The Sacred Heritage

The Influence of Shamanism on Analytical Psychology

Donald F. Sandner, Steven H. Wong

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135236236
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The contributors to this volume describe the many facets shamanism and depth psychology have in common: animal symbolism; recognition of the reality of the collective unconscious; and healing rituals that put therapist and patient in touch with transpersonal powers. By reintroducing the core of shamanism in contemporary form, these essays shape a powerful means of healing that combines the direct contact with the inner psyche one finds in shamanism with the self-reflection and critical awareness of modern consciousness. The contributors' draw from experiences both inside and outside the consulting room, and with cultures that include the Lakota Sioux, and those of the Peruvian Andes and the Hawaiian Islands. The focus is on those aspects of shamanism most useful and relevant to the modern practice of depth psychology. These explorations bring the young practice of analytical psychology into perspective as part of a much more ancient heritage of shamanistic healing.

Part I

BEGINNINGS AND MEANINGS: THE SHAMANIC ARCHETYPE

Chapter 1

Introduction: Analytical Psychology and Shamanism

Donald F. Sandner

The art and practice of psychotherapy is in its infancy compared to the millennia-old history of shamanism. There are caves in southern France containing twelve-thousand-year-old paintings of shamans in trance states. Extending not only in time but also in space, shamanic practices have been found throughout the world, from Patagonia to Siberia. It should not be surprising, then, that Jung realized that his most profound conceptions of healing had much in common with shamanism. He wrote, “The [shaman’s] ecstasy is often accompanied by a state in which the shaman is ‘possessed’ by his familiars or guardian spirits. By means of this possession he acquires the mystical organs which in some sort constitute his true and complete spiritual personality. This confirms the psychological inference that may be drawn from shamanic symbolism, namely, that it is a projection of the individuation process” (Jung 1967, 341). Jung realized that in spite of their apparent differences, both shamanism and analytical psychology focused on the healing and growth (individuation) of the psyche. Inspired by this work, some therapists have continued exploring shamanism in order to enhance and perhaps even redefine the ways they treat patients. Many examples of their work will be found in the essays in this volume.

Both historically and in the present, there have been several different forms of healing. The gathering of herbs and the task of preparing them for medicinal use is performed by the native herbalist; exorcistic and blessing rites with songs, prayers, dances, and incantations are often performed by a medicine person. But the heart of the healing effort for those groups that still practice shamanism is the shaman’s trance, a journey into another reality outside time and place. Here he may plead with the spirits or higher powers to send good weather or good hunting conditions for his people. Or he may be able to diagnose the nature and bodily location of a patient’s illness and be given songs or rituals to cure it. He may be able to see into the future and locate lost objects or people. Often he is told by the gods and spirits what the people must do to atone for broken taboos or for neglect of sacred shrines. But in the oldest traditions, his journey was to locate the out-of-body soul and return it back to the patients’s nearly dead body.

Siberia appears to have been the homeland of shamanism. The word shamanism itself comes from a northern Siberian tribe, the Tungus, and shamanism until recent times was practiced there in its basic form. An observer, Waldemar Jochelson, described a soul retrieval in the late nineteenth century:

Suddenly the shaman commenced to beat the drum softly and to sing in a plaintive voice: then the beating of the drum grew stronger and stronger, and his song—in which could be heard the sounds imitating the howling of a wolf, the groaning of the cargoose, and the voices of other animals, his guardian spirits—appeared to come, sometimes from the corner nearest to my seat, then from the opposite end, and again from the middle of the house, and then it seemed to proceed from the ceiling…. The wild fits of ecstacy which would possess him during the performance frightened me. (Jochelson 1907–8, 49)

In these ecstatic states, which occur not only in Siberian shamanism but in various cultural guises throughout the world, the shaman makes his journey. His many kinds of animals, his helpers, the cosmic tree he climbs to the world above, the costume he wears (made up of iron bells, mirrors, and animal motifs), and the drum carrying him on his way are all parts of a complex of symbols that is found in a recognizable pattern across the globe, despite cultural differences. The point of this book is that the basic shamanic pattern is not a manifestation of a certain culture but rather is, as Jung pointed out, an archetype—a constant and universal part of the human psyche, manifested more in some persons or places than others but always there and ready for use. Jung saw this pattern as a projection of individuation (the inner psychic process of development) and shamanism as part of the heritage of analytical psychology.

Jung and his followers, analytical psychologists, are not shamans; they do not conduct their healing functions in an altered state of consciousness or ecstatic trance. They are considered rational psychologists in a society in which a premium is placed on focused attention and conscious rationality. But in addition to their healing intentions, Jungians have other important features in common with shamanism: They seek direct experience with an inner world (in shamanism it is the world of spirits, and in analytical psychology it is the collective unconscious) by encountering imaginary inner beings (spirit helpers, or archetypal figures) who are regarded as subjectively real. Perhaps one of the strongest and most subtle connections between shamanism and analytic psychology is this firm insistence on the reality of a separate space to which the psyche has access. Shamans would see this as a world of spirits that is a mythic part of their cosmology. An analytic psychologist would see this space as a part of the deep unconscious that is collective and partially personified by such archetypal figures as the hero, the trickster, the Great Mother, and others. These figures are seen in dreams and visions and form the individual counterpart to the mythic world of shamanism.

Instead of the wild shamanic trances described by Jochelson in Siberia, Jung developed the modern method of active imagination. In this method the patient empties his mind, much as in meditation. Then he allows an image to form in the field of inner attention and focuses on it, regarding it closely. This image may move or become part of a scene. Finally he must give it some form of creative expression: recording it, painting it, sculpting it, and so on.

Given the differences in perspective, the two disciplines follow a remarkably similar pattern. It might be said that in the archetypal processes of analytic psychology the patient experiences the dynamics of shamanism. The inner journey, encounters with magic animals, the ease of movement through time and space, the magical control of elements, and the death and rebirth experience are all part of the inner experience of the modern analytic patient.

Jung underwent such an experience himself during a period of intense self-analysis after his break with Freud. At that time Jung let himself sink into the unconscious background of his psyche. Once he went into this inner realm, he found an abundance of visions and images.

I did my best not to lose my head but to find some way to understand these strange things. I stood helpless before an alien world…. Then I let myself drop. Suddenly it was as though the ground literally gave way beneath my feet, and I plunged down into the dark depths. Before me was the entrance to a dark cave, in which stood a dwarf with leathery skin, as if he were mummified. I squeezed past him through the narrow entrance and waded knee deep through icy water to the other end of the cave where, on a projecting rock, I saw a glowing red crystal. I grasped the stone, lifted it, and discovered a hollow underneath. At first I could make out nothing but then I saw that there was running water. In it a corpse floated by, a youth with blonde hair and a wound in the head. He was followed by a gigantic black scarab, and then by a red newborn sun, rising up out of the depths of the water…. I was stunned by this vision, “I realized that it was both a hero and a solar myth, a drama of death and renewal. The rebirth was symbolized by the Egyptian scarab. (Jung 1962, 178–79).

But it was many years before Jung regained his psychic equilibrium and fully grasped the meaning of the experiences that had befallen him. His story, as fully told in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, is remarkably close to Joan Halifax’s description of the shamanic process: “The initial call to power takes the shaman to the realms of chaos, the limen where power exists in a free and untransformed state” (Halifax 1982, 9). The beginning of the mastery of that power can be ecstatic. Jung regarded the unconscious material that burst forth and nearly swamped him as “the primary material for a lifetime’s worth of work” (Jung 1982, 9).

The shamans themselves corroborate these perceptions. The Caribou shaman Igjugarjuk told the Artic explorer Knud Rasmussen that all true vision “is only to be attained through suffering. Privation and suffering are the only things that can open the mind of man to those things which are hidden from others” (Halifax 1982, 9).

Both shamans and analysts are wounded healers. If they have a true vocation (and there are many counterfeiters), analysts as well as shamans must find their way through many painful emotional trials to find the basis for their calling. They have all taken their own long analytic journeys. Dreams, visions and fantasies made conscious have allowed them, at considerable cost, to penetrate the depths of their unconscious. The material produced in this process is sometimes so intense that it brings about a temporary loss of orientation that is experienced as death or dismemberment of the conscious ego. A sacrifice of childish self-aggrandizement and immature impulses must take place before deep healing can occur. To be able to bear expanded consciousness, a stronger and more resilient ego must arise from this sacrifice. All of these workings go on within the therapeutic relationship between the patient and the analyst, much as the shamanic candidate must completely depend on his mentors to guide and protect him through his painful initiations.

Andreas Lommel, an early authority on shamanism, reminds us that “the concept of the helping spirits is naturally difficult for modern man to understand. It is an image that stands for a definite psychological event—an increase in psychic power” (Lommel 1967, 59). These spirits often take the form of animals, but they may be in other forms. Such magical animals are an integral feature of shamanism and are also quite common in the dreams and visions of analytic patients. The shaman recognizes magic animals such as the bear, the wolf, the tiger, the otter, the owl, and many others as allies and helpful spirits and knows how to make use of them. But of all spirit animals the snake is one of the most common in shamanic mythologies and in the dreams and visions of modern people. This is rather remarkable in that urban people rarely see a snake in nature, and if they do, it is usually at a distance and of little danger. But the image of the snake carries a great fascination and its meaning goes deep; it stands for healing (on the doctor’s staff) and for poisonings. It inhabits the lower regions most often as a denizen of the earth and a companion to the goddess; it might be said to stand for the unconscious itself in its cold blooded, inhuman aspect.

In northern Australia, a shaman gains power through the snake. In one account a man has a vivid dream about a snake at the bottom of a water hole. After he awakens, the man travels far and wide to find the same water hole he saw in his dream. When he finally finds it, he lies down and sends his soul down deep into the water. He feels that he is dead but goes on anyway. He enters a cave where the sun is shining and finds a great snake there. The snake speaks to his soul and gives it medicine. Then the soul rises out of the water and once more enters the man, who then feels strong and alive. A shaman who has had this experience with the snake never loses his power. He can always heal (Lommel 1967, 59).

It could also be said that almost all long term analytic therapy, the snake puts in at least one appearance in the patient’s dreams. Many times this is not just a walk-on role, but a dream vision of such power that it is good for a lifetime. For example, in the visions of a modern young woman named Christiana Morgan, Jung’s patient in the late 1920s, she saw a gothic cathedral and in it “the priest knelt chanting ‘Forgive us, O Lord, for we have sinned.’ A snake with a black hood over its head silently glided up the steps to the altar and wound itself upon the cross. I went up to the snake and asked it why it was there. The snake answered, ‘I am he who has taken the place of Christ’!” (Jung 1976, 204). In Christian iconography the snake has been represented as the dark brother of Christ. In other cultural traditions it is also an associate of the Great Mother (think of the statue of the Cretan goddess with the wide skirted dress holding aloft two snakes, one in each hand) and lord of the underworld. There is a Greek statue showing Hygeia, daughter of Aesculapius, holding a thick-bodied serpent in one hand and feeding it an egg with the other. Because the snake has the ability to shed its skin periodically and thus seemingly be born anew, it is regarded as a prime agent of healing and renewal. As such it finds a place on the doctor’s staff.

I have given so much attention to the snake because it is the primary animal link between shamanism and modern psychology. Much shamanic symbolism has been repressed or denied in modern life, but not the snake. It is too powerful to be denied. We have tried very hard to banish it from our conscious lives, but it has withdrawn to the underworld (unconscious) and deals with us in our dreams. Many of the more powerful dreams I have had contain the snake. In my early thirties, when I was in analysis and just starting my practice, I had a vivid dream of a hand held aloft unfurling a large flag. On the flag was the image of a coiled, threatening rattlesnake and underneath the motto “Don’t tread on me!” This is an actual early flag used in the American Revolution. From this dream, I knew that, like the early American colonists, if I was trodden upon by some power-seeking authority, I would not submit; I would retaliate like the serpent, and would sting!

In a final point of comparison between shamanism and analytic psychotherapy, both have imagined that the deep psyche is androgynous. In analytical psychology, the anima is a personified image of the feminine in men’s psyche, including all those feelings, moods, intuitions of the irrational, and deep capacity for love (including the sexual) that are associated with the feminine. The anima also represents the soul in its role as gateway to the deeper psyche. The animus is a corresponding deep presence of the masculine in women, cherished for its aggressiveness, intellectual powers, and spiritual insight. It appears in women’s dreams as an intruder, a dark and mysterious man, or in waking life as the voice of inner authority, sometimes to the point of tyranny. Both anima and animus are thought of not only as images but also as entities (complexes) with an autonomous existence in the psyche.

Mircea Eliade, author of the definitive classic Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964), reminds us that male Siberian shamans will often ritually assume the dress and behavior of a woman. They may even take a husband. In Japan and China, female shamans may sometimes marry their spirit husband (or animus). These rituals are performed to uncover a hidden wholeness. They symbolically represent the inner marriage not only of male and female but also of matter and spirit (Eliade 1964, 258). Similarly, in analytical psychology the anima/animus represent the gateway to the deeper psyche, to wholeness.

This inner marriage is beautifully represented by a Navajo sand painting showing Mother Earth and Father Sky side by side, connected by a line of pollen (the most sacred substance) from head to head and a rainbow band from tail to tail. Sand paintings, with their vivid images, are made by Navajo medicine men on a floor of the ceremonial hogan by running a stream of fine, colored sand between the thumb and the forefinger onto the smooth sand floor. They are made as part of the long, elaborate healing ceremonies, and they represent the cosmos in miniature, halfway between the macrocosm of nature outside and the microcosm of the psyche inside. Through chanting and prayer, healing power from the gods is directed into the figures in the painting. Then the patient sits on the sand painting and receives healing power with the help of the medicine man.

In the sand painting just described, Mother Earth is a large blue-green oval figure with a square head, jointed arms and legs coming out from the sides, and a rounded tail. In her middle, a round black hole of emergence leads down to the lower worlds. Around this opening are the four holy plants: corn, beans, squash, and tobacco. She represents the great earth goddess of the Navajo, offering fertility and shelter for all of her creatures. Father Sky, a large black oval figure with a square head, arms, legs, and a tail, represents the night sky. He displays many of the constellations as well as the Milky Way stretching across his chest. The sun is also represented, wearing his horns to show his power. Interestingly, the Navajo always show the sun as being turquoise blue. The image of the moon depicted on Father Sky, however, is white. These are the cosmological forces that influence human destiny. On the other side, Father Sky is connected by another hole of emergence to the spirit world above. In this sand painting, the feminine and masculine forces are exactly equal; they are in balance, connected by pollen and the rainbow. Also, the tail of Mother Earth is the black color of Father Sky, and vice versa. Each one contains part of the other. Here we have a symbolic representation of the shamanic tripartite cosmos: We live in the middle world between Mother Earth and Father Sky. Below Mother Earth is the underworld and above Father Sky is the spirit world.

This image of the cosmic marriage of Mother Earth and Father Sky resonates with the earthly marriage of a man and a woman, and with J...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Editors’ Preface
• Part One Beginnings and Meanings: The Shamanic Archetype
• 1 Introduction: Analytical Psychology and Shamanism
• 2 “What Was All that Rustling in the Woods?”: Quotes from C. G. Jung
• 3 Eliade, Jung, and Shamanism
• 4 C. G. Jung and the Shaman's Vision
• 5 The “Book of Knowledge” in Shamanism and Mysticism: Universal Image of the Source
• Part Two Shamanic Medicine: Explorations in Healing
• 6 An Integrated Approach to Soul Possession: Applying Shamanistic and Jungian Techniques
• 7 Shamanic States in Our Lives
• 8 The Felt Vision
• 9 The Clinical Use of Animals in Dreams
• 10 Serpent Fire Arousal: Its Clinical Relevance
• 11 The Ally
• Part Three Dark Encounters: Personal Transformations
• 12 Pain and Surgery: The Shamanic Experience
• 13 Cancer, New Age Guilt, and the Dark Feminine
• 14 Learning to Listen: A Snake Calls Me to a Shamanic Path
• 15 Shamanic Dismemberment
• 16 Coyote Attends My Surgery
• 17 The Dark Feminine: Death in Childbirth and Entry into the Shamanic Realm
• 18 Trapped Souls: A Passage to the Spirit World
• Part Four The Numinous Web: Cultural Connections
• 19 Lakota Teachings: Inipi, Humbleciya, and Yuwipi Ceremonies
• 20 Buffalo Vision
• 21 The Sun Dance: Wiwayang Wacipi
• 22 Renewal of the World Tree: Direct Experience of the Sacred as a Fundamental Source of Healing in Shamanism, Psychology, and Religion
• 23 Beyond Tourism: Travel with Shamanic Intent
• 24 Firework: A Hawaiian Guidebook to the Goddess
• Editors and Contributors
• Index