In Therapeutic Shamanism, acknowledging gods and goddesses does not mean worshipping them. The vast beings known to hunter-gatherers are quite different from the human-like, demanding gods that arose with the FallThe Fall. The catastrophe at the root of the whole diagnosis: the shift from animist, egalitarian hunter-gatherer life to owning, agricultural Taker culture. In domesticating other species we domesticated ourselves, cutting ourselves off from Mother Earth (Power-loss) and from parts of our own nature (soul-loss). When dated precisely, the Fall begins with the first city-state cultures, around 4000 BCE (Domestication begins earlier, with the Neolithic). A sickness, not our true nature. ‘Fallen culture’ is used interchangeably with Taker culture; the Great Rupture is a looser alternate name. Read the full answer.
Do gods and goddesses have a place in animism? #
Hunter-gatherer cultures “generally have little interest in gods and goddesses”. They acknowledged such beings, whilst understanding that beings so huge would have little interest in something as small as humans.1
Yes, but not as objects of worship. Our ancestors knew gods who were far beyond the human, with no more interest in us than a mountain, the wind or the rain. They respected and honoured them, without needing to worship them.
Shamans worship nothing. They live in respectful relationship with everything, and recognise that some beings are far more powerful than humans, but power is no reason to worship. In nature an ant does not worship an elephant just because the elephant is bigger and more powerful, and nothing in nature bends its knee to anything else. Nor do shamans, and that includes human teachers. Bowing down to a being because it is more powerful is a hierarchical relationship, and that is no part of shamanism. See How does animism understand power and hierarchy?
Why does Therapeutic Shamanism criticise some accounts of gods? #
Because the gods described after the Fall are nothing like the gods and goddesses that hunter-gatherer people knew. They meddle in human affairs, demand worship and obedience, punish people, and require riches and sacrifice. In Therapeutic Shamanism these are seen as energies from the human collective unconscious, not genuine Upper-WorldUpper-World. The realm of Father Sky and of Spirit: spacious, rarefied and clear, layered in tiers, offering not escape but perspective. Not better than the Lower-World: we ascend rooted, and bring the gifts back down. Read the full answer beings.2
The gods of the Fall are made in our own image. Some are violent, jealous or demanding; others are compassionate, merciful, forgiving and loving. “Not all the gods are this bad, of course.” Their mixture reflects human nature.
What is meant by Great Spirit? #
Spirit means everything. Everything is made from Great Spirit, comes from it, and will in the end return to it. The energy of everything is alive and conscious, including things Western people commonly distinguish as inanimate.3
Great Spirit is “What everything is made of, including Father Sun and Mother EarthMother Earth. The sacred Feminine pole: pure potential, from whom all the Peoples arise. The Lower-World is her realm, and she is all the realms: “The Earth is indeed our Mother.” More about this. The aliveness in everything.” This is how the published books use the term. For the broader animist worldview, see What is animism?.
Does conscious mean human-like? #
Western people tend to recognise in other mammals a consciousness similar to our own. Most of us can recognise it in chimpanzees and gorillas, and may also recognise it in dogs and cats. It is much harder to recognise consciousness in beings very different from us. But there are many different kinds of consciousness.4
The question goes beyond animals, to plants, rocks, rivers, lakes, mountains and human-made objects. “However, things that are very different to us are still conscious, but just in a way that is different to us.” Many of us do, at some semi-conscious level, experience our human-made objects as having personalities and lives of their own: we may experience a computer as temperamental, might give a car a name and experience it as having a personality, and often experience buildings and rooms as having an atmosphere and presence.
Why might people encounter different religious imagery? #
Human brains are simply not equipped to perceive, understand and process shamanic reality as it ‘really’ is. We fashion what is there into imagery, symbols and metaphors that we can relate to. Someone with a Christian background might encounter monks, nuns, saints and angels; a Buddhist may encounter Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Taras and other deities.
Most of the imagery people bring to Upper-World journeys today comes from cosmologies that emerged after people began abandoning animism. Such imagery carries stories, assumptions and spiritual beliefs that are often profoundly at odds with original animist understanding. From an animist perspective, much of what people today take to be the Upper-World is not that realm at all, but a human-made construct, a reflection of our own cultural imagination.
What is Upper-World work for? #
The Upper-World is a place of wisdom, love, healing and compassion. People can go there to gain a bigger perspective on something they are struggling with, and to get help in transcending their ego’s concerns and limitations.5
Questions to take to the Upper-World include “What would be for the greater good in this situation?” and “What would be the ethical thing for me to do?” Another asks for the most compassionate and spiritual course of action. Help and healing can support someone in aligning themselves more with the Upper-World.
Does this criticism dismiss everything in organised religion? #
No. Not everything about organised religion is bad. “In some ways, religions have kept the flame of spirituality alive through what have been some very dark times over the last few thousand years.”6
Like the dominant culture as a whole, they are a mixed bag. Some aspects of their teachings can be distinctly at odds with the shamanic and animist worldview. Distrust of our inner nature runs through the dominant culture at all levels, not only through organised religion.
Does being part of Great Spirit make ordinary reality unreal? #
On one level, everything is part of Great Spirit, whilst on another level separation is real too. One level does not cancel the other. “At one level, everything is indeed one. And, at another level, things are separate. Both things are true.”7
Physical things in the middle-worldMiddle-world. Ordinary physical reality together with its energetic layers: the realm of individuality, separation and mixed intentions, and the only realm where harm is possible. “If there is a hell, then it is the middle-world.” Read the full answer remain real, whatever someone believes about them. Believing that separation is an illusion will not help anyone who steps in front of a moving bus.
Nor does being non-physical make something unreal. Ideas can have a life of their own, with real consequences and effects. Religions and political ideologies are examples. The middle-world selfMiddle-world self. The everyday self (ego, persona, head-and-heart), made of our stories and experiences. A genuine and needed part of the Inner Tribe: of service, not in command. Read the full answer, too, has a necessary place unless someone wishes to withdraw from the world: it is a tool through which Soul and Spirit can express themselves and be of service.
