Not usually, although a shamanic journey is in one sense an out-of-body experience, because a part of us leaves ordinary reality for a while and travels the shamanic realms. But what makes a journey shamanic is not leaving the body. It is arriving in the shamanic realms and being in contact with the spirits there, deliberately, with some awareness kept and the ability to come back at will, and most out-of-body experiences, astral travel included, are not that.
What is an out-of-body experience? #
It is the experience of perceiving the world from a point outside one’s own physical body. The German transpersonal psychologist Holger Kalweit, in his book Dreamtime and Inner Space, defines it in just those terms, as a kind of perception in which the observer takes in their surroundings from a place that is not where their body is. In his account, the feeling of being outside the body can arise in many altered states, for example under hypnosis, during intense daydreams, or under extreme physical or psychological stress; and, following the researcher Celia Green, he distinguishes a true out-of-body experience from a lucid dream, where the dreamer simply knows they are dreaming.1
In esoteric and New Age circles, deliberately travelling out of the body is often called astral travel or astral projection, and the places visited are called the astral planes.
Is a shamanic journey an out-of-body experience? #
In one sense, yes. Shamanic cultures did not think of a person as having one single soul. They understood us to have several different “souls”, or parts, as few as three in some cultures and fifteen or more in others. Some of them have to stay in the body because they give it life. Others “can leave the body without causing death, such as the part that can travel the shamanic realms”.2 The scholar of religion Mircea Eliade went further and made this flight of the soul the defining mark of the shaman. See Who was Mircea Eliade, and what do critics say is wrong with his idea of shamanism?
In a journey the practitioner deliberately leaves ordinary reality for a while and enters shamanic reality.3 And it is not the everyday self that makes the journey. It is the aware self, the part of us that can step back from our 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 stories and watch them, that travels; the more we can let go of our middle-world identity, the more truthful the journey becomes.4 See What is hollowing-out?
Then what makes a journey shamanic? #
Where it goes, and who is met there. Trance is an ordinary human capacity, and it comes in many depths. We slip in and out of light trances all the time, when daydreaming, driving a car, jogging, painting, listening to music or staring at a fire. Meditation, yoga and tai chi are trance states entered on purpose. The kind of journeying taught in Therapeutic Shamanism sits somewhere between light and deep trance. It is deeper than a light trance, but the practitioner still keeps some conscious awareness of what is going on.5
So a trance, or the sense of having left the body, is not enough on its own. “Clearly, not all trance states are necessarily shamanic.” What marks a shamanic state is contact with the world of the spirits, the experience that, beyond everyday surface reality, there is a deeper, shamanic reality in which everything is experienced as alive and conscious. That is what defines the shamanic state of consciousness, not how light or deep the trance is, and not the method used to enter it.6 The drum is one such method, and the journey itself is one means among others.
The same is true of out-of-body experiences. Not every one of them is a shamanic journey, and the astral realms are not simply another name for the shamanic realms. See Isn’t Therapeutic Shamanism just paganism? and What are the three shamanic realms?
Why does the difference matter? #
Because of what is found there. The Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer and the 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 are completely safe places,7 and they are where the GuidesGuides. The Lower-World and Upper-World beings a practitioner works with and learns from, of whom the Power Animal is the first and foremost. True Guides are ethical to their core; the shaman’s power comes from the depth of these bonds, not from the shaman. More about this, the healing and the teaching are. The middle-world is a mixed place, where things can and do go wrong. An experience that stays in the middle-world can be vivid and real as an experience, and still not be a journey to the shamanic realms. See What is the middle-world?
It also matters for how the experience is held. Healthy shamanic practice means having one foot in this world and one in the other, living with both realities side by side, and moving between them at will. “Having both feet in the shamanic reality all the time is not shamanism, but madness.” A journey is a deliberate and temporary step into shamanic reality, and coming back is part of it.8 See What is shamanic journeying?
Is it risky to leave the body? #
For most people, no. Getting back is rarely the difficulty; for most people the difficulty is being able to leave everyday surface reality at all. Our physical bodies are anchored here, and they “offer a place of safe return after a shamanic journey.” We are used to being in this physical reality, and unless we are psychotic we can come back when we want to. So, for anyone who is not psychotic, there is no reason to approach journeying with any trepidation.9
The exception is important. For anyone who is psychotic, or having psychotic episodes, the starting point of shamanic practice should be groundingGrounding. Returning fully into the body and physical reality; the bedrock of safe practice, and how every journey ends. More about this practices, and most definitely not journeying. Before setting off on a journey, it is important to know with certainty that we can get back. Grounding, a strong connection with ordinary, day-to-day reality, is the bedrock of shamanic practice, and it is the difference between healthy shamanism and psychosis.10 See How is shamanic journeying different from psychosis? and Is shamanic work safe if I have a mental health condition?
