The Shaman's Way of Healing E-Book

August Thalhamer

• Herausgeber: Ennsthaler
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 430

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Shamanism, Family Constellations, Psychotherapy, the Christian Healing Tradition – their similarities and differences, illustrated with examples from a practitioner of all these methods. August Thalhamer, Austrian Catholic theologian, psychotherapist, and urban shaman is answering his calling to build bridges. Over the last half century, Thalhamer has been able to discover the harmony resonating between these (seemingly mutually-exclusive) worldviews, in theory and in practice. Here, he outlines the academic and intuitive paths that led to his own shamanic way of healing. This guide is a one-stop reference work for anyone interested in Shamanism. If your curiosity has ever left you wondering: What value does shamanic wisdom, ancient and contemporary, have for the Western world and how can we integrate it into our lives? This book will provide you with a solid harbor for launching your own personal journey, one you can always return to for inspiration. Univ.-Prof. Dr. H. H. Büttner, Wismar, wrote in the "Ärzteblatt Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 8/2015" (the medical journal for the German edition): "This book actually belongs in the hands of medical students and young doctors, because, by the way, it conveys western education, tradition and partly humanistic dimensions of medicine. We should again seek out the foundations on which the edifice of our philosophical and religious culture rests, also with regard to our mental health. Today's medical students would, of course, be recommended to study philosophy again in addition to physics (which,by the way,was abolished by the Prussian Ministry of Culture in 1861). I enjoyed reading and thinking a lot."

Leseprobe

August Thalhamer

The Shaman’s Way of Healing

in Light of Western Psychotherapy and Christian Tradition

PUBLISHING HOUSE ENNSTHALER, STEYR

Disclaimer

The ideas, suggestions, and therapeutic methods presented in this book are not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. Any application of the information contained in this book is done so at the sole discretion of the reader. The authors, publishers, distributors, dealers, consultants, and all other associated persons assume no liability, directly or indirectly, for any consequences resulting from the application of the information contained in this book.

Original Title: Der Heilungsweg des Schamanen im Lichte westlicher

Psychotherapie und chistlicher Überzeugung

Copyright © 2014 by Ennsthaler Verlag, Steyr

Translated from German by Ilse Lehnert and Andrew Schlademan

www.ennsthaler.at

ISBN 978-3-7095-0144-3

August Thalhamer · The Shaman’s Way of Healing

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2021 by Ennsthaler Verlag, Steyr

Ennsthaler Gesellschaft m.b.H. & Co KG, 4400 Steyr, Österreich

Cover design: Thomas Traxl

Coverphoto: © kb79 / iStockphoto.com

Someone’s Soul can only be healed

by facing their connections to the visible worlds of nature and their community

as well as their connections to the invisible powers of their ancestors and allied spirits.

Malidoma Patrice Somé,

bridge builder between

African and Western cultures

Table of Contents

Foreword by Sandra Ingerman

Introduction by Dr Carlo Zumstein

Prologue

Foreword to the Second Edition

Foreword to the English Edition

1. Shamanism

My Women

First Basic Assumption: There Are Other Worlds besides the Visible One

What Is the Origin of Shamanism? How Does Someone Become a Shaman?

The Shamanic Calling Today

The Foundation for Shamanic Studies

Albert Einstein: “I Rely on Intuition.”

How Can a Person Sense and Know Something about Another, That Cannot Possibly Be Known?

Second Basic Assumption: Everything Is Part of a Whole

Third Basic Assumption: Everything Existing Has a Soul

Even Science Is Discovering the Interconnectedness

How Do You Go on a Shamanic Journey?

Examples

What Is the Purpose of a Shamanic Journey?

Isn’t That Regression?

How Do Shamans Heal Others?

Examples

Where Do These Images Come From?

A Claim to Exclusivity? Does a Shaman Possess the Truth?

The Third Something

Contraindications

2. Shamanism and Christianity

Is Shamanism a Religion?

You Shall Not Make for Yourself an Image of God! (Ex. 20:4)

A Painful History

At the Beginning of Every Religion Is the Experience of the Mystery

Yahweh’s Name Is “Jealous” (Ex. 34:14)

The Men of Yahweh are Shamans with a License

The Wind Blows Where It Chooses (John 3:8)

Jesus Healed. What About Us?

How Did Jesus Heal?

Magicians and Witches

Exorcism

Shamanic Elements in Christianity

The Jesuit’s Initiation

My Personal Shamanic Way

3. Shamanism and Psychotherapy

How Are Shamanism and Psychotherapy Compatible?

Shamanic Treatment Is Healing in Trance with the Aid of Unconscious Wisdom

Examples

So Is Healing Done with the Help of Spirit Beings or the Wisdom of the Unconscious?

The Realm of the Psyche and Spirit Beings Is One

The Same Thing – Expressed in Different Languages

Miracle Healing Instead of an Arduous Healing Process?

Is Health/ Healing a Gift or an Accomplishment?

Healing for Mother Earth

Charlatans?

Black Magic and Damage Sorcery

Shamanism and Science

The Problems of Measuring Efficiency

Can a Psychotherapist Integrate Shamanic Healing Into Their Practice?

Neo-Shamanism?

References

The Author

Forewordby Sandra Ingerman

Dr August Thalhamer is a remarkable man. His varied spiritual background has allowed him to weave powerful spiritual practices together in a way where he contributes to unity versus division when speaking about different spiritual traditions.

The Shaman’s Way of Healing in Light of Western Psychotherapy and Christian Tradition is a marvellous book giving us a foundational understanding of how shamanism can help us with our personal and global issues. August writes from his own experience showing the potential of this work for a modern day psychologically sophisticated culture.

His passion for shamanism is very evident in his writing. You can feel the power in your bones when you read his words.

I have known August since the 1980s. He has a real gift as a healer, he emanates so much compassion, and is articulate. He can take complex teachings and without losing the true meaning makes his writings accessible so we can open the door to spiritual teachings that transform our lives and that of all life on the planet.

This book is brilliant and so timely.

Sandra Ingerman, MA,

award winning author of twelve books on shamanism including

“Walking in Light” and “The Book of Ceremony”

Introductionby Dr Carlo Zumstein

August Thalhamer and I first met more than ten years ago while on an expedition to the shamans in Tuva, Siberia. It was an experience that had a lasting effect on both of us. In this book, August is telling us about his deep connection with the shaman, Saryglar Borbak Ool. On our long journeys across the steppe and in the twilight of the Siberian nights, we began a dialogue about our different approaches in our search for shamanism. We were both looking for a shamanism that can be effectively applied to our Western civilization, alongside medicine, psychotherapy and other spiritual healing methods. Since then, we have continued a loose exchange of our thoughts. I love shamanic practitioners who not only apply ancient healing rituals to obtain wondrous results, but also continue their research into the background of this archaic healing knowledge. Ones who do this with understanding – respectful of the knowledge of our own culture, which has conditioned our ways of thinking, feeling, and acting since birth. August Thalhamer is such a healer, thinker, investigator, philosopher, and teacher.

August Thalhamer is a trained priest and psychotherapist who has been following his own spiritual path for many years. He weaves his rich professional and personal experience and extensive knowledge into a carpet that constitutes the basics of psycho-spiritual healing. The author names his book The Shaman’s Way of Healing. A shaman’s way is not a path in the usual sense. A shaman’s training does not follow a prescribed syllabus. The healing work cannot be organized into a causal sequence of individual steps. The rituals cannot be simplified into an easy instruction manual.

Aside from that, August Thalhamer contemplates the shaman in the light of Western psychotherapy and Christian tradition. Psychotherapy, with its array of methodical approaches, scatters colorful lights onto the remaining vestiges of shamanism among the different indigenous peoples on several continents. Moreover, shamanism is empirical knowledge passed down by word of mouth. Most of what we know about it today comes second hand from ethnologists and anthropologists. The Christian tradition, as passed down from the apostles, church fathers, philosophers and Popes, is endlessly multifaceted.

Therefore, I see The Shaman’s Way of Healing rolling out in front of us like a carpet when we open up this book, wherever we are on our journey. It becomes a power place that has a healing and enlightening effect within us. Otherwise, I would say that August Thalhamer is paving a way forward: founded in the depths of ancient shamanic knowledge, spreading out in the basic pattern of Christianity, and embellished with multi-colored, mosaic inlays of the most diverse psychological and spiritual models. In fact, everything that Thalhamer has collected about shamanism along his way, from various indigenous traditions and antique philosophical insights to today‘s constructivists, from the schools of Freud and Jung to humanistic and transpersonal psychology, and from Christianity, from the Old Testament to modern Spirituality: All of this is already known. However, the author uses them to create patterns that intentionally merge with one another. In doing so, he creates new perspectives and insights into healing. This book presents a challenge. You can only follow your own way along these patterns. In retracing them, in contemplating them, in assimilating them, you are on your own … for they work in mysterious ways.

The second challenge is this book’s courageous commitment to the shaman. With The Shaman’s Way of Healing, August Thalhamer takes us on his own healing journey. This is the way of the wounded healer, as shamans often are called, because they gain their healing power through their own suffering and healing. Suffering is the passage through dying, death and resurrection. It is an initiation, a calling to a second life as a shaman and healer. Therefore, the author begins with how his chronic back pain of many years was magically healed. He dedicates a whole chapter to his life’s shamanic journey. With the help of many examples, we gain insight into his own work as a healer. He dares to profess himself as a shaman and emissary of an ancient knowledge. However, as a rational contemporary, he does this with hesitation because he can also sense our hesitation. After all, he is asking us to believe him when he says he received a calling by otherworldly entities to be an eternal ambassador of their forgotten knowledge.

However, this hesitation is not the reason August has gathered so many living companions and venerable ancestors around himself along his way. Here, we not only find all the great names from psychology, philosophy and many religious figures, we also meet contemporary companions such as Bert Hellinger, Stanislav Grof, Serge Kahili King, Willigis Jäger, Anselm Grün, Sylvester Walch, and Roger Walsh. August Thalhamer pays tribute to the works of others and connects it to an ever-widening network of people. This is the only way that increasing amounts of healing knowledge and work can crystallize – and soften up the rigid structure of the axis of evil that has been conjured into this world.

The third challenge of this book is Thalhamer’s passion for healing. For him, healing means deliverance from disease, suffering and pain. For healing, he applies the rituals of the ancient shamans. For healing, he cries, prays and implores magical entities along with the Christian God for their healing power. He understands them all as forces of a greater whole. Thereby, he achieves a style of conceptual transcendence. He finds himself again as a shaman who, in the end, only initiates healing with the power of the Universal One, regardless of what this force is called in the service of religions, philosophies or psychologies. Thalhamer breaks through the walls erected against the ancient healing powers of nature with the same terminology these disciplines used to erect them. As a result, the original life force can resume its work. This is the challenge and the gift of this book. May it reach many people.

Dr Carlo Zumstein

March 29th, 2007

Founder and Director of the

Foundation for Living Shamanism and Spirituality,

now: The Art of Bridging TAOB Foundation

Prologue

“How did you arrive at shamanism?”

“While eating,” I replied.

I was sitting in a restaurant with a colleague and even before the soup arrived, Monika Haslhofer enthusiastically reported that she had taken part in a shamanic seminar. One week later I was already in attendance at the introductory course. Soon afterwards, I was at a seminar on “extraction.”

I was fascinated by the fact that I had known and had been practicing many of these healing techniques (though not in their identical forms) for many years under different names.

The further my training at the Foundation for Shamanic Studies progressed, the more certain I was that I had not only found a significant and valuable extension to my healing methodology – building on my previous training and experience – but also a new home.

However, since I also feel at home in Christianity and I practice psychotherapy with all my heart, I had to test these three – at first glance seemingly very different – traditions for their compatibility, if only to avoid internal conflicts.

Are there – secret – connections between all three? How much do they overlap each other? In the end, are they just three different languages talking about the same thing, describing the same experiences? This is how I began researching, writing and lecturing on them. Some essays can be found on our homepage:

www.thalhamer-haase.at

Encouraged by Karl M. Fischer, in this book, I have summarized how all of this could fit together. My aim is to fortify the knowledgeable person by helping them rediscover their own experiences and perhaps appreciate them in a new light. At the same time, I wanted to give shamanic ‘greenhorns’ the kind of an introduction that might help them establish connections with their familiar world view. On the one hand, I wanted this book to be personable and easily understandable. On the other hand, it had to meet certain scientific criteria as well.

For those who may be bored by theoretical considerations, but find this book in their hands anyway, I have also included many stories and vivid accounts for you. Coming from my own personal experience and others, they are printed in italics, so that you can hop from story to story as you please.

In contrast to Catholic priests, a vocation that is restricted to men by the Church, the vocation of shamans and psychotherapists is distributed more or less equally between men and women. Therefore, (T/N): I use the 3rd person, except when referring to individuals or when, e.g., he is specifically used in a quotation.

I would like to thank all my clients who have made this possible, and my friends who have accompanied the creation of this book critically.

Since I’m a history buff, I couldn’t help but add the year of each author’s death after their name. When an author’s name is written in capital letters, you will find a listing for them in the bibliography and the date is the year their work was published.

So, this is how I report about my shamanic experiences (the names have been changed) and show how they can be explained from a psychological and Christian point of view.

This is an invitation to listen, to trust and to follow your inspiration – regardless of whether you call them messages from the spirits, the wisdom of the unconscious or as divine.

August Thalhamer

Theologian, psychologist and urban shaman

Linz an der Donau, February 2007

Foreword to the Second Edition

Gladly, the heart

strives heavenwards.

But the gut, the gut,

it loves the Earth too.

Brigitte Heidebrecht

You could say that this book is about humanity’s efforts to bring his heavenly and earthly existence into harmony.

I am grateful for all the positive feedback I have received. Obviously, I have addressed many of the most common questions and, as before, this is still the only book in which shamanism, psychology and the Christian faith are examined together.

I am grateful to the publisher, Ennsthaler Verlag, for publishing a new edition of my work – supplemented with a few enhancements.

Now, it would be my pleasure if I could make a small contribution to helping you entrust yourself to life (or whatever you call it), and letting yourself fall – with the certainty that Rainer Maria Rilke († 1926) expressed as follows: “ ... and yet there is one who holds this falling infinitely softly in His hands.”

August Thalhamer

on the 28th of August 2013

in the 40th year of my career as a coach and psychotherapist

Foreword to the English Edition

Since these three traditions often view each other with suspicion, and sometimes meet each other with hostility, I wanted to use this book to build a bridge. My aim is to show their differences and similarities, illustrated by examples, from a practitioner of all three of these healing methods’ point of view.

The book is an introduction to humanity’s oldest form of healing. This book also makes it clear that these abilities are slumbering in every one of us.

Here, I share my personal shamanic experiences. I also show how they could be explained from a psychological point of view and how they fit into the Christian tradition. What’s new about this approach is my attempt at reconciling these three seemingly irreconcilable orientations.

Is shamanic healing really so different from psychological treatment – as it seems to be at first glance? Even if the trappings of shamanic rituals seem exotic, their therapeutic principles are surprisingly consistent with the results of psychological research and the experiences of psychotherapeutic practice. They are also very compatible with theological views, especially the experiences of the mystics.

Despite all the differences between these views of life and our physical reality, I suggest that we are dealing with the same processes. On the one hand, they are experienced and explained within the psyche and, on the other hand, externally. Regardless of whether I use the wisdom of the (collective) unconscious to resolve a problem or I am inspired by good powers, (which, from a psychological viewpoint, are projected as external entities): The way we explain it seems irrelevant when it comes to the effectiveness of the therapeutic process.

My intention was to write the book in a personal and understandable way, while also conforming to accepted scientific standards.

In the hope that you find it inspiring,

August Thalhamer

Psychologist and psychotherapist,

Roman Catholic theologian and urban shaman

Linz, Austria, March 27th, 2021

Translator’s note: Biblical citations are taken from the New Revised

Standard Version Catholic Edition found at www.biblegateway.com.

1. Shamanism

If you want to enter the gardens of dedication,

if you never want to cross the threshold,

the door will never open.

If you want to enter the gardens of dedication,

follow your path past the guardian at the threshold.

It can be many things.

The projection of your fear.

The outpouring of your longing.

The mirror image of your ego.

Your inner teacher.

Your guardian angel. Escort into the light.

Cross at the threshold

and let yourself be guided.

Sonia Emilia Roppele

My Women

They undress me and wash me ritually. Then they look at my aching spine. One of them says, “We have to fix it.” Then the other says, “There’s no way to fix that. We have to replace these parts!” They remove three of my vertebrae and their discs and replace them with ones made of wax and honey. Then, I am blessed, and the vision is over.

That was 1982. Apart from the year of my divorce, I have remained pain-free to this day. Since the days of my youth, I had repeatedly suffered from chronic back pain. According to my x-rays this should still be the case.

A good ten years later, when I made my first shamanic journey – what the shamans call meditation – these women appeared to me again. They were very pleased that I had finally visited them. They were joined by my eagle, a group of monks and higher authorities that I only visit occasionally. This brings us to the first basic assumption of shamanism:

First Basic Assumption: There Are Other Worlds besides the Visible One

This is an essential part of all the religions that came later. Of course, as a theologian, I am always reminded of the sentence by Jesus of Nazareth “My kingdom is not from this world.” (John 18:36; “but in this world,” in another verse in the Bible) or, e.g., in Meister Eckhart’s († 1328) formulation, “There are two kinds of birth among men: one into the world and one out of the world” (cit. in Andreas SCHÖNFELD, 2002).

It is interesting that these ‘otherworlds’ are usually not specified, but just designated as ‘other.’ The word ‘supernatural’ only means that it goes beyond the ‘natural’ that is known to us. The same is true for ‘transcendent’ (going beyond) as opposed to ‘immanent’ (staying within). So, we use words that technically have no content, but are simply expressions of things they do not mean. Examples include: ‘non-ordinary reality,’ ‘extra-sensory perception,’ ‘non-duality,’ or ‘the unconscious.’ Even when expressions like ‘the heavenly kingdom’ or the word ‘dreamtime’ as used by the Australian aborigines, or ‘trance’ may invite a specific image, the wording itself conveys respect for the unfathomable and mysterious. These deal with – as does this book – inadequate attempts to grasp and understand something that is incomprehensible to us earthlings. This, of course, is an impediment to scientific research. Although, paradoxically, this kind of reality can actually be experienced by leaving the thinking mind and the need to explain behind, as we do in meditation. After awakening from it, it is difficult to describe the experience. Fundamentally, all models for philosophical and religious explanations need to be enjoyed with caution. The same goes for impressive shamanic visions. They are but experiments; and between them, we should never forget to bow before the incomprehensible mystery.

Motivated by the more than 30,000-year-old cave paintings in the Chauvet-Cavern near Vallon-Pont-d’Arc in the Ardèche, the well-known writer John BERGER (2006) writes: “For nomads, the notion of past and future corresponds to the experience of an elsewhere ... For both hunter and prey, the hiding place guarantees survival. Everything hides. What appears to have vanished is simply hidden from view. An absence – like that after death – is felt as a loss but not as abandonment. The dead are simply hiding elsewhere.”

In shamanism the otherworld is experienced as already populated: not only by the deceased, but also by demons and powerful spirits. They can be contacted and asked for protection and help, healing, and insight. Often, especially powerful locations are used and there are certain times when the door to the spirit world is more open than at other times, e.g., the nights when the seasons change.

In the later great religions, these spirits are often referred to as ‘angels’ (Greek: angeloi), literally meaning ‘emissaries,’ communicators between the unfathomable origin of being and humanity. The Bible calls them ‘powers and forces.’ The great theologian of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas († 1274) calls them “beings with no material parts.” They are somehow more vivid, more tangible mediators between the totally unfathomable origin, the ultimate Being – generally called ‘God’ – and us mere mortals. (See below: Is Shamanism a Religion?)

In the extraordinary reality that he called “fantasy,” Freud’s student, C.G. JUNG (1995) met his spirit guide who called himself “Philemon” and provided him with decisive insights. He insisted that, “We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousnesses, that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions.”

Even Socrates († 399 BC) says in one of Plato’s Dialogues († 347 BC, cit. in GOLDBERG, 1983): “By the favour of the Gods, I have, since my childhood, been attended by a semi-divine being.”

In shamanism, which is the oldest form of medicine and psychotherapy – probably having been practiced for more than 35,000 years – the resources of the otherworld are used for the resolution of problems of all kinds. Shamans go into a trance (with the help of dance and music, e.g., drums, rattles, chants, and in some regions of the world with the help of psychotropic substances). There, they travel to their ancestors, to their allied spirit-beings (sometimes designated as “gods”), to the forces of heaven and earth, to their power animals, guides and teachers.

A prerequisite for this is the assumption of the existence of a soul, independent from the body, which leaves the body after death, but can already fly off to other worlds during one’s own lifetime. (Some researchers presume this belief was already present among the Neanderthals in the Middle Palaeolithic Period between 130,000 BC to about 30,000 BC, because a few types of burials may indicate that people believed in an existence after death at the time).

Sometimes the shaman is considered “crazy,” because they cross over from the normal state of consciousness into an altered one – into a trance state in which they possibly move or speak strangely. Unlike a clinically insane person, (which Western psychologists considered shamans to be until the 1950s), the shaman returns to their everyday consciousness after accomplishing a task for an individual or the whole community. Mircea ELIADE (2004) reports: “The writer who approaches shamanism as a psychologist ... will not fail to compare it with certain aberrant psychic behaviour patterns or to class it among mental diseases of the hysteroid or epileptoid type.” In his standard work, his is one of the first to document in detail why it is “inacceptable to assimilate shamanism to any kind of mental disease.”

Roger N. Walsh (1990), who illuminates shamanism through the eyes of a psychologist: “One source of these misunderstandings has been psychoanalysis. Long the dominant school of Western psychiatry, it fostered a distinctly negative view of shamanism.”

After all, it is not clear from the outset, but is determined by society, what is considered crazy and what is considered normal. It is well known that insane people (such as criminals or some specific groups) are not only (consciously) segregated or locked away in appropriate institutions for safety reasons, but also (unconsciously) because they represent some of the aspects of our shadow that we reject.

While anthropologists and psychiatrists diagnosed shamans with “mental illness,” “epilepsy,” or “hysteria,” or referred to them as “swindlers and charlatans,” as pathological personalities whose methods were to be rejected as unscientific and ineffective, priests and missionaries claimed that shamans were in league with the devil. Secular powers often persecuted and sought to eradicate shamans because they were highly respected in their communities and most were unwilling to submit to an oppressive, foreign authority. Similarly, the mystics of all religions often had to endure considerable repression by religious institutions and their rulers. First and foremost, they also wanted to follow their own inner guidance. Also, the description of their experiences often differed significantly from official doctrines. Until now, classical ethnology has usually described shamanism as a declining cultural form from an almost museum-like perspective.

For the history of the reception of shamanism in the West, see Amélie SCHENK (1999). She makes it clear how much the image of shamanism depended on the respective culture of the observer – which, of course, also applies to me and my comments.

The word “shaman” originates from the Tungusic (Siberian) language (there, it is also a loan word, probably coming from Sanskrit and meaning, “the agitated, affected, fiery (one),” possibly also, “the knowing one;” sometimes it is also translated with, “the crazy one” – the exact meaning cannot be clearly determined). Anthropologists introduced it as a term for all healers in tribal cultures who resolve problems in trance, in the service of the community, and with the help of spirit-beings. A good description can be found in the standard work of Mircea ELIADE (2004). In it, you can get an impression of, e.g., Asian shamanism, including impressive images by the Hungarian anthropologist Mihaly HOPPÁL (1994).

The spiritual activities that most shamans practice is not their main occupation. As Andreas REIMERS (2005) reports, e.g., about Nepal: “According to new research, there are about 700,000 shamans ..., who, alongside earning their bread as farmers and craftsmen, are responsible for the health of about 50 people on average.”

The main task of the shaman is, time and time again, to bring the social and economic life of their village, their tribe, and the individual tribe members into harmony with the order of all that exists and the other worlds. They work to eliminate disturbances, which can also express themselves in diseases.

The shaman is therefore the first systems engineer par excellence: They diagnose and treat the individuals’ problems (or the tribe’s). To do this, they consider the context of the life story and relationship structure in which their patient(s) live or have lived and also their connections with the rest of nature. In these considerations, nature is both revered as a gift as well as feared as a threat and connections with the world of the deceased, especially the ancestors and the spirit world, also play an integral role. Furthermore, the shaman is responsible for the souls of the deceased arriving safely in the otherworld and not remaining stuck in this world and causing problems, e.g., as ghosts.

Seen in this way, shamans are both mediators and wanderers between worlds, in keeping with the image of the world tree or the world axis commonly found in many cultures. These cultures include our Celtic ancestors, as BURGSTALLER (1989) believed he interpreted – probably not historically accurately – from petroglyphs in the “Notgasse” rock formation in Austria’s upper Ennstal. Of the three main parts of the tree: root, trunk, and crown, the trunk represents the world we perceive with our senses while awake. Thus, our everyday reality is often designated as the “middle world” in shamanism, while the other dimensions are imagined as the upper and lower worlds.

Upon reflection, it is clear why representatives of other cultures are completely unable to understand that many people in our highly civilized society (as we refer to it) view the visible world as the only one that exists – as if we do not know that the trunk cannot exist alone! “There is no doubt that at this moment in history, Western culture is seriously ill,” says the African Malidoma Patrice SOMÉ (1996). The American psychologist and philosopher William James († 1910, cit. in Holger KALWEIT, 1988) believed that the normal person is only half awake and can be likened to a hysterical person, one whose perceptual field is vastly limited and who lives in a very restricted section of their entire being: “We all have life reserves that we can only dream about.”

From a psychological view, totem animals are projections, just like the wise powers that guide us and teach us. Of course, God is one of these as well. In my opinion, this is not a disparaging statement, because I can only outwardly project what I have in me. Thus, the criticism of the militant atheist Richard DAWKINS (2006), “that humans weren’t created by gods, but the gods were created by humans,” receives little objection. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe († 1832) already said:

If the eye weren’t sun-like,

it could never see the sun;

if God’s own power weren’t in us,

how could divinity delight us?

In my experience, whether clients are active in their own psychotherapeutic resource work and let solutions arise from their unconscious mind, or if they seek to resolve a problem shamanically by entreating their spiritual allies for assistance in a trance, this makes no appreciable difference in the efficacy of the work. Being active in both fields, I am firmly convinced of this. Admittedly, I am also convinced that our inner riches are immeasurable and capable of extraordinary feats.

In the West, Shamanism was popularized in the 1960s by the US American anthropologist, Carlos CASTANEDA (2008). In “The Teachings of Don Juan,” he describes how he – at first with the help of consciousness-altering plants and mushrooms – learned to travel in the world of non-ordinary reality with the Yaqui Indians of Mexico. However, he primarily takes the path of a “man of knowledge and power,” which gives me cause for concern. Namely, I think there is a much more important question: What do I use it for? Knowledge and power are intrinsically neutral and not an end in and of themselves. Both can be used for harm as well as for the benefit of individuals and the world.

At any rate, this popularization came at the same time as the drug boom that began in the late 1960s. With the emerging “hippie” and “flower power” movements, many people began experimenting with marijuana and LSD. Aside from the escape from a bleak, everyday world these drugs seemed to offer, they may have also signified an inkling of and longing for this other dimension. For the vast majority of users, however, these consciousness-altering substances did not have a demonstrably positive effect. If they did, everyone going to a “rave” would come out enlightened, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

What Is the Origin of Shamanism? How Does Someone Become a Shaman?

Perhaps there was a great drought and the animals the tribe depended on became scarce. Then, the people began to starve. One morning, when the people were already quite weak, a girl tells of her dream: “I flew over the big mountain, with my friend, a huge bird. Behind the mountain, there are many animals and enough to eat.” For the elders it is childish nonsense. However, when the bird continues to visit the girl in her dreams the following nights, the elders decide: If we are going to die, it doesn’t matter if it’s here or there. So, they set out on their way and find everything as the girl had seen in her dream. Overjoyed, they celebrate. Then, the next time they have a problem, they ask the girl if she could dream again, so she may be granted a solution. Perhaps the girl spontaneously falls into a trance and receives answers when they’re playing music in the evening. In this way, they learn how they can bring about the condition on purpose. After that, the most talented ones continue to perform this function. That could have been what happened, or maybe not.

Perhaps there was a time when three hunters set out to kill a deer for the clan. On this particular hunt, they travelled farther away from their camp than usual and their return was were prevented by a swollen river. Tormented by hunger, fatigue and exhaustion, their strength is waning. One has hallucinations: An old man leads them upstream and shows them a tree they can walk across the water on. There, the man disappears and on the far bank, a faltering mammoth appears. Then, this vision is interrupted, flashing to where they are suddenly sitting in the circle of their clan. They are surrounded by happy children and admiring adults. Now, half awake, half in a trance, they follow the course of the river towards its source and find everything as the hunter had seen it. Back at home, he consciously tries to achieve this extraordinary state of awareness again. In solitude, through fasting and forcing himself to stay awake, he attempts to revisit the old man who showed them the way.

Perhaps a warrior accidentally ate a little of the mushroom that killed his uncle. Afterwards, in his extasy, he begins soothsaying. This was how he discovered the amount he needed to keep having the visions that served the good of the clan.

Perhaps it was a hot day. A boy took a stick and beat on the pelt that his father had stretched out to dry. He liked the sound. Suddenly, he sees images and he’s fascinated. They are so beautiful that he doesn’t want to come back. “I’m going to do that again,” he says to himself. Later, he builds the first drum and also teaches his children how to journey.

Perhaps, in the transition from their animal past, humans retained their high sensitivity. Maybe it came naturally and, without thinking about it, they lived in both states simultaneously. Maybe they couldn’t even distinguish between them for a long time.

In all cases, the rest of nature was experienced as both nourishing and threatening. No wonder humans were in awe of it. The Earth could give life and also destroy it – especially in hunter-gatherer societies with little ability to predict whether they will be able to find enough food or have a successful hunt. It was vital to their survival to find ways to tame the rest of nature, so that they could live more safely and more comfortably. In this way, they gained a richness of experience – both of an earthly nature: e.g., in the production of tools and weapons, and of a spiritual nature: in the development of effective rituals that could bring them into contact with the energies of plants and animals. That which proved itself was passed on to their descendants.

Today we assume that shamanism was not developed or discovered in one particular society before spreading from there, but rather that it originated in different parts of the world simultaneously, that it belongs to human nature.

Either way, some people are inherently gifted and recognize hidden connections – clairvoyantly – even when awake. Sometimes this runs in the family and is “passed down” from generation to generation. E.g., Galsang Tschinag and Amélie SCHENK (1998) report on a 19-year-old Tuvinian woman in Mongolia. She was seized by the spirit of her previously deceased grandmother, the great shaman Pürwü, and was called on to succeed her as shaman.

Others are called in fever, in dreams or spontaneous visions. If someone suddenly sees spirits that no one else sees, they are not sent to a psychiatrist, but rather to a shaman. A shaman can check if they have been called by the shamans, possibly to become one of them.

Others gain their sensitivity through a serious illness or an accident that leaves them on the brink of death. The initiation, however, is never an event. Rather, initiation is a process of personal healing and maturation, testing and training that goes on for years.

The Shamanic Calling Today

Luise, a diabetic who receives regular dialysis, encounters her beloved grandmother during a shamanic journey (see detailed description below). Her grandmother has been dead for years. Still, she does not stay long with her grandmother (discipline!), because she has to fly on into the upper world. There, she experiences a beautiful and dignified woman who introduces herself with the name “Nina.” Soon, she is surrounded by a crowd of women who pay her special respect, confirm her calling as a shaman and encourage her: “You don’t need to be afraid when you journey. Your physical healing is not our task, but we will impart you with the sound of a melody that you will never forget. It will make everything work out in the middle world as well.” Luise began to follow her calling, began performing healing rituals. Later, she received a donor kidney, which she did not reject for the rest of her life.

Most people who have been resuscitated after clinical death report that they were given a glimpse into the other dimension. Most of these were reluctant to return and afterwards, also made fundamental changes to their lives. (A comparison of near-death experiences with shamanic journeys can be found in Joachim FAULSTICH (2003), who also filmed the much-publicized “Jenseitsreisen” (Journeys Beyond)). Augustine († 430) said, “It is only in the face of death that man’s self is born.”

In spontaneous or consciously induced visions, some experience a dismemberment of their body as the decisive initiation experience. Death and resurrection are usually experienced in a horrible and realistic way. After all, how can someone go on regularly crossing the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead if they have not first tasted death themselves?

Winfried PICARD (2006) reports in detail about one such spontaneous dismemberment experience as I have experienced them repeatedly in my practice. Picard’s report describes it as a decisive turning point in the history of a schizophrenic patient’s suffering.

The shaman sees themselves as a wanderer between the worlds. The German word “Hexe” (witch) probably comes from “haga zuga” or “haga zussa,” which can be understood as “fence rider” (who jumps over borders), a term that is supposedly still used in some areas of Switzerland. In the Celtic tradition, borders and junctions played a special role. Even today, some natural healers express this ritually by performing their ceremonies at the junction between day and night, on the threshold of the house, dressed half for the day and half for the night. This is what Tom COWAN relates, author of “Fire in the Head: Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit” (1993).

The “initiation sickness” (literally: “the disease that sets one on the path”) often disappears when one begins to practice as a shaman. However, this is not always the case. Many speak of the “wounded healer.”

The ingenious founder of the new hypnotherapy, Milton H. Erickson († 1980), the psychiatrist, Erwin Ringel († 1994), and the mathematician and physicist, Stephen Hawking († 2009), who many considered to be our most gifted contemporary, were all severely handicapped by disabilities. Did they achieve the extraordinary precisely because they were able to accept their suffering over time? Was it their handicap that proved to be their blessing?

Particularly in a healing profession, self-inflicted suffering or the survival of a crisis, with its process of going through profound emotions, is certainly a great advantage for understanding suffering clients. Such a healer will not be shocked by intense emotional expressions. They know this from their own experience – and were (hopefully) able to overcome it in the meantime.

This reminds me that the choice – unconscious – to study psychology or become a psychotherapist, is usually made by people who want to resolve their own internal conflicts and problems in real life. They want to heal themselves.

A few years ago, Sonja came to me. A high school student, she had been suffering from epilepsy, the Grand Mal, for quite some time. As this has often been recognized as the disease of the calling since ancient times, I invited her to a shamanic healing seminar.

In a shamanic journey, a lion appeared to her and said, “Believe in your strength at last!” Then, in a nightmare, light-beings wanted to tear her away – she fought back.

Afterward, with the group, I performed shamanic healing therapy for her. I had hardly closed my eyes before I saw a host of powerful women over Sonja. At first, they were not at all thrilled that I, a man, had come along, but then they were grateful to me when they recognized my female sides. I asked them why their healing power had not yet had a profound effect on Sonja. They answered, “It’s stuck in her head.” I was (ritually) able to clear that up easily enough. Then I saw the obstacle in her heart. Primarily, it was Sonja’s great fear of the many bad things she will encounter if she follows her calling to be a shaman.

The main message I received and was to report to Sonja: If you start to heal, the seizures will stop. At the end of the sitting, I was to ask her to bless each of us. She did this.

It came to be as I was told in the vision: When she, quite reluctantly and very rarely, began to heal, the frequency of her seizures decreased. Now that she holds regular healing sessions, she no longer has epileptic seizures anymore. When she took a longer break once again, the seizures came back at that time.

In accordance with humanistic psychology (of Abraham Maslow († 1970), Fritz Perls, († 1970), Carl Rogers, († 1987), etc.), I am of the opinion that every human being carries the fullness of wisdom within them and that, in principle, they can make it bear fruit for themselves and others. Also, seen in this way, shamanic abilities are an aspect of human nature and every human being is capable of them – just as everyone is capable of singing, albeit with varying quality.

Francis VAUGHAN (1999), one of the pioneers of transpersonal psychology, does not consider intuition – another word for this inner source of knowledge – as an exotic ability reserved for some of the chosen, but as a universal characteristic of all human beings. Gail Ferguson (cited in OBERMAYR-BREITFUSS, 2005) also emphasizes that, “intuition is something completely normal among human beings.”

Surely there are some who are very intuitive by nature, but this can also be developed through training. The most gifted of the tribe become shamans, although none apply to become one voluntarily. Instead, it is often the case that through disease, like Sonja, they are called by the spirits and are literally forced to do it. “The healer dreams of being human, i.e., normal, while the normal ones want to be respected like the medicine man,” reports Malidoma Patrice SOMÉ (1999). We also hear that the prophets resisted their calling tooth and nail. Nkongo, a welder and the son of a nganga, a traditional healer among the Duala in Cameroon, told the researcher Eric de ROSNY (1982):

“I would like to work in a company. ... But this nganga thing is following me around: When I have a vision in a dream, it will strengthen me. Then, I have to accept it, but I won’t go out of my way to have a vision. ... And I’m sure that if my mother knew about all this, she would advise me to stay away from it.” His father Loe, who originally wanted to become a carpenter, had also refused to become a nganga at first.”

In the Global North, when people hear the word “calling,” hardly anyone thinks of the question: Who is calling? “You did not choose me, but I chose you,” as it is also written in John 15:16.

Often, a shamanic talent will be recognized by other shamans. An experience I had in the spring of 2004 holds a special place in my memory:

For three months, little Christa was lying in the incubator after her difficult delivery (birth weight 800 g/1¾ lbs). When she was finally taken home, she cried every day between 4pm and 7pm. It was heartbreaking. She cried even longer if she had come into contact with strangers during the day. She developed an intestinal inflammation and had many infections. Antibiotics did not help, more than a hundred blood samples did not help the doctors understand her condition. I spoke with the doctor responsible for the child. Her desperate parents called me to see if I could perform a remote treatment.

I thought to myself: That poor child! And I felt a great sadness. However, just as I was beginning my trance, I experienced her greatness: Christa is/will be a great woman and shaman. Her terrible start is the gift of her calling. The others in the group experienced it similarly. I don’t need to do anything for her. On the contrary: She was blessing us, and I was to lay hands on everyone in the circle. As I was passing on her blessing, I saw how she straightened up more and more and her symptoms disappeared. Her visit was an honor for us. For Christa, it was all about her confirmation and that her talent would be recognized.

A week later, her mother called and told me: From the time of the session on, Christa just laughed for 24 hours and then she slept for very long time. Also, as I was shown, Christa has been symptom-free ever since and she is a particularly cheerful child, as her referring doctor occasionally informs me.

Since I became known as a spiritual healer, increasing numbers of sensitive people have come to see me. However, they do not interpret their talent as a gift; they experience it as a terrible burden instead. Some of them are clairvoyant (which I am not – I have to go into trance to see) and have precognitions. What is certainly interesting (and questionable) for the psychologists is that they mainly foresee negative events, e.g., deaths. Rarely do they ever foresee that someone will, e.g., enjoy a blissful night of romance.

Also with schizophrenics, the door to the otherworld is already open.

Roswitha emailed me: “Yesterday I went to sleep at around midnight and I suddenly believed that extraterrestrials were there with me. I had the feeling: They were working on me.”

A portion of those diagnosed as “schizophrenic” certainly have a spiritual gift, but they do not have it under control. Therefore, they cannot use it to benefit themselves and others. Should you be affected by this: Control can be practiced and learned (a treatment report can be found below). It may not look like it, but shamanic practice is extremely disciplined:

• Shamans do not travel to just any old place – like a psychotic who, in their condition, can tolerate being in a place that they normally cannot control anyway. Instead, shamans exclusively seek out their allied powers of good and then allow themselves to be guided by them.

• Shamans decide for themselves, apart from exceptions, when the change of consciousness will begin and when it will end.

• Shamans do not go to the otherworld to escape from, e.g., their own bad and unbearable situation. On the contrary, shamans go there so they can make the resources they find there fertile for this world.

The Foundation for Shamanic Studies

Through this foundation, I received my introduction to shamanism: the basic equipment so to say. However, you acquire the actual training through visions of the masters and teachers in the other worlds. That is how I received my training as well.

The Foundation of Shamanic Studies was founded by Michael HARNER (1990). He explained how his experience was like that of most anthropologists (e.g., Florinda DONNER, 1983): He was allowed to participate in shamanic healing rituals, but apart from outward appearances, he could not determine what was really happening in them or how they led to remarkable healings. (See the chapter on scientific research. For the readers who are interested in taking a deeper look into shamanism, having your own experiences is recommended. Some things can only be understood through experience. The word ‘interest’ literally means ‘to be between, in the middle’). As Carl Gustav Jung († 1961) said, “Religious issues cannot be understood if not experienced from within.”

Thus, Harner was invited to leave the “objective,” scientific standpoint (as it was understood at the time) behind and – as a kind of participant observer – become initiated himself. He went on a vision quest that he describes in his book, “The Way of the Shaman.” His experiences went far beyond all of his previous rational understanding. After having further personal shamanic experiences, he left his university but continued researching. He also organized international meetings around the central question: What do shamans all around the world have in common? He also began to teach this Core-Shamanism (the essence, the core of shamanism) – in a form that was accessible and comprehensible to people who have been socialized in the West. Since then, thanks to his and other organizations, it is increasingly possible for men and women in our modern society to recognize their shamanic calling and follow it.

The Church and the Enlightenment were unable to completely extinguish the spiritual healing tradition of the Western world. Over the centuries, there have always been “natural talents” among the “spiritual healers” in the West. E.g., the journalist Paul UCCUSIC (1984), later responsible for the Foundation in Europe, reports on this in his excellent book. The social scientist and cultural anthropologist Andreas J. OBRECHT (1999 and 2000) not only carried out his research among other cultures, but also in Austria: In his first volume, many healers openly report on the discovery of their abilities for the first time and about successful practices beyond conventional medicine. His second volume is about the following question:

“Who are those people, who in times of illness, crisis, pain and impending death, trust in the helpful powers of prayer, healing hands, nature spirits and power animals, the saints of the Catholic Church, the help of the deceased, universal cosmic forces, Jesus Christ, or mysterious energy locations, in short, in Christian and shamanic healing rituals? ... 76% of clients claim to have experienced a definite improvement in their subjective well-being – physical as well as psychological.”

I and a number of my clients were interviewed for this study.

Ute MOOS (1999) also presents a detailed account of four Austrian healers, each with one of their patients (including myself under the pseudonym “Albert G.”).

Albert Einstein: “I Rely on Intuition.”

After 500 years of overemphasizing reason and the almost exclusive appreciation of conscious thought-based control, it is nice to be able to recognize the value of its polar opposite again. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “intuition” as: “the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.” Sometimes it is called “knowledge without knowledge.” Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart († 1791) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe († 1832) both reported experiencing certain moments when they were flooded with inspiration and that they could not force these to happen. However, intuition is not only a decisive factor in the work of artists: