Secret_History

Afterword 661
the domination of the Entropic forces. I have certainly experienced this more times
than I care to mention.
Getting back to the infirmities, nervous disorders, illness of crisis and so forth
that are the “signs of election”, it is also noted that, sometimes an accident, a fall, a
blow on the head, or being hit by lightning are the signs from the environment that
the shaman has been elected. But, being “called” is not the same as being
“chosen”, or, more precisely, choosing. “Many are called; few choose to respond.”
This choosing is a process, and it is a process of struggle and pain and suffering
because, in the end, what is being killed is the ego.
The pathology of the Shamanic path seems to be part of the means of reaching
the “condition” to be initiated. But, at the same time, they are often the means of
the initiation itself. They have a physiological effect that amounts to a
transformation of the ordinary individual into a technician of the sacred.
(But, if such an experience is not followed by a period of theoretical and
practical instruction, the shaman becomes a tool for those forces that would use
the Shamanic function to further enslave mankind as we have already noted.)
Now, the experience that transforms the shaman is constituted of the wellknown
religious elements of suffering, death and resurrection. One of the earliest
representations of these elements is in the Sumerian story of the descent of
Ishtar/Inanna into the Underworld to save her son-lover, Tammuz. She had to pass
through Seven “gates of Hell” and, at each door or gate, she was stripped of
another article of her attire because she could only enter the Underworld Naked.
While she was in the underworld, the earth and its inhabitants suffered loss of
creative vigor. After she had accomplished her mission, fertility was restored.
The most well known variation of this story is the myth of Persephone/Kore, the
daughter of Demeter, who was kidnapped by Hades/Pluto.
The Shamanic visions represent the descent as dismemberment of the body,
flaying of the flesh from the bones, being boiled in a cauldron, and then being
reassembled by the gods and/or goddesses. This, too, is well represented in myth
and legend, including the myth of Jesus: Suffering, death, and resurrection. In
short, the crucifixion - the Burial of Christ - is a symbol of the Shamanic
Transformation:
A Yakut shaman, Sofron Zateyev, states that during this visionary initiation, the
future shaman “dies” and lies in the yurt for three days without eating or drinking.
...
Pyotr Ivanov gives further details. In the vision, the candidate’s limbs are removed
and disjointed with an iron hook; the bones are cleaned, the flesh scraped, the body
fluids thrown away, and the eyes torn from their sockets. After this operation all the
bones are gathered up and fastened together with iron.