How does a shaman go through initiation?

Initiation is big topic when it comes to shamanism, and there are a lot of misconceptions. Many people want to know if they can just go through an initiation ceremony to become a shaman. A lot of people don’t know what initiation does. I hope to break things down for you so there will be a clearer understanding. I welcome you to contact me with any questions that arise.

Initiation, as the name implies is a beginning. Birth is a type of initiation. I also see death as an initiation. Many life passages can be viewed in a similar way.

Shamans are Initiated By Spirit.

The way that shamans are selected, called, and trained varies in different cultures. There may be years of apprenticeship, mandatory teachings, vision quests, etc. before someone is allowed to serve as a spiritual functionary in a given culture.

Ultimately, a shaman is initiated by spirit itself. This means that the shaman has worked with spiritual forces and has become a clear channel for spirit. We often refer to this as “becoming the hollow bone”

The hollow bone metaphor is a good one. One has to clear out the “junk” in order to become a clear pathway for spirit to act in this world. When I perform a healing ceremony on a client, for example, I am not doing the work. I am stepping out of the way, dropping my ego, and allowing spirit to work through me to do the work. This level of surrender to spirit does not come easily to most people. It did not come easy to me in the beginning.

An Initiation Ceremony Is Not Necessarily an Initiation

A ceremony is a ritualistic event marking something special. A wedding is a ceremony marking a commitment by two people. A ribbon-cutting ceremony may mark the opening of a new business. Ritual, in its case, means a symbolic action. The actual cutting of a ribbon is a ritual symbolizing the opening. Exchanging rings during a wedding is an action symbolizing shared commitment.

In my life, I have participated in a lot of initiatory ceremonies. Going back to childhood, I went through ceremonies in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. There were ceremonies for joining certain organizations.

During my shamanic training, I participated in a two-year initiatory training. There were lots of ceremonies, rituals, and practices. They were all meant to help the participants to become that hollow bone. The ceremonies themselves were intended to create the conditions for spiritual change. It was the spiritual change itself that was the real initiation.

Shamanic Initiation Can Be Dramatic And Unpleasant

During my training, I shared the following analogy with my teacher, who agreed that it was spot on. Initiation, for me, was like putting your life in a snow globe, then putting it in a paint mixer in a hardware store to shake the crap out of it.

Lots of “stuff” happened to me during that time. Lots of things also happened to my peers as well. Relationships ended, started, ended. Jobs changed. There were health crises. During this time, nothing felt like it was on stable ground.

In many shamanic cultures, to practice shamanism, one must have gone through a “shamanic crisis.” This could consist of lots of things, from a near-death experience to being hit by lightning, to a self-induced ordeal. Fortunately, in my classes and mentorships, I don’t recommend my students try to go get hit by lightning.

The dramatic experiences that go with initiation are actually spirit working on the prospective shaman. Going through these ordeals and crises shakes up and reconfigures the spirit. It helps to clear out the junk that has been building up for lifetimes. Think of sifting flour. If you just dump flour into the sifter, some will fall through, but the rest will just stay in the sifter. You have to shake the sifter for the rest of the flour to come through.

Initiation in Modern Shamanism

Though the core practices of shamanism I practice are at least tens of thousands of year old, I might describe my practice as modern shamanism. I live in a modern culture. I do not have the same concerns as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and I elected to study shamanism.

In many cultures, the title of shaman might be inherited by bloodline. Potential shamans might be chosen due to birth defects, or auspicious events close to their birth. They might be called by spirit by having what we would call a mental health crisis.

This is not say I haven’t been initiated. I went through a lot of crisis. I trained for years. I had to apply and be accepted by my teachers every step of the way. I put in a lot of self work. Shamanism is much more about becoming than it is about doing. If you are initiatiated, it changes everything about you.

What if I Want To Become a Shaman?

First, in my tradition, I never refer to myself as a shaman. This is considered bragging, and bragging is no bueno. Trust me that the spirits will take you down a peg. I use the term shamanic practitioners. If other people refer o me as a shaman, that’s OK, it’s just not a title I use to refer to myself.

But there is also a really important lesson here, You have to approach the spirits with confident humility. Bragging and hubris are indicators that you have work to do. I have a lot of people who approach me with huge egos - “I am ordained by the gods to…etc.” This doesn’t mean they might not be cut out to learn shamanism, but there’s going to be a lot of work to do, and initiation might be very unpleasant. Spirit will take you down to the level where you either learn or walk away from the path.

I believe that you are either called or you are not. It’s like training in martial arts. Maybe one out of every five hundred people who take a first-class lasts long enough to earn a first-degree black belt. Out of the people who make that, maybe one out of five hundred earn a second degree. I won’t get into the schools that water things down and make it fast and easy to earn belts.

Most people who take an intro to shamanism class will go no farther with it. And that’s totally fine. They will learn some great skills that they can use for the rest of their lives. Some may go on to do an apprenticeship, even fewer will continue past that.

The process of self-selection is fine. There is no judgment for people who get a taste of shamanism and decide it’s not for them or feel like they’ve had enough at some point.

If you go through an initiatory crisis, dedicate years to training, and stay very humble and still want to practice shamanism, this may be your path.

The nice thing about modern shamanic practice is that it is easy to begin. From time to time I teach 2-day introduction to shamanism classes. I have even taught online recently. I also offer flexible mentorships for one on one training. Either are easy ways to learn the fundamentals and help decide if the practice is for you.

Note: I plan on offering full apprenticeships starting in 2022 (depending on the pandemic situation).

Shamanic Energy Healing

As a shamanism teacher, one of the questions I get asked a lot is, “how is shamanism different that energy work like Reiki or IET?” It’s a good question as, from the outside, all healing modalities work with mind, body, and spirit.

I cannot speak for the many healing modalities out there, but I can talk about shamanism.

I find it useful to think about humans as an intersection of many dimensions, like a stack of clear overhead projector sheets overlaid to create a single picture. On the gross level, we have a physical body. The physical body alone consists of a very complex arrangement of systems. You have cells, organs, muscles, and bones, a nervous and digestive system. Each of these systems can be broken down into different parts - ad infinitum.

You also have other bodies - energetic, spiritual, and soul bodies, energetic bodies, etc. Each of these is just as complex.

In general, shamans are not purely energy healing. Shamanic healing generally works on the level of the spirit and soul - not strictly the energetic body. The healing work that shamans do works at subtle yet powerful human levels that can affect many bodies at once. So there may, in fact, be energetic healing - but not always.

An example of a shamanic healing ceremony that works with the energy body is extraction. A shaman, with a helping spirit, removes energetic intrusions in the energy body in an extraction ceremony.

Other types of shamanic healing methods may work with soul essences, ancestral healings, curse removal, etc. These ceremonies tend to work on multiple levels.

For example, spirit might direct me to perform a soul retrieval ceremony on someone—the soul essence returning works at a profound level. The person might feel emotional changes immediately followed by physical changes. The healing has rippled through the overlapping systems.

In general, those who consider themselves strictly energy healers work primarily with different “levels” of the human system than shamans do. This does not make one modality any better than another. They’re like different specialties in medicine.

If you went to a doctor for chronic pain, for example, they might refer you to a neurologist or a physical therapist, depending on the source of the issue.

Some shamanic practitioners mix modalities. An individual healer might have also training in reiki or other energy healing modalities. A healer might perform a healing ceremony in trance, then perform some other energy healing work. This is, of course, OK as long as it’s in the interest of the client. My personal preference is to separate any shamanic work from anything else I might do.

What is a Shamanic Journey?

When you hear of a shamanic journey, what exactly is that?

In core shamanism, the main “thing” a practitioner does to access healing, power, and information is called a shamanic journey. When a shaman journeys, he or she does a number of things:

1. Enters into an altered state of consciousness

2. Accesses nonordinary reality

3. Works with helping spirits

If any of these three elements are missing, the person is doing something other than core shamanism.

Let me break each of these things down:

Entering into an altered state of consciousness

Our ancestors discovered, without the benefit of modern medical equipment, that there were multiple states of consciousness. Some states of consciousness were useful for ordinary day-to-day tasks, like planting crops or gathering water. Other states led to transpersonal experiences. Experiences where the practitioner was able to transcend normal human capabilities for gathering information, influencing the environment, and healing.

While some cultures relied on hallucinogenic plants, called entheogens, many others discovered that trance states could be achieved by performing or listening to certain rhythmic sounds. Across the world, shamans use drums, rattles, clacking sticks, bells, even wind instruments to induce trance.

With modern technology, we can actually measure changes in people’s brainwaves when they journey. We know that around the world, for thousands of years, people have been inducing what are called Theta brainwaves to enter a spiritual transpersonal state. This is a state that you naturally enter during sleep, but rarely during waking hours.

The trance state is important to be able to set aside the perception of ordinary day-to-day reality (just called ordinary reality or OR) and see the underlying spiritual reality on which our material world is layered. We call the spiritual world entered during a journey of nonordinary reality (or NOR).

Accessing Nonordinary Reality

Once a shamanic practitioner enters into the proper altered state, he or she then accesses nonordinary reality.

Nonordinary reality can be described as the spiritual realms which underly our physical reality. In core shamanism, we recognize and travel in an upper world, middle world, and lower world. The reality is that there seem to be infinite worlds, think of parallel spiritual universes.

These worlds are where the actual journey happens.

The shaman has been trained to send part of his or her soul into these spiritual realms to do whatever spiritual tasks are required.

Working with Helping Spirits

A shaman is always in relationship with his or her helping spirits. Helping spirits include power animals as well as ancestor spirits, weather spirits, spirits of nature, teacher spirits, and others.

All spiritual work in core shamanism is done with the help of one or more helping spirits. The practitioner acts as a conduit for the helping spirit. The work itself varies greatly depending on what is to be done.

During a shamanic journey, the practitioner meets with helping spirits in nonordinary reality to work with them to accomplish the intent of the work

How do you Become a Shaman?

I’d like to talk about how one becomes a shaman, but I have to clarify something first. In my tradition, one does not call oneself a shaman. When I refer to myself, I mostly use the phrase “shamanic practitioner” as I truthfully am a person who practices shamanic spiritual techniques.

I also want to make clear that indigenous shamanic cultures are extremely varied. How they select and/or train people who take the role of the shaman is different culture by culture. While I have extensive training, I am not an anthropologist and don’t want to speak about cultures I am not familiar with.

I will do my best here to draw out some commonalities.

Choosing Who is a Shaman

In some cultures, the role of the shaman is hereditary. A person is selected and trained by parents or grandparents. In other cultures, a shaman is born with certain signs, perhaps a birth defect of some sort. In others, one has to have passed through a traumatic ordeal, like being struck by lightning.

Ultimately, I believe that spirit chooses. Whether you are born into a certain family, or struck by lightning, or born with birth defects in the cultures that use these selection criteria, spirit is nudging those it chooses onto the path.

Today, almost anyone can sign up for a basic course in shamanism. However, those who do not have a spiritual predisposition for the path, do not wind up sticking to it. I’ll talk about why in the next section on initiation.

A Shaman’s Initiation

Shamanic initiation is no easy ride. I have referred to it as putting your whole life into a snow globe and then putting that snow globe into one of those paint mixers at Home Depot. It’s going to shake things up.

It’s important for me to draw a distinction between initiation and an initiation ceremony here. I have participated in many different initiation ceremonies, all of them are very powerful. Some of them were intense and even frightening. But these were ceremonies that all had set beginning and ending points. They were also led and supervised by advanced practitioners - so there is a measure of safety.

But initiation on the shamanic path is an ongoing process conducted by spirit. It never gets easy. My take is that it is spirit breaking down old parts of you that are no longer useful so that you can become the proverbial “hollow bone”. Think of the way indigenous people traditionally made canoes by burning and scooping out the centers of logs.

For me, initiation involves facing parts of myself hidden away in the shadow, having my life turned upside down from time to time, and reexamining my relationship to everything.

There’s a scene in Empire Strikes Back where Luke fights Darth Vader in the swamp of Dagobah. Luke tells Yoda, “I am not afraid.” Yoda responds knowingly, “you will be.” When Darth’s helmet is struck open it reveals Luke’s face underneath. This is a great representation of the shadow aspect of the self, experienced during shamanic journeys.

Ultimately, just as spirit chooses the shaman, spirit initiates the shaman. Even if outward ceremony is involved, spirit is doing the real work.

Shamanic Training

I think I have laid out a good case of why someone can’t just take a class or read a book and be a shaman. However, training is necessary to practice shamanic healing.

Indigenous shamanic cultures will each have their own way of conducting training. Some have an apprentice model, some training is conducted by elders or family members.

My own path involves extensive training. I have completed a year-long apprenticeship in shamanism, a two-year initiatory program, specialized topic training, and am about to start two years of advanced teacher training. For me, the learning never stops.

For my own students, I recommend they don’t take on clients without completing a year of apprenticeship, and training in soul retrieval. Even then, a practitioner may run into things he or she hasn’t trained for and would need to refer to another practitioner

If you’re interested in shamanism and feel called to the path, I recommend starting with an Intro to Shamanism and Journeying class. This is normally an in-person class given over a weekend that will give you a taste of shamanic practice and teach the basic skill of journeying. It’s also a prerequisite for an apprenticeship and some other classes.

Is Shamanism a Native American Religious Practice?

Recently someone asked me if I had consulted with any indigenous people in regards to teaching shamanism. It’s a valid question meant to respect sacred spiritual practices which are sometimes co-opted by unscrupulous practitioners.

Let me begin by saying that I am no expert in Native American religion or spirituality. I am not Native American myself.

Core Shamanism isn’t a Native American Religion or Sacred Practice

I do not practice, teach, claim to teach, or try to imitate Native American or other indigenous ceremonies. I have participated in ceremonies from a number of cultures as an invited guest, and always do so with as much reverence and respect as I can gather.

I think there is some confusion about modern practitioners of core shamanism. In a way, their role as a healer and teacher does overlap what might have been traditional tribal roles. We might call those people “medicine people” but each language would have their own term. Because core shamanism includes practices which appear in every shamanic culture, some methods might appear to be the same.

I think there is also a bias at work for those in the US. For example, many shamanic practitioners use drums. I sometimes use a hide drum I made under the guidance of a Native American teacher.

When someone who grew up in the US sees a person drumming with a hide drum it might be natural to associate that with Native Americans. That’s our cultural reference. But hide drums are used by cultures all over the world, from the Americas to Scandinavia, to Eastern Europe, to Africa.

People in the US are also very sensitive to cultural appropriation. This can be a good thing to address when other cultures are actually being exploited, denigrated, or lessened. But talking with people who have studied with shamans in Nepal, Mongolia, and Africa, I know that there are cultures that are proud to share their spiritual traditions with those who would respect them.

However, it’s not up to people outside of a culture to decide what’s OK to disseminate. For example, I was led through a Saami ceremony once by someone taught directly by Saami shamans to lead it. I wouldn’t then turn around and “make that ceremony my own.”

Core shamanism includes practices which are common to cultures around the world and belong to everyone.

The word shaman

The word shaman itself can drive a lot of confusion. It is Like so much of the English language, it is a borrowed or loanword. It is not, however, borrowed from any language indigenous to the Americas.

As near as we can tell, the word came into English in the 17th century from the German word Schamane,. It came into German from Russian. From Russian it originated with the Tungus people of Siberia. Before that, linguists are unclear but it may have roots in China originally from India. In Sanskrit, the word for ascetic monk is śramaṇa.

I know other practitioners who will not use the word “shaman” because it is “not our word".” But the word belongs in English as much as any word that came into use during the period of Early Modern English (1500-1800).

We use thousands of words every day like lemon, tattoo, avatar, yoga, kowtow, mosquito, which are loanwords without questioning the ethics of their use.

Perhaps if there were another word coined for shamanism to describe the practice of shamanism in English, we might use it. Regardless, the word is not Native American in origin.

Most Non-Native Shamanic Practitioners are Allies

I cannot think of a shamanic practitioner I know who does not consider him or herself and ally of indigenous people.I know many who travelled to Standing Rock, for example, tp support the people there.

I consider myself an ally,

And I hope to clarify and draw a line so that there isn’t even the appearance that I am irreverently stealing sacred things from cultures to which I have no link.

Is shamanism cultural appropriation?

Sometimes a question of cultural appropriation arises in talking about shamanism.

Cultural appropriation is an idea that comes from sociology and is when a dominant culture takes items from a minority culture and incorporates them. This is seen as a negative when items from the minority culture are reduced in meaning - like when they are made into toys or mascots

I do not believe that the vast majority of people practicing shamanism today are, in any way, participating in cultural appropriation.

Let's start with the word shaman. In English, "shaman" was borrowed from the German, which was borrowed from the Russian, which was borrowed from the Tungus people of Siberia. But the word has origins beyond the Tungus as well. We don't know if it was borrowed originally from Chinese or Pali. It may have come from Sanskrit before that, and who knows beyond that?

It has come to mean, in the West, a set of spiritual practices that have been practiced by nearly every culture on the planet at some point.

Core Shamanism bridges cultures

Most People practicing a form shamanism that hasn't been inherited from their own indigenous culture, practice something referred to as Core Shamanism. Core Shamanism is a set of spiritual practices, assembled by people doing anthropological and ethnographic research.

What these researchers found is that cultures around the world did a number of the exact practices. For example - shamans in every culture use sound - such as percussive rhythm - to drive trance. Shamans travel to spiritual worlds and form relationships with spiritual allies.

Cave art, thousands of years old, depicts shamanic states and practices. No one culture in existence today is the source of Core Shamanism.

Shamanism is everyone's birthright

The practices we know as shamanic appear to have been practiced in some form in every culture. From ancient Egypt to the Norse, to African, Celtic, Native American, and Asian cultures. No matter what your Ancestry.com DNA test tells you-you came from a shamanic culture. Perhaps you came from numerous shamanic cultures.

The spiritual technologies of shamanism are inherent in your makeup.

Some cultural practices and tools are universal

Think of the bow and arrow and the drum. They exist in different forms across almost all cultures. From the most isolated tribes of the Amazon to the Greeks and Romans to the Japanese - almost everybody has these same tools.

Trance is a tool of mind/body/spirit practiced across cultures as well. It can take different forms - from Buddhist meditation to Ayahuasca journeys in Peru. But altering the state of mind for spiritual practice is universal.

It's easy, in the US, to see people gathered in a drum circle, beating hide drums, and think that they are stealing a Native American ceremony. This is an image you may have been exposed to and linked with Native American culture. But, again, drumming and drum circles cross many cultures.

Shamanism is done with a sense of honor towards the sacred

The main argument about cultural appropriation centers on reducing the value of cultural items. Shamanism, as I have witnessed it, holds every practice sacred. 

I have practiced a Japanese martial art for decades. When we train, we wear kimono and obi. We bow in a traditional way, Japanese terms of respect are used, instructions are sometimes given. Before and after practice we bow to the kamiza - seat of the spirits. All of these practices are done with honor for the culture they come from.

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of training with and observing a number of masters who traveled from the Budokon in Japan for an exhibition. One very senior teacher was very excited to see that I held a practice sword correctly. Some of the archers gave arrows they had shot as gifts to visitors. These teachers were so happy to share a bit of their culture with those who respect it.

I think, when it's done with knowledge, permission, guidance, and honor, there are sacred practices that can be adopted. There are indigenous teachers out there who are happy to share their practices. And, I think, this makes the world better. 

Likewise, I will always honor taboos about sharing certain things with outsiders.

I will end with the first principle of Huna, as elucidated by Serge Kahili King:
A'ohe pau ka 'ike i ka halau ho'okahi ,
"All knowledge is not taught in one school,"