Shamanic practice is the earliest known form of religion that our ancestors experienced. The different number of spiritual techniques used to expand our conscious and provoke mystical experiences was astonishing. These techniques ranged from chanting, fasting, and nature immersion, to incessant trance dancing and ingesting hallucinogenic plants.
Unlike most religions where the main concern is finding answers, the Shaman is more interested in provoking you to ask the right questions that will lead you to experience truth. The Shaman doesn’t pursue meaning: he or she creates it by bringing the sacred to an otherwise mundane reality.
The word “Shaman” first originated in Siberia as the word “samarambi” meaning “to excite oneself,” and “sam-dambi” meaning to dance. The shaman, therefore, excites himself into a divine frenzy or ecstasy through drum beating and dancing, until he passes into a trance when his spirit leaves his body.
The scholar of comparative religion and anthropologist Mirca Eliade gave us the most simple shaman definition as “specialists in ecstasy,” with an impressive list of abilities including thought-reading, clairvoyance, firewalking, and spirit interaction, just to name a few.
It’s these moments of ecstasy, of ego death, that provide an experience of reality that is larger, deeper, and infinitely more exquisitely beautiful. Shamans worldwide know that in order to understand society and live more fully attuned to reality, they need to go wild, travel out of their normal minds, and visit the invisible world of Spirit, which is the undercurrent of the visible world.
By accessing the invisible realm, Shamans can tap into a powerful way of guiding their lives and the lives of others....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...
