The World of Shamanism: New Views of an Ancient Tradition by Roger Walsh

Author:Roger Walsh [Walsh, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Body, ken, yoga, psychology, Shamanism, metaphysical, shamanism100511, Mind, jung, Spirituality, joseph, wilber, carl, campbell, meditation, shaman, Spirit, channeling
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2014-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

[contents]

CHAPTER 23

Interpreting and Researching Journeys

What is this awesome mystery that is taking place within me?....

My intellect sees what has happened, but it cannot explain it.

It can see, and wishes to explain,

But can find no word that will suffice…

—Symeon, The New Theologian 235

INTERPRETATIONS

How are we to understand the nature of journey experiences? For shamans this question is not even an issue: the realms, worlds, and spirits are all real, as real as this world, and perhaps even more so.146 However, this position is unlikely to satisfy contemporary Westerners who are more likely to regard the experiences as examples—dramatic examples, granted—of vivid imagery or imagination.

Philosophically speaking, we have here two different ontological perspectives. The shamanic view is a realist one since it regards the phenomena found in the journey as real, objective, and independent of the shaman’s mind. The shaman views the journey as truly “exosomatic” (outside the body) rather than as “imaginal” (mind-created imagery).173

This perspective is consistent with the shamanic worldview, which holds that other worlds and spirits exist independent of the human mind and can be accessed directly through cosmic traveling. Since this worldview may have been derived from shamanic journeys, the consistency is hardly surprising. Some people who have out-of-body and near-death experiences interpret them similarly. They believe that the soul separates from the body, journeys through realms, and meets beings that are quite separate from themselves.

Certainly the idea that there is a soul and that it can leave the body to travel to other realms is an ancient one. Plato described the soul as imprisoned in the body like an oyster in his shell. Likewise Socrates claimed that the mind only perceives absolute truths “when she takes leave of the body and has as little as possible to do with it, then she has no bodily sense or desire, but is aspiring after true being.”182

More common today is the imaginal perspective that interprets shamanic journey experiences as mind-created images. These images may be interpreted as either pathological or beneficial. Pathological interpretations of such images label them as hallucinations, whereas positive interpretations see them as helpful, healing products of the imagination.

A more radical perspective is that of Tibetan Buddhism. Here the realms to which yogis travel in dreams or meditation are regarded as mind creations, but so too is everything in ordinary waking experience. This world and all worlds are ultimately regarded as creations of consciousness or mind. As Ramana Maharshi summarized: “There is no difference between the dream and waking states except that the former is short and the latter long. Both are the product of the mind.”270 Waking from all dreams, both sleeping and waking, is said to occur only with enlightenment. When asked for proof for this position, the yogi might give either a philosophical argument or the centuries-old advice: “To see if this be true, look within your own mind.” Of course, none of these perspectives deny that the journey may yield significant benefits.

Shamanism in a Post-Metaphysical Age

Metaphysical claims for the existence of independent ontological

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