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First, some general terms boys and girls:
Sahā World, basically means the world we live in now, like it or not.
Secondly, the term “shaman” means a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits, especially among some peoples of northern Asia and North America. Typically such people enter a trance state during a ritual, and practice divination and healing.
The universe is multi-layered, with both a celestial overworld and a chthonic underworld, with appropriate spirit rulers and other denizens. Another central feature of the shaman’s world is that humanity, animals, and all other life is equal - the shaman is at one with nature. Such equality may be expressed for example, in terms of rituals to appease the souls of dead animals. The precise arrangement of the skulls of animals so that they face east (the place of rebirth) is found in many cultures. Both Finnish and American Plains Indians for example, perform such rites. A related concept is that of metamorphosis, being the belief that humans and animals are capable of assuming each others shape. In many genesis-stories, this ability was had by all, but it was lost, usually through taboo violation, and became the sole province of the shamanka. In South America, the most common doppleganger to the shaman is the Jaguar, so much so that the words for Jaguar and shaman are interchangeable.
The idea of a gateway between the worlds is also central to the shamanic vision. This is the entrance to otherworlds, where dwell ancestral spirits and demons (demons are not always evil, in the West, we sometimes call them angels).
The Origins of Shamanism
The roots of shamanism are lost in antiquity. However we do know, that given the similarities between shamanistic practices in the modern world, that the fundamental elements of shamanism had been established as the first Paleo-Americans began to move across the Bering land bridge which connected Siberia to Alaska. This bridge disappeared about 12,000 years ago, as the Artic glaciers melted.
Another source of the origins of shamanic practice lies in the study of psychotropic plants. The late, ethnobiologist R.G. Wasson, proposed that all major world religions grew from psychotropic experiences, and most shamanic cultures have some form of psychotropic plant associated with them. Siberian shamans make use of Amanita Muscaria, which has been tentatively identified as the divine Soma of the Rig-Vedas. There are at least 80 different types of psychotropic plants that were, and continue to be used in North and South America such as the now infamous Ayahuasca, and American Indian shamans have made extensive use of both the red Mescal bean and peyote. An American researcher, R.K. Seigal, has also demonstrated a link between the psychotropic-induced visions of shamans and tribal pottery and weaving designs.
Of course drugs are not the only means of inducing ecstasy, and many shamanic techniques revolve around drumming, dancing, singing, fasting, sleeplessness, and physical feats of endurance. For Nichiren Buddhist, such as the author of this post, we simply chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to reach the interconnection of Shaman pathway; i.e., the "Mystic Law."
Shamanic Traditions
The shaman, as the sole mediator between humanity and the universe of spirits and omens, originated in the very early stages of human cultural development. The hunter-gatherer stage of society endured for hundreds of thousands of years. As societies began to move towards settled agriculture (this being only about 10,000 years ago) then the shamans began to differentiate into a developing priesthood.
The hunter-gatherer society is a closely-knit culture, geared towards the least possible change both within and across generations. This is a stark contrast to modern society, where the pace of social change is seemingly outstripping our capacity to assimilate it. As Alvin Toffler put it, many of us are suffering from future shock. This naturally poses a problem for anyone seeking to emulate the shaman in our society. All lines of tradition have been broken, and in the West, we now have the ability to enter any world-view at will and imprint its symbolism on our minds. If you work at it long enough, then the deeper regions of the mind will ‘speak’ to you in terms of a particular set of symbols.
There is a wide range of belief systems which we can adopt with varying degrees of success, and the criteria seems to be that you adopt something that fires your imagination to greater heights. Our idea of spiritual progress has become synonymous with the idea that as we change ourselves, we change our society as a whole. This idea is a direct antithesis to that of the hunter-gatherer, where any changes which threaten the continuity of tradition are viewed with great suspicion.
The Value of Shamanism
Having said that, we cannot dismiss shamanism as having no relevance to modern society. Obviously it does, but this very much depends how you approach it. In an age where most information is transmitted via digital electronics, the value of adopting shamanic techniques lies in recovering knowledge from within, and also in relating with other people. Ecstasy can be freed from the purely private domain and returned to the communal. Also, in trying to regain the spirit of our collective past, we can regain a sense of community with our ancestors, using techniques which carry us back to our forebears on the savannah plains of Africa. This can endow us with a sense of community that surpasses all cultural differences. In learning to see the world as shamans, we reconnect with ourselves, and can adapt much easier to the world around us.
BASIC EXERCISES
At the outset, we should acknowledge that shamanic techniques have a certain glamour about them. Many people aspire to use shamanic-style practices and approaches to their own evolution. Two things should be stressed; it’s very hard work and, unless you have no other commitments at all, it will take you far longer than you think. The exercises I am about to share with you are the ones I have have found most useful for those taking their first steps into Shamanism.
SIGHT EXERCISES
Our sense of vision tends to be the major route by which we perceive what is going on around us. We are continually bombarded to a vast array of visual images from our environment, and even when we close our eyes, can visualise a world just as rich in detail and events. We rely on sight so much that as soon as we lose this sense, our others are automatically magnified.
The first point to stress about sight is that there is much around us that we don’t notice. Try out the following exercises:
Walking a Route
This involves taking a route that you are used to walking, so much so that you don’t tend to notice the details of things along the route. This time, try to be intensely aware of all the details of things around you, and later, write down everything that you noticed.
A group variant on this exercise is to move a group of people from one area to another, and ask them to note down everything they noticed about the intervening space.
This consists of placing several objects on a tray, looking at them for a minute or so, and then covering them with a cloth. see how many objects you can recall in 30 seconds. Try this with both familiar and unfamiliar objects.
Take a day (or even a week) and pick a colour. Try to be aware of how that colour appears in your surroundings, and how, if at all, it affects your moods, thoughts and perhaps, those of people around you.
Exercises such as these bring home the realization that, very often, we are lazy when it comes to really seeing what goes on around us. We tend to tune out more information than we actually allow ourselves to notice, and we often don’t notice subtle changes in our environment. yet it is these subtle clues which are often most important in our magical development.
The aim of this exercise is to stimulate the ability to visualize. Imagine sounds, smells, tastes and even touch as though they were colors, and try and let these colors flood the field of your inner eye.
Animal/Plant/Color
It can be interesting (and fun) to discover new ways of looking at other people. A group exercise that we tried out during the Shamanic Development Course was for everyone in the group to study each other for a few minutes, and to assign each person an animal, plant and color which they felt was appropriate to that person. Each person then read out their list in turn. Occasionally, people’s attributions were remarkably similar for the same person. It’s possible to use this exercise as the basis of a discussion on how people’s attributions relate to the four cardinal elements and other symbolic associations.
From looking at other people we pick up a vast range of signals and clues, many of which are ‘colored’ by our own habits, beliefs and attitudes. A way to highlight this is to sit in a public place and watch people passing by. Look at someone for a few seconds, and then see if you can make up a story about what you imagine their lives to be like, based on your first glimpse of them. You may be surprised to find how much detail you can infer about someone from only a quick glance. Paying attention to others, and being able to cast aside your own attitudes is an important skill to develop if you are interested in any way of working with others.
There is an old story about a young man who read a book about the auras of trees and their different colors. He spent a great deal of time trying to concentrate on seeing the auras of trees; alas, with little success. One day, he considered a Rowan tree, and wondered what the aura would look like, if only he could see it. He thought that it would be a kind of golden, russet-brown, with yellowish edges and....and suddenly realized that he was seeing the tree’s aura. he also realized that seeing auras was not so much about seeing something physical, more a case of opening your mind to impressions. As sight is our dominant sense, we tend to interpret these impressions in terms of visual images such as colors, but there is no reason why we cannot use other senses as well. It’s also worth remembering that very often, we see what we expect to see, not what is actually there.
SOUND EXERCISES
We are continually bombarded by sounds from all directions, from the ceaseless flow of industrial and electronic noise, to the slow thump of our heartbeats and the rush of blood through our veins. We tend to spend more time deliberately not listening, screening information out, than we do actually paying attention to what is going on. Our brains learn to distinguish between noises that are ‘significant’ and those which do not threaten us. There are plenty of reports for example, of soldiers who could sleep through an artillery barrage, but be wakened up by the sound of someone sliding back a rifle bolt a few feet away.
Active Listening
Try sitting in a room which has a steady, repetitive noise in the background, such as a clock ticking. If you are occupied with something else, you will eventually find that the noise slips below the level of your awareness. It can be interesting to try this exercise on a daily basis, until you can maintain awareness of background noise, without losing awareness of it, or for that matter, fiercely concentrating upon it. Listening is very important when we come to dealing with other people. Very often we give the appearance of listening to others, but in actuality we are only waiting for them to finish so we can get on with what we want to say next; catching yourself doing this can be a valuable lesson.
Humming Meditation
This is a group exercise which begins with everyone sitting in a circle, eyes closed. Each member of the group begins to hum, and there is no rhythm to be kept to; each person can hum at their own pitch, and rest when they like. It should be done for at least 15 minutes, and then the results discussed. (This can also be achieved by chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in a group.This is not a "Shamanic" thing, but if "humming" sounds silly, go visit the nearest Soka Gakkai center and give chanting a try. You can thank me later).
Sound Concentration
The simple repetition of a word or phrase is one of the simplest and most effective ways of entering a state of one-pointedness. All that you have to do is sit in a comfortable position and repeat, verbally then silently, a word or phrase that you have chosen. After a while you will lose awareness of doing so, and it can seem that it is no longer you that repeats the sound, but that it repeats itself through you.
Feeling Music
One way of enhancing our ability to listen is to use music, either in a group or solo setting. A very simple exercise is to any relaxation technique and then listen to music. The idea is to try and feel the music across your body, and see if any images, or even smells, well up in your mind. Of course, this should be classical music or some other soothing music without words to contemplate.
SMELL EXERCISES
Our sense of smell is probably the least understood, and most undervalued of our senses. It is often difficult to describe a particular smell, unless we resort to comparing it with others. Smells are all around us, yet unless a fragrance is particularly sweet or pungent, most of them remain below the level of our conscious awareness. Many smells are unnoticed, unless we make a conscious effort to pay attention to them. Yet smells have a remarkably powerful evocative effect upon us. The merest whiff of an oder can stir in us desire, hunger, thirst or bring to mind a past event. Smells are a hotline to memory. Most hospitals nowadays have “Coma Kits” a range of powerful synthetic smells, ranging from freshly-cut grass to cigar smoke, which are used to try and awaken accident victims from deep comas.
It is worth just going out of your way to notice smells, and to pay close attention to how they might influence your behavior. It is also interesting to pay attention to your own body oder, which is
still something of a taboo in our sterile-conscious society. Sweat changes its oder from time to time, and this is often related to diet and general health. We communicate a great deal of subliminal information to each other in the form of pheromones (external chemical messengers). It is possible for people, as well as animals, to pick up messages of fear, pain, pleasure, and a variety of illnesses.
The aura that some people seem to have about them - causing fear or peace in others, may be due to the pheromones they are giving off. People who are grieving the loss of a partner often report that they smell the unique oder of their lost lover, and feel through this, a comforting presence. Similarly, many spirits make their appearance known to us by a sudden influx of smell, and strange oders are often associated with UFO encounters.
Personally, after my grandmother, who's name was "Vi" for "Violet" died when I was in high school, I will smells violets when she is close to me. I'm certain she is my ancestor on the other side who watches over me. Yes, Ancestor Worship is real. If you don't know who's agreed to stay close to you from the other side, you'll never find the Shaman/Shamanka in you.
Memory/Image Association
This exercise demonstrates the evocative power of smell. Have someone prepare a variety of aromatic substances (such as essential oils) in unlabelled containers. Then take each container, and sniff the contents, while relaxed. As you sniff the substance, allow memories and images to well up, and pursue each image that the smell evokes.
SPACE EXERCISES
Shamanic magic involves the exploration of ‘inner’ space, via visualization, trance and dreaming. Equally important, however, is our sense of the space which is around us; the immediate environment, and that bubble which we feel to be our personal territory. The degree of closeness which we allow another person near us is generally indicative of the degree of intimacy which we share with them. People tend to have very different feelings as to what constitutes their ‘personal space’, and it is important, when working with others, to acknowledge and be sensitive to this.
We've all been around people who stand too close to you to talk. It is uncomfortable to most Western cultures, however, go visit Egypt and you'll soon realize close talking is an acceptable thing. Along with kissing on the cheeks, but I won't go there (sorry, no emojis here boys and girls).
Awareness of peoples’ space needs is important when it comes to healing, and it’s important to know when to keep your distance, and when to move closer to someone. This very much depends on honing your ability to observe, empathise with, and intuitively assess others. People who are very nervous or anxious tend to curl up so that their body extends into as little space as possible. The more confident we are, the more we use our body to extend our own space.
Our everyday perception of space is that it separates and insulates us from objects and other people. This is a perceptual ‘trap’ which we can grow out from, by experiencing space in different ways.
Blind Walks
A simple way of exploring our surroundings in a different way is to do so blindfolded, being led around by a partner. Try it for a few minutes and then swap over. Try it again, but this time attempt to sense what is in front of you, as though the space around you was an organ of perception. It can be very interesting to explore attitudes to personal space in a group, particularly how people feel when their space is ignored, infringed or disrupted. By examining and understanding our perception of space, we can learn how to manipulate it.
As a solo exercise, try and observe yourself in different situations, from stillness to movement, and how you relate to the space around you. We can learn to feel that the space around us is a medium, or an organ of communication through which we can send ripples or waves. T’ai Chi is a very good BodyMind exercise in this respect, as its slow, graceful movements are useful in enhancing the feeling of being immersed in a fluid-like space.
SPEECH EXERCISES
Speech is the main form of communication that we use. we are all capable of making a wide range of noises with which to express ourselves, but it is easy to undervalue the power of our voices. The voice is an important carrier of power, from sacred chants to working songs, prayer to battle chants - all have a powerful affect on us.
As the word ‘en-chant-ment’ suggests, the voice has long been associated with magical effects. Songs, chants, invocations, prayers and even nursery rhymes can be found in all cultures as ways of raising power, especially when combined with dance and music.
Use of the Voice
The way in which we use our voices is a powerful way of projecting our personalities. the way in which we deliver speech in a given situation can reveal many things (both to ourselves and others) about our feelings. To use speech effectively we must be:
(i) Confident
(ii) Aware of others
(iii) Relaxed
(iv) Clear in our thoughts
(v) Aware of how speech affects a situation.
With practice and experience, we can learn to use our voices so that we can carry emotions and feelings to others, ranging from stirring people to enthusiasm and action, to lulling gently into relaxation using soft words and tones.
Group Chants
As I have already stated, chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the quickest and easiest way to achiever enlightenment (Buddhahood, Shamanism, etc.,), which is usually done in groups, and Group Chants are one of the most effective ways of raising power, and can range from the simple “We are at one with the infinite Sun, forever, forever, forever” to the more complex “Darksome Night and Shining Moon” chant used by Wiccans. Whatever the ideas the chant expresses, a rhythm is soon built up, which carries everyone along with it.
TOUCH EXERCISES
Our sense of touch - being able to feel pressure, heat, and texture, is something that we tend to take for granted. we only realize how much we rely on it, when it is lost to some part of the body. Touch is important in both survival and communication, particularly intimate communication. Speech is more of a social means of communication, whereas touch is much more intimate & personal. A single touch can carry more meaning than a thousand words. When gentle words and touch are combined, they can transport us to others worlds - in relaxation, sleep, visions, or the illumined darkness of lovers.
Sensitizing the Hands
This exercise is used as a warm-up before working with your hands, for example in healing, massage, or working with crystals. Begin by rubbing your hands together briskly, and then feeling an energy field between them, like a ball. try stretching and compressing the ball, and bringing your hands further apart until you can no longer feel it. This helps you to focus your awareness into your hands.
Using touch is not only a matter of sensitivity, but also knowing how, when, and where to touch someone. Some people like to be touched, while others do not, and only by allowing yourself to become sensitive to others, will you be able to judge how to act in a particular situation. One of the best ways to learn to develop this sense is with a lover. In the post-coital afterglow, all the senses are magnified, as is one’s sensitivity and empathy. By exploring touch in this most intimate of settings, we can learn how to develop the sense, and use it in other situations.
JACK YOUR BODY...
The ability to enter trance states is a prerequisite of most magical systems, particularly Shamanism. A good deal of a shaman’s training is concerned with cultivating the ability to enter trance states and control them, for it is in such states, that much of the shaman’s power resides. There are many routes into trance, and indeed, there are many different shades of trance.
What is Trance?
In modern Western Society we tend to have very fixed ideas about what constitutes a trance state - we tend to think of someone who is passive, eyes closed & limp, or oblivious to their surroundings. We tend to think of hypnotized people (the word hypnosis derives from Hypnos - Greek god of sleep) as quiescent & awaiting instructions.
A problem that we acquire from our culture is that we tend to be very ‘head-oriented’ in our experience caught up with the continual commentary of the inner dialogue, and the words & images of the Hyperreal. Our sense of being a stable personality is maintained by transactions, both real and imaginary, with others. Move somewhere isolated and the self becomes more malleable - another classical shamanic gambit for entering trance states. The personality we acquire sets the limits on what we can, and cannot do. Often, by entering trance states, whether intentionally or not, we can perform feats or tasks that are normally outside our normal repertoire. If the self-referential awareness is frozen by shock, or distracted, the body seems to take over, moving us out of the way of danger. We like to think of ourselves as being ‘in control’ of our bodies. This is in itself a problem, as ‘letting go’ and becoming disinhibited (especially in a group setting) is very difficult for some of us - letting it all hang out is generally frowned upon.
Entering trance is not always a pleasant experience, particularly trance states involving possession. The feeling that something else is using your limbs, & that your voice is not your own, is very odd. The natural tendency, especially for Westerners, is to resist the experience, even when the incoming spirit is a beneficent one. Often, people who are possessed have no memory or awareness of what happened to them. Shamans often resort to drugs, exertion or ritual to temporarily blot out the personality, making possession easier.
Dancing Gazing
Gyrating Fasting
Drumming Sleep Deprivation
Singing Sensory Deprivation
Chanting Sensory Overload
Hyperventilating Emotional Arousal
Pleasure Pain
Choose any of the above routes - pursued relentlessly enough, with determination and practice, you can use any of them to enter trance states. Shamanic group rituals are well-orchestrated uses of many of the above options. Only by repeatedly pushing yourself over the edge will you learn to override the tendency to jerk out of a trance when you feel your control slipping. But the trance itself is the means, rather than the end - this should be some objective, such as entry into one of the innerworlds, possession by a spirit, or acts of will. Different shamanic cultures can sometimes be characterized by the dominant routes into trance. The nomadic tribes of the North American Plains used pain as a route into trance, demonstrating at the same time physical prowess; while the Kaula shamans of India enter trance via prolonged sexual ecstasy. Use of drugs to enter trance is, of course, an important part of shamanic activity, but I’ll go into that another time.
Why enter Trance states?
Here are some good reasons:
1) Knowledge (i.e. that which cannot be gained in other ways) - this ranges from asking auntie Freda what’s it like on the other side, to asking a specific question about herbs to a particular healing spirit. This can sometimes involve journeying to particular parts of the innerworlds to consult with a particular entity.
2) Enhancement of Abilities Possession by a war-god enhances martial prowess, or temporary authority over other spirits. For example, I had a client who had a recurring throat problem. I examined her in a light ‘vision’ trance and saw a toad-like creature that had swelled itself up and lodged in her throat. No way was it going to come out willingly. My allies advised me (again in trance) that the only entity the spirit would take notice of was an even bigger toad, so we performed a healing ceremony during which I became possessed by a toad-spirit, in order to interact with the one in my clients’ throat.
3) Communal Ecstasy The shaman provides a very important task for tribe or community - mediating between the everyday world and the larger-than-life world of myth and communal lore. The shaman becomes, or allows others to become involved in sacred mythic participation. The shaman acts as the guide - navigating the secret paths of the communities’ cosmology.
Dreams
Much instruction can be gained via dreaming. Prospective shamans may even be identified by virtue of the content of their dreams, and it is not unusual for people to meet their guides in dreams. We tend to think of dreams as a very personal aspect of our experience, so it is sometimes disconcerting when someone that we know appears in our dreams. In dreams, historical time is abolished, and distance is no object. We may witness events from the past, future, or alternative presents. Despite appearances, much of our dream content is controlled by external agencies. If you study Jung for long enough, you will have “Jungian” dreams. It can be far more rewarding to develop a personal dream-language, or avoid any rigid system of interpretation. I tend to find that prolonged magical activity of any sort will mold the contents of your dreams accordingly.
Group Dreams
Here, a group of people can attempt to dream of being present, in each others’ company in a real or imaginary place that all concerned are familiar with. Again, visualization and mantra are useful in attempting this. The first step is to achieve a common perception of the dream, and then, later on, the group can perform willed acts. A group of us once attempted this using the M.C. Escher print, “Relativity”.
Lucid Dreams
Lucid dreams are characterized by the fact that in a lucid dream, you are aware that you are dreaming! Lucid dreams are also much easier to remember, and you are more able to act with intentionality, rather than just being a passive participant in the dreams’ events. One way of inducing lucid dreams is to strive to see your hands in your dreams, the ‘shock’ of which will allow you to enter the lucid state. I was once dreaming of my home town, with everything as it was about 10 years ago; until that is, I looked down at my feet & realised that I was wearing my goth boots - the incongruity of which allowed me to enter the lucid state, and, by projecting a symbol upon a nearby house doorway, I was able to enter one of the Innerworlds. It can be rewarding to try and approach dreaming from a non- western point of view, such as that of the Aborigines or the Senoi of Malaysia. Some anthropologists believe that the Senoi dream psychology is the source of the tranquility of their lives.When first contacted by Westerners in the 1930’s, the Senoi had had no violent crime or conflicts within their community for between 200 and 300 years.
Innerworld Exploration
The centre of the shaman’s cosmology is the axis mundi - the pole, ladder, or world-tree, which is the shaman’s access point to the different innerworlds of the mythic cosmology. It seems reasonable to assume that the Qabalistic Tree of Life evolved from a shamanic world-tree. The crossroads is another axis mundi symbol, appearing in Celtic, Greek, and Haitian mythologies. The innerworlds are populated by hosts of spirits, demons & ancestors.
Contact and knowledge of these entities is part of the shared totality of experience of a tribal society, mediated by the shaman. This is rarely the case in Western culture - there is a vast variety of innerworlds which may be explored. The Deep Mind is very receptive to suggestion (after all, that’s how we learn), and can clothe itself in any kind of images. There are numerous cases of skeptical westerners being stricken by the curses of shamans.
One option for the would-be urban shaman is to allow the client to enter a trance, then act as a guide as they move through their innerworld, using empathy and open-ended questioning. I find this preferable to other options as it allows the client to arrive at their own solution, at the same time drawing on their own power- from-within to heal themselves. It seems, at times, that all that is being done is that one is creating the ‘space’ where someone can learn to heal themselves. The alternative is to take the problem into your own innerworld and ask an ally about it. More orthodox divination techniques should not be overlooked either.
Critics of the Western approach to magic often point out that it can become too much of a head-trip, concerned with abstractions and mental constructs. Shamanism however, is intensely physical, often to the point of intense discomfiture. Shamanic magic often involves pain, disarrangement of the senses, delusions, hallucinations and states bordering on obsession and personality disintegration. It’s a lot of fun, really.
CHEMICAL AIDS
There’s no way that you can seriously approach the practice of shamanism without at some point, looking at the role played by chemical aids - drugs. It is a common misconception that drug- induced states are somehow not as valid as states of awareness achieved by other means, and that drugs are somehow less ‘spiritual’. This attitude is particularly narrow, and shamans in different cultures and epochs have snorted, eaten, rubbed into their skin or stuffed up various orifices all manner of concoctions as aids to entering visionary trance. Even if you don’t intend to take in anything stronger than Perrier water yourself, it still pays to know about various drugs used in our society - their effects and what, if anything you can do for someone who’s taken an overdose or is having a bad time with something. Sooner or later, someone will turn up on your doorstep who’s taken some drug that they can’t handle, and ask you to guide them through the bad trip or whatever. In this sort of situation it’s difficult to say “sorry I don’t approve of that sort of thing” and slam the door in their face. it’s useful to have at least a broad knowledge of the more common street and prescribed drugs.
On another tack, you might well ask “what constitutes a drug anyway?” We know that caffeine, alcohol and nicotine are drugs, but they are generally sanctioned by society. You can have 20 pints of bitter and this is considered to be okay, but a puff on a joint ... that’s something else. In the present context, a ‘chemical aid’ is any substance that helps you enter a trance state, a definition which covers a lot of ground. take incense for example. It’s not usually thought of as a drug, but it’s certainly a chemical aid. Apart from the influence of smell, some incenses cause particular physiological effects. Some gums and resins act to increase skin temperature, whilst others give off Carbon Dioxide when burnt. Camphor, in particular, affects the brain (in very large doses it can produce epileptic convulsions), and Tabunco induces a strong feeling of drowsiness. Another common misconception about the role of drugs in trance is that all you have to do is to ingest the substance of your choice and passively ‘let it happen’. Well this is fine if you just want to have a good time, but during trance, your perception must be directed or focused. Shamans often train their apprentices by guiding them through the visions, and instructing them in how to appease the spirit of the particular substance. All drugs have their own spirits, whether they grow in the ground or come in a gelatin capsule. So where do the spirits reside? In the substance, in us, or somewhere else? I like to think that they are emergent properties of our experience, invoked like virtual particles from the dance between the molecular configurations of the drug, and the shining webs of neurochemical patterns in the brain. The substance hits our system, and the spirit is ‘unbottled’. Some of them are friendly, while some of them will do their damnedness to kill you. Ride them out, and it is said that they can teach you much, but you must be very careful.
In recent years, several foolhardy people have died trying to emulate Carlos Casteneda - ingesting psychotropic concoctions mixed up by obliging shamans. A friend of mine once spent about eight hours preparing a certain species of cactus which he and his friends had been told had hallucinogenic properties. It was only after they had drunk several cups of the resultant brew, that a passing native saw them and enquired what they were doing. On being shown the large pot simmering with vegetable mush, he remarked that they should be careful as the dye they were making was very strong. They listened with growing horror as the native explained that there were two types of cactus that looked similar. One was a powerful giver of visions, whilst the other was used for making dye. If drunk though, it was a powerful emetic! So as you can see, it pays to be cautious, whatever the nature of one’s chemical aids. It’s very easy to slip up when dealing with any toxic substance, and there is also the legal angle to consider as well.
GOING DOWN
What is a shaman but someone who’s been there, and make it back again. The Underworld Journey, they call it. A deliberate descent into the labyrinth, with only the thinnest of threads to hold onto. It comes to us all, in one way or another. Some make it - some don’t, but it never stops. The summons keeps a calling you back. And Down.
This is a great cycle of transformation. It has peaks, plateaux and troughs - the movement of which you can learn to endure, and even welcome. Change is necessity - to live and adapt and grow. Sure it’s painful to feel madness gnawing at the back of your brain, but maybe caterpillars feel the same way about becoming pupae - driven by a cellular necessity into the unknown.
Our culture has left us largely unprepared for this process, branding it a form of madness, to be banished by bright needles & the smug self-satisfied psychologist who explains away our secret dreams, our desires for wildness. The summons is continually being blunted by those who would set limits on the imagination. ...”it’s not real, only imaginary”...”stop daydreaming”...”you’re an escapist”...yeah, right.
We break from the lies, then break from ourselves, and shatter. Not once, but again and again. Not breakdown, but breakthrough... into where?
Doesn’t matter how long you stay down there - a week, a year, a day - you’ll be back. Might as well get used to the scenery. When the summons comes, you’ll know it. The journey may well take a lifetime. You’ll meet friends and allies, be challenged, and maybe crushed occasionally.
Necessity can be a mean mutha. Remember, never leave the boat - unless you’re going all the way. The trigger may be different each time - crisis, drugs, gnosis, a brush with death - these are the ways your allies open the doors for you - the risk is entering feet first. Death is, in fact, a critical factor. You must surrender yourself to death - lie back in her arms and she will most likely hand you back. If not, well better luck next time.
A helpful clue is to let go, when there’s nothing else you can do. Relinquish control. Imagine yourself hanging above a bottomless cliff, holding onto a branch. Take a deep breath, cross your fingers and let yourself plummet. If you’re going down, you have to go all the way. It’s hard sometimes for us to do this - to sit still and do nothing - but occasionally it’s the best option. Knowing when not to act is as useful as knowing when to act. You can only get this by paying attention to yourself & to what’s going on around you. We tend to live in a sea of words and symbols, but below our necks lies a good ally - the body.
There’s various titles for this process - ‘the Dark Night of the Soul’, ‘the Hump’, ‘the Apophis phase’, ‘Nigredo’, but it’s all the same. This is a time for testing. And you can’t take anything in with you - forget beliefs, dogmas, weapons, attachments. You’re on your own, kiddo.
~~ Dr TV Boogie - Keeper of the Records.
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