The Broad Use of Drum and Rattle
(and the mistaken early automatic association of shamanism with entheogens and drugs)
Today in the Western world, people often say that shamans enter an 'altered state of consciousness'. (Well, different perhaps from what the 'norm' is in the contemporary world, which certainly is not something to brag about.)
The shamanic state of consciousness has been referred to as such things as ecstasy, trance, etc., a consciousness practiced and developed in order to get in touch with another, shamanic reality. This is done in order to accomplish such things as find answers to questions (from spirit teachers), gain assistance in solving problems, find a way back to wellness and health, or regain a natural empowerment with power animals.
However, shamanism in the American '60's, started off with a serious misconception: an automatic association was assumed between entheogens and shamanism. Actually, a lot of great things have been discovered throughout history when someone had a mistaken notion, because in the process of exploring it, one might stumble onto something quite important and real.
This was the case with shamanism. It started with people like the student anthropologist Carlos Castaneda, whose creative mix of fiction and experiences of just fed the cultural imagination. Castaneda's unfortunate blurring of research and imagination was later soundly denounced by the anthropological community (whose credentials he was standing on), yet an unfortunate, automatic association was established.
Then, the famous Harvard trio: Richard Alpert (Ram Das), Tim Leary, and Ralph Metzner, with their ‘turn on, tune in’ interest, mesmerized a public eager for a 'quick fix' with the idea that simply ingesting a substance was the path to deep understanding. Metzner was the one of this group to focus on shamanism, yet even Michael Harner, whose solid anthropological research leaves us today knowing the predominantly shared elements of shamanic theory and practice, initially thought that shamanism and entheogens were simply two parts of the same basic stuff.
People like Metzner and Harner traveled to South and Central America to find the shamans and participate in their ceremonies and learn from their plant teachers. Naturally, they found what they were looking for, wrote about it (which fed the popular imagination) and the rest of the automatic association between entheogens and shamanism is simply a matter of history.
However, when people like Michael Harner continued to pursue serious shamanic study, the reality of shamanism was found to be quite different from what the imagination of the '60's produced. It was discovered that most shamanic activity throughout the world does not - and did not - use entheogens. This is because a shamanic state of consciousness found, for instance, during the shamanic journey is far more reliably reached, maintained and navigated through the 'sonic driving' of a drum or a rattle at about a four to seven Hz, rapid beat.
It has been found that the monotonous rhythm of a rattle or drum at this beat induces the altered state of consciousness in which the ability of the human brain to image is remarkably facilitated. This is a process called brainwave entrainment, with the drumbeat or rattle stimulating the production of brain waves in the low alpha and theta range, a state which is associated with heightened creativity and vivid imagery.
A corollary explanation for the ability of sonic driving to encourage shamanic trance is that with each beat, the drum or rattle attracts the attention of a brain that is naturally constructed to attend to stimuli. Because the brain is unable to attend to two external stimuli simultaneously, this helps the brain to focus. Clearly, the rattle or drum’s sound helps mask other noises or movement in the environment. It is theorized that the brain eventually reaches a kind of ‘comfort level’ with what it eventually categorizes as an inconsequential stimuli that it must, nonetheless, return to with each beat. Like meditation practices that focus on the breath, the drum or rattle enables the brain to ‘give up’ worrying about stimuli from the environment, including that from the practitioner’s own body. The shamanic practitioner is thus freed to more fully attend to altered states of consciousness.
I follow, and teach, practitioners to take this more ancient and widespread path: 'riding the shamanic drum-horse'. Your journeying ability is already established in your very genetic code. If you are interested in learning how to journey, or desire to bring shamanic spirituality into your life, I encourage you to look seriously at the basic shamanism class Level 1. It is an excellent path to a very well grounded and rich education that can serve you both personally, and as a practitioner.