The life of the shaman takes place along the hero’s journey, which was laid out by the mythologist Joseph Campbell in five main stages. Is it so:
1) The early conventional life of the shaman;
2) The crisis, or call to adventure and awakening;
3) Discipline and training;
4) Culmination of the search in enlightenment, death and rebirth; Y
5) The final phase of return and contribution to society.
Shamans were the world’s first spiritual explorers. They laid the foundation for what we now know as the spiritual path to enlightenment, the heroic quest for the grail, the journey to death and resurrection—that is, as Joseph Campbell called it, the hero’s journey.
In the words of Roger Walsh, shamans were the first to “systematically explore and cultivate their inner world and use their knowledge and images for the benefit of their people.”
They were the first to feel dissatisfied with everyday life, the waking consciousness, the first to give up acceptance of the superficial and simple reality of things, the first to blindly enter the world beyond.
Spurred by the call of the helping spirits, or by his own inner curiosity and questioning, the shaman set out on the path of discovery. This path plunged them into a strange world of visions, dreams and the inner realities of the soul.
All those who have since embarked on this path have done so following in the footsteps of the shamans who preceded us.
In short, the trip goes something like this:
1) The early conventional life of the hero:
Here the hero is blissfully unaware that culture is an illusion. He accepts the conventional beliefs, morals, and limitations set by his society.
The hero’s task is to go beyond these limitations. It is questioning his own beliefs, as well as the moral foundations of his society. As Roger Walsh explains, this “requires facing internal fears and external social sanctions that restrict and paralyze our abilities” (Walsh).
However, first things first, the hero must realize that there are fears that need to be faced and beliefs that need to be questioned. This is achieved by…
2) The crisis, or call to adventure and awakening:
At some point, the hero’s normal everyday life is challenged by a crisis, or an encounter with the unknown that calls previous beliefs into question.
This crisis can take many forms. For the shaman, it was often the onset of a strange illness, a visitation from within a dream, a powerful vision, or a confrontation with death. Whatever form he takes, “this challenge reveals the limits of thought and cultural life, and urges the hero [the shaman] beyond them” (Walsh).
Once the crisis or the call comes, the shaman is faced with a choice. Either he accepts the call and takes those first blind steps towards an unknown alien, or he represses the crisis and tries to go back to living a normal life as if none of that had happened.
The call, however, never really goes away. That feeling of dissatisfaction and discomfort persists forever, and most shamans who try to reject the call go insane or die.
Those who accept face an equally difficult but infinitely more rewarding path.
3) Discipline and training:
The next step for the shaman is to find and acquire a teacher.
A master can be both internal and external. For the shaman, the teacher often took the form of an inner guide or spirit. Just as often, shamans were trained and educated by other shamans in their community.
Whatever form they take, the master initiates the future shaman into a program of discipline, both physical and mental, to develop will and to disturb the shaman’s ordinary, that is, comfortable state of mind. This is so that his mind can be opened to new possibilities and modes of consciousness. Such disciplines may include fasting, sleep deprivation, physical exertion, isolation, or exposure to extremes of hot or cold.
The goal and effect of these disciplines is to change the way the mind perceives reality.
4) Completion of the quest–death and rebirth:
The search culminates in enlightenment, or a life-changing breakthrough.
This can take the form of a vision, a special insight, or, and this is more common with the shamanic experience, an experience of death and rebirth.
Again, whatever form it takes, the end effect is the same: “a realization of one’s deepest nature and resulting self-transformation” (Walsh).
5) The final phase of return and contribution to society:
Having healed himself, the shaman is now spiritually equipped for the task of healing the world, that being his immediate community.
While the quest itself was a turning away from society and into your deepest inner self, the quest ends with a return to society to share and give what was learned and achieved on the journey.
This story of the shaman’s development, the hero’s journey, is essentially a description of human history. The experience of an artist, a teacher, a scientist, a writer, the experience of any human story worth telling, follows this same general pattern. An encounter with a crisis or problem, and then through the work of solving it, the discovery of something profound that can benefit the whole world.
The hero of the hero’s journey is the one who brings something true and valuable to this shared human reality, from the alternate reality of one’s inner self.
This is the great spiritual work, and it is the essence of the shamanic life.
