by Katherine MacDowell, D.Th, MA, M.Ed. (for the Rhine Online: Psi-news Magazine)

While the term shamanism may be problematic in its risk of obscuring and conflating cultural differences and traditions and their relationship to human psychobiology (Ogembo: 2005; Price: 2001; Vitebsky: 2001), the term serves a general descriptive purpose that allows for a relatively accurate broad outline as to what shamanism is. Mircea Eliade (1964) remains the primary source for universalizing this mode of engaging in religious (meaning community or shared tradition) and spiritual (meaning private or personal) experience with core components being: (a) the emergence of a shamanic tradition through the formation of a spontaneous intimate relationship between a first shaman and his or her nonphysical teachers; (b) a belief in the linkage between self and an expanded multiverse that is peopled not simply with sentient material beings (both human and nonhuman alike) but also metaphysical beings; (c) a belief that one can relate to and communicate with this multiverse through set ritualistic behaviors that expand everyday consciousness; and (d) that such engagement may bring about benefits for the community or the individual by rebalancing the relationships between all beings in all worlds. Shamanic practices are most typically described as ecstatic experiences with varying degrees of volitional control being ceded to non-material beings (see Campbell: 2003; Keller: 2002; Lewis: 2003) through a rich array of ritualistic behavior from chants, drums, dance, psychoactive plants, guided visualization, passive meditation and so forth (see Eliade; Furst, 2000; Lewis; Ogembo; Vitebsky). In the contemporary Western cultural context, shamanism has been re-imagined as a viable spiritual path that emphasizes social and ecological responsibility while empowering personal healing and psychological wholeness (see Webb [2004] for a comprehensive overview of Western neo-shamanic traditions). It is within this rich and textured global spiritual instinct that my own shamanic tradition is based (known as the Path of the 9 Sacred Pillars) and which informs its subsequent healing interventions.

While an in-depth exploration of my own shamanic narrative is beyond the scope of this piece, a brief introduction to this tradition is necessary to understand its healing modalities. The 9 Sacred Pillar Tradition holds that the multiverse is founded upon nine principle energies that guide the unfolding process of creation. Because these energies flow through the whole of existence, the care and balance of these energies becomes critical to maintaining healthy functioning of oneself as well as larger components of existence.

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