IF YOU MEET YOUR SPIRIT GUIDE ON THE ROAD, KILL HIM

I try not to be too hard on so-called 'Core' Shamanism. It is where many of us begin on this hard-to-define path, whose meaning we consequently argue about. Some people insist they know what Shamanism is and what it isn't, and they are probably best left in their happy bubbles. Other people insist that whatever Shamanism is, it is not a religion. Well of course it is, don't be daft, religion is what happens whenever you get more than one person together in a room, you get unspoken rules and hierarchies and all that, it is just what humans do. The point of religion is eventually to step outside of it. If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. That sort of thing. When you meet your Spirit Guide on the yellow brick road, kill her too. If you are ready, and she doesn't kill you first. You always know what you need to know, if you are listening to the multiverse, because you are the multiverse.

But I began this piece with 'Core' Shamanism, and not wanting to be too hard on it. It was my own way in, in 1997, after 17 years of a rather fundamentalist Buddhism that did not consider the Earth to be sacred. Well, I can't say Core Shamanism did either, not particularly: the emphasis was on journeying and the magical things you can do in that realm. Which worked for me. Over a period it changed me deeply, and catalysed a complete change in my life. Though my journeying quickly moved outside the paradigm I had been taught. And into something the teacher 'had never heard of', suggesting it was somehow wrong.

Be that as it may, this 'Core' Shamanism (and 'Core' is one hell of a claim that I could spend a whole post unpicking) got many of us going, and needs credit for that. That said, it is merely a minimalist method, scientifically stripped of cultural context and richness. Maybe that is what the word 'Core' really means. It would give it a kind of validity in the academic context in which its originator Michael Harner lived.

Anyway, I asked Chatpgt what it thought were the limitations of Core Shamanism, and this is what it said. It seemed fair enough to me, apart from the use of the term 'cultural appropriation', which I think is loaded and political and in denial of the natural process by which cultures have always freely taken from each other.

So here is ChatPGT, with its latest installment of AI Shamanism:

Limitations of Core Shamanism

Core shamanism is a modern approach to shamanism developed by Michael Harner in the late 20th century. It is based on cross-cultural shamanic practices and techniques that are believed to be universal to all shamanic traditions. While core shamanism has gained popularity in recent years, it also has some limitations, including:

Cultural appropriation: Core shamanism claims to be a universal approach to shamanism that is not tied to any specific cultural or ethnic tradition. However, some critics argue that this approach is a form of cultural appropriation, as it cherry-picks practices and techniques from different indigenous cultures without proper understanding or respect for their cultural context.

Lack of lineage and cultural roots: Core shamanism is not grounded in any specific cultural or ethnic tradition, which means that it lacks the depth and richness that comes from a long lineage of shamanic practitioners. This can result in a superficial understanding of shamanism and a lack of connection to the cultural and spiritual roots of the practice.

Overemphasis on individualism: Core shamanism tends to focus on individual spiritual development and personal empowerment, rather than on the collective well-being of the community. This can lead to a self-centered approach to spirituality that neglects the social and political dimensions of shamanic practice.

Limited understanding of the spiritual world: Core shamanism tends to view the spiritual world as a kind of psychological projection of the individual psyche, rather than as a complex and dynamic reality in its own right. This can result in a reductionist and simplistic view of spiritual experience, which fails to appreciate the depth and complexity of shamanic cosmologies.

Lack of traditional training and initiation: Core shamanism is often taught through workshops and seminars, rather than through traditional apprenticeship and initiation processes. This can result in a shallow understanding of shamanic practice and a lack of respect for the traditional ways of learning and practicing shamanism.

Overall, while core shamanism has its benefits and can be a useful starting point for those interested in shamanic practice, it is important to approach it with awareness of its limitations and to seek out more grounded and culturally rooted forms of shamanism

'EVERY POWER ANIMAL IS TERRIBLE'

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The words came to me the other day, that most people, if they encountered a power animal for real, would run a mile. What do I do with that? I'm sure I would have to include myself. When an experience is truly visionary, you do not know you are having it. It is just as real as this reality: there actually is a big cat standing in front of you. And it shouldn't be there!

I don't want to sound like a certain person that many of us know through Facebook, who likes to say that our modern shamanism has no power compared to indigenous traditions. And he, naturally, is the authority on it, and the channel to it. It's a power trip, and he attracts disciples seeking the authority and certainty he provides.

Unfortunately, there is a partial truth in it. Here we go: I think it is equally true of most indigenous people, that they would also run a mile if they had a full-on encounter with a power animal. Phew, got there.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead similarly describes how normal humans shy away from the white light of reality after they have died, and flee in terror to their next body. Again, it is a religious power trip, a way of controlling the masses through fear. It is saying we are born out of fear, rather than for the beautiful experience of being on the earth, which is the more indigenous attitude. But it also contains the same half-truth, for what are power animals if not intermediaries between ourselves and the Great Spirit? As the poet Rilke said, “Every angel is terrible”. And as T.S. Eliot said, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality”. Marianne Williamson: “It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

 

It's a glass half-empty, glass half-full thing. I am glass half-full, I want people to feel they can do this thing. It begins by being open to yourself and to truth in all its forms. Humans believe what they want to believe, about themselves and about the world. If you can be agnostic, more than that, dwell in the Great Mystery of things, and let the truth be what it is - and it is a fluid, complex thing - then you may encounter a power animal in its full reality, instead of a helpful reflection, who may do a few good things, but you're not going to deeply heal anyone, it'll just be bits and pieces. If you are building an identity, a name around being some kind of shamanic practitioner or teacher, then that is the opposite of what I am talking about, you are creating an ego-barrier between yourself and the free flow of Spirit.

That said, the most unlikely, dysfunctional people can have superpowers. The Native American Chipps family was well-known for this, a bunch of thieves and alcoholics whose head guy would switch into being a powerful healer when called upon. But the long-term path of truthfulness to yourself and to your spirits is definitely the way to go, without any thought of the healing powers or reputation that might accrue.

Your body knows, it has animal power and knowing. We humans are traditionally the new-born ones, because we do not know who we are, we are afraid of who we are. Animals know who they are. In this sense they are aligned with the Great Spirit in ways we are not. So we can learn from animals. Hence Power Animals. And Power Plants.

Core Shamanism is perfect if you want to keep it safe. I know one teacher who adds in all sorts of protections before you visit the Spiritworld. It amounts to a way of controlling his disciples by appealing to their fear of the unknown, and making it seem like the 'responsible' thing to do. Nonsense. The Spiritworld is to be trusted, deeply and wholeheartedly. That is where the real power lies. 

This teacher also plays the 'I'm super-intuitive' game, so you'd better believe him, because it comes from 'Spirit'. 'Intuition' does not give you a special pass into the Spiritworld. Apart from the fact that what you say is unverifiable by ordinary means, all temperaments have their equally powerful connections to Spirit. You may be a 'thing' person, or an ideas person. Or you may be illuminated by Spirit by direct transmission, by 'intuition'. That has much value, and you can feel the weight of it when it is genuine. But it is not a free pass. It can be, needs to be, subject to evaluation by others. This, in my experience, is not taught in our courses. It needs to be. Intuition is a subtle art. It is objective in nature, but unexamined is easily a conduit for personal bias and emotion.

I have a theory about Michael Harner, the originator of 'core' shamanism, as if there is such a thing. There can be no method that is core, because shamanism is an inner thing, it is essentially about being true to ourselves and to the spirits that guide the wider course of our lives. Be that as it may, Harner's formative experiences were under Ayahuasca, amongst the Amazon peoples. And the shamans there (see 'The Spears of Twilight' by Philippe D'Escola) are well known for sending black magic each other’s way on a regular basis, to a degree I have not read about elsewhere. Maybe there is an extra level of paranoia issuing from the regular ingestion of Ayahuasca, whatever its other benefits may be. My view is that psychotropics are an initiation, and that the real, unglamorous work comes later. Treating psychotropics as foundational, rather than as an occasional inspirational reset, leads to imbalance, and to a vulnerability to entities that do not mean you well. So Harner comes from a tradition in which you'd better protect yourself, cos there are dark entities and a jealous shamanic mafia out there. This does, incidentally, drive home the point not to idealise indigenous people. They are just like us.

 

So the possibly slightly paranoid indigenous tradition that Harner comes from, issuing from the overuse of psychotropic drugs, has influenced the emphasis he places on protection in the Spiritworld. We do not live in a culture where such a level of protection is necessary, and it comes at a price, which is that wholehearted trust in the Spiritworld, which in a way we have as children, and need to re-learn in a less naive way as adults. Anyway, it's just a theory about Harner, I may be completely wrong.

An experience of a power animal can take many forms. It may not be obvious. It may be the hidden power behind an idea, such as when I am writing my fantasy shapeshifting novel, which seems to have a wolf presiding. It may be a general sense of something guiding your life, which may have the raw, direct visceral quality that typifies a power animal.

And it may be present very directly, very fully, in doing healing work. This is where I particularly relate to the idea of power animals as something we might shy away from. There seem to be ways in which I seem to be quite deeply open to myself/the spirits, I am not hiding behind some kind of identity as a shamanic teacher. That has never worked for me if I have tried (thank you, universe.) The way I work is by embodying and surrendering to whatever it is that wants to show up. I Shapeshift. I do not need a name for the spirit, and often it is others who tell me what they experienced - a woman, a bear, a dinosaur, whatever. In a way it doesn't matter, but I also honour whatever those presences are. They come from a deep, direct, raw place in me: my root chakra, if you like. They may be a very delicate feminine presence, they may be a roaring beast, while often expressively vocalising in an unknown tongue.

 

When I work in this way, it is like a good actor on stage: people experience the presence of what is living through me. Deep and tangible healings seem to happen, they may take a while, but they address long-term underlying issues. I am trying not to be boastful, I am trying to say that when you embody the spirits, and you have been at the coal-face of who you are for enough years, then the Great Spirit has a more open channel through which to work. There are no shortcuts, no shamanic trainings. I am not saying at all this doesn't happen for other healers, of course it does. But it can also be that little happens, it is not the real deal, but we're not supposed to say so. Well I am saying so. I can often tell: this person has all the certificates, but they do not have a deep relationship with themselves, the power is not there. There is a degree of fakery to what they are offering. These things need saying.

 

So the way I work takes me over. It has the presence of a good actor channeling a character. I am fully present, yet surrendered to the spirit. This is how the Siberian shamans work. The power of it is natural and free flowing, and of a different order to that which 'core' shamanism teaches. This is quite a claim to make. Maybe some will see it as arrogant or judgemental. But it is the truth of the matter. And it does not preclude people experiencing that sort of spirit presence and power within, or maybe despite, the 'core' shamanic paradigm.

And it is why some people might run a mile from a real power animal. It is what happened around me a couple of months ago. Some people found the way I worked 'wrong' or 'sexual' or they could not look at me. They were all people who had been indoctrinated with the teaching of needing lots of protection in the Spiritworld. Lots of fear. It goes back to Harner. 

Let's look to Siberia instead. And let's look above all to ourselves and to our Spirits with courage and honesty. Let's not listen to the voices of disempowerment in whatever form. We can do this. It is the point of this Shamanic path. We need to bust out of Shamanism as religion, those little cults of personality that spring up all over - and which do provide a necessary starting point for many of us - and trust that voice within, that we maybe think is wrong, because it disagrees with the teacher; it is maybe undisciplined and 'lazy', but it is where our yearnings are. It is the tantalising voice of our soul, which keeps coming back. And it guides us, if we have the courage, and the chutzpah to ignore others, especially some 'elders', into something that is uniquely our own. That is what the Animals want for us. And that is why they are terrifying.

A SHOUT, A DECLARATION FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD

This is a bit of a thought experiment, and I'm going to be a bit controversial, so please take it in that spirit.

It is this. The way many of us have been taught to encounter the Spirit World is through 'shamanic journeying', as taught by Michael Harner. And it is safe. It suits cerebral westerners who don't want anything too physical or too expressive, and which can therefore achieve a kind of respectability in the worlds of academia (Harner's world) and therapy.

And it works. To some extent. It worked for me and it changed me, many years ago. But most of the raw power is missing. We don't do primordial. When I go to the Spirit world, it is these things. I am taken over physically by the Spirit and I am expressive both physically and verbally in a way that is all-consuming and entirely free-flowing. And it is therefore ecstatic. I have had dogs barking at me when I work, for they sense the animal presence that could dispatch them with a swipe of its claw. 

In the Harner method (which no indigenous person I have ever heard of uses) the body is not involved, and nor is speech/song. THE SPIRIT CANNOT INCARNATE. For Mongolians shamans, it is standard that the spirit comes into you physically. It is standard too in voodoo, and maybe that is why we are terrified of it. It is the power of the irrational, of the unconscious. Harner tries to tame it, to keep it in the service of the rational mind. But you can't do it. Spirit will erupt and destroy that puny edifice.

Trance dance is maybe the nearest we get to this true surrender to Spirit. That is where it began for me. It is such a deep encounter, because Spirit gets to use the whole of us.

And I would like to see the way we teach journeying change fundamentally so that it is geared towards this experience, and doing healing work on that basis. I might even say that if you can't let Spirit use you in this sort of way, then it's not your path. Let us have no more tame 'shamanic practitioners'. Let us have those who are able to be unashamedly possessed by Spirit. It's the real deal.