Divination is seeking knowledge from the spirit world about hidden things, about the cause of a problem and its remedy, or about what is to come. Many shamanic cultures used it, often to find out why someone was ill and what would help. In Therapeutic Shamanism the future is not one set thing but a multiverse of possible futures, and its healing work is not about messages, advice or predictions.
What does divination usually mean? #
The shamanic teacher and writer Christina Pratt defines divination as consulting the beings or the wisdom of the spirit world to gain information about the past, present or future, in order to solve a problem. She describes three main ways of doing it: journeying into the spirit world, inviting a helping spirit into the body so that it speaks through the diviner, and reading the patterns in a divination tool such as cast shells or bones, a burnt shoulder blade or the I Ching. In her account divination is used for diagnosis and for finding the remedy, and divining alone does not make someone a shaman; what marks a shaman out is taking action in the spirit world as well.1 See How do shamans diagnose illness?
Some shamanic traditions deliberately invite possession by a helpful spirit, for healing or for divination.2 Therapeutic Shamanism does not work that way. Any kind of possession, helpful or not, is read as a sign of a culture based on agriculture and hierarchy, and no hunter-gatherer shamans practised voluntary possession.3 See Is mediumship healthy, from a shamanic point of view? and What is the difference between a shaman, a priest, a medium and a medicine person?
Can a shamanic journey tell us the future? #
Therapeutic Shamanism starts from a different picture of the future. Shamanism is essentially a multiverse model. There are an infinite number of alternate universes, and every decision we make determines which one we step into. People talk about ‘the’ future as if it were one thing, but the future is not set; there are countless different futures, all of which happen.4 Many of the decisions that lead us into one rather than another are made unconsciously, by habits and by the scripts and stories we live by, which is why they can be so hard to change. What journeying does with the future is the subject of What are future selves, and are there many possible futures?
Is shamanic healing a kind of reading? #
No. Shamanic healing is different from mediumship, from ‘doing a reading’ and from other healing methods in one key respect, which is that it is not about getting messages, advice, guidance or predictions about the future at all. It is simply about doing the healing. 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 seldom speak in words, because words are 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 things with little place in 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 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. Words tend to bring us back into the left brain, whereas the right brain, on which the journey depends, works mostly through imagery and metaphor. Words are needed afterwards to describe what happened to the client, and that is all they should be: an accurate description.5 See Why are there no words or symbols in the Lower-World?
The same holds when someone journeys for themselves. Journeys full of advice and guidance, opinions and middle-world concepts, with Guides talking a lot, have a middle-world feel and flavour, coloured by the journeyer’s own beliefs. Language is largely a middle-world and left-brained thing, a way of labelling and dividing up the world, whereas the Lower-World is largely beyond it and closer to poetry, painting or music.6 See How do I distinguish guidance from projection and middle-world bleed-through?
What can the Guides tell us, then? #
Lower-World Guides are beings of the world of nature, and they know nothing about present-day human society: bank accounts, mortgages, the career ladder, which is the best fridge to buy. A Guide chatting away and giving advice about modern middle-world matters is not a true Lower-World Guide. Nor are the Guides there to make middle-world decisions for us; this is our life, and we still have to be adults and make our own decisions about everyday things.7
That does not make them no help in daily life. They can warn us if they sense we are in danger, protect us energetically, show us why the energy in a room feels wrong and what to do about it, help us bond with the land and its spirits, and draw our attention to particular plants, stones or animals that have healing and teaching for us. What they are not is the ‘parking-spot fairy’, or a parent-like figure who makes life’s decisions for us.7
Questions do have a place in the healing work itself. When someone believes they are possessed by demons, for example, the Guides can be asked whether those demons are real or are disowned parts of the person; the point is to know that the question needs asking in the first place.8
Can a journey teach us about a plant, an animal or a stone? #
Yes, and this is one of the ways the knowledge of the Medicine Bundle is gathered in a broken shamanic lineage. Sometimes a journey makes the healing gift of an Animal, Plant or Stone obvious: Ivy binding a returned soul partSoul-part. A small-s, middle-world part of the self that can be lost (sent away) and can be retrieved. Not the capital-S Soul. Read the full answer back into the body, or Wren teaching that we do not have to be big to find our voice. More often, because shamanic work is symbolic, what happens needs unpacking afterwards. Researching an unfamiliar Animal, Plant or Stone after it has appeared in a journey, and finding that its medicine was exactly what was needed, also builds confidence in the journeys themselves.9 This is learning from the other-than-human Peoples rather than foretelling anything. See What are grokking, dieting and research in working with the Peoples? and How do I unpack and interpret a shamanic journey?
