Say Hello to the Collective Shaman (Hint: You Are Part of It)

The role of the Shaman in the original peoples is to resolve issues of the tribe that other members were unable to rectify themselves. They heal, they influence, they transform, otherwise known as the art of magic. Traditional and contemporary shamans do this by consciously venturing into the non-physical realm – a practice called ‘journeying’ – to dance with the spirits of their ancestors and their land to find answers to their current affairs, and assist the energetic rivers to flow in more desired directions.

However, as the Western world became so-called ‘civilised’ over the course of several millennia, they tore the role of shamans and other energetic workers out of their societal infrastructure. Tribal peoples were labelled as primitive and undeveloped. Magicians hid in the shadows. Witches were burned. Organised religion stepped up to dictate their version of the divine to the masses, eventually leading to the secularisation of large portions of society, including their managerial structures.

Entire cultures progressively lost their connection to themselves, each other and nature, as well as their personal exploration of esoterica. The war on metaphysics advanced. A philosophical disease called materialism took a toxic grip after industrialisation, consumerism and the technological explosion saturated people’s minds and hearts with predominately mundane and destructive conceptions of reality.

Communities were now highly fragmented and the majority of people were sucked into urbanised enslavement.

But then the internet was created. An unprecedented moment occurred in humanity’s (known) history where information was being shared instantaneously to all areas of our planet, resulting with a significant amplification of cross-cultural ideas and behaviours.

A human culture, not an ethnic or regional one, was being birthed (or simply remembered).

Amongst all this dualistic madness and magic, spiritual traditions and sacred practices were being increasingly revitalised in the shadows of our collective dialogue. The re-enchantment of our world has been long underway and is now coming to the forefront of discussion in alternative and occult circles, as well as slowly leaking into mainstream mindsets. The practice of magic and the exploration of altered states of consciousness is becoming unsurprisingly common as individuals feeling spiritually pillaged have learned to research and apply their own version of energetic expression and manipulation, regardless if facilitated by meditation, ritual, psychotropics and/or other personal methodologies.

Nevertheless, the shamanic role has only slightly recovered. Or put another way to circumnavigate appropriation arguments, the process of working with spirits, information and energy for the benefit of the entire community is rare, compared to that process actioned for the benefit of the individual implementing it.

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Philosophers stone – selected views from the boat http://philosophers-stone.co.uk