Introduction to Shamanism
Our Ancient roots are shamanism wherever we live and whatever sort of culture we have grown up in. It is our spiritual heritage. Look back far enough in time and all of us come from shamanistic cultures. Long before such recent concepts as organised religion, humans sought understanding and knowledge of the wider universe using a variety of experiential ways and tools which are just as applicable today as ever. These practices are still in use in a surprisingly large number of places in the world and many shamans of indigenous cultures are now teaching Westerners.
The shamanic journey, the trance-dance, the vision quest, the purifying ceremony of the sweatlodge, these are ancient but eternally relevant ways to contact the timeless reality that exists parallel to and just out of sight of the world we so mistakenly call the ‘real world’. It is here in the everyday that we experience the reflections of who we are, of our actions, our deepest beliefs, our ‘dreams’, but it is in the non-manifest world of the spirit that the hidden causal interactions take place. Hidden, that is, until we begin to open the doors and ‘see’ with an expanded vision.
 
A new emergence of consciousness
 
We live in a time of the fulfilment of an ancient Inca prophecy. This is the time of the new Pachacuti, a great change bringing with it a new relating to the Earth (Pachamama). Each Pachacuti is a era of time about 500 years. The last Pachacuti occurred with the Conquest in the early 16th century, and the Q’ero (Inca) priests have been waiting ever since for the next era, when order would start to emerge from chaos. The current Pachacuti refers to the end of time as we understand it, the end or death of a way of thinking and a way of being. A new relationship with the living Earth, and an emergence into a golden age of peace. There are many indications that changes in human consciousness are taking place, yet there is still a long way to go.
 
The revival in the West of shamanism since the 1960s embodies an approach of reflecting the ways and understanding of the ancient and indigenous cultures. This movement towards self-development and spiritual awareness, and potentially a more community oriented way of living, represents a step forward for these cultures which have been the most predatory towards others and towards the earth in the recent past centuries.
 
Shamanism ‘good medicine’, is like tapping into a vast fund of ancient timeless knowledge which can be practiced anywhere under any conditions. It is about helping us humans to heal the effects of past traumas, to live in an inner state of balance and harmony while dealing with the challenges and vicissitudes of life, to develop the best in ourselves no matter what comes our way, and it is about the quality of how we relate to each other and to the earth. All this is as important now as it ever has been or will be.