Developing Shamanic Powers

Perhaps the oldest traditions involving possible psychic training methods relate to the practices of tribal shamanism, or primitive spiritualism, which anthropologists have encountered and reported on throughout the world. The basic pattern is remarkably similar across cultures, with, of course, a number of local variations. Eliade (1951/1972) notes that elements of shamanism have survived in almost all of the major religions in the world today.



Eliade also reports that the shaman-or master of spirits, rituals, myths, drugs and trance techniques-was invariably regarded with great esteem by the community. Shamanistic training always included both instruction from an old master and instruction from "spirits" in dreams and trances. As opposed to cases of "possession," the shaman controlled himself in relation to the spirits and was only possessed by a spirit in certain rituals for specific purposes.

The chief methods of recruiting shamans were hereditary transmission and spontaneous vocation (i.e., obeying the "call" of gods and spirits). Individuals who became shamans of their own determination were considered less powerful than those who inherited the profession or received the "call." Experiencing and overcoming resistance to divine election seemed an essential aspect of the death and rebirth initiations of shamanistic training. Through this training, the shaman acquired not only new magical powers but also a radically new socioreligious status.

The young person who was called on to undergo shamanic training had generally attracted the notice of others through his or her habits of solitude, visions, and spontaneous songmaking Often an initiatory crisis occurred or was induced through the use of drugs, solitude, fasting, and other austerities. The hallucinations and symptoms in this early phase have been described as pathological by some anthropologists in the past. Eliade points out, however, that it is precisely because they succeed in curing themselves that these individuals became shamans. In fact, many older shamans are far more vigorous and resistant to disease and stress than others in their community, displaying "tireless energy." Eliade states, "the shamans, for all their apparent likeness to epileptics and hysterics, show proof of a more than normal nervous constitution; they achieve a degree of concentration beyond the capacity of the profane; they sustain exhausting efforts; they control their ecstatic movements.... This astonishing capacity to control even ecstatic movements testifies to an excellent nervous constitution. In general, the Siberian and North Asian shaman shows no sign of mental disintegration. His memory and his power of self-control are distinctly above the average."

Typically during the period of training, the candidate was led to experience a powerful series of waking dreams, symbolic of a death and rebirth pattern. These dreams seemed to lead the candidate away from common-sense assumptions of personal physical identity.

Imagine, for example, having one's body dismembered by demons or ancestral spirits; the bones cleaned, the flesh scraped off, the body fluids thrown away, and the eyes torn from the sockets and set aside in order to watch the whole procedure. Purgative visions such as these seemed to catalyze the healing powers and psychic perception that have been attributed to the shaman. Only after this initiation would the "spirits" and the old master instruct the individual in the psychic arts and lore of the tribe.

The shaman was considered able to "see" the spirits, to go Up into the sky and meet the gods, to descend into the underworld and fight the demons of sickness and death, to travel to the bottom of the sea. In addition, the shaman contributed to his community a certainty about life beyond death.

It is certainly possible to interpret these social and religious functions without any reference to parapsychology, and almost all ethnological researchers have been disposed in this direction (Lewis 1974). It is, even for those willing to do so, an enormously difficult task to tease out genuine parapsychological elements from the complex morass of religious, cultural, economic, political, and psychological threads that run through shamanistic traditions.

Eliade has enumerated a number of shamanistic functions that do suggest the possibility of psychic ability. The most dominant is trance healing, during which the shaman is said to search for the patient's fugitive soul, capture it, and make it return to animate the body it has left. In some cultures the shaman used clairvoyance to find game or locate lost people or animals. Among the Inuit, the shamans are said to actually end storms through the use of a complicated ritual. The Paviotso, of North America, still tell of old shamans who put burning coals into their mouths and touched red-hot iron unharmed.

The shaman was not considered the only individual in the tribe who was capable of acquiring supernatural abilities. Other individuals, through their own efforts, could acquire such skills to use in their personal affairs, but it was by virtue of his or her special initiation that the shaman became a tribal representative in the world of the unseen. The psi abilities of the shamans were generally considered greater than those of other individuals.

To induce their trance-like states, shamans were known to use a number of techniques including solitude, concentration, fasting, physical austerities, drugs, rhythmic drumming, chanting and dancing. In some decadent phases of shamanism, Eliade points out, the shaman covered himself with a blanket and faked the trance entirely. In each particular case, the techniques involved were framed within the context of an elaborate mythological and cosmological structure.

Adrian Boshier (1974) describes the training of the South African sangoma who serves as "priest, prophet, physician, herbalist, psychiatrist, diviner and historian of the tribe." This training follows the classic pattern described by Eliade in that it begins with an illness, said to be an example of spirit possession. The apprentice is known as the twasa and the teacher is reterred to as Baba. Most sangomas are females. "Samgoma training involves the learning of songs, special dances, drumming, the ingestion of emetics for purification, and the continual instruction of the Baba as she watches her twasa carefully, noting her particular spirit manifestation. They are encouraged daily to strengthen and use the spirit that is possessing them. They are called any time, day or night, to find things that the Baba has ‘hidden' somewhere in the village. At first the teacher will tell the twasa that something is hidden is hidden for her, but as the training progresses the Baba will no longer inform the initiate verbally, but will call her employing telepathic methods. Mild drugs may be used when signs of the spirit slack off, or in clarifying the meaning of dreams and hallucinatory experiences."

Boshier states that Sangoma training may last up to two or three years, and that none of the individuals in his study have had less than six months' initial training. The end of the instruction period is said to be determined by the spirits of the initiate, however no twasa may leave without her teacher's permission. In all, there are twelve stages of training. Most sangomas do not reach the highest and most powerful levels.

Boshier states that the initiation ceremony of the newly qualified sangoma involves a sacrificial ritual in which the apprentice must discover the exact location of a hidden sacrificial animal sometimes far from the village. He strongly implies that as a result of his own experiences and tests he has conducted that the sangomas do, indeed, cultivate a high degree of genuine ESP.

Idries Shah (1957) describes some procedures in the training of Nyam-Nyam sorcerers in the Sudan. Amongst tourists to Africa, Shah maintains there exists a flourishing market in spells and magical charms. They are reputed to be highly successful, yet these spells are seldom used by laymen. Shah explains:

"Aspirants to the respected rank of magician persevere in the observance of tabus and diet for at least forty to sixty days before casting a spell.

No magic-worker during the period of this study may look upon a member of the opposite sex for more than a few seconds - except after about seven in the evening. He eats certain things believed to bestow magical powers: especially green leaf vegetables, peanut paste and, sometimes, small birds. He wears a straw hat at night and sometimes two silver ornaments, such as pierced coins - Egyptian half-piastre pieces.

"With these badges on the right side of the head or body, he enters a building or crosses paths with one long and one short step. During all this time, he devotes half and hour after sundown to softly beating a small drum. Just before sunset he spends at least five minutes gazing in the sky. In company he closes his eyes and bites his lower lip frequently. He is expected to talk little, except to those whom he sees acting in the same way.

". . . I am convinced that there is often an element of autohypnosis in these magical arts. Sitting with his eyes unwinkingly fixed upon the surface of a pot of water, the operator's gaze nearly always seems to become vacant, as though in a trance. Then, while muttering spells repeatedly to the throb of the drum, and walking around and swinging his body from side to side, there is an atmosphere of vacancy and yet persistence very compatible with the hypnoidal state.

Finally, after a period of observing all of these rites, the aspirant becomes aware that he is "ready for action."

More recently, a number of anthropologists have written about the use of hallucinogenic drugs in shamanism. Some researchers have actually partaken of these substances under the tutelage of an older shaman. There are several cases in the anthropological literature of researchers who have reported very distinct clairvoyant experiences among South American Indians using the psychedelic herb Banisteriopsis for ritual trances. This substance is also known as yage, ayahuasca, caapi, or natema and contains the active indole alkaloids harmine, harmaline, d-tetrahydroharmine and also N, N-dimethyltryptamine. The biochemists who first isolated harmaline originally labelled it "telepathene" (Freedman 1966).

The clairvoyant experiences with yage are thought to provide information necessary to the immediate life needs of the Indians, such as the habits of game animals, the whereabouts of distant relatives and friends, and the activities of enemy tribes. Distant clairvoyance is suggested in the following incident described by Kenneth M. Kensinger (1973): "Several informants who have never been to or seen pictures of Pucallpa, the large town at the Ucayali River terminus of the Central Highway, have described their visits under the influence of ayahuasca to the town with sufficient detail for me to be able to recognize specific shops and sights. On the day following one ayahuasca party, six of nine men informed me of seeing the death of my chai, my ‘mother's father.' This occurred two days before I was informed by radio of his death."

F. Bruce Lamb's (1971) study of the shaman Manuel Cordova-Rios suggests the possibility that the Indian shamans were in possession of sophisticated techniques involving precise mixtures of drugs combined with specific dietary control and the use of specific chants and sounds during the drug-induced state to create particular, possibly clairvoyant, hallucinogenic visions. Naturally, there are many uncontrolled variables here, such as the possible role of suggestion.

Reichbart (1978) maintains that "almost universally shamans are trained in and skilled at the use of magic: sleight of hand and the use of normally acquired information which they pretend they have obtained psychically." The anthropological literature surveyed by Reichbart suggests many reasons for these fraudulent methods-in order to maintain political power and professional status among the gullible and for purposes of psychosomatic healing. Reichbart suggests several other alternatives compatible with the hypothesis that shamanism does provide a viable system for psi development. Reichbart maintains that the shaman deliberately manipulates the belief systems and faith of the tribal community for the purposes of creating conditions conducive to the manifestation of actual psi. Reichbart states, "Magic served to convince the participants that psi was taking place, thus dissipating any vestiges of resistance among them, and in the shaman himself, to the emergence of genuine psi phenomena." Reichbart supports this view with the argument that shamans themselves believe in the efficacy of psi or magic and will often consult other shamans, knowing full well that fraud or sleight of hand may be a factor in their own treatment.

Boshier, A.K. African apprenticeship. Parapsychology Review, 1974, 5(4), 1-3,25-27.

Eliade, M. Shamanism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972. (Originally published, 1951.)

Freedman, DX Aspects of biochemical pharmacology of psychotropic drugs. Psychedelic Review, 1966, No. 8, 33-58.

Kensinger, K.M. Banisteriopsis usage among the Peruvian Cashinahua. In MT Harner (Ed.), Hallucinogens and shamanism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.

Lamb, F. B. Wizard of the Upper Amazon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975.

Lewis, I.M. The anthropologist's encounter with the supernatural. In A. Angoff and D. Barth (Eds.), Parapsychology and anthropology. New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1974.

Reichbart, R. Magic and psi: Some speculations on their relationship. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 1978, 72(2), 153-175.

Shah, I. Oriental magic. New York: Philosophical Library, 1957.