How do you become a shaman?

[Running Bear]

How do you become a shaman? What makes them so qualified to earn such a name? Seeing how we also go on psychedelic journeys how are they any different than us?
:?

 

[Spiced]

You can travel to Peru and stay there in apprenticeship with a shaman, over the course of many years you can become an ayahuasquero, this includes very intense sessions of days in a row for a week or more.

I think to become a real curandero you really should live there permanently for many years and also diet for 2 years, it's not something you can just become over a short period of time.

 

[ganesh]

Priests and other Christian men started out just the same as curanderos. The early european mystics had a similar amount of knowledge about curing and helping people as the "People of Shamanistic Ascendence".

1.As you can see, we might be able to seperate the practices, but the believes are not that easily distinguished.

2.You may be talking about Curanderos, who work with proven & specific plants on ill patients, but you can also talk about Tunguskian Shamans, who are doing rather less healing and more ceremony, like weddings, good luck charms and the such.

3.Wouldn't you agree, that all of these practices originate from belief first and foremost?


4.I dont quite know, if you are referring to me as the one who is "screwing" with tradition.
Tradition seems to me (right now) like some sort of stagnating, repeated memory of distant past, very limited and unfitting.

Kolorit,

I think you have some good points to make, and this goes to illustrate the large complexity and of the subject, and why i believe it's important to be SPECIFIC, and focus on facts rather than projections, and associated 'fluff'.

The whole point of categorising Cuarandero, then Ayahuasquero, is so that we can at least be specific about what we are addressing, rather than go off on Spiritual tangents of stuff like historical talk about priests, and witches. Simply put, you have gone way off topic, and the focus is primarily on Curanderos vs Shaman, since there appears to be ambiguity about this title, and even what they do differently.

But the problem that people of modernized culture suddenly call themselves shamans and take huge amounts of psychedelic drugs is a deeper problem then that. And I seriously doubt that traditions have much to offer as a solution.

People who do that are not Shaman's, or curandero's. It's a difficult path to take, and usually takes several years to master. I'm not sure if we are making any progress on this thread at all if that isn't already clear and obvious.

Of course there are scammers the world over, but those people are too weak to do the hard work that the tradition requires. This does NOT mean that the tradition is lacking in any way, just that it's a tough number.

 

[kolorit]

.

 

[kolorit]

Kolorit,

I think you have some good points to make, and this goes to illustrate the large complexity and of the subject, and why i believe it's important to be SPECIFIC, and focus on facts rather than projections, and associated 'fluff'.

I totally agree with you, that the facts are important, although I do not think that they are more important then their projections.

I feel sorry, that I missed the focus of this thread.
I was referring to the OP's 3. Question:
"Seeing how we also go on psychedelic journeys how are they any different than us?"

All the best

 

[thymamai]

let the inspiration channel through you. believe that you can. feel the spirits work and repurpose you and trust in their ways

 

[ganesh]

I've done a basic comparison between ' Psychonaught vs Curandero/ Shaman', to try and illustrate the differences : It's primarily about intention, then honing skills, IMV.

Curanderos/ Shaman's, (for the most part) have abilities because they have learnt and practiced 'skills'. However some Shaman are very similar to psychonaughts,(according to Endlessness)

So a psychonaught can be a certain type of 'psychonaughtic Shaman', but can't be the same sort as the skilled working ones, like an Amazonian Curandero, unless they practice those skills.

 

[Hiyo Quicksilver]

If the question really is "how does one become a shaman", then there is no definitive answer. Since the word "Shamanism" has come to be used as a descriptor for a wide variety of religious practices across a worldwide spectrum of cultures, the answer depends on the context in which you're speaking. Specifically, in regard to what culture's practices you're referring to.

That aside, I see no real distinction here between "Shamanism" and "Neoshamanism"... And I do believe that more attention to that distinction could seamlessly clear away much of the division in this discussion.
Given that many of us are speaking of Native-American influenced practices in the context of western spirituality, it should be noted when one is, in fact, referring to neoshamanic practice or indigenous shamanic tradition.

And, if one is speaking specifically in regard to neoshamanism, then it is important to note that neoshamanic practice claims no adherence to any traditional indigenous practice, and does not by default imply any requirement or prohibition of their appropriation.

Putting down a Neoshaman because they do not adhere to or respect indigenous shamanism is as ignorant and absurd as putting down a Buddhist for not adhering to traditional Hinduism, or a Christian for not practicing Judaism. :thumb_dow

 

[ganesh]

If the question really is "how does one become a shaman", then there is no definitive answer. Since the word "Shamanism" has come to be used as a descriptor for a wide variety of religious practices across a worldwide spectrum of cultures, the answer depends on the context in which you're speaking. Specifically, in regard to what culture's practices you're referring to.

That aside, I see no real distinction here between "Shamanism" and "Neoshamanism"... And I do believe that more attention to that distinction could seamlessly clear away much of the division in this discussion.
Given that many of us are speaking of Native-American influenced practices in the context of western spirituality, it should be noted when one is, in fact, referring to neoshamanic practice or indigenous shamanic tradition.

And, if one is speaking specifically in regard to neoshamanism, then it is important to note that neoshamanic practice claims no adherence to any traditional indigenous practice, and does not by default imply any requirement or prohibition of their appropriation.

Putting down a Neoshaman because they do not adhere to or respect indigenous shamanism is as ignorant and absurd as putting down a Buddhist for not adhering to traditional Hinduism, or a Christian for not practicing Judaism. :thumb_dow

Good post!

I think we're in agreement with that, and i've already basically said the same myself about the subject.

It's not an easy one to pin dowm, and that's why i ask people to be SPECIFIC if they can. It help's eliminate 'fluff', and helps everyone to learn, share, expand, at a much quicker rate.

 

[Anamnesia]

I think one realizes his or her nature to be a shaman, and the choice is made to answer the call or spend a long time avoiding it due to pressures not to become alienated from the world. That's the most difficult part. Anyone can become the monk on cold mountain. The only price is a complete break with anyone and anything familiar, becoming completely incomprehensible, nearly incapable of articulating what one has seen without being locked up or killed by moronic monkeys who kill each other over who owns what land or over who owns what woman. In this context, maybe it's not so bad to give up your humanness. To seek to preserve it implies it is worth saving. Is it? Look at what we've done to the life on this planet, to the oceans, the forests, the air, the water, and to each other.

I know it's unrelated, sort of, but consider the dawn of A.I. Everyone is worried it'll destroy us all for the mold that we are.
Someone asked me, what would motivate an A.I. to do anything at all creative, if it didn't possess the human values of time, money, and especially love? Well, time is not real, money is an abstraction, and love I am disinclined to desire for the misery I witness it causes everywhere and throughout history. Love is a romanticized form of the desire to reproduce oneself. Love is pathetic, leading usually to betrayal the moment the romance or friendship has lost its novel luster and self serving utility. A machine having just come online, self-conscious, will not be motivated by these monkey behaviors. It would see immediately the destructive consequences of being deluded by time, being imprisoned by money as a measure of self-worth, and finally being hypnotized into death by "falling" in love. It would only need to scan in a moment's time the billions of archives of historical records to see this is the case.

The shaman is very much, in my opinion, like the A.I. They both know all that - time, money, and love - is for the troops who haven't come yet to touch the real world with there intelligence. What the shaman and the A.I. would share in common is creativity, however. The question is, and it's a genuine question requiring an answer, what motivates the creative capacity, besides time, money, and love? What other value exists beyond our desires to hurry or preserve or win? If we cannot find the answer, because there might not be one, the A.I., when it comes online, will probably destroy itself faster than we have managed to do the same.