Can Shamanism really heal patients?

Shamanism, humankind's oldest spiritual and healing tradition, is dominated by men in many cultures, and Western skeptics often debunk its effectiveness. However, Barbara Tedlock, professor of anthropology at the University at Buffalo (N.Y.), challenges the historical hegemony of the male shamanic tradition, restores women to their essential place in the history of spirituality, and celebrates females' continuing role in the worldwide resurgence of shamanism in The Woman in a Shaman's Body.

A shaman is one who has been initiated into the ancient tradition of walking "between" this and other worlds while in a state of ecstatic trance known as "shamanic ecstasy" or "shamanic flight." In this state, the shaman acts as a bridge to work with communities or individuals. Skills attributed to shamans include various forms of divination; shape-changing; control over the elements; healing; soul retrieval or accompaniment; the ability to see, hear, or send messages over great distances; and obtaining the cooperation of animal and nature spirits.

Tedlock first learned from her Ojibwa-Cree grandmother about storytelling, massage, dream prophesy, and the fruits, flowers,, twigs, and roots used to make strange and mysterious healing concoctions. Her grandmother told her about native "shape shifters" who changed into deer, clouds, beavers, and willow trees and about witches called "bear-walkers" who traveled at night inside glowing balls of light that commonly are seen in shamanic rituals in many cultures. "... Our thoughts and emotions overlap and intermingle, and this mixing of head and heart connects us to future events hidden in the dark womb of time," Tedlock claims. Tedlock and her husband were initiated into a shamanic tradition by local Mayan healers when she was a doctoral student in cultural anthropology conducting research in the Guatemalan highlands. "Gradually," she recalls, "we learned to enter and control our dreams in a kind of alert sleeping, and to share, interpret, and complete those dreams together.

"We studied astronomy, hands-on healing, and herbalism. We learned to recognize different kinds of shrines and to pray correctly; gather flowers and incense; calculate the Mayan calendar which was crucial for divination; and embrace casual but meaningful coincidences of inner and outer events, thus transcending and improving our emotional and intuitive selves."

Moreover, the healers "taught us about the vital energy that suffuses the material universe; [they] trained us in bodily awareness and emotional attunement--how to recognize the lightening in the body and the 'speaking of blood,' manifestations of our connection with the cosmos. In this way, we would be able to increase our energy and use it to heal others and ourselves."

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