The Many Lives of Mongolian Shamanism

The following is excerpted from Sky Shamans of Mongolia: Meetings with Remarkable Healers by Kevin Turner.
 

For thousands of years, Mongolia has been a nexus of Eurasian shamanisms that competed, mixed, and meshed across our planet's largest continent. Shamanism appears to have emerged with the very dawn of human consciousness, but archeologists can probably speak with confidence about only the past 30,000 to 70,000 years.
 

Archeological discoveries in Eurasia alone indicate that the practice of shamanism reaches back at least to 35,000 BCE, easily making shamanism the oldest spiritual practice known to mankind. Modern religious faiths such as Buddhism and Christianity are toddlers in comparison, and psychology is a mere newborn.
 

The word shaman originated from the Tungusic tribal language groups (from areas to the north and east of Mongolia), which are related to Mongolic languages. These are both part of the broader Altaic language group, which includes Turkic, Manchurian, and scores of other Inner Asian and Siberian languages, and may include Korean and Japanese at the easternmost reach. The modern term "shaman" has now been adopted by many as a catch-all word to describe those who by spiritual means seek direct access to information and healing power not ordinarily available.
 

The nomadic northern Siberian shamanic traditions tend to retain the highly individualistic aspects of shamanism; by contrast, a most interesting facet of Mongolian and Inner Asian shamanism is the amalgamation of the shamans' direct experiences of other realities with a religious belief system known as Tengerism (Heaven or Sky God-ism). Tengerism originated in Sumeria, one of humanity's earliest civilizations, and probably derived from the early experiences of the shamans, prophets, and mystics of pre-Mesopotamian eras.
 

The modern Mongolian term Tenger (or Tengri), meaning both "sky realms" and "sky spirits," almost certainly derives from the Sumerian word Dingir, also meaning both "sky realm(s)" and "deity(-ies)." The concept of divinity in Sumerian was closely associated with the heavens, evident from the shared cuneiform sign for both heaven and sky, and from the fact that its earliest form is a star shape. The name of every deity in Sumerian is prefixed by a star symbol. 

 

Mircea Eliade proposed that Tengrism may be the closest thing we have found to a reconstructed proto-Indo-European religion. It is also evident that Tengrism's three-layered worldview is nearly identical to the tripartite world found in many kinds of shamanism, as well as the Vedic triloka ("three realms") world structure.
 

In Mongolian, one who travels the realms of the Tengers is called a Tengeri--"sky-dweller; sky-walker." I like to think that Luke Skywalker, the young warrior-shaman Jedi knight of the fictional Star Wars films, may have inherited his name from this tradition. Interestingly, the BBC reports that in censuses taken in 2001 regarding spiritual beliefs, hundreds of thousands of people selected "Jediism" as their faith of choice--such is the power of shamanism even in our modern myths and legends.
 

The earliest authenticated records of Mongolian shamanism go back to the beginnings of the Hunnu Dynasty, 209-93 CE (also known as the Xiongnu in Chinese records). Mongolian legend tells us that, during this time, a nine-year-old Hunnu boy united with a she-wolf, engendering the modern-day Mongolian people. The headdress of a shaman (circa 300–100 BCE) was found in one of the graves of Noin-Ula (Mongolian: Noyon uulyn bulsh) in northern Mongolia, and is strikingly similar to the Mongol Darkhad headdress of today. The fabric's colors, weaving methods, and embroidery are also similar to those found in fabric produced by Scythians in the Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast, leading scholars to draw links between these ancient cultures. (Scythian tribal areas were just west of Mongolian territories.)
 

According to historian and researcher Otgony Purev, shamans played an important role in diplomatic efforts and treaties with neighboring nations. The Hunnu emperors even constructed permanent shamanic shrines, and encouraged individual shamans to synthesize their diverse practices into a national religion. "Shamanist religion" then became part of the organizational basis of governmental and military activity.
 

Shamanism became the main source of education and ideology for the earliest pre-Mongol states. This continued for nearly 400 years, and ties to education remain influential in the Mongolian shamanic revival even today. With the disintegration of the Hunnu Dynasty, institutionalized shamanism returned to its more natural, individualistic and autonomous forms across a series of disparate Inner Asian kingdoms that spanned a millennium.

What Psychedelic Therapy Can Learn From Shamanism

Psychedelic psychotherapy is the process of taking a psychedelic substance within a therapeutic setting, which typically includes psychotherapy. In clinical studies, psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and MDMA are two compounds that are being investigated for their therapeutic use in treating certain mental health conditions, like depression and PTSD, and improve overall mental health. Most of the psychedelic therapy taking place is within clinical research studies in the underground and in places where psychedelics are legal.
 

Psychedelic therapy is widely discussed as an innovative development within psychiatry, yet the ironic truth is that mind-altering substances have been used to promote mental health for thousands of years. And while the ceremonial ingestion of plants like ayahuasca in South America, peyote in North America, and iboga in Africa may seem a far cry from Western psychotherapy, researchers are increasingly looking to indigenous cultures in order to learn how to utilize these potent medicines.
 

Anthropologists who study the ceremonial use of psychedelic plants often write about the skilled manner in which shamans guide their patients into "managed altered states of consciousness." Through the manipulation of sounds, symbols, and other aesthetic elements in a ritual context, these traditional healers are able to steer participants' visions and hallucinations in certain desirable directions. Overall, the ritual context provides a controlled, supportive, and safe environment for participants to engage in reflective emotional work that is often difficult.
 

A recent study of Westerners attending a mental health retreat run by indigenous ayahuasca healers found that 36 percent rated the actions of these shamans as the single most important factor in the improvement of their well-being. The non-indigenous users attributed the benefits of ayahuasca to their immersion in the traditional aspects of the ayahuasca experience, which were often intense or difficult to endure, echoing the ascetic experiences of the traditional users. Research indicates that the beneficial elements of ayahuasca are enhanced when the cultural and spiritual aspects of its use are emphasized. And while shamanic rituals may not be fully appreciated by conventional psychiatrists, it is widely agreed that psychedelic experiences are the product of more than just mere pharmacology.
 

Set and Setting
 

Back in the 1960s, famed psychologist and LSD evangelist Timothy Leary helped to popularize the notion of "set and setting", which holds that the effects of psychedelics are largely determined by the mindset of the user as well as the environment in which they are taken, rather than the properties of the substances themselves. "Set" refers to the expectations and intentions the person brings to the experience, and "setting" is the outward circumstances in which it takes place. Additionally, the expectations and experiences of participants in a traditional ceremonial setting are often influenced by the shamans' shaping of those aspects.
 

For this reason, set and setting has been incorporated into recent psychedelic trials. Typically, this is achieved by manipulating the therapeutic environment with low lighting and carefully selected music playlists. This last element is considered to be of particular importance, as research has revealed that music amplifies the capacity of psychedelics to enhance activity within the parts of the brain that process emotion.
 

A Clash of Worldviews
 

Indigenous people view creation as a living process, resulting in a living universe in which a kinship exists between all things. There is no such thing as an individual in the same way that we take for granted in the west. There is no separateness. We are all one consciousness. It's a different way of looking at things. For those of us who have been raised as staunch materialists, such a concept can be difficult to understand, let alone accept. We are conditioned to see the world as populated by distinct, independent entities that can be methodically isolated from one another, whereas indigenous cultures view the universe as one unified conscious system, in which everything is connected to everything else.
 

In line with this perspective, mental health problems are understood not as the product of faulty brain chemistry or personal psychological quirks, but as a symptom of misalignment with the encompassing whole. Healing, therefore, is typically a collective affair and is achieved by restoring the patient's sense of connectedness to their community and wider environment.
 

While most research into the efficacy of psychedelics to treat mental health disorders continues to focus on individual treatments, a number of studies are beginning to recognize the importance of contextual factors like the shared togetherness of indigenous group rituals. A global study of people who have used psychedelics in group settings found that group bonding during ceremony was significantly correlated with increases in psychological well-being, social connectedness, and other salient mental health outcomes.
 

Conclusion
 

While researchers have demonstrated the benefits of psychedelics as a treatment for mental illness in Western users, the traditional context associated with the use of psychedelic plants is also an essential aspect of the experience. Like indigenous users who emphasize the ascetic aspects of the psychedelic experiences, the immersion in an intense, often challenging ceremony leads to benefits for Western users who understand the necessity of these difficult experiences in reaping benefits. Overall, the traditional ceremony accounts for important aspects of the psychedelic experience such as social and environmental connections. Adapting indigenous approaches to psychedelics may well be the key to psychedelic healing. 

Happy Autumnal Equinox

At the Autumnal Equinox, we begin a new cycle on the Medicine Wheel of Life, entering the West -- the home of autumn, twilight, Bear, introspection, emotions, flow, the moon, death, endings, and the element of Water. From the West flows the energy of transformation. In the West we assimilate our life experiences. Experience is the only baggage we carry with us from this Earth walk. From the West we exit the realm of physical experience and join into vast levels of experience in the spirit worlds of light, or we choose to return and walk again the sacred wheel of life.
 

Autumnal means autumn; Equinox means equal night. Night and day are the same length, each lasting exactly twelve hours on this day. It is at this time when light and darkness are in balance. The forces of feminine and masculine energy, yin and yang, are also in balance at this time, providing a unique opportunity to tune in and find our inner balance, harmony, and alignment.
 

The theme for this fall equinox is recapitulation. Recapitulation is a recapture, remembrance, and retelling of experiences, choices, actions and relationships from the past in order to digest, neutralize and file them away without any residual emotional charge. The release is the act of letting go of any attachment to the emotional content of the past event or memory.
 

It is important to reflect on your decisions past and present, as with every decision made something is always left behind. I recommend a ritual where you complete something with a burning of a photo, letter or object that represents what you are releasing. Make sure you spend some time dreaming up what you wish to bring into this new cycle. Share with others and do something celebratory to acknowledge change, a new creative beginning and reset.