Shamanism: What is a Shaman & How to Become One
I’m lucky I suppose: from a very early age, I knew I was a shaman. By six, I was reading Edgar Cayce. By eight, I’d consumed You are Psychic. By nine, I’d studied the Aborigines and Egyptians, and had my first past-life regression at fourteen. While the end goal was clear, more elusive was the path. How does one become a shaman?
No box existed on career assessments, and good luck finding a mentor in suburban Houston.
Most of my impassioned inquiries to adults only resulted in blank stares.
In our media-centric culture, we’re taught to dismiss – even mock – things that are unexplained. But what happens to those of us who feel this terrain is our destiny? To explore the unexplained, master the freaky and conquer the unknown? Sign me up!
What I know now is that it’s the shaman who masters these elusive spaces; that which is unseen is the most frequent companion of the shaman.
Shamans are those who work with the invisible realms to bring healing, peace and wholeness to the living world.
In every fiber of my being, I heard the call, knew the words, felt the pull home, but didn’t have anyone to conveniently pinpoint me on where to start.
Hearing the Call
Most shamans are not seeking this path, they’re called to it. The summons can come in any number of ways. Among the most frequent is a near death experience to illuminate her destiny. For the Nahuals of Mexico, being struck by lightning is a telltale marker of a shaman.
Dreams, past-life memories or a strong lineage of family healers may also be clear directives.
Each of these invitations from Spirit identifies the soul as one who possesses the unique gifts and strengths to become a shaman.
However, there’s nothing glamorous about this occupation. In fact, many people deny the calling until it becomes destructive to resist. The life of a shaman is one of great sacrifice, often being at the beck and call of Spirit. Much like a doctor or policeman, there are no days off – people are in need anytime, anywhere. Granted, the rewards are abundant, but nothing resembling a normal life should be expected.
What is a Shaman?
Even with my destiny’s certainty, less clear was what the heck a shaman was. I was naturally psychic, highly empathic, and yet none of these traits identified with shamans in traditional cultures.
Witch doctor, medicine (wo)man, magician, dream walker, even sorcerer, have all been used to define the shaman, yet none really capture the complexity of the role. Shamans walk between worlds to retrieve medicine, wisdom and guidance which will benefit their community. By forging working relationships with plants, Spirits, and ancestors, remedies are offered to bring relief to the living.
It’s the shaman’s duty to be in service to community and to learn to walk the unseen planes, where most ailments begin. Great dedication, commitment and creativity are required to be successful, as each patient, Spirit and plant offers its own unique teachings and challenges.
I’ve never met an anxious shaman; most exude a calm confidence that’s unshakable. They’ve conquered their demons, faced death many times and typically found worldly woes paltry in comparison. Here are a few traits common of the shaman, which may help clarify whether you’re hearing the call:
- You’ve been drawn to the unexplained
- You’ve had a near death or spontaneous out-of-body experience
- You’ve been present for many deaths/births
- You’re always the one people confide in
- You’re an empath–you feel the pain, emotions, and joy of others
- You feel deeply comforted by nature
- You have past-life memories of being a healer/seer
- You like to solve things, finding creative solutions others may miss
- You see spirits, talk to plants, or can control your dreams
How to Become a Shaman
For some fortunate native souls, parents and grandparents can often nurture the young apprentice. In the U.S., however, most inquiries are dismissed, as our culture has become heinously disconnected from its spiritual roots.
In the sixth grade, I was reading Whitley Streiber’s Communion, a forerunner to the present UFO and disclosure movements. Though we were encouraged to read what excited us, I was sent home with a harsh note from the teacher, asking that I read something more suitable. I can see now it was fear with which I was met, but to the tender heart of an enthusiastic child, such reactions can inflict permanent suppression of one’s truth. Our culture seeks to squash anything unfamiliar, and in the process, many paths are trampled which could’ve led to the ultimate destiny of the soul.
For those of us severed from our ancestral practices and shamanic rituals and traditions, we must find our own way back to previously concealed paths.
Find a Teacher
Seeking out a teacher is by far the most direct way to become a shaman. Finding the right teacher can prove to be a bit more challenging. One does not become a shaman in a weekend workshop, nor through explorations in plant medicines. Rather, the path is arduous and ancient. Heroic efforts demand you prove your dedication. Historically, shaman’s apprentices are tested for their tenacity and dedication over prolonged periods of time.
My mentor, for example, spent 13 years on pilgrimage to receive the initiations from Spirit and the land, and was finally found worthy to hold the title of Markakame (Huichol title for “shaman”). This is not a path for the faint of heart nor those seeking glory. Being a shaman is a path of sincere devotion, requiring full commitment and many divergences from the status quo.
Traveling to remote landscapes to learn in indigenous settings is the most frequent course of study. It ensures proper guidance, protection and initiations, which hone innate abilities.
You may find reputable teachers online, through referrals or even in your dreams. Following your own intuition to find the teacher who matches your sincerity and is willing to have you as an apprentice is the most exalted path. Discernment is necessary, as not all shamans hold the same integrity.
Real teachers hold power. They share their wisdom willingly with no jealousy or hesitation. As Matt Kahn offers, “masters inspire other masters.” They do not compete, nor do they hold you back. To find this caliber of teacher is the greatest effort required on your path to becoming a shaman.
A devotion to sincere and authentic teachings will require sacrifices. You may have to travel, you may have to pay money in exchange for their time and energy, and you may have to be in conditions less comfortable than your home. What is undeniable is the payoff you’ll receive from your efforts of calling and finding your teacher. You’ll gain exactly the lessons you need to further your path of becoming a shaman.
Ignite the Memories
My path wasn’t quite as direct.
My time was in deep and intimate connection with my Spirit Allies–I spent more time remembering rather than learning, receiving divine guidance from the other side. I was taught to become a shaman through my journeys. Shamanic journeying is arguably the number one tool of shamans. It’s a form of trance, which allows the shaman to travel between dimensions to retrieve knowledge.
Over the course of many years I was shown past lives, initiated by Ascended Masters and taught by my Spirit Guides and Power Animals. Even today, I rely more heavily on their direction than my own training. The teachings never stop and it’s in this combined effort of Spirit/Shaman/Client that the best healings are shared.
Sickness, near death experiences and dreams are also common places of teaching. In these spaces between life and death, the Guides can connect, share and inspire the actions which illuminate memories.
One teacher stressed that a master teacher in this physical world was absolutely necessary to one’s path. In my youth I questioned this but now recognize its sapience. Spirits don’t know the human world–they don’t heed our morals, don’t understand humor and certainly aren’t hip on our concept of time! To become a shaman, you need someone skilled at living in our human reality to guide you safely through the other dimensions. Thus is the true mastery of the shaman: one who can walk through darkness to restore the light.
A Shaman’s Mastery
A shaman is a fierce guardian of the physical world and must have personal mastery in certain areas. The shaman’s heart must be pure and clear with a great love for humanity and for the Earth. The gifts that flow through us are not ours; they are bestowed by Spirit and must be treated with great reverence. Dishonesty, ill intent and harmful behaviors will be swiftly balanced by the fates. One can be stripped of their skills and title completely.
These are spaces which require courage and faith to traverse. Here are the lessons of mastery one must attain to become a shaman:
Respect of the Earth
An intimate space of honor and connection between the shaman and the Earth must exist for any teachings to be granted.
Ceremony
Honoring the rites, spaces and actions of the ancestors is paramount and must be respected.
Shamanic Journey
We all travel while sleeping, but it’s shaman who awakens within the dream to bring back the knowledge to heal her people.
Relationship with Spirit Allies
In feeding alliances with plants, ancestors, animals, Gods and Goddesses, we are able to receive the divine blessings to assist those who seek us.
Commitment to Self
Seeking out the places of doubt and fear, being honest and in integrity, the shaman must balance humility and power to keep permission to do this work.
A Shaman’s Toolbox
While mastery of the invisible realms is the truest skill for any shaman, there are also tools in this physical world which aid us in our ceremonies.
Journey
The method through which we enter other dimensions.
Drums and Rattles
The tools to induce the trance state to take the journey.
Feathers
Feathers are considered a great gift granted to us for our commitment and respect of the animal realms.
Crystals
Blessings from the Earth which can amplify healing.
Plant Allies
The ingestion of plant materials (like Ayahuasca, mushrooms, or Wachuma) to aid in the merging of the worlds; not used by all shamans but a beneficial ally.
Song
Relationship with Spirit may be rewarded with a Icaro, a sacred song which the plant offers for healing.
Gongs and Singing Bowls
Vibrational frequencies can alleviate pain, open chakras and activate deeper spiritual states.
A Way of Life
Being a shaman is a way of life. It’s a path of devotion, and isn’t for the weak or faint of heart. It takes great courage to walk in places and offer wisdom that many in our society don’t acknowledge.
A friend once told me that in her job, she was respected but not admired. I laughed, for in my role as shaman, I believe I’m admired but not always respected by society.
It takes a fearless heart to go against the flow. And this is one characteristic I’ve found in every shaman I’ve met. They are not stronger, smarter, or braver than others. They walk hand in hand with Spirit, using faith as their guide, and trusting in the relationships with the allies they have built. They see the illusion of the world and seek to heal within themselves every wound and doubt so that others may learn to do the same.
So committed are they to a greater truth that they offer themselves in service to help others cross the chasm to see the world as infinitely more magical, connected, and expansive than what we simply see and touch.
If you feel the call, I hope you join us in these spaces where Spirit, magic and possibilities still exist.
About the Author
Shamanic Soul Retrieval: How to Recover Parts of Our Soul?
Shamanic Soul Retrieval: Sandra Ingerman on Recovering Parts of Our Soul
“Every book…has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” ~ Carlos Ruis Zafon
It has been said, “The best things in life are free.” We can all agree it’s nice to be surprised with a gift, but not just any gift. The gift that arrives in your life precisely when you are ready to receive it. The gift is clearly a message to you and for you.
In this case, the gift is Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self by Sandra Ingerman.
With graceful delivery of rarely discussed phenomena, Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self combines shamanism and psychology to explain the effects of trauma that cause parts of the soul to leave the body and the process by which the part(s) can be retrieved.
Follow along as renowned psychotherapist, shamanic teacher, and author Sandra Ingerman delves into soul loss and retrieval.
What is Soul Loss?
Sandra Ingerman’s Abstract on Shamanism states that “there are many common symptoms of soul loss. Some of the more common ones would be dissociation, where a person does not feel fully in his or her body and alive and fully engaged in life. Other symptoms include chronic depression, suicidal tendencies, post-traumatic stress syndrome, immune deficiency problems, and grief that just does not heal. Addictions are also a sign of soul loss.”
For those who have lost parts of themselves, knowingly or unknowingly, “tremendous amounts of psychic energy” are unconsciously spent looking for the lost parts.
What Causes Soul Loss?
According to Ingerman, “The basic premise is whenever we experience trauma, a part of our vital essence separates from us in order to survive the experience by escaping the full impact of the pain.” This quiet occurrence, known as soul loss, takes the form of a perpetual feeling and experience of incompleteness and disconnection.
Ingerman says, “Anytime someone says, ‘I have never been the same’ since a certain traumatic event, and they don’t mean this in a good way, soul loss has probably occurred.”
Sandra Ingerman on Lost Soul Parts
Sandra Ingerman holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, professional mental health counselor, the author of more than ten books, and a board-certified expert on traumatic stress who was awarded the 2007 Peace Award from the Global Foundation for Integrative Medicine.
As a leading authority on soul loss and retrieval, Ingerman’s highly regarded career spans 35 years of conducting workshops and soul retrievals around the world.
For Ingerman, the leading practitioner of soul retrieval whose own spiritual journey to recapture her soul led her on various spiritual paths. The answer she found was in the ancient tradition of shamanism, which views soul loss as an important cause of illness and death.
The word shaman, originating from the Tungus Tribe of Siberia, means “one who sees in the dark.”
Soul Loss in Society
According to Ingerman, “A reflection of how much soul loss people are dealing with” is evident when “so many governments and businesses are valuing money over life.”
However, Western medicine has no framework for this kind of diagnosis because it only deals with imbalance when it appears on a physical and mental level.
Western medicine “treats chronic pain with pain medication, insomnia with sleeping pills, weight issues with diet and exercise, and most damagingly, may label soul loss as mental illness and cover up the symptoms with psychiatric medications that may make things worse by slapping a Band-Aid on a wound that’s not healing underneath the bandage.”
This “covering up” can lead to the deep unhappiness that many have come to consider as “simply ordinary.” Eventually, this prolonged dissociation produces a nameless void that shows itself through “a loss of meaning, direction, vitality, mission, purpose, identity, and genuine connection.”
This spiritual void, which is always present and always trying to get your attention, operates as the incessant yearning of your soul wanting to incorporate all of its highest qualities, all of God’s essence, all of you.
Simply put, the soul is always trying to reconnect with that from which it came.
Ingerman imparts, “If you are truly in your body (your whole soul present), you cannot place money over life. Planetary soul loss causes so much of the behavior we are currently seeing, behavior that no longer honors the beauty and importance of life.”
Signs of Soul Loss
The following checklist can help identify symptoms of soul loss:
- You have a difficult time staying “present” in your body
- You feel numb, apathetic, or deadened
- You suffer from chronic depression
- You have problems with your immune system and have trouble resisting illness
- You were chronically ill as a child
- Memory gaps of your life after age five where you sense that you may have blacked out significant traumatic experiences
- Struggle with addictions, for example, to alcohol, drugs, food, sex or gambling
- Find yourself looking to external things to fill up an internal void or emptiness
- Have difficulty moving on with your life after a divorce or the death of a loved one
- You suffer from multiple personality syndrome
Having read this book without prior knowledge of soul loss or retrieval, I found the concepts quite sobering.
Within situations of physical and emotional abuse, negation, and trauma, many experiences in life can be too difficult to bear. Soul loss is an understandable response to spiritual woundedness and deep fragmentation of one’s soul essence that would lead to an internal dissociation from natural balance.
What is Soul Retrieval?
During the soul retrieval process, the shaman moves into an altered state of consciousness to travel to realities outside of normal perception (non-ordinary reality), also known as hidden spirit worlds, to retrieve the lost part of the soul.
In some cases, there is reluctance of the soul fragments to return, or the soul may not even know a separation has occurred. While in most cases, the soul does want to return and become whole. It is, however, important to note that when the “soul returns, it comes back with all the pain it experienced when leaving.”
Once the lost soul pieces are located, the shaman will “acknowledge the former pain and gently negotiate the soul’s return to the body.” The shaman then brings the soul back to normal reality and (literally) blows the missing soul part(s) back into the body through the head or heart.
If a person is trained in shamanic journeying, they can ask their spirit guides or power animals to perform a soul retrieval on their behalf. Or anyone can ask for a healing dream where one sets the intention to request a soul retrieval to be performed during the dream state.
If these two processes do not create change or healing, then working with a trained shamanic practitioner is recommended.
Although Ingerman is clear that you should not try to practice soul retrieval based solely on the reading of this book, in an exclusive interview, Ingerman and I discuss what can be done when someone suspects soul loss has occurred.
Shamanic Healing Practice Interview
BJB: What can someone do if they suspect soul loss has occurred but do not have immediate access for soul retrieval with a Shaman?
SI: If a person has soul loss, they can work with a shamanic practitioner long distance. Most shamanic practitioners perform long-distance healings these days.
I have been training Soul Retrieval practitioners since the late 1980’s. I have a website where I have an international list of shamanic practitioners who have sent me case studies. Of course, no shamanic practitioner can ever promise a cure, but I know their work, and I trust them.
BJB: Is there a healing exercise the person can do to begin to address and/or heal the root cause of the soul loss?
SI: Nature is our greatest healer. A person who feels they have lost their soul can walk or lie down on the ground and reflect on what is the root cause of their soul loss.
You can also do automatic writing. This includes listening to spiritual music while writing the following question on a piece of paper: “What is the root cause of my soul loss?”
You then close your eyes and allow your hand to write. This is a powerful way to let your soul and intuition give you the truth of the cause of your soul loss and other information that is important for you to know.
BJB: What has been the most surprising or unexpected part of your work as a Shaman?
SI: All of my Shamanic work is a surprise.
The helping spirits never give expected responses to the questions I ask them. This is true also when I perform the healing journey for a client. I am always given information I did not expect or would rationally think of on my own.
Also, in my 35 years of working with clients, I continue to be surprised by the miraculous effects of the work.
Power of Ancient Shamanic Practices
The shaman’s toolbox is a personal and intimate gathering of powers. Some shamans learned through direct experience, others gleaned knowledge from master teachers like Sandra, and some are gifted in journeying to the depths of spirit realms.
A few tools are so foundational that nearly every shaman utilizes them. Soul retrieval is one such tool. Not only is it universally effective, but it’s also the pervasive root cause of illness overlooked by many in the medical field.
Soul retrieval is not a modern New Age therapy but a profound healing tradition practiced for thousands of years. It involves the reintegration of lost soul parts, that’s akin to the surgical reattachment of a body part but for our spiritual essence instead. By recovering these lost soul parts, individuals can restore wholeness and harmony within themselves.
The Most Important Factor in Personal Healing
Soul retrieval is not a quick fix. Sandra Ingerman states, “If the person has done a lot of personal work, the soul retrieval might be the end of the work. If not, the soul retrieval would be the beginning of the work.”
No matter where you may find yourself, at the beginning or near the end of working through an issue, the most important factor in all healing work is you.
You have to be willing to do the work that is necessary to participate in your personal transformation. You will have to be willing to look at yourself with new eyes, from a new shamanic perspective, and as an embodiment of completion and wholeness while knowing that willingness is the impetus for great change, which always begins with the heart.
For more information on Sandra Ingerman’s work, log onto SandraIngerman.com.
You can also learn more by watching this interview on Gaia.com with Jill Kuykendall on soul retrieval.
