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www.shamansociety.org 7 Once on one of my courses an anthropologist who was close to seventy years old died. Fortunately his wife who had died some years before knew that his time was not at hand and after a deeply moving reunion sent him back. After a very long period of calling him back he nally returned to the world of the living. He told us that when he realized that he was dead he did feel a de- tached concern because of all the trouble his death would cause me and the course organizer. But now he was dead and that was that. For him there was no question he had died and gone to heaven. And it was not a near-death experience it was an experience of death. Deeper changes in consciousness than death are possible even without the use of plant medicine. These experiences go beyond what we call today visual- ization or imagery. They include all the senses and sometimes even go way beyond the senses to the experience of becoming unied with the Power of the Universe. To experience this is to go beyond knowing beyond awareness and beyond death and into the essence of being to what some perhaps would call consciousness. Animism The animistic way of moving through life that is recognizing that everything is alive is the vehicle of shamanism. For me it is also the basis for understanding consciousness. Jaime de Angulo quotes one of his Pit River Indian friends as say- ing to him Everything is alive even the rocks even that bench you are sitting on. Somebody made that bench for a purpose didnt he. Well then its alive isnt it Ev- erything is alive. Thats what we Indians believe. White people think everything is dead. Indian Tales. P.242. To further the point de Angulo noted The spirit of wonder the recognition of life as power as a mysterious ubiquitous con- centrated form of non-material energy of something loose about the world and contained in a more or less condensed degree by every object that is the credo of the Pit River Indian AA ns 28 1926354. The Background of the Reli- gious Feeling in a Primitive Tribe. These two statements capture the essence of the animistic experience of life. Further to the point Cushing points out that The Ashiwi or Zuis suppose the sun moon and stars the sky earth and sea and all inanimate objects as well as plants animals and men to belong to one great system of all-conscious and interrelated life italics added. . . In this system of life the starting point is man the most nished yet the lowest organism at least the lowest because the most dependent and least mysterious. all supernatural beings men animals plants and many objects in nature are regarded as personal existences and are included in the one term -h-i Life the Beings. Cushing Frank 1883 9 bid.11 To Shamanize Nowadays many people automati- cally associate shamanism with the use of psychotropic plant medicines. These spirit plant helpers are not at all neces- sary to the practice of shamanism. At this point in my life I dene shamanism as a spiritual discipline which enables one to directly contact use and be used by the spirit power of the Universe. Although sha- manism is dened by culture the ability to shamanize is a natural human endowment. The shaman is someone who is chosen by the Spirits to represent them in the material world. The shaman learns to call his spirit helpers and teachers when necessary and to send his soul out to journey to the world of the spirits. The shamans mission is to ask for help from his spirits and to bring the help back to the material world generally for the purpose of healing or restoring balance in some way. Thus the shaman is a servant of the people and a servant of the spirits at the same time. Being a servant of the people and a servant of the spirits at the same time is not an easy job as Ghindias invoca- tion indicates. It often does not leave much room for the individualism we pay so much homage to in the western world. The shaman is often required to make a pact with the spirits which often contains certain taboos. If one will be a powerful shaman this can only happen with the cooperation of the spirits and this calls for surrender. The Return But what happens to the shaman after her return from the spirit world Up until now we have been looking at shamanic states of consciousness only in relation to the shamanic journey. Some feel that a shaman is a shaman only when he is shamanizing. From one point of view this is true enough but it is not the only truth. The path of the shaman is a spiritual path no matter which state of consciousness he is in. If the shaman wanders too far from the path from the dictates of his spirit helpers and teach- ers he risks losing them. The spirits are constantly a part of his daily awareness and this has an effect on his ordinary reality consciousness. It also has an effect on how others regard him. As Handel- man 1972 so perspicaciously points out most people who do not have direct recourse to the spirit world either fear or respect the shaman 84-101. The more the power of the Spirits ows through him the more power- ful the shaman becomes as long as the power is used properly that is as dened by the spirits. After initiation perhaps the most important teaching from the spirits for the would-be shaman is how to live with power in her own daily life in a way that is acceptable to the shaman and acceptable to the society he lives in. Without learning these teach- ings the neophyte risks insanity or perhaps worse being feared as a luna- tic or merely dismissed as a neurotic. These teachings are vital because the more he works with the spirits the more conscious the shaman becomes of the spirits as containers of the power of the Universe. At the same time he becomes more aware that the power of the Uni- verse is the power that is in him and