chapter 1 - Bentham Science

Shamanism: The “Wounded Healer”
The Primitive Mind and Modern Man, 2010, 95-113 95
John Alan Cohan
All rights reserved - © 2010 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.
CHAPTER 8
Abstract. Shamanism is a widespread healing discipline, grounded in animism. Healing, divination, rain-making
and settling disputes are among the shaman’s duties. Many people rely on shamans for primary health care and
spiritual guidance. The mind, body and spirit are treated as a unit by shamans. The shaman will seek to determine
the supernatural cause of an illness. This can be anything from the violation of a taboo or some other
transgression against the supernatural world, possession by an evil spirit, sorcery practiced by an enemy, or the
actions of an offended ancestral ghost.
INTRODUCTION
Shamanic calling is usually hereditary or by initiatory dreams; there may also be illness, suffering and temporary
derangement during which souls of dead shamans are said to come and teach the candidates. Shamans may derive
their powers from animal spirit helpers, and sometimes in rituals the shaman will employ shapeshifting and change
into an animal. Often healing sessions involve a “shamanic performance” in which the shaman will act in dramatic
ways, e.g., sucking “evil darts” or other foreign objects out of the patient’s body. Shamans are often revered, but
some regard them as charlatans, or even psychopathic individuals who trick their clients with sleight-of-hand and
other gimmicks. Shamans are said to go into an altered state of consciousness at will (“soul flight”) during rituals,
usually to communicate with spirits and learn the cause of the patient’s ailment, to obtain visions, or to fight hostile
spirits and recover the patient’s soul in order to effect a cure. Music, including singing, dancing and drumming, is
important, for music “activates” clothing, ornaments, amulets, drums, staff and other ritual equipment, and music
mediates the inner and outer worlds of the shaman. The percussive sounds of the shaman’s drum, bells and rattles
are said to provide a “sound bridge” for the transmission of information from spirits. In addition to drums, shamans
may use hallucinogenic mushrooms to help push them into trance states. The shaman’s supernatural powers can be
dangerous: They have power to harm just as they have power to help, and some shamans practice sorcery against
enemies.
A significant portion of the world’s population relies on shamans for primary health care, rather than doctors. This is
not only because in certain regions modern medical personnel are scarce, but has to do with long-standing beliefs the
people have in the efficacy of shamanic healing, the topic of this chapter. The shaman is a privileged individual to
whom people turn mainly for illness, but also for spiritual advice or communication with spirits. Shamans are first
and foremost healers in their community, but they are also spiritual leaders, guides of the souls, reciters of songs,
sacrificers, and dramatic actors. Shamans today often occupy a central role in upholding indigenous traditions,
ethnic identity and cultural survival.
Shamans are found all over the world in both modern and primitive cultures. The Foundation for Shamanic Studies,
which is a kind of college for training shamans, has a program for psychotherapists, physicians and psychiatrists in
which techniques are taught for treating clinically defined psychosis and other syndromes that involve extreme
behaviors (Foundation for Shamanic Studies, 2006). In urban communities where seminars on various New Age
topics flourish, one easily can sign up for shamanic training, although purists will claim that many of these
purported shamans are charlatans.
In modern times perhaps the most well-known book about shamanism is by the Romanian anthropologist, Mircea
Eliade (1972) entitled Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.
The shaman is probably the oldest profession in the history of humanity. Shamanism seems to have its earliest
appearance in Paleolithic hunting and gathering groups that migrated from Asia to the Americas 10,000 to 50,000
years ago (Winkelman, 1990, p. 320). Krippner (2002) claimed:
Shamans appear to have been humankind’s first psychotherapists, first physicians, first magicians, first
performing artists, first storytellers, and even the first timekeepers and weather forecasters (p. 970).