The Culmination of the Quest:
Shamanic Enlightenment
In order that the mind should see light instead of darkness, so the entire soul must be turned away from this changing world, until its eye can learn to contemplate reality and that supreme splendor which we have called the good. Hence there may well be an art whose aim would be to effect this very thing.
—Plato 287
Some experiences are specific to certain paths, while others are far flung across different traditions. The experiences of light and of death-rebirth are widespread milestones on the spiritual path, and for shamans they suggest that their quest is complete.
THE INNER LIGHT
For the rest of my life I want to reflect on what light is.
—Albert Einstein 315
It is no accident that one of the terms most often used to describe the goal of the spiritual quest is “enlightenment.” The word has both literal and metaphorical meanings. Metaphorically, it refers to a dramatic sense of insight and understanding; literally, it refers to an experience of being illuminated or suffused with light.
As Eliade stated: “Clearly, the ‘inner light’ that suddenly bursts forth after long efforts of concentration and meditation is well known in all religious traditions.”83 In the West the best-known examples are Christian. The apostle St. Paul was literally blinded by the brilliance of his vision. Similarly the great church father St. Augustine “beheld with the mysterious eye of my soul the light that never changes.”375 The famous mystic shoemaker Jacob Boehme, while wrestling with his “corrupted nature,” discovered that “a wonderful light arose within my soul. It was a light entirely foreign to my unruly nature, but in it I recognized the true nature of God and man.”239
Illuminative experiences can also occur spontaneously. Some 5 percent of Americans have had them, and these people scored exceptionally well on a test of psychological health.124
A particularly moving account of spontaneous light is that of a French World War II hero, Jacques Lusseryan. While still a student, Lusseryan led a large resistance movement in Paris, and then after his capture organized groups in the concentration camps to which he was condemned. Amazingly, he did all this though totally blind, guided and nourished by an inner light. He wrote of his discovery of this light:
This was much more than a simple discovery, it was a revelation.…I was aware of a radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about….I felt indescribable relief, and happiness so great it almost made me laugh. Confidence and gratitude came as if a prayer had been answered. I found light and joy at the same moment, and I can say without hesitation that from that time on light and joy have never been separated in my experience….Still, there were times when the light faded, almost to the point of disappearing. It happened every time I was afraid….Anger and impatience had the same effect, throwing everything into confusion….But when I was happy and serene, approached people with confidence and thought well of them, I was rewarded with light….Armed with such a tool, why should I need a moral code?….at every waking hour and even in my dreams I lived in a stream of light….Light is in us, even if we have no eyes.220
Lusseryan’s discovery that light is within us and an inseparable part of our deepest nature is a familiar spiritual theme. In the evocative words of a Christian text:
Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all.10
Of course inner light experiences are not all the same. Nor do all religious traditions evaluate them similarly. Some traditions see them as signs of progress; others, such as Zen, view them as seductive sidetracks to be noted and transcended. Yet for still others, such as Iglulik Eskimo shamans, they are essential and ecstatic.
SHAMANIC ENLIGHTENMENT
Thus after an Iglulik shaman has put a student through preliminary training, then according to Rasmussen
the next thing an old shaman has to do for his pupil is to procure him anak ua by which is meant his “angákoq,” i.e., the altogether special and particular element which makes this man an angákoq (shaman). It is also called his quamenEq, his “lighting” or “enlightenment,” for anak ua consists of a mysterious light which the shaman suddenly feels in his body, inside his head, within the brain, an inexplicable searchlight, a luminous fire, which enables him to see in the dark both literally and metaphorically speaking, for he can now, even with closed eyes, see through darkness and perceive things and coming events which are hidden from others; thus they look into the future and into the secrets of others.
The first time a young shaman experiences this light…it is as if the house in which he is suddenly rises; he sees far ahead of him, through mountains, exactly as if the earth were on a great plane, and his eyes could reach to the end of the earth. Nothing is hidden from him any longer; not only can he see things far, far away, but he can also discover souls, stolen souls, which are either kept concealed in far, strange lands or have been taken up or down to the Land of the Dead.299
For example, the Iglulik Eskimo Aua, whose remarkable career we have been following, finally experienced his quamenEq (shamanic enlightenment) alone in the wilderness. He first trained in the company of his teachers, but his quest remained incomplete. He therefore set out into the Arctic wilds to seek in solitude what had eluded him in society. There he was seized by wild mood swings, experiencing fits of melancholy and joy.
And then in the midst of such a fit of mysterious and overwhelming delight I became a shaman, not knowing myself how it came about. But I was a shaman. I could see and hear in a totally different way. I had gained my quamenEq, my enlightenment, the shaman-light of brain and body, and this in such a manner that it was not only I who could see through the darkness of life, but the same light also shone out from me, imperceptible to human beings, but visible to all the spirits of earth and sky and sea, and these now came to me and became my helping spirits.299
Like his shamanic forefathers for thousands of years before him, Aua finally experienced the inner light and vision that signified the culmination of his quest. This is the spirit vision that would enable him to “see” the cause and cure of his people’s ills. For these people believed, quite literally, that as Jewish proverbs put it, “Where there is no vision, the people perish…” and shamans took upon themselves the task of providing this vision.