Shamans sing because song, like the drum and dance, is one of the oldest ways into the shamanic state of consciousness, and because singing can carry healing. A ‘power song’ is a term from Michael Harner’s core shamanism: a shaman’s own song, used to call on their spirit helpers and to help shift into the shamanic state. In Therapeutic Shamanism singing turns up mainly inside journeys, 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 may have a person sing as part of their healing.
Why do shamans sing? #
Because singing is one of the ways into the shamanic state. Shamanic cultures have entered trance through dancing and other rhythmic movements, through fasting and plants, and through singing and chanting, though the drum and the rattle are the commonest means of all.1 See What role do drumming, movement and other methods play in journeying?
The anthropologist Michael Harner, who founded core shamanism, describes how the shaman’s songs work in practice. They tend to be repetitive and fairly monotonous, speeding up as the shaman moves into the shamanic state of consciousness, and the people present often join in, helping the shaman across. The words usually refer to the shaman’s spirit guardians and helpers and reaffirm their power, and whilst the words may vary from one shaman to another, the melody and rhythm are usually shared across a region rather than made up by the individual.2
Song also belongs to seeking a vision. The writer and theologian Vine Deloria Jr, of the Standing Rock Sioux, describes the vision-quest seeker who “doggedly and determinedly fasts and sings sacred songs” in the hope of being given a calling to serve the people.3 See What is a vision quest?
What is a power song? #
A personal song of power, in Harner’s core shamanism. In The Way of the Shaman he writes that each shaman has at least one power song, used to ‘wake up’ their guardian spirit and other helpers for healing and other work. He describes seeking it alone in a wild place, and says that the more the song is used in shamanic work, the more it helps a person shift into the shamanic state, until it becomes a small “trigger” for that shift. He also describes a second kind, sung during a journey, which usually describes what the journeyer is seeing.4
The fundamentals of Therapeutic Shamanism are based on Harner’s core shamanism. See Who was Michael Harner, and what is core shamanism?
Does Therapeutic Shamanism use power songs? #
Not as a set practice; Paul Francis’s books do not teach the power song. Where singing appears in Therapeutic Shamanism, it is mostly inside the journey itself, as part of the healing the Guides give.
If the Guides think singing will be healing for someone, they will encourage that person to sing in a journey, and to really sing, in a way that is powerful, evocative and transformative, feeling what it does to them. It might be singing so much and so beautifully that songbirds come flying out of their mouth, or singing that makes the sun come out and flowers grow, or that makes all the creatures of the woodland stop and come to listen. Making sense of this afterwards, and deciding what, if anything, to do about it in 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 life, is the journeyer’s ‘beholder’s share’, the part of the meaning that only they can make. “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 Guides are not going to tell you to join a choir.”5 See Why are there no words or symbols in the Lower-World?
What is lament-singing? #
An ancient way of singing through grief. Lament-singing is an old practice for helping with the healing of the trauma of grief, and hunter-gatherer cultures the world over would have known the power of laments and had their own versions of them. In a healing journey for someone who is grieving, the Guides might hold that person’s hands, stand with them and sing a lament with them, before any joyful singing, so that the grief is really felt and not skipped over. For the practitioner, all that is needed, as always, is to ask their Lower-World Human Guides for help and guidance with this.6 See What does animism teach about grief?
Can singing heal in a journey? #
Yes. In the Lower-World, healing takes many forms, and intrusionsIntrusion. Something lodged in us that should not be there, having entered through the holes soul-loss and Power-loss leave. Four broad types: unhelpful thought-forms, introjects, foreign-body energetic intrusions, and entity possessions. More about this may be removed by biting, sucking, singing, swarming or smoking, amongst other things.7 See What is an intrusion, and what is extraction?
What matters is that the singing stays a Lower-World experience and is not turned straight into middle-world advice. In one example of a practitioner’s journey, the client and the Guides held hands and sang, and it felt joyful, which was fine; the problem came when the practitioner told the client the Guides meant she should join her local church choir. That interpretation took away the client’s own share of the meaning, threw up needless middle-world complications, and turned what could have been like a great, moving work of art into something prescriptive and dull.8
Why does song reach us so deeply? #
Because, like great art, song can be close to Soul, and the closer something human-made is to the Stories of the Lower-World, the more it moves us.9 See What part do music, rhythm and dance play in shamanism? and, on the kind of intelligence involved, What is musical intelligence, and why do rhythm and song matter in shamanic work?
