This introduction to healing starts here in part 1. If you haven’t, we do recommend that you start there.
Shamanic Philosophy of Healing Shamanic healing is a spiritual and medical practice, based upon the belief that all healing includes a spiritual dimension. Shamans enter altered states of consciousness to communicate with other realms of reality. The shaman’s journey is to help the patient, or community, to rediscover their connection to themselves, nature and spirit.
The shaman is responsible for the health of the individual, as well as the community. This is a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual balance. The shaman is the ritual leader, herbalist, and mediator between the community and the spirit world. The spiritual healing methods of shamanism, are now receiving increased and significant attention in our culture, because shamanic healing affects the energy field of a person. To better understand how a shaman heals, it is important to understand some of the fundamental concepts of shamanism. It is a specific set of methodologies, for accessing the spirit, or energy field of anything, or anyone. We begin to heal by working with an unseen inner spiritual reality, which creates changes, which in turn create changes, which in turn in the seen physical & everyday reality.
The Shamans Essential Perspective
- Everything is alive. Everything has spirit and awareness.
- Energy and matter are the same. Everything is vibration. Everything that exists is an energy system, within a greater energy system; microcosm and macrocosm.
- Everything that exists is connected to everything else, the interconnectedness of all things.
- The unseen inner spiritual reality, affects the visible reality.
Working within this system of perceptions, the shaman strives to restore balance and harmony to the spirit. This can be focused on the individual, the community, or in essence anything that exists. What distinguishes the shaman from other healers are the methods. The journey, or soul flight, allows the shaman to send their consciousness into the spirit world to obtain information and knowledge.
This information is retrieved, and used for further insight or healing. By using shamanic practices, a wide spectrum of healing is possible. Traditional shamanic healing is done by journeying to the beat of a drum or rattle to visit a teaching spirit or power animal for guidance or wisdom. Shamanic healing takes place in many forms, depending on what the spirits recommend.
Shamans employ many different healing methods besides those acquired during the journey, these are herbal medicine, visualization, hands on healing, the use of aroma, stones, and sometimes basic psychology, what I refer to as shamanic counselling. The shaman understands the necessity of using both nature and spirit in healing. Any combination of healing methods may be used, it really depends upon the situation.
The Methods of Healing
The shaman works directly with the spirit of the plant, or mineral, to assist in healing. One method I use to diagnose a patient is with a set of throwing stones. I toss the stones onto a drawn human figure, which stones land where gives me a good idea of which areas of the body I need to look in. I then ask the spirits of the stones, how they wish to work with the patient, how to achieve a state of balance and harmony. Each healing is personalized, and individual. Both the healer and the patient must be willing to work in a spirit of humility and gratitude, acknowledging dependence and partnership with non-human elements.
Healing through Ancestral Memories: This includes ancestral spirits and reincarnated memories. These are spirits who have gone on before, who have evolved to the point that they no longer need to be incarnated. These ancestral spirits have a vast source of knowledge and power. They are what keep the shaman connected to his/her roots. Reincarnated memories also can assist the shaman, as do present body memories. If you have done something before that was successful, you will attempt to repeat it the same way. Or if you have done something wrong you, hopefully, will not repeat the performance. Ancestral memories can be conscious and unconscious. Many times I have heard over the years… “I had no idea what I was doing, but it just worked”. We are always connected to the Divine. Again it is being aware of not only our external world, but our inner hidden world that establishes the balance we need to become the spiritual beings we are intended to be.