Times of Trial:
The Initial Call and the Initiation Crisis
If you bring forth what is within you
What you bring forth will save you
If you do not bring forth what is within you,
What you do not bring forth will destroy you.
—Jesus, The Gospel of Thomas
For shamans, the hero’s journey usually begins in early adulthood with unusual experiences interpreted as signs from the spirits. In other cases, a shaman’s child is selected at birth to continue the family tradition, or occasionally individuals themselves choose the career.
When selection occurs at birth, it can place enormous responsibilities on the future shaman, the family, and even the whole community. Appropriate rituals and taboos must be maintained in minute detail and can be painfully restrictive.
RITUAL, TABOO, AND SUPERSTITION
Knud Rasmussen, whose description of both American and Iglulik Eskimo shamans is a classic, wrote in 1929: “So seriously are all preparations considered, that some parents, even before the birth of the shaman-to-be, set all things in order for him beforehand by laying upon themselves a specially strict and onerous taboo. Such a child was Aua, and here is his own story…”
Mother was put on a very strict diet, and had to observe difficult rules of taboo. If she had eaten part of a walrus, for instance, then that walrus was taboo to all others; the same with seal and caribou. She had to have special pots, from which no one else was allowed to eat. No woman was allowed to visit her, but men might do so. My clothes were made of a particular fashion; the hair of the skins must never lie pointing upwards or down, but fall athwart the body. Thus I lived in the birth-hut, unconscious of all the care that was being taken with me.
At last I was big enough to go out with the grown up men to the blowholes after seal. The day I harpooned my first seal, my father had to lie down on the ice with the upper part of his body naked, and the seal I had caught was dragged across his back while it was still alive. Only men were allowed to eat of my first catch, and nothing must be left. The skin and the head were set out on the ice, in order that I might be able later on to catch the same seal again. For three days and nights, none of the men who had eaten of it might go out hunting or do any kind of work….Even after I had been married a long time, my catch was still subject to strict taboo.299
Such a life, hemmed in by countless taboos, is hard to imagine. Yet for tribal peoples these rules are as essential to life as eating. To flout them means offending the spirits and thereby risking death and disaster. Thus the taboos may rule generation after generation even though, as Rasmussen found, “Everyone knew precisely what had to be done in any given situation, but whenever I put in my query: why? They could give no answer.”299
For Western science, these are examples, plain and simple, of superstitious behavior based on false beliefs. Since shamanic traditions seem to comprise a mixture of both effective techniques and superstitious rituals, it is worth examining how superstitions are learned and maintained.
Psychological explanations center around faulty learning, and many stem from experiments originally conducted by the psychologist B. F. Skinner. Skinner was famous—or infamous, depending on your perspective—for arguing that all behavior could be understood simply in terms of reinforcement by the environment. Free will, he argued, was an archaic concept left over from a prescientific era, and in his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity,340 he proposed a utopian society based on rational principles of reinforcement. Among other things, this would overcome superstition, which he saw as merely a matter of misunderstood, random reinforcement.
Skinner based this claim on a classic experiment in which he gave a pigeon food every fifteen seconds, no matter what it was doing. The bird didn’t have to lift a feather for these free meals. Nevertheless it soon started turning in circles. Other birds behaved even more bizarrely—bobbing their head up and down, stretching their neck toward a corner, or making brushing movements over the floor—apparently believing that their behavior caused the arrival of the food.
Whatever the bird was doing when it was initially fed was reinforced, and the animal, understandably but falsely, assumed that its behavior caused the food’s arrival. Naturally enough, it repeated the behavior, and, sure enough, food arrived again. Though there was actually no causal relationship between behavior and food—the food invariably arrived every fifteen seconds—the bird assumed there was. Coincidental reward maintained both the behavior and the belief.17
Skinner was not shy about implying that people can be birdbrains and suggested that similar reinforcement mechanisms underlie much superstitious behavior in all cultures. Coincidental rewards or punishments can lead people to assume causal relationships where none exist. They then engage in unnecessary behavior, which, because it is randomly reinforced, can seem effective and over time can harden into socially enforced rituals and taboos.g Anyone who violates these taboos may then be ostracized or even executed.
Coincidental learning can be enhanced by further factors. The desire for understanding and control makes people uncomfortable with ambiguous situations. They therefore tend to postulate causal relationships, even where none exist. This may reduce feelings of helplessness, since a belief about how something is caused gives a sense of how to control it.
In addition, superstitions are easily learned from other people via “social contagion.” Thus Aua told Rasmussen that “our fathers have inherited from their fathers all the old rules of life which are based on the experience and wisdom of generations. We do not know how, we cannot say why, but we keep those rules in order that we may live untroubled.”299
The net effect of all these factors—coincidental reward and punishment, the desire to understand and control, learning from others—may partly account for the extent and severity of tribal superstitions and taboos, as well as the willingness to endure the severe life restrictions they demand.h For in the face of a mysterious, dangerous world, there is enormous pressure to adopt any behavior that promises some degree of control. Not surprisingly, rituals and taboos are widespread among tribal peoples and their shamans. A major task in examining shamanism is therefore to distinguish between effective techniques and ineffective superstitions.
One further point about superstitions is crucial: They do not necessarily imply an immature logic or irrationality. The old, all-too-neat division between “primitive” and “civilized” modes of thought is moribund, although “evidence does exist that some cultures and environments encourage advanced cognitive development and others do not.”208 Superstitions may be inaccurate beliefs, but the beliefs may be quite logical within a particular cultural worldview. After all, if one believes in malevolent spirits, then rituals designed to appease them make perfect sense. Equally logically, an adolescent who seems bothered by the spirits may have special connections with them and could therefore make an effective healer. And, of course, some shamanic beliefs and behaviors may reflect a sensitivity to forces and factors that escape untrained perception.
THE INITIAL CALL
Those called were most often men, though the American anthropologist Barbara Tedlock has proffered a strong argument that scholars have underestimated the number and importance of women.362 Aua, whose life and taboos we examined above, was selected on the basis of heredity; others may be chosen because of some striking feature or experience. These can include unusual physical appearance, a disorder such as epilepsy, unexpected recovery from severe illness, or a variety of omens.
They may also have striking inner experiences. For example, the call may come in a dream or vision quest. A vision quest is a period spent in solitude and fasting devoted to receiving a guiding vision for one’s life. Dreams about spirits may constitute a shamanic call in the Inuit Eskimo tribes, while in Californian Indian tribes it may be dreams about deceased relatives.201 The significance of these dreams may require confirmation by mature shamans, who were among the world’s first professional dream interpreters. A Nepalese shaman described his call at age sixteen as follows:
I had a wonderful dream in which Bajra (the thunder god) stood before me….Bajra said, “It is time for you to learn to become a shaman. I will be your teacher….” Later that evening, I suddenly went into trance—I began to shake and I could not utter a word. My brother-in-law, who is a shaman, was summoned. He tried to find out which spirit had possessed me, but it would not reveal itself. I remained in trance, without speaking, for a week….Then, one night, Bajra came to me in a dream and taught me a mantra.13
Election by dreams occurs in many religious traditions. Recall, for example, the Jewish Torah: “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream.”
The call to shamanism may be met with considerable ambivalence, and those who receive it may be regarded as “doomed to inspiration.”29 Some of the elect attempt to decline the invitation at first, in what Joseph Campbell termed “refusal of the call.” However, the spirits or symptoms can be distressingly persistent and eventually win out. Indeed, many shamanic traditions, like many hero traditions, hold that refusal of the call can result in sickness, insanity, or death. One of the earliest shamanic researchers, Bogoras, claimed:
The rejection of the “spirits” is much more dangerous even than the acceptance of their call. A young man thwarted in his call to inspiration will either sicken and shortly die, or else the “spirits” will induce him to renounce his home and go far away, where he may follow his vocation without hindrance.29
In a few tribes, individuals may also select themselves. However, such people are often regarded as less potent masters than those whose selection is ordained by outside forces. One notable exception is the Jivaro Indian tribe of South America. Here would-be shamans select themselves, and established practitioners sell them their knowledge. The Jivaro payment may be neither cheap nor benign. It can consist of such spiritual necessities as one or two shotguns, a blowgun, and a machete.147
THE INITIATION CRISIS
While some calls to adventure can be ignored and suppressed, the shamanic initiation crisis cannot. It explodes through the shaman-elect, disintegrating the old identity and demanding birth of the new.
It usually announces itself in adolescence with an onslaught of unusual experiences. These may sometimes include talents such as heightened sensitivity and perception. More often the shaman-to-be starts to exhibit unusual behavior, which can even be bizarre, dangerous, and life threatening. The result may be weeks, months, or even years of unpredictable chaos that disrupts the lives of the shaman, the family, and the tribe. The onset may be abrupt or gradual. Eliade notes that there are
“sicknesses,” attacks, dreams, and hallucinations that determine a shaman’s career in a very short time….Sometimes there is not exactly an illness but rather a progressive change in behavior. The candidate becomes meditative, seeks solitude, sleeps a great deal, seems absent-minded, has prophetic dreams and sometimes seizures. All these symptoms are only the prelude to the new life that awaits the unwitting candidate.83
Bogoras describes the crisis among Chukchee Indians:
For men the preparatory stage of shamanistic inspiration is in most cases very painful, and extends over a long time. The call comes in an abrupt and obscure manner, leaving the young novice in much uncertainty regarding it….He feels “bashful” and frightened; he doubts his own disposition and strength, as has been the case with all seers, from Moses down. Half unconsciously and half against his own will, his whole soul undergoes a strange and painful transformation. This period may last months, and sometimes even years. The young novice, the “newly inspired” (tur-ene’nitvillin), loses all interest in the ordinary affairs of life. He ceases to work, eats but little and without relishing the food, ceases to talk to people, and does not even answer their questions. The greater part of the time he spends in sleep.29
The contemporary anthropologist Larry Peters obtained a powerful firsthand account from a Nepalese shaman:
When I was 13, I became possessed. I later learned that the spirit was my dead grandfather, but at the time I did not know what was happening. I began to shake violently and was unable to sit still even for a minute, even when I was not trembling.
Finally, all the people in the village came looking for me. When they caught up with me, I stopped shivering and woke up. I was taken home and given food. My family was very concerned. I had no appetite and that night began shaking again.281
In the West, such behavior would usually be regarded as psychopathology. However, in shamanic cultures, this crisis is interpreted as selection by the spirits, the victim is destined to be a shaman, and the “newly inspired” is understood to be undergoing a difficult but potentially valuable developmental process. If handled appropriately, this process is expected to resolve in ways that heal the shaman and help the tribe, providing them with new access to spiritual realms and powers. Handling the process appropriately requires training and discipline.