Fear of Spirits,
And Shamanic Practice
I occasionally get letters from people expressing fear about shamanism, or more specifically, about spirits. It's sad, really, because there is so much compassion and deep respect for the Earth and all beings that is the heart of shamanic practice. Moreover, the upper and lower world spirits that shamanic practitioners work with are completely benevolent and healing, much like Jesus is often represented. However, because such letters intermittently arrive, it brings home to me the tremendous misconceptions that persist about shamanism and shamanic spirits. I felt it might be helpful to post a few of these letters, along with my responses, to try to explain both the fear and why it is unnecessary.
Now, not everyone has the same fears. For instance: people don't ordinary whisper about fearing Mother Mary, Allah, or the Spirit of the Lord, though these are all benevolent spirits that people throughout the world call on for empowerment and teaching. However, the truly frightening zeal of radical branches of religions, such as the historically violent Christian groups (such as Catholic) and Islamic (such as Taliban) , have for a couple of thousand years left a vigorous campaign of misinformation and bloodshed behind them. It won't take too much looking to find patterns of bloodshed, fear, and hate throughout the world and arising in many, many widely different religions. It is a human weakness.
Granted, people are very different from one another in addition to their similarities. Not everyone will find in the following letters an answer that speaks to their fear, but perhaps there is something between them that might speak to this fear a little, all the same.
Of course, the writers will remain anonymous.
Writer 1: “I am quite interested in studying… however I do have one concern. I know that it can be a rewarding experience and the ability to help heal people from the inside out is an extraordinary ability to learn but at the same time I've heard rather graphic horror stories about this line of work. As i understand you do deal with spirits both friendly and unfriendly. Will the bad spirits continue to haunt me, give me nightmare, put me in an insane asylum etc? Or do you also train to defend against such things so that you are in control? And this other world that you travel to and fro is this also the place we go when we die (just curious)? I do feel like I've been called to this work and i want to follow the path that my spirit guides seem to have directed me but i also don't want to be scarred for life. So I guess I'm emailing just to be sure that I know what I'm getting into…”
Steve: I could try to answer to your concerns, but so much of what you are asking depends on the person; not on shamanism.
I am interested in the shamanic ‘graphic horror stories’ you refer to. It may be that you are thinking instead of sorcery which works with middle world spirits. Or you might have shamanism confused with one of the Christian heresies with their pantheon that includes devils and malicious spirits.
In very advanced shamanic work, practitioners certainly are trained to deal with such middle world spirits that are ignorant (yes, they are simply ignorant, not ‘bad’ or ‘evil’), and help them transcend their unhappy situation. However, the areas of shamanic practice you have concerns about are not unfriendly, just ignorant.
A perfect example is the world you see around you!
Any aspect of the shamanic world for which one would have a justifiable concern for safety is no more capable of negative consequences as is the ordinary reality we are living in today, and probably less so. I very specifically train working only with the upper and lower world compassionate spirits in the first level of study. Only towards the end of the second level, when working with extraction, is there any semblance of proximity to anything toxic, and by then you have the training and spirit helpers who are essentially doing the work for you.
In the shamanic practices I support, we are instructed to be always capable of exercising control where and when needed. If this is a problem in someone’s life (not being able to exercise control whenever needed), then they are not suited for shamanic work just as they would not be suited for any other career where crucial things were at stake. Certainly however, there are people who can’t follow directions, don’t have good boundaries, or have other self-defeating characteristics that do not work in shamanic practice, just is they would not work in other areas of responsibility. This is why I say that in answer to your question, it depends on the practitioner, not on shamanism…
I really do appreciate your letter, and encourage your forward!
Writer 2: “I have never felt the need to put a boundary between myself and the spirit world, but I have one there, it consists of fear. When I was young I grew up in a life that consisted of two worlds, a physical world where I continually faced fear - this fear was deep and consumed every aspect of my life, from home, to school, to events involving the family and the world - I cannot say where it originated from - it had always been there - a fear of doing the wrong thing by human standards - not being good enough to be human.
I felt like I was looking out of a statue that I had control of, but it wasn't real.
There was another life, in my mind, it let me do whatever I liked, but it was my imaginary mind, my mother use to say that I had a vivid imagination; to me anything was possible if you believed.
All my life I longed to have someone to talk to, who could understand what I was experiencing. Then my world started to change. Just before I turned 50 my imaginary world started to come into my physical world. By accident I found that I was capable of helping people, to take away their pain, I even killed some cancer. What I found was that people found it hard to grasp and even feared it, I have very few people I talk to about this so my experience with healing is limited at the moment, by my belief is that when I am ready, the next step will be presented to me.
I was scared, of the dark, of the prospect of ghosts, the fear is deep, it is my belief that one day soon I will not fear this connection, and I shall be able to communicate with the spirits…”
Steve: Very nice to hear from you! It sounds like you do have a healing gift, which from a shamanic viewpoint is due to a connection with the spirit world. Yes, a lot of people fear this, but that is primarily due to the Christian misrepresentation and deliberate misinformation about any native spirituality in order to squash it. Shamanism has no more to do with bad things or evil than does Christianity. Moreover, shamanism traditionally had nothing to do with Satan, devils, and punishing underworlds: these were actually a Christian heresy, yet the good work by Christian mass misinformation over hundreds of years has left this in people’s minds. Shamanism was around tens of thousands of years before Christianity.
Shamans work with benevolent upper and lower world spirits. It is sorcerers who work with the middle-world spirits, which are just as confused and driven by personal agendas as people are. I for one only teach and train people working with the benevolent upper and lower world spirits. I strongly advise people to not get involved in manipulative work with the middle world.
… to me, spirituality is always a personal construct, based on one’s own experience. Teaching in this area for me, means that I am just a 'finger pointing towards the moon'. I do not teach about the moon, but I help people learn how to explore it who want to go there on their own.
All we want to do is to help people: to provide information or healing that will help take away the pain. It is too bad about the misinformation that has been bandied about it!
I appreciate your letter. Take care!
Feel free to fearlessly forward this to others!