaman, in the traditional sense, is not to be taken lightly. The shaman initiation involved a journey to the spirit realm where he would be met. His body would then be torn apart in the most gruesome fashion and then put back together. Certain things would be added to his body such as a quartz crystal at the place of the third eye (pinneal gland) allowing him calirvoyant abilities. This journey to the spirit realm is nothing like the journeys undertaken today by those practitioners in the West. They were 'real' tangible journeys with a reality and dimension of their own.

Although there has been some revival in the practice of shamanism, true Shamanism was more like Nagualism or the Zos Kia Cultus than it's modern day equivalent.

Compare shamanism with modern day occultism. The occultist will take the greatest pains to protect himself from the external influences that he hopes to direct. The shaman, on the other hand, will throw himself at their mercy and hope that he survives. His is the more heroic of the two and the practice of shamanism can result in failure in the most spectaculour fashion.