Note: This article has been published under a different title in Magical Blend magazine, number 69 (first quarter of 2000)
During the last twenty years, shamanism has gone from being an important topic for anthropologists involved in cultural research, to become an attractive topic for non-specialists interested in healing and spiritual growth.
Since the word “shamanism” has transcended its origin in the indigenous peoples of Siberia and is widely used by members of modern urban societies, it is convenient to briefly explain how we should understand that word and how I use it in the context of my work.
From a superficial perspective, shaman is the person who has the knowledge and power to deal with supernatural forces, most of the time in order to heal. Those supernatural forces could be spirits, gods, entities, energies, or even God.
Initially, our interest in shamanism had to do with the fantasy of meeting a “royal shaman” to be healed or blessed by his supernatural powers. Over the years, our interest in shamanism has changed: now we want to be the shamans to heal others and heal the world. Books, workshops and seminars on shamanism, directed to that goal, are widely offered around the world. Many people are reading the books and attending workshops with the fantasy of becoming shamans., obtain powers and thus solve the eternal need to stop being “no one” and, finally, become “someone”. This search is another example of the kinds of things we are willing to do due to the lack of meaning in our lives..
It is interesting to note that for modern man, the idea of shamanism is related to the idea of power. Power to heal, power to change life events, power to attract rain, good fortune, etc
My experience among the indigenous peoples of Mexico, whom I call “the surviving toltecs”, has shown me a very different perspective. Shamanism is related to the idea of service, more than with the idea of power. The flesh and blood shamans that I have met are recognized for their commitment to serving their communities as their main characteristic.. What makes them extraordinary, It is not the greatness of his power, but his enormous vocation to serve others without asking for rewards. They do not charge for their work. Instead of having income as a result of their activities as shamans, they are the poorest of the poor, because in addition to working as hard as the others to earn a living as peasants, they invest a great deal of time and energy working to serve their communities.
Because I have witnessed your extreme generosity and nobility of spirit, I have always been wary of the superficial way in which the word shaman is used in our modern world, where shallow undersimplification seems to be the rule. Today, almost anyone who has read a bit about indigenous knowledge or participated in workshops on shamanism, he is tempted to present himself as a “shaman” in order to sell an image that can be admired by others.
In my work, giving lectures and seminars to leaders around the world for so long, many people, in the organizations where I am invited to give workshops, or during media interviews, constantly trying to “dress up”, with the title of “shaman”. I have never accepted that, because I know true shamans and their offering of a lifetime of service to reflect the spirit, no trace of self-importance in what they do. Because of that, I would never dare to put myself on the same level as those men and women with bare feet. I am aware that by giving up presenting myself as a shaman, my audience won't be that big, because I am not willing to participate in the masquerade ball, pretending to be a shaman or a “nagual” for others to admire me. In my opinion, most of the time what is behind the compulsive need to use titles is personal importance and business interests.
The compulsion to present oneself as “the chosen one” in front of others he has done a lot of damage, both for those who present themselves as “illuminated” as for his followers. I know that those titles are convenient for marketing and increase economic profit, but for me, freedom has a more precious value.
Al final, we will all die in the way that corresponds to the way we live. Death is not impressed by our titles. Shamans in the real world, are not those who get rich by taking the money of their “apprentices”. On the contrary, they are usually poorer than the inhabitants of their community, because they have twice the work: that of the peasant who earns his living working the land and that of the shaman-healer, who does not have a salary that he can depend on to live. Therefore, their own material needs take a backseat, in connection with his sacred task.
Of course, real life shamans are not like the perfect indigenous teachers in the books. In hard times their bodies bleed, their hearts ache, their children get sick and their souls cry. But most of the time they are serene and laugh easily.. Indigenous shamans in the real world face the violence of a time when their entire world is being devoured by the white man's boundless greed.. and they resist. They are fighting to survive and keep alive the treasure of their spiritual tradition.. not just for them, not even just for their children, but for the whole world. you and me included. What makes them so valuable to humanity is that they perform the miracle of uplifting themselves and their people., from among the difficulties of misery and existential loneliness in which we live, to become one with the most extraordinary force in the universe: the unspeakable force; the great spirit. And the most extraordinary thing is that they achieve that miracle of recovering the lost unit, at the same time they are struggling to survive conditions of extreme poverty.
They are human beings, just like you and me. They face each day and struggle with the material world, just like you and me. Nevertheless, are able to rise from the pain and confusion of the material world, to reach the Spirit, and be one with God.
And the great news is that what they do, we can do it too. They are showing us the way, but it is our responsibility to perform the miracle for ourselves in our own life. My experience with shamanism has shown me that the task of the shaman has little to do with the achievement of individual goals.. Shamans are not doing what they do simply as a personal matter.. They are participating, together with your community, in the task of remembering and keeping alive the means to return to the Spirit and live in harmony with it.
The set of procedures and efficient practices that they use to reach the spheres of the Spirit is called “tradition”, what a body of beliefs does not mean, but a body of practices. These practices are so effective in bringing people to the other side of their own consciousness, that I call them “shamanic technology for health and freedom”.
Now, we are going to change the focus from the shaman as an individual person, to the shamanic experience as a possibility for all. While the shaman is a specific person, with a specific function in the magical moment of rituals and ceremonies, the shamanic experience is lived and shared by all the individuals involved in the event. In this sense, the shamanic experience is both individual and collective and therefore open to all members of the group, as long as they follow the proper procedures.
The goal of the shamanic experience is to bring the participants back to the lost unity with the indescribable force that animates and sustains everything in the universe.. the opposite poles: the sacred and the mundane, spirit and matter, the me and “what's out there” everything becomes one during the shamanic experience. Our two inner sides, tonal and the nagual, come together again and we experience the oneness of our dual nature. The goal of the shamanic experience; which is the recovery of the unit or the two tonal-nagual sides, is the secret promise hidden in the Toltec symbol of Quetzalcoatl; the feathered snake.
The snake represents what creeps, tonal, the material world. The eagle represents what flies, the nagual, the spirit. But unlike the Aztec symbol where the eagle is devouring the serpent [1], in the toltec symbol, the eagle does not kill the snake, but they become one: the feathered snake, the unity of spirit and matter, the balance between tonal and nagual.
Shamanic experience is important to us, members of modern urban societies, not for the fact that it might be exciting or fun to become a shaman. The shamanic experience is deadly important because because our lack of the proper means to reconnect with Spirit, is the main cause of the continuous process of self-destruction, the one we constantly submerge, both individually and collectively.
We need shamanic practices that are appropriate for our time and our current society. It is not about blindly imitating the rituals and procedures of indigenous peoples or dressing like them. Shamanism and tradition are a series of practices and techniques to manipulate perception and develop consciousness. Nevertheless, the specific expression of these technologies must always be in accordance with the specific characteristics of the people who are going to use them. This means that while the shamanic practices of indigenous peoples must be related to the characteristics of their way of life as peasants living in close contact with nature, our own shamanic practices should be related to the kind of world and life we have in modern cities.
Our effort in the AVP, “The New Toltequity,” has been the development of methods and procedures for the people of the modern world; so that they can do it themselves “shamanic leap” on the other side of themselves and on the other side of reality . The reason for this journey through the shamanic experience is because there can be no health without being whole.. Only through the recovery and integration of experiences that correspond to our nature as double beings, we could arrive at what constitutes our natural right: the power, health and freedom. Because of this, my work for all these years has been to try to create a bridge between the shamanic experiences kept alive among indigenous peoples and the experience of our modern societies.
I am convinced that the great disease of our time is the lack of experiences in which we can remember and revive our hidden consciousness., the other me, and the sacred connection we have with everything around us.
[1] The Aztec symbol can be seen on the shield of the Mexican flag: an eagle devouring a snake on the nopal of the tunas coloradas. The Aztecs represent 200 years of the history of pre-Hispanic Mexico, that start in 1325, when they founded their capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, until 1521, when the Spanish began the destruction of their world.
By: Victor Sanchez
