寒月 Hanyue

I have no words... pictures will have to do. It was.. But I have to thank Ya Mu, Kempomaster, and Indyjim who made the weekend possible for me. Words are still woefully inadequate, but thank you from my heart. Best,

Welcome, good to see you on here. Hope you got home safe and sound. Best

Susan (shaktimamma) has always spoken kindly of and with great respect for Master Duan. She met him when she went on a trip to Beijing organised by the 'International Institute of Medical Qigong' which is now headed by Bernard Shannon. I believe it was part of the MQ course she was on. Several practitioners and teachers through this organisation study with Master Duan. It is intersting to note that he is a devout Catholic and his views on medical qigong often differ somewhat, even from those expressed by Jerry Alan Johnson, who founded the 'International Institute of Medical Qigong' before handing it over. Best,

Interesting stuff This is basically what Bruce's method is trying to get people to do. FEEL inside their bodies and release restrictions to the breathing process. He lays out a process that he developed with his teacher for doing so, but everyone is different and the stages he gives should not be put before the actual physiological process you are trying to engage with IMO. No, I am the same. As I said this is basically the premise Bruce stuff comes from. If you can move it you can feel it, if you can feel it you can move it. Go inside and find out what you can feel or move and what you can't, then go from there. Of course it was! You have to cater to the beginner when putting out such things. For those that do not have the cd, the tracks have a count to help beginners with timing their inhales and exhales, as you move through the cd the lengths of the breaths get longer and longer. I have never paid these any attention personally and have always simply breathed at my own pace. I don't these things as a straight through follow along, I never find I go at the same pace as the person! The same in a group with a teacher. With the cd I go through it pausing when I have to or repeating until I have the information down, or I use them as a reminder guide for what I've learned in person. Once you have the stages and the info, you don't need to the cd, why use a crutch if you can walk anyway haha. I find them annoying too, I wish there was an option for removing the chimes/count. I appreciate why they are on there, but I ignore them as I said above. Tuning them out and into the information alone can be its own training I don't however think they are annoying enough to be problematic if they are not helpful for you. It is the stages and information that is most helpful. Yes, I re-ordered some of the quotes here It sounds like your approach is VERY similar in nature to Bruce's even if the stages are in a different order so to speak. I wouldn't consider it off-topic, but that is upto the OP. I've seen you write of this before, can you explain further I am intersted in what you mean by "initiating the breath from the overlap of the psoas and diaphragm" in particular. Are you referring to the crura? This area in the the front of the spine is not easy for people to feel, though I certainly agree with what you are saying (if I understand correctly). In Bruce's system this is engaged with in the 'kidney' breathing, so that would be after feeling and getting the front and sides of the belly. I think this is to help people learn how to feel into the deeper and harder area that you are talking about. I'm not saying you can't teach people to go straight there, just pointing out why I think Bruce has other stages first, not that it is better. I hadn't fully engaged with exactly where the process initiates from, only what was working/involved and what was not. So thank you for pointing that out, I can feel the downward movement initiating down the front of the lumbar spine like a drawstring with the movement of the diaphragm. Do you 'open' the lumbar spine to 'fill the mingmen' when you breathe? PM me if you think it is too much thread drift. Interesting, thanks for sharing this. I will has to revist my awareness/conscious breathing and play with this in mind. Best,

If you want what you say in the first sentence, then you are looking in the wrong place if you chase what you list in the second sentence. Martial arts are martial arts, and while they can be practiced in a way for 'self-healing' (certainly taiji), it is not the same as studying medical qigong or Chinese medicine. If you want to practice qigong, practice qigong! If you mean qigong teacher, then you'll need to find a good teacher and put in the work. If you really want to be a qigong healer listen to Ya Mu, and you should ask yourself why? Where does that thought/idea truly come from? Then find a TRULY competant teacher and put in lots more work. I'd also read; http://qigongamerica.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/path-of-healer.html But the path of the healer is different. It requires quite a bit of sacrifice, in terms of time & effort, and in terms of experiencing and enjoying other aspects of life... So, in the end, I do not recommend the path of the Healer to anyone unless they KNOW, in the true-heart, that they are supposed to be doing Healing. Certainly any other reason, such as desires to make money, are not reasons which support the sacrifice required to be a healer. Must easier to do something else in life. But, if one does feel this heart connection, there is almost nothing that gives true joy as much as seeing someone's face light up when their pain instantly disappears. Hope this helps,

Again thank you to all those contributing. I have often found when digging further, that while the object of foundational practice does not change, there are in fact methods usually taught or established BEFORE the more 'formal' methods. These are often not talked about or even mentioned. So how do you establish your foundation? Again, I am asking in a no correct or incorrect answer, manner. So I ask that those contributing do not attack others who contribute their thoughts. I'd rather simply see you contribute your own thoughts on how you establish your own idea of foundation and simply leave it at that, a thread of various concepts related to what 'foundation' is, and how it can be 'sought' or 'developed'. All the best,

Afraid not. Best,

"Longevity Breathing" has many aspects, Bruce teaches these at different times for different reasons. There are two aspects to consider, one is the physiological breathing process, the other is the movement (breathing) of qi in and out of the body. Bruce, as with all his neigong, generally uses the body as the entry point into the practice. This is the 'whole-body' breathing that is most often written about and is the subject of the Dvd. The Cd set has more aspects of the 'subtle-breath' as well as stages of the physical breath. And actually starts with establishing the zhong mai before working on the physcial movement of the body from that central location. Here are the stages; Disc 1: Introduction 1: Feeling Your Breath 2: Learning to Avoid Holding Your Breath 3: Becoming Aware of Distraction 4: Breathing Along the Central Channel of Your Body 5: Breathing Down the Central Channel to Your Lower Tantieni 6: Stabilizing the Breath and Energy of Your Lower Tantien 7: Letting Your Breathing Drop From Your Chest to Your Belly 8: Breathing From the Sides of Your Body 9: Simultaneously Breathing From the Front and Sides 10: Lower Back and Kidney Breathing 11: Upper Back Breathing 12: Breathing Energy Into Your Lower Tantien Epilogue Disc 2: Introduction 1: Relaxing Your Breath 2: Feeling Your Breath 3: Counting Your Breaths 4: Feeling All Sensations When You Inhale and Exhale 5: Developing Continuous Awareness of Your Breath 6: Becoming Aware of the Fog of the Mind 7: The Importance of Releasing the Chest 8: Breathing Underneath the Ribs and Awareness of Emotions 9: Becoming Further Aware of Your Emotions 10: Fear and the Kidneys 11: The Upper Body and the Spine 12: Activating all Energies in the Physical and Etheric Body Epilogue http://www.energyarts.com/store/products/breathing/taoist-breathing-qigong-meditation-cd As I said before, there is a lot of free information available on Bruces Breathing system. You just have to look. It is an intricate and complete system, but certainly not the ONLY system out there. So if you like it I recommend diving into it, if you like something else dive into that. Hope this helps, Best,

No its not. The movement of the diaphragm is important, and as it frees up the upward and downward movement throughout the abdomen will increase. It is a mistake to excessively move the belly to move the diaphragm. I have, and continue to meet people who were taught to overly distend the abdomen. Some end up doing this with no greater movement of the diaphragm. It is the undulation of the diaphragm that should initiate the movement of the abdomen in all dimensions. The more space inside the less movement outside. The 'natural' breathing of the whole-body is preferred for it being a 24/7 method. It is the baseline for everything else. Some teach the 'bellows' breath which still wants the abdomen to expand and contract like above, but generally with more vigor, like a bellows. This is usally associated with 'fire' and 'heat' and certain qigong/neigong practices or kundalini. It certainly gets the blood and qi pumping and moving through the body! The non-movement of the dantian, with only the up and down pressure from the diaphragms was taught to me for healing work. The dantian is full and remains so, rather than filling and emptying as with the "bellows" breathing. This has a sense of calm and stillness that enables listening to both your qi and that of the client/patient more easily. That said I am not saying it is ONLY done within healing work, but that it is (within certain medical lines) seen as more efficient and preferable in that context. It is horses for courses. They have different effects and are done for different reasons. Knowing the what, why as well as the how is important IMO. Best,

I am not sure if this is the same, as I am unsure what you are referencing the term from. You weren't Best,

He's a generous and warm soul. I had the "pleasure" of meeting him and some of his senior students several years ago. I say pleasure cos the healing aint fun! But is very effective. It isn't for everyone. Here he is doing some healing work on Santi; Alex Kozma also knows him and I believe he wrote about him (not sure how much) in one of latest books, 'Warriors Guard the Mountain'. Best,

You are most welcome, Haha. No typing, but taking the text from the pdf (I couldn't find the word doc version I have somewhere) the formatting and paragraphs got all screwed up So I had to play with it to make it legible before posting. Best,

It's an admonition to remember that even if you sit for say 4 hours in 'stillness' there are still 20 hours of the day when you are not. Practice should be/become a 24/7 thing, if you are only still/clear/tranquil when sat on a zafu etc... It is incorrect to read the quote as an admonition against sitting practices IMO The 'narrow mind' is the one that has narrowed the understanding of still/clear/tranquil to the duration of sitting in the belief it will magically blossom into all aspects of life. A basketball spinning on your finger is already spinning, but needs a 'boost' everynow and then to keep it going. Constancy 常 (chang) is often viewed as important within Daoism. My 2 cents,

Thanks for the responses so far. Best,

Bruce has a LOT of free stuff on his site these days, much of it is taken directly from his older books. I'd check the info on his site then sign up and get the free guide http://www.energyarts.com/taoist-longevity-breathing http://www.energyarts.com/advanced-breathing-techniques http://www.energyarts.com/free-breathing-guide Best

I also highly recommend this film; http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Runner-Atanarjuat-Natar-Ungalaaq/dp/B00007L4ON It is an Inuit film, made by Inuit's starring Inuit's based on one of the their old legends. And quite accurately portrays (certainly in comparison to Hollywood) their "shamansim" and aspects of "witchcraft" etc. I have no idea what extras appear on which regional dvds. All I know is that unfortunately the Region 2 edition does not have the original documentary with the French anthropologist who was a consultant. Which was partly why the film had been recommended to me. The French edition does not have english subtitles on the extras either It is not everyone's cup of tea however Best,

My apologies, I thought J, Bearwalker's 'So you wanna be a shaman?' was only 3 parts, and his other writings I remembered were separate articles I'd also saved. When re-formatting the above to post it I found that there are in fact 13 parts! Part Five: Is Your Calling Real? Part Six: Types of Trance Part Seven: Patterns of Shamanism Part Eight: Something About Symbols Part Nine: Something About Tools Part Ten: Spirits Part Eleven: Spirit/Power Animals Part Twelve: What and Why of Costume Part Thirteen: Getting Started So you wanna be a Shaman.pdf So I've attached the original pdf I'd archived elsewhere. Save me formatting and posting each part. While J.Bearwalker has died, his work and community does continue and so please be respectful. I hope others find benefit from his writing, these writings were once freely available. http://www.toteg.org/ Best

Part Three: The Call To Become A Shaman The "call" to become a Shaman is very unlike the "call" that many practitioners of Pagan religions have felt, the call to leave their old religion and go searching elsewhere. Almost universally, that particular call makes the seeker feel as if, when they finally encounter the chosen "right" path for them, they have "come home" on some deep level. The "call" to be a Shaman feels a lot more like getting kicked off a tall building than it does like arriving safely home. I actually refer to the call to become a shaman as a "curse", because, unlike the very strong call many of us have to come "home" to our particular religion or philosophy, or the very strong call that many of us have to become initiated "priestesses and priests", the initial stages of the call to become a shaman are truly life threatening, and refusal to accept that call can result in very real death. The initial stages of the call to shamanic work can seem as if the Gods have truly abandoned one. It is the real-life equivalent of the "ordeal" that is a feature in Initiations to many traditional paths of Witchcraft or other forms of the Old Religion. It is usually accompanied by a traumatic, life-threatening, life-changing experience, one that at first makes the recipient despair of survival, if they are even conscious during the ordeal. If conscious, it is usually a feature of the experience that the potential shaman survives largely through his or her own efforts, against all odds and to the astonishment of those standing around the bedside or other crisis venue. If the shaman appears to lose consciousness or even appears to die, what usually is said to happen is that survival is achieved by the direct intervention of the spirits. This experience may consist of one or more of the following possibilities. Being struck by lightning and surviving Surviving a "fatal" traffic accident Suffering a severe physical illness and recovering. Suffering severe emotional or mental illness and recovering Recovering from an "irreversible" coma Suffering from severe drug addiction or alcoholism and recovering Surviving serious suicide attempts without outside intervention Having a near death experience such as those on an operating table Surviving an attempt at being murdered And so forth. There are probably many more than these. Whatever happens, it is always an extremely close and unmistakable brush with death. Whatever the unique circumstances, the survivor of such an experience is changed forever by the first "walk between the worlds." He or she is thenceforth subject to interaction with other realms of existence whether that interaction is actively sought after, or actively avoided. The door is opened, and can subsequently never be closed. Having such a near-death experience is not an indicator by itself. Either preceding or following this event (but often preceding it even from childhood) there are further signs that are usually unmistakable indicators of the call to shamanism. These signs often include such things as being subject to falling into trances, either light and day-dreamy, or deep and profound, and in those trances communicating with their own ancestor spirits, and other spirits, who may torment them until they follow the call having dreams or visions in which their own ancestors or other spirits tell them they are chosen to be a shaman having lucid dreams or visions in which spirits kill them, remove their flesh, internal organs, and so forth, sometimes devour them, and then replace those things with divine or magical flesh, innards, and so forth and bring them back to life having dreams or visions in which they are visited by a "spirit husband or wife" who has intimate relations with them, teaches them, gives them helping spirits of certain kinds, and so forth. Often this "spirit husband or wife" will threaten to kill the potential shaman unless he or her accepts both them and the call to shamanize. "waking dreams" in which the person loses consciousness for moments, as in petit mal epilepsy, and when returning to consciousness speaks in other languages unknown to the person. In these instances, the shaman-to-be may appear to be babbling gibberish, but is not talking nonsense but actually saying things that make sense if the language is translated. However the call manifests itself, the experiences seem to escalate over time until the person may appear to him or her self, as well as to others, to be actually losing their mind if the call is ignored. Only if a direct acceptance of the "kick" to become a shaman is conveyed to the spirits will the manifestations be likely to cease or come under the shaman's control. If, on the other hand, the person so afflicted continues to resist the push, the worst can and does ensue in time. A person usually cannot refuse the call to the shaman's vocation without becoming seriously physically or mentally ill, or even dying. So, what happens if a person is "called" and chooses to respond affirmatively? How, then, does the process of actually BECOMING a shaman take place? Let's talk about the spiritual initiation of the shaman, and how it differs from other such initiatory experiences.

I always Liked Joseph's Heart. I liked his cultural sensitivity and his approach of shamanism being rooted from oneself, YOUR relationship to community, YOUR relationship to nature, YOUR relationship to spirit etc, and not about ideas or concepts appropriated from another culture. I liked his honesty, and his willingness to put people straight. One of the aspects I studied in anthropology was just how different indigenous belief and practice is when compared to how people writing and holding workshops in the West show 'shamanism'. But then the same can be said of Daoism and "neigong" so Part Two: What Is A Shaman? I was beginning this section by discussing the "call" to become a shaman. But I realized as I was doing so that it is vital to identify the MEANING of the word shaman first. It is the misapplication and misidentification of the word "shaman" that has led to much of the current state of confusion. This section of these writings hopes to alleviate some of that confusion. I do want to clarify one thing before we go on. Toteg Tribe uses the words "shaman" and "shamanism" in a classical sense. This is not the "Toteg definition," as it would be if we arbitrarily chose it to be. It is instead, and significantly, the definition accepted by historical and anthropological scientists and academics to identify a particular type of spiritual practitioner found in different cultures all over the world. It has a precise meaning, not one couched in the current collection of vague generalities. There are certain specific characteristics that identify a shaman that other spiritual practitioners do not have. I'll get into those later. This doesn't make a shaman any better or any worse than any of the other spiritual practitioners that exist. It merely classifies him or her. In any indigenous culture, even in modern American culture, there are many different kinds of spiritual vocations. All of them have their own validity and their own honor. Not one of these vocations can be fully understood by persons who neither practice it themselves nor avail themselves of the services of those who do. Even though there are frauds in each one of them, each of the vocations itself is deserving of respect. Each of the practitioners of any of these various areas of spiritual work is just as important in his or her field as is any other practitioner, including the shaman. The various classifications of spiritual workers are many and varied. They include people called to practice such vocations as those of the priest, minister, psychic healer, midwife or doctor, medicine man, diviner, spiritual teacher, visionary, dream interpreter, "psychic", sorcerer, magician, and many another magic worker. You may practice any, or many, of these vocations yourself, and the list above is certainly intended to be neither complete nor exclusionary. But no matter what your particular vocation of spirit may be, and no matter what term you may choose to use to identify yourself, please bear with me and don't use the word "shaman" just yet. Since the mid to late 90s when the word "shaman" became the new catch-all term for spiritual worker, most frequently in the current fad of all things "newage" (rhymes with "sewage") it seems to have no particular definition of its own, or to share indiscriminately in all of them. I've seen it applied in all seriousness, at random if not completely haphazardly, to each one of the practices mentioned in the above paragraph, as well as to countless others not so mentioned. That's really sad, because the result is that the uninformed public has taken a perfectly good word with a precise meaning and broadened its definition so much that in common usage it has become about as useful a term as "nice" or "stuff."' Of course, there is now a raft of publishers of the same kinds of "newage" books, who have recently found in the word "shaman" as "kewl" a buzzword as once was "astral travel" or "past-life regression." In the expected fashion of people in the business of sales, they have discovered that by attaching that word to an otherwise slow-selling book, one finds that its sales suddenly explode, especially if one can also find an unscrupulous author-lecturer who is willing to do the lecture circuit in a thousand dollars worth of beads and animal parts, sharing "awe-thentic shamanic visions". That most certainly has added to the confusion, but that is not the worst of it. It has caused the actual persons who are indeed shamans and have that spiritual skill to offer, to be regarded in nearly all Western cultures with a mix of contempt and condescension, as inaccurate as it is disrespectful. That is significantly unfortunate, as the work of the shaman is a task requiring such dedication and skill that in those cultures where shamanism is an accepted spiritual vocation, the shaman is regarded with an awe and respect bordering on fear. It is not surprising, when one realizes exactly what authentic shamanistic work embraces and requires. A shaman's job is to perform magical acts such as spiritual healing, divination, dream interpretation, and other arcana. The shaman may be skilled at finding lost people or objects, locating animals for the hunt, guiding souls of the dead to their appropriate place in the other worlds, driving away or pacifying evil spirits, increasing the fertility and/or sexual vigor in the herds, community, and individuals, and so forth. At first glance, even these kinds of activities may not convey to Western minds the delicacy and precision with which the shaman’s path must be performed, or the deep respect with which the shamanic practitioner is regarded, After all, many of these are the same things that various other kinds of spiritual people do in the different societies and cultures. There is, however, a big difference in the skills of the shaman, one that makes a shaman different from every other kind of spiritual practitioner. A true "shaman" does at least part of the work required of him or her by entering into a profound trance, known as an "ecstasy", in which the shaman actually ventures to "walk between the worlds", there gaining the knowledge or information that is required to perform the given task. The word "ecstasy" as used in this context is a precise and scientific term, not the synonym for the word used in romance novels, the one that means "joy or happiness" in any sense at all. The word "ecstasy" as applied to shamanic practices is identically defined as was the original Greek word "ekstasis" literally meaning "to stand outside the self." It denotes that state of almost cataleptic entrancement in which the shaman is oblivious to the outside world, leaving his or her body as a spirit, and having direct contact with the spirits that are causing the troubles, or that can aid in solving the problem. This state of ecstasy (not getting stoned on various "power plants") is the one characteristic unique and universal to authentic shamanism. Attaining this state is not done by those who are performing "pseudoism" rather than "shamanism", and without it, there is no shamanism happening at all. It is the single prominent identifying factor of the classical shaman. Now, if that is the experience you have in doing your spiritual work, you may have some justification to go ahead and use the word shaman (after finishing this essay.) If this is not a state with which you are personally familiar, I suggest you; 1) read on, and 2) call yourself something else.

Nothing is ever quite as it appears. Dive deep into any well and keep digging and it often reveals that nothing is as sure or concrete as you might initially think. This is true of every tradition. It is similar to unpacking what you think you know about anything. Nearly every tradition has undergone quite a shift over the last 100 years. It is what happens to allow survival. The emphasis at any given time in history is intricately bound to the socio-political environment of the time. It will always be this way. You have an audience and you have to cater for that. Even Buddhism and Daoism within monasteries is not always what people beleive it to be. And I'm not even talking of the 'super-secret-special-magic' training behind the big red doors (the doors are always red by the way, otherwise their shit is fake ) Nothing is without danger. There are articles and expose's on all kinds of martial arts (even the supposedly 'internal' and cough "health" orientated ones), most forms of yoga, meditation etc and the dangers as someone who suffered lays out their experience. Be the result physcial damage and health issues or mental-emotional ones. This has been getting written about for years, it is nothing new, and isn't going away anytime soon either. Foundation is fundamental, this is true. Yet in my experience, while most teachers will mention this, the reality is that few really know what the 'foundation' they speak of actually is. And rightly so, for in many ways, is it not different for each individual and who they are, their state of Being when they encounter the method? It is not always WHAT you practice, but HOW that matters. And how much are students really hearing what is being said? rather than just listening to the teacher? This is why fewer numbers and closer contact usually, but not always, fosters a better transmission. The teacher can be more aware of what has been heard. Once you've heard it, can you learn it, absorb it? Which is another matter entirely and something I know I struggle with. Pah! bollocks, you don't need to the teacher just give me the practice now on the forum and I'll by John Chang in a year! Just my thoughts. Best,

Harmonious Emptiness, I'm posting this here so it as a resource is together with the books and website links posted by everyone contributing. If however as the OP you feel it is better served elsewhere, just let me know and I'll move it. Joseph Bearwalker passed away 4th August 2004. This is an article I got from one of his websites years ago and can no longer find up on the web. While I do not agree with everything he lays out, I respect the depth of his wisdom and experience, and always liked the heart in his writings and what he had to say. I'm posting it as I cannot simply post a link to it. I hope others will also benefit from reading it. There is also; Part Two: What Is A Shaman? Part Three: The Call To Become A Shaman And more... If anyone is interested. Best, “So you wanna be a Shaman?” By Joseph Bearwalker Wilson Part One: Shamanism in Today's Society Since the dawn of man's existence on the planet, there have been cultures all over the world which have the worldview that all life is sacred, that the earth and sky and water and components of nature are worthy of honor and respect and are guides to Spirit. Such cultures have also been referred to as "primitive" or "native" by urban dwellers. Today, many people in so-called civilized cultures are being drawn themselves to such "primitive" worldviews, ones that are more in tune than the modern world usually is with nature and the cycles of nature, ones that reaffirm the sacredness of the Land and the Planet. Such worldviews often honor the Earth Mother and the Sky Father, recognize the life and energy and spirit of all things, and may even become religious paths for city-dwellers whose culture has not heretofore recognized their connection to the land. Much of this trend began along with the beginnings of the Pagan/Wiccan movement, of which I was one of the first resources, in the early 1960's. Since then the popularity of what are often referred to as "earth-based" religions and philosophies among city folks has exploded onto a force that has actually changed the face of the world of religion on the planet. Over the last 30 or more years of my experience in teaching and observing a nature-oriented spirituality for urban dwellers, I have noticed a linguistic phenomenon that universally seems to accompany this quest for spiritual meaning. I have watched people try, then discard, then change, and subsequently again discard, title after name after appellation to describe their new-found walk of spirit. In the early days many such folk proudly wore the sobriquet "Witch" like a banner, reclaiming with force, and sometimes aggressiveness, a word that had been demeaned for centuries by most other "civilized" people. Over the last ten or fifteen years, however, the words "Witch" and "Pagan" have been discarded by many sincere followers of earth-based religions, for several reasons. Many mainstream people still have negative knee-jerk reactions to those words, failing to see past them to the real beliefs or practices so described, so some practitioners have decided that the game is more important than the name. Oftentimes, however, the alternate term adopted when such folks discard the label of "Witch" or "Pagan" is even more misleading and causes them even more difficulty. As a substitute, particularly during the 1980's, the word "Wiccan" was adopted by a wide cross-section of earth-based practitioners. Unfortunately, at this point there were further negative reactions that arose, not only from puzzled 'muggles' (thanks to JK Rowling for a great term!) but from practitioners of most traditional varieties of Wicca. "Wiccan" is not, according to its founders and followers, a generic term for earth-based spiritual practices. Indeed, it is a Mystery Tradition, and those who belong thereto are as angered by its misappropriation by the uninitiated as are Native Elders when white people purport to teach authentic tribal religions. The end result of ten or so years of uninformed and untrained people calling themselves "Wiccan," as a perceived-to-be-safer alternative to "Witch" or "Pagan," is that the world outside the Craft has a much less accurate and much weaker perception of what earth-based spirituality is, and no concept at all of what Wicca actually is. So, another discard, another change. To what? In the 1990's there was a great resurgence of interest in the so-called "holistic" practices of mind-body-spirit interaction in the areas of healing and spirituality, as well as interest in exploration of the inner realms of the psyche by means of meditation, "trance journeying" and other such practices. Due to the widespread misunderstanding (and lack of actual application) of the works of Michael Harner and other writers on techniques and experiences of "core shamanism", this word became, in the mid-1990's, the next new "catch-all" generic term for earth-based spirit practices. Some few of those misapplying this term have actually read, but have misunderstood, the works of Harner, Sun Bear, Eliade and others. The vast majority of such people have never read the works at all, or have merely read critiques or synopses thereof, but are latching on to this next "new-agey" term as the latest in the basket of "things I can call myself that will not absolutely horrify my parents." A good proportion of those people, especially the younger ones, who are currently calling any earth-based religion "shamanism" and every earth-based practitioner a "shaman" are also activated by the childish "Gee, this sounds cool!" attitude. Since very few residents of Caucasian urban cultures have even a vague idea of what a shaman actually is, this term is far less threatening than "Witch" or "Pagan," and has therefore grown exponentially, in both popularity and misapplication, in the last ten years. The very concept of a "religion" that is only practiced in special buildings at certain infrequent intervals, especially the idea of a "religion" that has little or nothing to do with the necessary activities of everyday life, is absolutely alien to the kinds of cultures in which one finds authentic shamans. Most cultures in which shamanism is practiced by a specialist do not even have a "name" for their religion. These cultures live in ways which do not artificially separate them from dependence upon the Earth. They do not see the afterlife as a "better place" than the place they live here, but as an extension of it. People living in these cultures see the shaman as a technical specialist in the kinds of activities they must perform in order to interact with Deity for the purpose of securing and keeping for themselves the basic necessities of existence. They do not "go to church" or perform unnecessary and formalistic activities created by a "church." They simply follow the customs of their village, the customs taught to them by their parents, customs followed for decades or even centuries by their aunts and uncles, their grandmothers and grandfathers. There are activities in such cultures which everyday people without special training are simply incapable of doing for themselves, and for these they consult the shaman, the authorized "technician of the sacred." Yet these activities often have little or nothing to do with anything Westerners would recognize or identify as "religion." Despite the fact that there now seems to be a trend to label the common religion of the people in indigenous cultures "shamanism," this is a fallacy that could only be created and believed by people outside such a culture. It ignores the fact that every person in that culture is not a "technician of the sacred" and therefore relegates the role and definition of the shaman to one similar to that of a nondenominational urban lay minister. A similar fallacy is the tendency of Westerners today to project some kind of "aura" around a shaman, assuming that he or she is some embodiment of peace and serenity, living totally in harmony with Spirit, doing good for everyone, (of course, for free), and naturally being a wonderful magical healer. . Nothing could be further from the truth. The promulgation of such beliefs amongst Western cultures, as well as the cultural anthropologists' tendency to assert them as facts, is making many Westerners the laughing stock of real shamanic practitioners throughout the world. In the preface to Shaman : An Illustrated Guide by anthropologist Piers Vitebsky is a quote that I find highly amusing, as well as highly reflective of authentic shamanistic reality. "A shaman from Nepal met a Westerner who remarked how good it must be to live in harmony with the cosmos. The shaman replied, 'The main part of my job is killing witches and sorcerers.'" It is clear from this description, given by an actual shamanic practitioner, that shamanism has little or nothing to do with the aery-faery, "do no harm" New-Ageism of many of the people who are now claiming that title for themselves or bestowing it upon others. So, what exactly is shamanism, and how is it defined and practiced by its actual adherents? Perhaps it would be a good beginning to elucidate what shamanism is NOT. To begin with, one common misconception must be eradicated. There is NO religion called "shamanism", any more than there is a religion called Lawyerism, or Physicianism, or Farmerism. No other vocation is in itself a religion, (with the possible, albeit humorously intended, exceptions of Science -ism and ComputerGeek -ism.) And shamanism is indeed a vocation. The title "shaman" is applied to a "technician of the sacred, " a specialist in shamanic practices who does that job in their own culture for the benefit of those who live within it. Although many of the practices of the shaman intersect with the ideas commonly associated with religion in the Western mind, including such topics as communion with the dead, salvation from various "supernatural" types of "evil" and healings that might be termed "miraculous", shamanism is a Profession, not a Religion. If you feel you are called to a shaman's work, the path will be exceedingly difficult if you are a member of an urban Western culture. Modern Westernized urban society is not set up in such a way that we still have cultures or subcultures in which shamanism is recognized and practiced. To begin with, the shaman works in a homogeneous culture. Western urban culture has become diversified to an extent that most people do not even understand the concept of cultural icons, let alone honor these in their everyday lives. If you are an aspiring shaman, you may find it difficult to discover a culture or subculture in which your skills may flourish or even be recognized. The shaman's work arises organically from his or her culture, and American modern culture is, of all things, innately inorganic. Therefore, we must clarify one point at the outset. What we in Toteg Tribe are doing is NOT training shamans. It appears that what we, along with Michael Harner, Sandra Ingerman, and several others (including portions of the general Neo-Pagan movement, I suppose), ARE doing, is preparing society so that in future generations it really can accept certain individuals in the role of a true "shaman." (Post edited for formatting)