For animists, a tribe was a small community of people who knew one another well and depended on one another, and belonging to it was a matter of survival; humans are still wired to need it, and this is why loneliness hurts so much. The shaman served the tribe: as intermediary and advocate between the people, the other Peoples and the spirit world, as a keeper of its healthy stories, and as someone close enough to help yet distant enough to see clearly. That role is still needed, and Therapeutic Shamanism also offers a way to heal our own wounds around belonging, through journeys to a 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 Tribe.
What is a tribe, in animist terms? #
A small community of people who knew each other well. Hunter-gatherer tribes “ranged in size from anything as few as twenty people, or up to an optimal maximum size of around 150 people”, and tended to split once they grew beyond about two hundred.1 The reason is that “the maximum size for a high-functioning, cohesive and psychologically healthy human group is around 150 members. This is known as “Dunbar’s Number””. Living alongside strangers only began “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”, as people moved into towns and cities.2 A tribe was not like “some version of a modern-day extended family, or like a small present-day community”; it was “very different to either of these things.”3
Why does belonging matter so much? #
Because for most of human history we could not survive without it. “Loneliness triggers in us the same primal alarm bells as things like hunger, thirst, physical pain and danger. This is because we evolved to be social animals”.4 Studies link loneliness to stress, poor sleep, weakened immunity and heart disease, and “alongside soaring rates of obesity, loneliness is the major physical health problem of our time.”5 Our culture mistakes the healthy adult for an independent being, whereas “a healthy adult is an interdependent being”, “a twig on a branch of a much bigger tree.”
Is loneliness the same as being alone? #
No. Loneliness, as opposed to solitudeSolitude. Chosen aloneness from other humans: a healthy, essential Adult capacity, the opposite of loneliness (which is about the quality of relationship, not the quantity). Relational solitude is time away from the humans in the company of everything else. More about this, is about the quality rather than the quantity of our relationships. “It is perfectly possible to have lots of friends and family and yet find that your need for meaningful human contact is still not being met.”6 Part of the loneliness modern people feel is not about other humans at all. Being in the Lower-World “heals a deep sense of loneliness, isolation, and separation in us that, as modern humans, we all carry.”7 See Why are we so lonely, and what is the difference between loneliness and Solitude?
What is the Lower-World Tribe, and how can it help? #
A tribe of Lower-World Humans where we can experience belonging. They are our Ancestral Kin, and “By going to your Ancestral Kin, you can experience what it is like to be part of a tribe where you really belong, and are loved, valued, accepted, and truly treasured.” Whatever our wound around people and groups, “you can travel to your Lower-World tribe and experience what it is like to not have that wound. Doing this can be profoundly healing.”8 The journeys for meeting them are in Finding Your Deep Soul, and are not given here. The Lower-World Tribe is different from our inner tribeInner Tribe. The community of parts-of-self that a human being actually is. Health is not one part’s triumph but a well-run tribe: every member honoured, every member doing its proper job, the Adult in charge. Read the full answer of parts, and from our family. See What is the inner tribe?, Who are specialist Human Guides? and What is the Lower-World Tribe?
What did the shaman do for the tribe? #
Kept it in balance and harmony. The shaman stood between the people and everything around them: “the role of the shaman was to be the intermediary and advocate between the tribe, the non-humans, and the spirit world, and keep things in a state of balance and harmony.”9 The shaman was also a keeper of wisdom: “the role of the shaman is to be the knowledge and wisdom keeper in society.”10 “The shaman was distant enough from the tribe to be able to see the tribe objectively and see the tribe’s stories for what they are, and yet still close enough to it to be able to help when needed.”11
The most central and ancient part of the role was to be a go-between, serving two communities and not only the human one. Shamans immersed themselves in relationships with the Animal, Plant and Stone People, to understand them and bring their healing gifts and knowledge back to the people, and they spoke on the other Peoples’ behalf, as their advocates and representatives in the human community. Because humans tend to stray from right relationship and from the Original Instructions, the shaman also measured the community against them and kept bringing it back. Healing work, such as soul retrieval and extractionExtraction. Drawing a foreign body (an intrusion) out of a person and packing the hole with something healthy. The iron rule: only ever foreign bodies, never a part of the self: extracting a genuine part of self creates soul-loss. More about this, was a real part of the job, but it was secondary to this, even though these days it is often taken to be the whole of shamanism.
In Therapeutic Shamanism, four things, taken together, mark someone out as a shaman: they are an animist first and foremost; they can enter a trance and travel the shamanic realms; they use that ability always in service to the community; and, though part of the community, they live on its edge. See What is the difference between a shaman, a priest, a medium and a medicine person?
Is shamanism a solitary path? #
Partly, though shamans worked for the good of the community. “Although shamans generally always work for the good of the community, it is usually also quite a solitary path. The shaman is someone who is often at the edge of society and of the tribe.” Solitary here means “in the sense of being away from other human beings”, never without our 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.12 Group work matters too: “Plus, shamanism is, after all, about re-connecting.”13
A shaman was never a hermit who had renounced the world, or a monk on a mountain top. None of the research on original animist cultures offers an example of either, as far as Therapeutic Shamanism knows; that kind of spirituality appears only as people fall away from animism, because animism is about right relationship and community.
Living on the edge also has to do with sensitivity. Seeing what other people miss, or would rather not look at, takes a sensitive nature, and the further someone goes into shamanic work, the more they tend to need solitude, quiet and time in nature, away from the general human community. That is another reason shamans tended to live at the edges of their communities.
What is the shaman’s role in a modern community? #
To serve, as it always was. The setting has changed far more than the task. For Westerners the usual term is ‘shamanic practitioner’, since the title shaman “is an honorary term, bestowed upon one by one’s tribe or community.”14 But the role is still needed: “It just needs a few of us to be willing to step into that ancient role of communicating with the more-than-human world, and bring its knowledge and healing, and its healthy stories, back to our tribe.”15 “Shamanism is also a role in society, and part of that role is to hold and share the knowledge of how to live in right-relationship with each other.”16 See How do we reconnect with the other-than-human world and heal cultural Power-loss?
What makes a group healthy? #
A series of Patterns describes how healthy groups operate. The first is that “The costs of belonging do not outweigh the benefits”, and “Any group in which the costs of belonging outweigh the benefits is a dysfunctional group and unhealthy for the people in it.”17 The Patterns are not commands: “They are not rules, but a set of guidelines or principles for consideration.”18 Knowing them, we “might be able to nudge our family, workplace, or other groups that we belong to, towards healthier ways of being”, and if not, modelling our own lives on them is enough. See What makes a healthy group or tribe? and What does it mean to become a True Adult?
What tears communities apart? #
The blame-game, for one. In the drama triangle from Transactional Analysis, victim, persecutor and rescuer keep swapping roles, and “The drama triangleDrama triangle. The persecutor–rescuer–victim pattern; the poison of unhealthy groups. More about this destroys communities. It rips families apart. It can be passed on for generations, centuries even.”19 It ends when someone stops playing: “whenever we find ourselves in a drama triangle, we always have the option of walking away from it.”20 Inequality and power-over do similar damage; see How does animism understand power and hierarchy?
