Good Shamanism Resources?

[Chris]

can I offer
Neil Price...The Viking Way: Religion and War in the Later Iron Age of Scandinavia
Neil Price...(ed) the archaeology of shamanism

[shebani]

Everyone else has already said what I know on the subject, but beginning apprentices should NOT ever use any psychoactive anything from what one mentor I talked to told me. You have to first learn to do it with your mind and that's it. I can do it listening to music most all the time where I feel like I "visit" the spirit world, and then get the answers I need for this world. .

This is very interesting, I do this and have done this for a very long time, you are the first I've ever heard directly say they do this with music. I would love to hear any more you have to say on the matter.

[Rae'ya]

This is very interesting, I do this and have done this for a very long time, you are the first I've ever heard directly say they do this with music. I would love to hear any more you have to say on the matter.

It's actually incredibly common to enter an altered state of consciousness via listening to music. Drumming is just one variation of this, and is incredibly traditional to many cultures who practice some form of shamanism. Trance music is also quite good for this, and I'd be willing to bet that almost every single person who has ever gone clubbing or to a rave has 'tranced out' or entered an altered state of consciousness while there.

[Heka]

I'd be willing to bet that almost every single person who has ever gone clubbing or to a rave has 'tranced out' or entered an altered state of consciousness while there.

So all I gotta do is get wasted, and go to a club to get into an altered state? SWEET :P

[Chris]

So all I gotta do is get wasted, and go to a club to get into an altered state? SWEET :P

thats like saying to be a witch all i need is a velvet dress and a wand - instant witch...for sale in all good stores near you...

[monsno_leedra]

thats like saying to be a witch all i need is a velvet dress and a wand - instant witch...for sale in all good stores near you...

What's bad is that is how I see shamanic practices passed all the time or to make one a shamanic practitioner. Sort of like having a totem, power animal or guide, you will have one and all you got to do to find it is take this guided meditation.

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Ironic I suppose when I look back at books and such purchased from the 1970's through mid 1990's and those topics are seldom to be found in them yet today they are a must have it seems.

[Chris]

and truth be told most of the published works have more in common with a fantasy novel rather than good practises...as for ""courses"" perhaps one can become more spiritual through them...but shamanic...no, unless its there deep down

it's taken me the best part of 30 years to get to where I am now...the hard way..finding out for myself

I don't meditate and apart from a great liking for owls I don't have a totem animal

[monsno_leedra]

and truth be told most of the published works have more in common with a fantasy novel rather than good practises...as for ""courses"" perhaps one can become more spiritual through them...but shamanic...no, unless its there deep down

it's taken me the best part of 30 years to get to where I am now...the hard way..finding out for myself

I don't meditate and apart from a great liking for owls I don't have a totem animal

I'd agree about most of the books as well. Especially in the sense that many, if not most, of the ones today seem to be derived from an assumed or implied Native American perspective of what is or is not "Shamanism" or "Medicine". It's like you hear about the Medicine Wheel in most of those same books yet they all are based off of Sun Bear's Medicine Wheel material which actually matches no specific nation or tribe. Then all totems, power animals, etc seem to be based upon Ted Andrews ANIMAL SPEAK as to what a creature means or tries to tell us.

I admit it's sort of interesting when I read about a "totem" then you realize it's actually a herald or blaze for some family crest and losses all the meaning it had as a crest. It's like when you see the author go into specifics about the creature standing on all fours, jumping upon the hind legs only, etc and know they lifted that part from heraldry.

I've had elder's who've aided me along the way but seeing as much of my walk is individual it's been a lot of trial and error. Sometimes elder's watching and waiting until I really screw things up before they step in so I can understand the depths of some things. Definitely not a hold your hand and lead you along type of thing. Many of mine have been more of the sink or swim type teachers except when it came to things that could kill you right off. More of the here eat this and see what happens though the males in my family do not often deal with healing plants and such as that was mostly taught to the women. Not that the males couldn't it was just the women had a closer connection to them as allies where we tended to be closer to the spirits and animals.

I'll be 55 this year and its been a long trail to get here that's covered many years. Where I differ I suppose is that I see shamanism as a practice that exists within my spiritual / religious beliefs not a spiritual belief itself.

[Chris]

you born in 1959 too then - excellent vintage

I agree you can be pointed but no one is there to take you by the hand...you go into the spirit world on your own and cope or run away...or even both if outclassed

personally I stand and fight

I don't have a spirit animal...no Fylgia for instance- just me....

But...and a big but
I do assume the spirit bear if responding to an attack on the spirit level...that took years to be able to do and lots of frustration along the way

until one time of trying something seemed to give way and there it was roaring and clawing and biting and such power...and it felt good to be so free

[monsno_leedra]

I've had guides and allies but a totem in the Native American sense is something I seldom speak on or claim. A couple of my elder's swear my totem is Wolf because i've been killed by them and dismembered and reformed a number of times by them. Then one spirit journey where I was introduced before a fire and accepted into the Wolf Clan initially in shadow form along with many other animal spirits before the Wolves took solid form and I was transformed into a wolf along with them.

I agree you go on your own and have to face what you find. It's like I died in my early youth and some of my elders would talk about approaching the veil and coming back and I had a sense of what they meant. Yet none of us could really explain the how or why of it only give advise on how we faced it. Yet each of us faced it differently so there was no great commonality about it but a commonality in that all of us faced it in some manner that resulted in our physical deaths. Then most of us also experienced a shamanic spiritual death that occurred in journey work where our bodies where destroyed and rebuilt but that aspect was easier to speak on.

As to the fright or flight for me that has gotten me into trouble on both ends of that spectrum. Things I should have fled from kicked my butt and things I should have fought kicked it through deception. Yet you truly sound psychotic if you tell people about it or even go into any details.

It does intrigue me though how descriptors have changed over the years. It's like Astral Projection when I first was taught included Astral, Etheral and plain physical world projection wrapped about the notions of Out Of Body Experiences (O.B.E.) that could be physically outside the body but also projection to the internal landscape. Then figured in Near Death Experiences (N.D.E.'s) as another form of projection. We knew the astral was both without and within and that it was a construct that sort of wrapped about us and us within its framework. Yet times have changed I suppose.