SHAMANISM a spiritual and religious practice
What is Shamanism?
Shamanism is a spiritual and religious practice where the practitioner involves in interacting with spirits through his or her consciousness and trances. They build an intense control over their mind and executes the spiritual energies into the physical world, mainly for healing purposes.
Here, even with this mild definition of “shamanism”, its practice might sound unreal and questionable to many of us. Yet, it is practiced almost all around the world, which includes Asia, Africa, Europe, Oceania, and even both, south and north America. Moreover, it has prevailingly, a very long history of its own, as it is believed that it began around 30,000 years ago from Siberia. And so, the term shamanism also comes from Siberian native, from the “Manchu-Tungus” tribe, where the word shamanism means “one who knows”.
Moreover, as recorded in the historical ethnographies, shamanism is practiced by male, female, and transgenders of all ages, mainly starting from their childhood. Likewise, in different countries we can find the practice of shamanism in different forms and names, for instance, in Nepal, we call it “Jhakri”, whereas in China it is known as “Manchu” from Qing dynasty, in Japan it is “Shinto”, “Nuba” or “Ngun” or even “Dogon” in Africa, “Maya” or “Aztec” in North America, “Sami” in Europe, “Aboriginal” in Australia etc.
Though there are different names and forms of shamanism in different parts of the world, but the basic purpose of the shamanic practice is to provide spiritual, emotional, and physical healing to the people. And according to Professor David Luke (Greenwich University), during this process, shamans (shamanism practitioner) transcend time and space and communicate with the spirits or unseen power through dreams, dance, diet, music, or through the use/consumption of psychedelics substances. It is believed that shamans have telepathic power, which they use for ecstasy and healing of a person going through emotional turmoil or spiritual instability and even physical problems.
Furthermore, the most interesting thing about shamanism and shamans is that they are known to be futuristic, as they can visualize the future target and seek information to create perspective from the existing reality to the “non-ordinary reality” that is the “future”. According to Beth Beurkens, a well-known shamanic teacher and a spiritual healer, the practice of shamanism has various benefits like, it has the “ability to create desired changes in life with the power of our unconscious mind”, “expand the sense of wholeness and well-being”, “create a stronger connection to spiritual source and souls” and “strengthened immune system”.
Nevertheless, despite its religious and spiritual values and sparkled advantages, the shamanic practice is something that modern people might find strange to connect with and can feel it to be an unrecognized taboo. Yet, the presence of shamanism cannot be ignored because even in today’s day and age, almost every nation around the globe, still practices shamanism, and have their own form of culture and their cult followers who strongly believe that shamanism has the power to connect with the spirits and heal the existing souls (soul retrieval). Therefore, before forming a conclusion, and labelling the shamanic culture, maybe it is better to collect more information on shamanism and learn about its significance.
Therefore, for the further knowledge on shamanism or on shamans, you may find numerous research papers and various published books on different platforms, which can help you conceptualize your thoughts on shamanic attributes, beliefs, practices, and practitioners. Overall, even on NepaCrafts, you may also find various materials and books on shamanism like Reflection of a Mongolian Shaman by Byampadorj Dondog Shaman, Tibetan Shamanism by Larry Peters, Faith-Healers in the Himalaya by Casper J.Miller, The Ancestral Forest by Martino Nicoletti and many others that are recently added to our collection. So please do visit our site to learn more. Lastly, Nepacrafts is working its best to create spiritually enlightening life for our dear customers and so, we wish all of you the best- may peace and tranquillity find your way!
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