Embark on a Journey of Spiritual Education and Experiential Learning
Shaman Tracks is dedicated to instructing sincere students in the fundamentals of Core Shamanism as developed by Michael Harner. Our workshops blend ancient wisdom with modern techniques to help you explore the depths of your spiritual path.
We are not alone
Fundamental to shamanism is the knowledge that the spirits are real. According to Michael Harner, they often attempt to communicate their reality to us through miracles and "micro-miracles".
We can help others
One of the great gifts of shamanism is learning how we can help others. Shamanic modes of healing can bring balance to distressing situations. This is an amazing gift in these trying times.
We can help ourselves
As we learn to venture into the realms of the spirits, we are adventurers, and our explorations can bring about new understanding opening us to new possibilities in life.
What are the worlds in which the spirits dwell?
Mircea Eliade defined the cosmic realms as the Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds. If you think of a tree, the roots are in the Lower World, the trunk is in the Middle World and the Crown is in the Upper World. For us as cosmic travelers, the Upper and Lower Worlds are a type of non-ordinary reality. This word comes to us from Carlos Castaneda and reminds us that space and time operate differently in these realms. The Middle World is made up of ordinary reality, what we can see and share in normal waking consciousness, as well as non-ordinary reality.
There are variations in the ways different Siberian groups, for example, experience the realms. The Chukchi cosmology has a stack of nine worlds; the Samoyedic-speakers conceived of a heaven in six tiers; and the Altai had three, seven or nine levels in the sky alone.
With all this variation, what kind of shamanism can I learn?
As an anthropologist, Michael Harner studied the practices of many shamans learning their methods for confronting problems. He avoided specific cosmologies in developing what he has called “core shamanism”. This is what the Foundation for Shamanic Studies teaches. Core shamanism is the practice of techniques that are universal or nearly universal in addressing the issues of healing and divination for a community. Thus, to learn the techniques, one doesn’t have to learn complicated cosmology or another language in order to practice.
Why does the shaman voyage spiritually?
The shaman’s voyage is called a journey. The shaman journeys for many reasons such as meeting Power and bringing it back to ordinary reality in the form of knowledge and healing for him or herself and the community; retrieving the wandering soul of a patient; helping the suffering spirits of the dead; and exploring the infinite worlds of spirit.
The spiritual journeys of the shaman support the four paths of the shaman as put forth by Stanislav Grof and Angeles Arrien: the path of the warrior, the adventurer, the healer and the teacher. The way of the warrior uses spiritual exploration to learn about strength and behaving impeccably. The development of strength with an emphasis on the cultivation of unity is the way of the adventurer. The way of the healer often presents to a potential shaman during an initiatory crisis in which the shaman’s understanding of disease unfolds. This path is the one in which the idea of the “wounded healer” develops. The way of the teacher is the path of the visionary who brings back information from other realities to inform and support the community. There’s a bit of all paths in each practitioner, but sometimes one path takes prominence.
What the Quester needs to know...
What else does the shaman do?
A shaman understands that everything that is, is alive; that everything is imbued with consciousness and can communicate. And so, the shaman will talk to the plants, animals, rocks, clouds, to anything, really. The shaman reads the signs of nature and performs various types of divination. In promoting healing, the shaman puts something into a patient, such as spiritual power, or takes something out of a person, such as a misplaced spirit power. The shaman may engage in depossession, locate lost objects, provide a voice for the spirits, or bring back the old ways from the ancestors. The shaman may help the spirit of a deceased human to leave this world while acting as a psychopomp. In short, the shaman is a spirit worker taking on tasks to bring balance and well-being to a community.
How does one become a shaman?
Traditionally, indigenous people embarked on the unfolding path to become a shaman in many ways: inheritance, apprenticeship, a calling, an initiatory illness, or via divine election wherein the spirits approach and invite. As modern, Western people, we can learn the methods of healing and divination with and engage the help of the spirits. This will take us a step along the path. It is typically up to those for whom one works to call one a shaman. We know that through study and practice, modern people can employ the simple and time-tested techniques of the shaman and make a significant difference in the world.
Some would say that no one in their right mind would call themselves a shaman. Instead, they leave that naming to those they attempt to help. Grandfather Duvan, who was a 94-year-old Ulchi shaman said in ceremony that he was not a shaman but only a man asking the spirits for help.
Why walk in the footsteps of the shaman?
Some have a spiritual hunger, others yearn to help, and others want to enhance their existing healing practices. As Joseph Campbell has said, “We are in a free fall into the future without any guides.” When we practice shamanism, we connect with unlimited guidance from helping spirits and learn ways not only to help, but how to build power that benefits our communities.
What is a shaman?
The shaman is someone who, utilizing an altered state of consciousness often achieved through drumming, voyages spiritually into the realms of non-ordinary reality and interacts with spirits for various reasons such as healing or acquiring knowledge, and often gets dramatic results. The word shaman comes from the Even people and is translated from their Tungusic language as he or she who knows.
The term “shaman” has been applied to many practitioners and, as such, has caused great controversy in the literature. Every group of people had their own names for these kinds of practitioners. For Turkic-speakers, it was kam. Tadibei was used by the Samoyedic-speakers. The Buryats had their bö and the Koryaks their enenalan. Magico-religious specialists were not limited to shamans; others worked with them and had different specialties. In fact, the most widespread Siberian term for shaman is kam.
In the past, the spiritual journey to the other realms has been the defining aspect of the shaman. However, there are many traditional practitioners who achieve results without using the journey to other realms to engage spiritual help. Sometimes, the "help" comes to the practitioner. Thus, Michael Harner has recently expanded his working definition of the shaman in his most recent book Cave and Cosmos. Presently, the shaman according to Harner is one who "uses an altered state of consciousness to engage in a purposeful two-way interaction with spirits."
What are spirits?
Michael Harner provides an excellent definition of spirit in his book Cave and Cosmos. A spirit is "…an animate essence that has intelligence and different degrees of power, that is seen most easily in complete darkness and much less frequently in bright light, and in an altered state of consciousness better than an ordinary state. In fact, there is some question whether you can see it in an ordinary state of consciousness at all."
What is it that the shaman knows?
The first thing a shaman knows is that the spirits are real. The second thing the shaman knows is how to access the worlds in which the spirits dwell. One of the key aspects of this is the knowledge of the territories of death.
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