Shamanic Healing
Throughout the world and throughout history shamans have undertaken many tasks for their communities. It has been suggested that, in hunting societies, the goal of obtaining animals for the hunt is more fundamental to the well being of the society than is healing the sick. Some shamans specialise in divination and some in rituals and ceremonies. And, in many cultures the shaman is not the only, or even the primary, healer. There may be, within the society, men and women who we tend to call medicine people or witch-doctors, healers and communicators with spirits who do not necessarily undertake the shamanic Journey. There may well be herbalists. There could be priests and monks who heal using prayer or spells. Healing, even in so-called primitive societies, is not the sole preserve of the shaman.
Of course, whatever the other jobs of shamans around the world, here in the UK the main job of a shamanic practitioner is to see those clients who come for healing. Although clients come with many problems – mental, emotional or physical – the shamanic healing always looks only at what the spiritual cause behind the problem is. So, rather than treat, for example, cancer, depression or arthritis, we would treat the spiritual problems that have led to those situations developing in the first place.
So, what is shamanic healing? What is it, which on a spiritual level needs healing?
Often the illness turns out to be caused by one of two things. Either something is missing that should be part of us or something is in us that should not be there. Of course, these two often go together.
You may have part of you missing. This could be either a part of your soul or the energy that you need to be healthy. Soul retrieval is becoming widely known as a way of helping a person feel more whole. Often the soul part has been lost due to some trauma - indeed you sometimes hear a person say "I have never felt complete since...". The shaman will seek out and return the soul part, restoring your loss. Or maybe what is missing is your power – your own primal energy, lost over months or maybe years of being ground down by work, family or neighbours. A common symptom of this ‘power loss’ is when nothing goes right . You know the type of situation – the main wage earner in the household is made redundant, the dog dies, you lose your purse with this week’s housekeeping in it ... or worse. This run of bad luck continues and eventually you become ill. You have lost your energy, literally. The shaman can find your power for you and return it, often in the form of an animal.
And if our power or a part of our soul has got lost, this leaves a space. Other things can find their way in and get stuck - like a spider in the bath, or a stone in your shoe. Not evil, or even bad, but not in the right place. In shamanic terms this is called an intrusion. The shaman's job is to remove the intrusion (a process known as 'extraction') and return it to where it should be. Both retrievals and extractions are ways of re-balancing you.
Houses and places of work can get ill, as well, often manifesting as poltergeists. So can woodlands, parks, a town or your household pets. The shaman/shamanic practitioner can help all or any of these.
All our healing techniques are just that. Techniques. Only love can heal. And the Universe is full of love. But we cannot heal if for any reason we shut ourselves off from that love. Or mistake it and think we have love when, in reality, we have sentimentality or possession.
Love is not an easy thing. Nor is it in any way wishy-washy. But it is necessary for healing. To be well you have to love yourself. To heal others you have to love them. And neither one of these is possible without the other.
Love is a hard thing to define. It's easier to talk in metaphor and poetry about it. And easier to say what it isn't. I hear the phrase "unconditional love" often and it always puzzles me slightly. Isn't it a tortology? Can there be such a thing as "conditional love"?
My thinking at the moment about this is that love needs three things in order for it to be more than just a word. It needs compassion. It needs truth or integrity. And it needs intention, focus, clear thinking.
Within that love we are connected to the spirits, to each other and to the land. We are all connected. Sometimes we lose sight of that fact and then we begin to act in a way of separation. But separation is an illusion, albeit an illusion that we often find easy to believe. All that has fallen away is our awareness of our connection. We are not separate. All that we do affects everything else, for good or ill. We are all connected to the web.
If we have lost part of ourselves or we have in us something which does not belong in us, we lose that awareness of love. We lose our awareness of connection. Shamanic healing re-connects us to ourselves and to the spiritual universe. It helps us to return to that place of wellness.
Hi, i am looking for a shamanic healing course could you recommend anybody ?
I have done Spiritual Healing and Reiki but would like to learn about Shamanism too. Do you teach shamanic healing ?
I teach shamanism, which includes shamanic healing. However, before learning the healing you need to do an basic course which would teach you how to make the shamanic trance journey into the spirit worlds and would introduce you to your own helper spirits.
I accept people onto my practitioner course only after they have done such a basic course and have also studied shamanism for at least a year. The practitioner course is three years (30 days of actual teacher/student contact). This is fairly typical.
For a basic course I would recommend me (North Yorkshire Shamanism / The Cader Idris Centre for Shamanic Studies), Jonathan Horwitz (The Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies) or Simon Buxton (The Sacred Trust). There are probably other good teachers out there that I don't know, but there are plenty of pretty awful ones as well.
I've PMed you details of my next basic course.
The view that being ill denotes that something has gone wrong in the journey of the spirit is easy to believe, as we don't feel good with illness. But having known so many people for whom the illness has changed their style, their view or their understanding of life, I disagree with that perception.
Spiritual healing relaxes the fight, and touches upon the subtle energies that enable such changes or deeper understanding to come.
If healing is based upon the concept that a soul has broken, then that encourages the fight, rather than acceptance. If the person then believes that they went wrong and that the shamen has 'fixed' them, then in the longer term, that further disempowers them.
Just something to think about.
Thanks Keke,
Definitely something to think about ! I have had arthritis for a long time and my daughter also has auto-immune disorders, it's partly the reason I have been looking at alternative therapies. Thank you for your input. Are you a spiritual healer ?
Hi Ramses, I don't work as a healer, but for many years, I have offered healing to friends and family.
The view that being ill denotes that something has gone wrong in the journey of the spirit is easy to believe, as we don't feel good with illness. But having known so many people for whom the illness has changed their style, their view or their understanding of life, I disagree with that perception.
Spiritual healing relaxes the fight, and touches upon the subtle energies that enable such changes or deeper understanding to come.
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I don’t disagree with your first couple of paragraphs. However, you go on to say,
If healing is based upon the concept that a soul has broken, then that encourages the fight, rather than acceptance.
This only makes sense if you are taking ‘soul loss’ as a metaphor. If you understand that the soul part has actually left – as shamans all over the world do and at all times of history and pre-history have done – then it makes no more sense to ignore it than it would to ignore a broken bone.
If the person then believes that they went wrong and that the shamen has 'fixed' them, then in the longer term, that further disempowers them.
The word is “shaman”.
All healing aims to leave the client more whole and more empowered than they were before. Healing that disempowers is not healing. However, I disagree that asking for help is disempowering – it can be one of the most empowering things possible. And going to an expert in any field is not disempowering – would you not go to a dentist to have your teeth drilled, while at the same time taking full responsibility for looking after your teeth to the best of your ability? Why is it different?
For many people, shamanic healing (and it is probably so for other healing forms, as well) is the first step on a path to taking full responsibility for their own well-being.
Just something to think about
This comment gives the impression that these points have never occurred to me before. Why would you think that?
When people are in shock or experience a sudden or traumatic event, they dissociate. If you've ever seen somebody in that dissociated state, their eyes are glazed, they look as if they are someone else, and often report feeling as if they are somewhere else. This is a very natural part of the human stress response.
In fact, much of what we call psychological responses and psychological healing, was attributed to the soul or spirit of a person in cultures prior to this. Whether one calls it the soul or psychology doesn't particularly matter - however, I feel it is necessary to understand the cultural language in which we live, and therefore, rather than rely on emulating ancient cultures, it is of use to understand the correlations within our own.
I do understand that there can be fragmentation within a person. I disagree with your supposition that this is necessarily something that will cause "not right" (wrong?) things to happen... even poltergeists?
You liken your knowledge of soul loss to a doctor diagnosing a broken leg - it is a poor example, as the doctor has proof based upon physical features, whereas, shamanism and other spiritual healing is what we believe based upon our inner experience of healing.
In my experience, soul does not leave and it isn't lost to the person - instead, it is that during sudden, stressful and traumatic events, certain fragments are hidden in a safe place, in order to protect the individual. Sometimes they will naturally return, as the fear eases, but other times the person maintains a sense of high alert long after the immediate danger has gone, consequently, the fragments are kept in the safe place. Whether we use journeying, loving touch, talking, visualisations, grounding etc etc, the effect is to enable the person to feel safe. When this happens, then in that sense of safety, the fragmented parts are allowed out of hiding, and the person begins to feel whole again. Therefore, in my experience, it is counter to the healing process to suggest that part of the soul has left, is lost and that things will not be right until it is found, because this stimulates the stress response. It is much more effective to stimulate the persons sense of safety.
I understand that you disagree with the concept of soul loss. However, my experience – and that of many others – is that soul is lost and can be found and restored. I’m not sure there is anything to be gained from this conversation other than to say that we disagree.
However, there are a few points I think need bringing up. First is your mention of poltergeists – what have they to do with this? Second, re-read my comment about the broken leg and don’t read into more than I said. Third, shamanism is ancient, yes. But “emulating ancient cultures”? There are many shamanic peoples around today and those of us practicing here do not “emulate” – maybe you do not understand shamanism?
I have to wonder why you started this discussion. There are many forums about different beliefs on HP and I disagree with the basic concepts of several of them. If these came up in general discussion then I might say something. I would not, however, go on to (for example) the Christianity forum and explain that the Christians are wrong to worship their god. I wonder, therefore, why you have decided to call into question a basic part of shamanic belief in this particular place? What has happened to make you feel strongly enough to write on the sticky – which is there largely to answer the question, “what is shamanic healing?”
I guess the theory is that poltergeist activity has its roots in psychological problems....maybe even a certain amount of dissociation within the mind?? So that would explain why that issue was raised in this context......
I am unsure about the whole 'soul loss' concept........but I also accept there is a lot I don't know......and I have an open mind about many many things.