Shamanic Initiation

Buryat Shaman's Initiation Staff *

In his classic work, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Mircea Eliade discusses the three stages of becoming a shaman: the Call, Training, and Initiation. The first stage to becoming a healer, as described by Eliade, is that of the calling -- this call comes from the family, the community, or from the world beyond. Some are called, initiated and trained by spirit guides and/or human teachers from childhood.

Shamans are called, and then receive rigorous instruction. Training may follow an ordered tradition or take a spontaneous course guided by the shaman's spirit helpers. The function of training is to develop the skills and talents so that shamanic practitioners don't unintentionally hurt themselves or others. Though the spirits give shamans their healing powers, shamans must learn the technique of invoking them.

Then there is Initiation. Shamanic initiation is a rite of passage, connecting the apprentice shaman intimately to the spirit world. It is typically the final step in shamanic training, though Mongolian Buryat apprentices go through a sequence of initiation rituals to become shamans. Buryat shamans having completed more initiation rituals are believed to have more power and more experience. However, initiation may be spontaneous, set in motion at any time by spirit's intervention into the initiate's life. Ultimately, shamanic initiation takes place between the initiate and the spirit world. It is the spirits who choose and make the shaman.

Shamanic initiation is probably the most powerful and least understood of all forms of spiritual awakening. It is not achieved by having mastered a body of knowledge or having completed some long-term training program. Though it may be set in motion by an apprentice's human teachers as part of an ordered, training process, authentic initiation can only be conveyed by the spirits themselves.

Initiation into shamanhood often involves shamanic dismemberment -- the experience of being taken apart, devoured, or torn to pieces. In a shamanic dismemberment, the individual dies the little death, which is the surrender of the ego. At its deepest level, the dismemberment experience dismantles our old identity. It is a powerful death-and-rebirth process. The experience of being stripped layer by layer, down to bare bones forces us to examine the bare essence of what we truly are.

Shamanic initiation functions as a transformer -- it causes a radical change in the initiate forever. An initiation marks a transition into a new way of being in the world. It tells us something about the mystery of life and death. According to shamanic teacher and author Sandra Ingerman, "Initiation is the death, dismembering, and dissolving of old forms/structures/ways of life. And I have come to understand that true initiation is allowing spirit to sing into creation the new forms and new creations. Allowing spirit to sing formlessness into form creates a new evolution of consciousness." To learn more, look inside my guide to becoming a shamanic healer, Shamanic Drumming: Calling the Spirits. 

* Photo of Buryat Shaman's Initiation Staff by Arkady Zarubin.