Shamanism

Shamans performing ritual in Pegtimel
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2019

Becoming a Shaman

The impulse of becoming a shaman was, as it is with the artist of today, the manifestation of idiosyncratic traits. Psychosis, gender ambiguity, poetic sensibility led to an existence as an outsider in society. Unlike today, these differences yielded high respect from other members in society. Today we seek medicine to cure idiosyncrasies but back then these traits were not considered the disease but the cure. For the shaman was the doctor. It was a difficult journey, full of obstacles, crises necessary for the acquisition of knowledge, the ability to traverse various planes of consciousness. Art today assumes a similar function; the budding artist, because of her difference, goes through the ordeal of societal rejection, and through deepening crises she becomes a visionary. She shows her audience the reality beyond the mundane and thus provides her community an important service, that of spiritual equilibrium. Let’s not reject the rejects, rejoice in the manifestations of oddness, queerness, and deviance.

The inevitable crisis that comes with the abandonment of the self into the other marks the onset of the journey of the shaman.

“...a psychosis that is emerging for some reason or other is so strong that the only way out open to the individual attacked by it is to escape from it into shamanistic activity, that is to say essentially by means of artistic productivity, such as dancing or singing, which always involves a state of trance.”[1] “In other words, any person suffering from a psychosis, and who escapes from it through artistic productivity in a trance state is a shaman, or at least a ‘future shaman.’ One who is a specialist in ancient techniques of ecstasy, the shaman normally is a functionary for a non-literate community, serving as its healer, intermediary with the gods, guide of the souls of the dead to their rest, and custodian of traditional tribal lore. The typical shaman comes to this role through either heredity or having manifested idiosyncratic traits (epilepsy, sexual ambiguity, poetic sensitivity, dramatic dreams). Psychologically, shamans depend on an ability to function in two worlds, the ordinary reality of daily life and the extraordinary reality they encounter through their ecstatic journeys. As well, they serve their tribe as a defense of meaning, by incarnating a contact with the powers thought to hold the tribe's destiny.”[2]

“The stereotypical shaman Other, whose practices are perceived as the origins of religion, is singled out as the “artist” of that classic Other archaeological art perceived as the origins of ‘art’—Cave Art.”[3]            – Robert J. Wallis

[1] Lommel, Andreas. Shamanism: The Beginning of Art. Michael Bullock, trans. New York & Toronto: McGraw Hill Book Company. 1967. Reviewed by Dorothy Hammond. Brooklyn College. American Anthropoligist. 1967. Article. Accessed through: American Anthropologist. Vol. 71, issue 3. Article. 2009. Web. 14 Dec. 2014. [Lommel,1967:9-10]
[2] This definition of Shamanism is cited from crsmith, Shamanism (see footnote 1). Crsmith quotes from: Carmody, Denise L. and John Tully Carmody, Ways to the Center: An Introduction to World Religions. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1980.
[3] Mariko Namba Walter and Eva Jane Neumann Fridner, editors. Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture, ABC-CLIO, Inc. 2004.