Shamanism Communicating With The Spirit World

By Author: Amanda Isbitt
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The English language word shaman comes to English from the Tungus language of Siberia through Russian. The word is at once a verb as well as a noun. Some people today believe that "shamanism" is a religion, but it isn't. Instead the word has been taken to describe practices that are global throughout a vast array of ancient cultures from all over the planet. These practices were described by the cutting edge anthropologist Mircea Eliade as "ecstatic" and refer to spiritual-communion rituals and other behaviors that the shaman uses to connect himself and, by extension and through reporting on what he finds or learns, his community to the deeper spiritual or cosmic realms.

It has been observed that shamanism dies out in advanced cultures where codified and specialist-guided religious practices and more psychiatric-oriented methods of handling personal problems hold sway. However, shamanism still holds value for some people because of its intensely local and personal nature and its practices of making direct connections to a cosmic spiritual realm that is seen as vast, mysterious, all-pervasive, directly perceived ...
... as energetic shapes and forms rather than mostly material ones, and not defined by scriptures or the kind of tight organization and hierarchy prevalent in monotheistic religions.

In the 19th, 20th, and now 21st centuries, it may be said that shamanic practices have largely become the purview of serious artists: musicians, poets and creative writers, dancers, and visual artists. This can be seen, for instance, in the deep interest that the poet and playwright W.B Yeats took in magic and Irish shamanism as well as in spiritual mediumship. Another highly influential Irish writer of the 20th century, James Joyce, said that in our times the artist is "the keeper of the soul". The pseudo-ecstatic experiences of the artist and the language modern day artists typically use to describe the experiences they have while creating or summoning their muses, such as "transported" or "seeing well" (in the sense of clearly seeing or perceiving something that is not immediately present to the five physical senses), are essentially shamanic.

Shamans self-induce trances through the kind of "selective hypersuggestibility" that is used by the trained hypnotherapist with her patients and can be made use of through physical and/or psychological manipulations of her patients. The self-imposed physical and/or psychological techniques to trance and different levels of ecstasy of the shaman make him open to being able to fine-tune his physical senses so that he is able to vividly perceive as he travels through the "the other worlds" of the energetic universe next door to our own.

This ability to fine-tune the physical senses into highly energetic ones for use in the spiritual universe next door comes about through rigorous and cumulative mental training and conditioning. Some shamans are shamans because through hereditary bloodlines, while other people feel "called" to shamanism, typically through a very intense and life-altering experience such as a near death experience (NDE) or by very suddenly being able to lucid dream. Regardless, a shaman's first experiences while traveling to the other worlds are very often terrifying, and the emotions are greatly intensified and overwhelmed. It is thought that without proper ritualized control of the journeys the shamanic practitioner can go crazy or even be killed by what she experiences on the other side.

The inducing of the trance by the shaman may be through ritual dancing and singing, or by ceremonially taking psychotropic drugs, or through a combination of these and/or other traditional ritual techniques.
Amanda Is A Work From Home Mum of 3, Mainly Researching Unique Digital Products. For all of the latest products, news, and to get your free sample by email please visit Communicating With Spirits