Therapeutic Shamanism does not claim certainty about death, but offers a picture based on shamanic experience: at death the parts of us go their separate ways, with Spirit and Soul unchanged, the body returning to the Stone People, and the everyday self meant to pass over to the land of the dead. Reincarnation is not part of this picture. The unquiet deadUnquiet dead. The middle-world self become ghost: the ego that, having no body left to anchor it, lingers among the living instead of moving on to the Land of the Dead. Unhealthy for the living, and moved on by psychopomping. More about this are those who have not passed over, and psychopomp work is the specialist shamanic task of helping them move on. Nobody has to work with the dead, and in shamanism the dead are not taken on as guides.
How does Therapeutic Shamanism understand death? #
Honestly, and from experience rather than belief. “If we are being honest, nobody alive knows for certain what happens when we die.” Religions offer beliefs, whereas shamanism “is based on direct, personal experience, and not on beliefs.”1 What follows is only the “bare bones” of a huge subject that will need a book of its own.
Near-death experiences do not settle the question. People from different cultures report different things, which means the part of us having them is “almost certainly a middle-world part”. The whole picture is offered, never imposed. The aim is not to convince anyone that this is the truth, or that this is actually what is going to happen when they die.
Does Therapeutic Shamanism teach reincarnation? #
No. Reincarnation “is absolutely not part of original or core animism.” It emerges with the Fall, as does the belief in everlasting life, and both rest on the idea of a lasting, individual “I”. As far as can be found, only two hunter-gatherer peoples seem to have believed in it at all, both seeming to say it happened only rarely, and it is not certain even they were untouched by the Fall. Anyone is free to keep the belief, but one question is worth facing: “why, for around 195,000 years for the vast majority of human history, did none of our animist ancestors believe in reincarnation?” From an animist point of view, what happens to us at death will largely be what happens to any other animal.
What happens when we die? #
The four main parts of us go their separate ways. “We are comprised of an Upper-World Spirit, a physical middle-world body, a middle-world ‘soul’, and a Lower-World Soul.”2 Spirit and Soul are outside space and time: “When we die, our Spirit and Soul remain unchanged, our body goes back to the Stone People.” The everyday self, the middle-world soul or ego, “should leave the land of the living, and pass over to the land of the dead.”3 Like everything in the middle-world, it is not permanent: it “will eventually fade away and die.”4 See What are Soul, Spirit, the middle-world self and the body?
Is there an “I” that dies? #
Not in the way we usually imagine. “First and most important thing from an animist’s perspective is there is no single I.” We are instead a coming together of different parts, like a tribe, and at death that tribe goes its separate ways for good: “it is a once and for all, okay?” The particular combination that is you now never comes back together.
Does Soul always go on? #
Soul is of the Lower-World, but our connection with it is not a given: it has to be grown. Hunter-gatherer rites of passage shocked young people out of their 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 and into a deep connection with Soul and the other-than-human, which they then spent their lives growing into. Without that, Soul is like a seed that was never cultivated, and at death there is nothing to follow: “it’s like a seed that never got to grow, a potential that just never came into being, and so on death there is no connection there”. See What are Soul, Spirit, the middle-world self and the body?
Does how we live affect how we die? #
Yes. Which part we go with at death depends on where we have put our awareness: “And a lot of that will depend on the habits that we have cultivated whilst alive. This is why part of the point of practising shamanism is indeed to ‘prepare for death’.”5 The transformation practicesTransformation practices. The family of journey-practices in which the self is deliberately taken apart, reduced to something formless, and reformed: burials, burnings, dismemberments, sky burials, dissolvings, cocoonings, poisonings, shapeshifting. A mini death-and-rebirth: cleansing, loosening of identity, and preparation for the greatest transformation of all. Read the full answer help. They are “a mini ‘death’ and rebirth”, and “Shamans often talk about living fully with the awareness that death is always at our shoulders, waiting for us.” See What are transformation practices and shapeshifting? and, for the fuller answer, Why do shamans say shamanism is preparation for death, and how does how we live shape how we die?
This is not a matter of judgement. “In animism, there is absolutely no concept of being judged at the end of your life”, and ideas of reward and punishment after death are “forms of social control” that grew up with hierarchical societies. What matters is where our awareness has habitually lived, because at death it tends to follow the same part of us.
Does anything of us go on? #
Something can, though not as an individual. If we have grown into Soul, our awareness can follow it into the Lower-World. Stories all over the world say that for a time, perhaps months or years, some sense of self remains; then it fades, and an ancestor with a small “a” becomes part of the AncestorsAncestors. The human Oversoul: the whole of humanity held as one Lower-World being. Distinct from individual dead ancestors (small a), who are not worked with in this approach. Read the full answer with a capital “A”, the Human Oversoul. “It’s immortality, but not of ourselves as an individual, but as becoming part of something much greater.” The middle-world self is like a leaf: when a healthy leaf falls, the tree first “absorbs all the healthy stuff from the leaf back into itself”, whilst a diseased leaf gives nothing back. See What is the difference between an ancestor and an Ancestor?
What is the land of the dead? #
A part of the middle-world, where the middle-world self is meant to go. Because it is middle-world, it is partly shaped by our own stories, so it has places like the ideas of heaven, hell and purgatory. Like everything in the middle-world it is not eternal: in time everything there fades, sometimes described as dissolving into the light. It is no place for the living: “The Land of the DeadLand of the Dead. The middle-world human place where the middle-world self belongs after death. Not the Lower-World, and not hell. More about this is not a healthy or safe place for the living. It’s not bad, it’s just death, okay?” This is why so many stories tell of its entrance being guarded.
Is death a teacher? #
In a sense. The saying that death can be one of a shaman’s greatest teachers does not mean taking death on as a guide, something best strongly avoided: it is better to think of the awareness and understanding of death as the great teacher. Living with death at our shoulder means remembering that it is never far away, and so living fully, whilst keeping death itself at a safe distance.
What are the unquiet dead? #
The dead who have not moved on. They are “the souls of humans who have died, but who have not moved over to the afterlife. Instead, they continue to wander amongst the living. They are, in other words, ghosts.”6 They are people’s everyday, middle-world selves, “and like all things in the middle-world, their existence is only temporary.”7 They are “‘unquiet’ because they are not souls at rest. They are still entangled in the middle-world, and unwilling to let go and move on.”8
The reasons vary, from unfinished business to fear or not knowing they are dead, and so do their natures: they “are as much of a mixed bag as the living are.” Even well-meaning ones do harm, “as even with the best will in the world, the energy of the dead is not good for the living to be around.”9
Why are there so many unquiet dead today? #
Because we lost the knowledge of helping the dead move on. Hunter-gatherer peoples “all saw the dead as being dangerous to the living” and made sure the dead departed: “Essentially, the dead had to go.” As cultures fell, they began to hold on to the dead instead.10 When we killed off our shamans, “we lost nearly all of our knowledge of psychopompingPsychopomping. Guiding the dead on and away to where they belong: one of the shaman’s oldest tasks, and the exact opposite of mediumship, which draws the dead back. More about this”, and filled people’s heads with frightening ideas of hell and damnation.11
What is psychopomp work? #
Helping the dead leave the land of the living. “Psychopomping, the practice of dealing with the unquiet dead, is one of the essential roles of a shaman in any tribal culture.”12 It is the opposite of mediumship. In shamanism the dead “are not taken on as guides and teachers. Nor are they kept around. The aim in shamanism is always to make sure the dead move on and leave the living alone”.13
It is specialist work: “psychopomping, making sure that the dead move to the afterlife, is a specialist area of shamanic work.” Someone who meets the unquiet dead and wants to help can ask their Guides to deal with them, but must never go with the Guide or near the land of the dead themselves: “I really do mean this. Seriously.” That Guide cannot be the Power Animal, “since you and your Power Animal must never be separated.”14
Do I have to work with the dead? #
No. Knowing about something and being the person who deals with it are not necessarily the same thing at all. Understanding what you might meet lets you make an informed choice about what you take on and what you leave to someone more experienced.15 If you meet one of the unquiet dead, you do not have to do anything. You can simply walk away.16
Nor did shamans take the dead on as helpers. Hunter-gatherer tribes made sure the dead moved on: “Essentially, the dead had to go.”17 Shamans “do not see the dead as helpful spirits to work with. They are not taken on as guides and teachers.”18
What is the difference between ancestors and the dead? #
It depends on the capital letter. “The ancestors (with a small ‘a’) are our individual biological ancestors who are no longer living, our great-grandparents and so on. The Ancestors on the other hand are something bigger. They are not a single twig but a whole branch.”19 The Ancestors are the Human OversoulOversoul. A branch of Mother Earth representing the whole of a species: the single being all the individuals arise from. Lower-World work is always with the Oversoul, never an individual; environments are composite Oversouls, wheels within wheels. More about this, and Human Lower-World GuidesHuman Lower-World Guide. A face put on the human Oversoul: the Ancestors met through an individual form, genuinely other than us, chosen from pre-Fall hunter-gatherer humanity. Related to as a teacher, never a master. Read the full answer come from them. Our individual ancestors are amongst the dead, and working with them is middle-world work, whereas our Lower-World Ancestral Kin “are not ancestors, but Ancestors”.20 A dead relative who appears as a guide is a middle-world being, not a Lower-World Guide.21 See What are Human Guides?
How is ancestral healing different from psychopomp work? #
They are different kinds of work. Ancestral healing works with burdens handed down through a family or culture: the emotional, psychological or cultural challenges and traumas believed to be passed down from one generation to the next within a family or community. The fuller teaching on how the two relate is for students.
