{"id":112,"date":"2010-10-15T07:24:54","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T07:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/2010\/10\/shamans-and-dreamers.html"},"modified":"2010-10-15T07:24:54","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T07:24:54","slug":"shamans-and-dreamers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/10\/shamans-and-dreamers.html","title":{"rendered":"Shamans and dreamers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shamans_Drum.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

What is a shaman?<\/p>\n

The word was
\nborrowed by anthropologists from the Tungus Siberian people. Correctly
\npronounced, the long As (“ah”) are given equal weight (“shah-mahn”); the magic
\nof the word is in its resonance. The word came into widespread use after the
\npublication of Mircea Eliade’s classic work Shamanism,
\nAn Archaic Technique of Ecstasy. <\/i>In Eliade’s depiction, the shaman is a
\nspiritual practitioner who has mastered the art of journeying beyond the body
\nto communicate with the spirits, to guide souls of both the living and the
\ndeparted, and to bring through healing. <\/p>\n

n Central Asia, the shaman’s primary tool for journeying is
\nthe single-headed frame drum, the type we use in Active Dreaming circles. There
\nis a Buriat story about how the shaman’s drum came to be this way. Long ago,
\nDeath complained to the High God that a powerful shaman was disturbing the
\nbalance of things. This shaman was so successful at bringing the souls of the dying
\nback into the body that Death was being cheated of his share. The High God
\nreached down from the heavens, plucked the vital soul of a perfectly healthy
\nman out of his body, confined it inside a bottle and sat on his high throne,
\nwaiting to see what the shaman would do. <\/p>\n

Approached by the family of the unfortunate man who now lay lifeless, the shaman mounted his
\ndrum – which he called his “horse” – and rode it through the Lower World and the
\nMiddle World, looking for the missing soul. To fulfill his quest, he had to journey higher
\nthan he had ever gone before, into the Upper World, until at last he saw the
\nHigh God on his high throne holding the soul in the bottle. Even the boldest of
\nshamans might have given up at this point. But this shaman refused to abandon
\nhis mission. He shapeshifted into a wasp and stung the High God on the
\nforehead. Shocked and in pain, the High God relaxed his grip on the bottle. The
\nshaman grabbed the captive soul and began to gallop back towards his village
\nwith it. The High God, in fury, hurled a lightning bolt after him. It split the
\nshaman’s drum – hitherto double-headed – in two, giving us the classic form of
\nthe drum as we know it today.<\/p>\n

From this wild,
\narchaic story, several vital aspects of the shaman’s practice emerge. The
\nshaman works with souls. The shaman has the ability to travel at will through a
\nthree-tiered universe – Lower World, Middle World, Upper World – that opens
\ninto a multidimensional cosmos. The shaman has developed the art of
\nshapeshifting. The shaman is on intimate terms with death. The shaman is
\nwilling to test the limits of the possible. The shaman serves the community.<\/p>\n

Cross-culturally,
\nwe find that these statements hold true of authentic shamans in many different
\nsocieties. “The only thing of importance in a man is the soul,” an Inuit
\nshaman, or angakok<\/i>, told the explorer
\nKnud Rasmussen. Ancient Taoists in China described the heart of their
\nshamanic practice as “the art of ascending to heaven in full daylight”, and
\nsought to master the techniques of “crane-riding” – traveling to the skies on
\nthe wings of the crane, or the wild duck, or the dragon, or the flying tiger.
\nWhen asked how he heals, an Aboriginal spirit man told Jungian analyst Robert
\nBosnak, “I become an eagle.” Everywhere, as Holger Kalweit observes in Dreamtime and Inner Space<\/i>, the shaman
\nwalks close to death. He knows the roads of the afterlife because he has
\ntraveled them personally; “he actually dies and is actually reborn.” <\/p>\n

In indigenous
\ncultures, shamans may be born into a lineage and may undergo ritual training,
\nordeal and initiation. But the shaman’s calling is typically announced through
\na highly individual crisis. This may involve a serious illness or a near-death experience.
\nMost frequently, the shaman’s calling is announced in dreams and visions. Among
\nthe Anishnabe or Ojibwa, the revelation of a shaman’s calling – or whatever form our soul’s
\npurpose may take – is frequently the gift of a dream guide, or pawauganuk<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Shamans are not
\nonly called by dreams; dreaming is at the core of their practice. An Amazonian
\npeople, the Kagwahiv, say that “everyone who dreams is a little bit shaman.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, the most common name for the shaman in the Western Hemisphere means simply, “one who dreams”. In
\nMohawk, the word is atetshents <\/i>(masculine
\nform: ratetshents<\/i>), pronounced
\n“adze-edze-ots”. It means “dreamer” in the sense of one who dreams strong, one
\nwho dreams true, one who can travel in dreaming and heal others inside the dreamspace. It also means “doctor” and “healer”.
\nThere we have the ancient understanding that to be a shaman, or doctor, or healer, you
\nmust be at home in the dreamworlds.<\/p>\n

When I found
\nmyself, in dreams, inside the world of ancient Iroquoian shamans and healers, an Onondaga elder told me, “You made some visits
\nand you received some visitations.” That is the basic shamanic understanding of
\nwhat goes on in interesting dreams – we travel somewhere, or receive a visit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is a shaman? The word was borrowed by anthropologists from the Tungus Siberian people. Correctly pronounced, the long As (“ah”) are given equal weight (“shah-mahn”); the magic of the word is in its resonance. The word came into widespread use after the publication of Mircea Eliade’s classic work Shamanism, An Archaic Technique of Ecstasy.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-shamanic-dreaming"],"yoast_head":"\nShamans and dreamers - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/10\/shamans-and-dreamers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shamans and dreamers - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"What is a shaman? The word was borrowed by anthropologists from the Tungus Siberian people. Correctly pronounced, the long As (“ah”) are given equal weight (“shah-mahn”); the magic of the word is in its resonance. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}