Tending to the Path of Direct Revelation
If you have been following my writing at all, it may not surprise you to learn now that I don’t consider myself New Age. Shamanism is the oldest mode of healing and divination, and that speaks to the potency of its magic. The practice of shamanism hails from every continent of the Earth, and there are shamanistic practices from every culture.
There are also similarities from these shamanic cultures aimed at addressing the many spiritual issues that can occur just from living in a body. For instance, one will find that shamans around the world have used a technique for extracting unconscious energy that involved “sucking out” the undesired energies from the energy body while merged with their helping spirit for this work. I find that incredibly curious. Humans didn’t have a way to communicate this ceremony from one continent to the other. Instead, they received this information from the helping spirits who hail from in the Otherworlds, whose communication with the collective clearly has known no bounds.
As a shamanic practitioner and Pagan, I don’t align with a lot of New Age beliefs because they often are very oversimplified and tend to gloss over or completely spiritual bypass the darkness and suffering that we often encounter in our lives. As John Beckett, author, Druid and Pagan priest recently wrote in his last blog post on Patheos, Everything Happens for a Reason:
“It’s all part of God’s plan.” If that’s the case, your God is a lousy planner.
“The Universe has something better for you.” The Universe is a collective term for all that is, not a divine helicopter parent…
[These are] attempts to make us feel better when we’re struggling to deal with something painful in our lives. They tell us there is meaning and purpose even in tragic events. They comfort us with the thought that even if things look hopeless, some greater power is in control.
These words are absolutely false and absolutely toxic.
The majority of New Age belief systems have an Abrahamic view of spirituality, which only creates another type of hierarchy that mirrors the religions many wish to step away from in the first place. We are all here in Earth School, so no one is above another. Shamanism is tens of thousands of years old, I also feel I have a duty to keep the practice of shamanism as sacred as possible without watering it down further. It is with working with the helping spirits that we can best ride the waves of turbulence, transmute them where and when we can, and still hold space for the grave and troubling experiences we witness around us.
Within recent years, shamanism has become quite a buzz word where many have adopted the word shamanic to use with the names of other modalities that aren’t actually reflecting the practice of shamanism at all. Edited by practitioner Nicholas Breeze Wood, Sacred Hoop Magazine is a solid source of current topics in shamanism. In a recent article, All that Glitters… Tales of Rogue Teachers, Wood states:
“Shamanism - as I have said many times, in many places - is a sexy word, and it is well known that sex sells. So people use shamanism - the ‘S’ word - to ‘sex-up’ their products - from hair shampoo to chocolate and from reiki to crystal healing - using the word to add extra shine. Stick the ‘S’ word in the title of something and it gains additional sparkle and sex appeal. Of course, in actuality, very few of these products or services have anything to do with shamanism, and likewise, few of the creators of these products employing that magical glittery ‘S’ word, know what the word actually means either.” ~ Nicholas Breeze Wood, Sacred Hoop Magazine, Issue 126 2024, p. 21
I can’t recommend Sacred Hoop Magazine enough to anyone who is authentically interested in learning about shamanism. The subscription is quite affordable and, in my opinion, completely worth it. There are many books about shamanism now, some good sources and some are… absolutely not. Be forewarned: there are books using the word shamanism that are simply not about shamanism at all. Or worse - the information contained in the book is completely fabricated. The Shamanic Way of the Bee by Sam Buxton is one of these to stay altogether clear of for a plethora of reasons!
When core shamanism came to the West, Michael Harner condensed the many practices discovered in worldwide cultures into a more palatable form for those who did not grow up in a shamanic culture, which sadly includes most of us nowadays. Core shamanism is a way for those whose young neural pathways that were formed from the beliefs found in Abrahamic religions to be able to open up to the Spirit World while setting up safe and appropriate practices. In more traditional shamanism, there exists potential phenomena that would likely unsettle and possibly scare most Westerners because they wouldn’t have a foundation of understanding in which to place the experiences.
Nevertheless, at the core of shamanism is the path of direct revelation. The traditional practice was for the shaman to intentionally travel the Otherworld to communicate with a particular team of spirits the shaman called their “helper spirits” whom they would have worked closely with over many years. The rough translation for shaman in the Evenki language means “one who knows.” Traditional shamans have all gone through a Shamanic Sickness or series of intense initiations either by the spirits, the community - or both - and lived to tell about these often life-threatening ordeals.
This is quite different from the practice of meditation in which the intention is to receive guidance from guides. One can profit a lot from meditation (I also practice it myself), but it greatly differs from the experience of the shamanic journey. Just the act of journeying to the Spirit World alters one’s energy and perceptions because we are being steeped in the magical, mystical “broth” of the Otherworlds, and as a byproduct, we bring that energy back with us to this reality when we return. This is even more true when we merge or even shapeshift with the spirit helpers. In essence, when we travel to the spirits, it is akin to a small death. The more we journey, the more we prepare for our physical one at the end of this life.
The shamanic path is one where your helping spirits and you have a unique relationship which lives and breathes a life of it’s own and needs no one else’s validation. This is a place where one’s power and truth thrive. In a current world filled with so much mis- and disinformation, and so much denial of the truth, I personally find this sacred practice of direct revelation to be a lifeline. Working with the helping spirits in the Otherworlds has a deep ripple-effect on this world and how I approach my personal challenges as well. Careful discernment and deep trust of oneself and one’s allies is a potent force in living in these times, and that is my wish for you.
