Is Therapeutic Shamanism a religion or belief system?

Is shamanism a religion? #

Whether shamanism counts as a religion depends on what is meant by the word, and Therapeutic Shamanism answers no. A religion is something people belong to or choose to follow, and in the West religion is optional. In hunter-gatherer cultures, by contrast, nobody was not shamanic: “Shamanism is different. It is not a religion. In indigenous cultures, there were no people in the tribe who were not shamanic.”¹ It was a way of living in, and relating to, a living world.

Nor does shamanism have the structures religions are built on. It “requires no leap of faith. You do not have to believe what scriptures say, or what a priest tells you.” There are no priesthoods and no hierarchies; “There are no shamanic temples or buildings (nature is our ‘church’)”, and there have been no wars fought over rival interpretations of it.² Nor is the animism beneath it a religion: it has no priests, no hierarchies, no sacred texts, no dogma, no sects or factions and no sacred buildings, and is based instead on direct and personal experience. As far as anyone knows, no war in the whole history of the human race has been fought driven by animist ideology, and no minority, tribe or culture has been persecuted because of it.

Does Therapeutic Shamanism require belief or faith? #

No. “Practising shamanism does not require you to follow any beliefs or take anything on faith. Rather, it is a path of direct, personal experience.”³ The teachings are offered as practices and exercises to try, so that people discover for themselves whether they work. The psychotherapist Carl Rogers put it this way: “Experience is, for me, the highest authority.” For Rogers, experience is authoritative not because it is infallible, but because it can always be checked again.

Even the word ‘animism’, which can sound like a belief, is better understood as an experience. Animists experience the world as alive, conscious and sacred: “This is far more than just a belief, though, for animists actually experience the world in this way.”⁴

Is Therapeutic Shamanism religious? #

No. Like the shamanism it grows from, it has no creed, scripture, priesthood or worship, and it is not based on any one culture’s tradition. Compared with the organised religions, with their written sacred texts and priesthoods to enforce orthodoxy, shamanism is dogma-free.⁵ Nor is Therapeutic Shamanism anti-religious. It simply asks for no beliefs, so it can sit alongside a person’s own outlook, whatever that is.

Can people of any religion, or none, practise it? #

Yes. Because nothing has to be believed, a person’s religious background, or lack of one, is no barrier. It can be approached as an agnostic, or even as an atheist, since all it asks is an openness to try the practices and see what happens, and any beliefs that follow grow out of those direct experiences. People of different faiths often recognise parts of the shamanic realms; Christians, Hindus and Buddhists, for example, tend to clothe 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 in the imagery of their own traditions.⁶ What the practice asks for is not a change of belief but a willingness to try the practices and learn from direct experience. The experience then speaks for itself.

Are there gods in Therapeutic Shamanism, and are they worshipped? #

There are vast beings in the shamanic realms, but nothing is worshipped. Hunter-gatherers “acknowledged the existence of such beings, but understood that such huge beings would have little interest in the lives of something as small as humans.”⁷ Gods who demand worship, obedience and sacrifice appear only after 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, with the rise of hierarchical societies. In the animist view all beings are respected and none stands above the others, so the relationship with 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 is one of respect, gratitude and apprenticeship, not worship (see What is animism?).

How is animism different from the sky religions? #

The religions that arose with the first city-states are, in Therapeutic Shamanism’s term, sky religionsSky-religion. The vertical, hierarchical reordering of the sacred that the Fall installed, governed by the spell ‘up is good, down is bad’: transcend the body, escape matter, purify upward. The conditioning Therapeutic Shamanism works to undo. More about this, looking up to a God above. “The sky religions are deeply rooted in a hierarchical world view”, and with them “‘Up’ became ‘good’ and ‘down’ became ‘bad’”, so that 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 of 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 was given a bad press.⁸ Animism is a nature-based spirituality without that hierarchy.

None of this dismisses religion. Sky-religion techniques and practices have their place and uses, and “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.”⁹

Is it spiritual? #

Yes, in a grounded sense. Shamanism is “a highly practical and accessible form of spirituality”, concerned with direct connection to Spirit, which in the shamanic answer “is everything”, and with the living world rather than an escape from it. “A healthy spirituality is grounded and rooted”. This is why the Lower-World comes first, and why Therapeutic Shamanism is critical of much New-Age spirituality (see What is Therapeutic Shamanism?).¹⁰

How does Therapeutic Shamanism relate to science? #

Without conflict. Modern physics says everything is made of energy, and “Where shamanism goes further than physics is in saying (and in fact, actually experiencing) that not only is everything made of energy, but that this energy is both alive and conscious.”¹¹ Its own test is pragmatic: does it work? Shamanism is a dogma-free and pragmatic path, and it is definitely not woo: it is deeply grounded, practical and pragmatic.