What Is a Shaman?
The Challenge of Definition
If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.
—Confucius 344
What is a shaman? On this crucial point there is remarkably little agreement and “practically every scholar forms his own opinion of what constitutes shamanism.”169
THE CHALLENGE OF DEFINITION
Challenges for Anthropologists
The French anthropologist Roberte Hamayon edited a book with a telling title: The Concept of Shamanism: Uses and Abuses. In it she lamented, “For more than a century the question of what shamanism really is in the final analysis has hindered all attempts to define it.”102
In fact, the problem has become worse rather than better. The popularity of shamanic practices in the West, divorced from their traditional cultural context and goals, has created thousands of practitioners and a movement that is to be called—what? “Neoshamanism” is one term in vogue.
In addition, because of its growing popularity, the term “shaman” has become an honorific title. Consequently, people have rushed to apply the title to their heroes. Jungian psychologists, for example, have anointed Jung as “the closest thing we have to an authentic shaman in the modern West…”259 Likewise, some philosophers see the influence of shamanism behind the rise of Greek philosophy, and one declared, “It is henceforth one of the accepted anthropological truths that Socrates was the last shaman and the first philosopher.”139 This “accepted truth” is news to anthropologists. So one problem is that the terms shaman and shamanism are used in very different ways.
The Challenge of Language
But the problem goes deeper. This kind of definitional problem is by no means unique to shamanism. The more one looks at any religious or healing discipline, the more variation becomes apparent. There is no one kind of Christianity or Hinduism or medicine.
In fact, the deeper one looks, the more any definition of any term becomes elusive. In fact, the philosopher Jacques Derrida famously concluded that every term is an aporia, a problem or question that eludes any final resolution. No wonder that, in the words of The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “The problems of definition are constantly recurring…no problems of knowledge are less settled than those of definition…”1
For the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein,419 “philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” However, the battle has been less than fully successful. Of course, this is no surprise to mystics, who have long claimed that only contemplative, transrational intuition escapes the net of language and that, in the words of the Taoist sage, Lao Tzu,
Existence is beyond the power of words to define:
Terms may be used
But none of them are absolute.40
So the challenge of defining shamanism, or anything else, turns out to be far deeper than we usually assume. We cannot expect absolute certainty or agreement from our terms and definitions. However, we can follow Confucius’s advice and try to use them carefully and skillfully, knowing that, as the great religious scholar Huston Smith put it, “All human thought proceeds from words. As long as words are askew, thought cannot be straight.”344
A Practical Solution
How, then, can we proceed? One practical solution is to use what is called a “stipulative” definition: a definition that does not necessarily follow previous rules or patterns of use, but does stipulate precisely how the term is being used. To do this we will trace how the terms shaman and shamanism have been used in the past, identify key features, assess their validity, and then attempt to integrate valid features into a coherent definition. Let us begin by examining the ways in which understandings and definitions of shamanism have evolved over time.
PAST DEFINITIONS
The term shamanism comes from the word saman of the Tungus people of Siberia, meaning “one who is excited, moved, raised.” It may be derived from an ancient Indian word meaning “to heat oneself or practice austerities”25 or from a Tungus verb meaning “to know.”169 But whatever its derivation, the term shaman has been widely adopted by anthropologists to refer to specific groups of healers in diverse cultures who have sometimes been called medicine men, witch doctors, sorcerers, wizards, magicians, or seers. However, these terms are too vague to serve the precise definition we are seeking.
Early anthropologists were particularly struck by the shamans’ unique interactions with “spirits.” Many in the tribe might claim to see or even be possessed by spirits. However, only the shamans claimed to have some degree of control over them and to be able to command, commune, and intercede with them for the benefit of the tribe. Thus Shirokogoroff, one of the earliest explorers of the Siberian Tungus people, stated:
In all Tungus languages this term (saman) refers to persons of both sexes who have mastered spirits, who at their will can introduce these spirits into themselves and use their power over the spirits in their own interests, particularly helping other people, who suffer from the spirits.335
In a later chapter we will take up the surprisingly difficult challenge of deciding just what these “spirits” may be.
Whereas early explorers were most impressed by shamans’ interactions with spirits, later researchers were intrigued by shamans’ ability to control the states of consciousness in which these interactions occur. As Western culture became interested in altered states of consciousness (ASCs), so too researchers became interested in the widespread use of altered states in religious practices. However, as we will see, there are many possible ASCs. Therefore, the question naturally arises, “Which ones are peculiar to, or defining of, shamanism?” It turns out that there are broad and narrow kinds of definitions.
In broad definitions, the “only defining attribute is that the specialist enter into a controlled ASC on behalf of his community.”284 Such specialists could include, for example, yogis who enter samadhi or mediums who enter a trance and then claim to speak for spirits. So a broad ASC definition of shamanism would include any practitioners who enter controlled alternate states of consciousness, no matter which particular alternate states these may be.
Narrow definitions, on the other hand, specify the alternate state(s) more precisely, usually as kinds of “ecstatic” states. Mircea Eliade set the tone. Eliade was one of the twentieth century’s outstanding religious scholars, and for decades his text Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy was regarded as a classic, but is now mired in controversy. In it he argued that “A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy.”83
Here ecstasy infers not bliss, but more a sense, as the Random House Dictionary defines it, “of being taken or moved out of one’s self or one’s normal state and entering a state of intensified or heightened feeling.” As it turns out, this definition of ecstasy as “being taken out of one’s self or one’s normal state” is particularly appropriate for shamanism.
A distinctive feature of the shamanic ecstasy is the experience of “soul flight,” “journeying,” or “out-of-body experience.” In their ecstatic state, shamans may experience themselves, their soul or spirit, flying through space and traveling to either other worlds or distant parts of this world. In Eliade’s words, “The shaman specializes in a trance during which his soul is believed to leave his body and ascend to the sky or descend to the underworld.”83
Spiritual experiences reflect the techniques used to induce them as well as the cosmology used to frame them. The shamanic cosmology often comprises a three-tiered universe of upper, middle, and lower worlds, the middle one corresponding to our earth.152 Shamans range throughout this threefold world system in order to learn, to obtain power, or to diagnose and treat those who come for help. During these journeys, shamans may meet the animals or spirits who inhabit them, see the cause and cure of patients’ illness, or intercede with friendly or demonic forces on behalf of the community.
So far we have three key features of shamanism to include in a definition:
1) Shamans can voluntarily enter altered states of consciousness.
2) In these states they may experience themselves “journeying” to other realms.
3) They use these journeys for acquiring knowledge or power and for helping people in their community.
Interaction with spirits is also frequently mentioned in definitions of shamanism. In addition, Michael Harner suggests that a key element of shamanic practices may be “contact with an ordinarily hidden reality.” For him a shaman is “a man or woman who enters an altered state of consciousness at will to contact and utilize an ordinarily hidden reality in order to acquire knowledge, power, and to help other persons. The shaman has at least one, and usually more, ‘spirits’ in his personal service.”146
Should these two additional elements—“contacting a hidden reality,” and interaction with “spirits”—be included as essential elements of a definition of shamanism? Here we are on tricky philosophical ground. Certainly this is what shamans experience and believe they are doing. However, it is an enormous philosophical leap to assume that this is what they are actually doing. Jumping from phenomenology (experience) to ontology (claims about reality) is always risky.
The fundamental nature (or in philosophical terms, the “ontological status”) of both the realms that shamans experience and the entities they meet is an open question. To the shaman they are usually interpreted as independently and fully “real.” However, to a Westerner with no belief in other realms or entities, spirits and other realms would be interpreted as mere mind creations. These philosophical questions will be explored more fully in a later chapter. Suffice it to say for now that the interpretation of the nature of these phenomena depends on one’s own philosophical leanings or worldview. We are therefore on safer ground while defining shamanism if we skirt these questions of philosophical interpretation as much as possible.
A SYNTHETIC DEFINITION
Putting all these elements together, what do we get?
Shamanism can be defined as a family of traditions whose practitioners focus on voluntarily entering altered states of consciousness in which they experience themselves or their spirit(s) interacting with other entities, often by traveling to other realms, in order to serve their community.
This definition covers several key features of shamanism. The reference to “a family of traditions” acknowledges that there are variations among shamanic practitioners. At the same time, the definition is precise enough to help distinguish shamanism from other traditions and practices, as well as from various psychopathologies with which it has been confused. For example, priests may lead rituals but they rarely enter altered states. On the other hand, mediums may enter altered states but do not usually journey, while Tibetan Buddhists may sometimes journey, but this is not a major focus of their practice. On the pathological side, those suffering from mental illness may enter altered states and meet “spirits,” but they do so as involuntary victims.
Of course, this definition will not include every conceivable shaman nor satisfy everyone. Nor should it; no single definition can. Nevertheless, it has several strengths. First, it covers the major features said to characterize shamanism, yet is reasonably narrow and precise. This will allow us to focus our investigation on a clearly distinguished group of practices and practitioners that almost all researchers would agree are indeed shamanic.
Second, this definition focuses on practices and experiences rather than on beliefs and dogma. This is consistent with Michael Harner’s claim that “shamanism is ultimately only a method, not a religion with a fixed set of dogmas.”148 Of course, shamans do hold certain relatively fixed beliefs. No person or tradition can survive without a consistent belief system.
There is a centuries-long debate over whether shamanism can properly be called a religion. To avoid becoming embroiled in this argument and also the debate over what exactly defines a religion, here I will simply sidestep the issue and refer to shamanism as a religious tradition. At other times, depending on the context, I will also refer to it as a consciousness discipline, a spiritual discipline, or a healing discipline, since it contains all these elements.