Divination and the Shamanic Story

Divination and the Shamanic Story
Author: Michael Berman
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2009-03-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1443806781

Stories have traditionally been classified as epics, myths, sagas, legends, folk tales, fairy tales, parables or fables. However, the definitions of the terms have a tendency to overlap, making it difficult to classify and categorize material. For this reason, a case can be made for the introduction of a new genre, termed the shamanic story - a story that has either been based on or inspired by a shamanic journey (a numinous experience in non-ordinary reality) or one that contains a number of the elements typical of such a journey. Other characteristics include the way in which the stories all tend to contain embedded texts (often the account of the shamanic journey itself), how the number of actors is clearly limited as one would expect in subjective accounts of what can be regarded as inner journeys, and how the stories tend to be used for healing purposes. Within this new genre, it is proposed that there exists a sub-genre – shamanic stories that deal specifically with divination, and examples are presented and analysed to support this hypothesis. By means of textual analysis it can be shown they all share certain attributes in common, the identification of which forms the conclusion of the work.

Cave and Cosmos

Cave and Cosmos
Author: Michael Harner
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2013-04-09
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1583945644

The pioneering author of The Way of the Shaman continues his exploration of universal shamanism in this “wonderful, fascinating” guide (Carlos Castaneda) In 1980, Michael Harner blazed the trail for the worldwide revival of shamanism with his seminal classic The Way of the Shaman. In this long-awaited sequel, he provides new evidence of the reality of heavens. Drawing from a lifetime of personal shamanic experiences and more than 2,500 reports of Westerners’ experiences during shamanic ascension, Harner highlights the striking similarities between their discoveries, indicating that the heavens and spirits they’ve encountered do indeed exist. He also provides instructions on his innovative core-shamanism techniques, so that readers too can ascend to heavenly realms, seek spirit teachers, and return later at will for additional healing and advice. Written by the leading authority on shamanism, Cave and Cosmos is a must-read not only for those interested in shamanism, but also for those interested in spirituality, comparative religion, near-death experiences, healing, consciousness, anthropology, and the nature of reality.

Spirit Circle

Spirit Circle
Author: Hal Zina Bennett
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1998
Genre: Indians of North America
ISBN: 9780965605632

A story of adventure and shamanic revelation, this fast-paced mystery, is based on ancient legends of the Southwest. Bestselling novelist Lynn V. Andrews ("Medicine Woman") called it "a marvelous story, with all the twists and turns deserving of the deeper spiritual mysteries it unfolds...as enchanting as it is deepening and enlightening." The Story: Tara Fairfield, an anthropologist at a western university, goes in search of her missing father. The journey takes her into remote, indigenous sites in New Mexico where mythology and contemporary reality collide. There she is initiated into a shamanic culture of healing and transformation, guided by an ancient prophecy that she must ultimately share with others. Like Tara, readers are brought closer to spiritual meaning and purpose where their own inner world connects them with ancient truths and brings them closer to the natural world. Award winning book illustrator Angela Werneke compares Spirit Circle to "a Tony Hillerman mystery shape-shifted to spiritual odyssey...with appeal for readers exploring Earth-based spiritual traditions." While a highly engaging novel, readers will also enjoy the author's epilogue and his discussion of the active role of shamanism in modern life, linking it to events described in the story. Includes easy to apply principles of the ancient "Medicine Wheel" traditions and ways to use this spiritual tool for self-consulting and deepening understanding of our relationships with each other in contemporary life.

Shamanic Journeys, Shamanic Stories

Shamanic Journeys, Shamanic Stories
Author: Michael P. Berman
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2011-03-16
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1846947847

Michael Berman shows how healing can be brought about through shamanic journeying, through shamanic stories, through shamanic poetry, and through shamanic counselling. ,

Omnicide

Omnicide
Author: Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 489
Release: 2019-06-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1913029689

A fragmentary catalogue of poetic derangements that reveals the ways in which mania communicates with an extreme will to annihilation What kind of circumstances provoke an obsessive focus on the most minute object or activity? And what causes such mania to blossom into the lethal conviction that everything must be annihilated? There is no turning away from the imperative to study this riddle in all its mystifying complexity and its disturbing contemporary resonance—to trace the obscure passage between a lone state of delirium and the will to world-erasure.. A fragmentary catalogue of the thousand-and-one varieties of manic disposition (augomania, dromomania, catoptromania, colossomania…), Omnicide enters the chaotic imaginations of the most significant poetic talents of the Middle East in order to instigate a new discourse on obsession, entrancement, excess, and delirium. Placing these voices into direct conversation, Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh excavates an elaborate network of subterranean ideas and interpretive chambers, byways, and burrows by which mania communicates with fatality. Like secret passages leading from one of the multitudinous details of a bustling Persian miniature to the blank burning immanence of the desert, each is a contorted yet effective channel connecting some attractive universe (of adoration, worship, or astonishment) to the instinct for all-engulfing oblivion (through hatred, envy, indifference, rage, or forgetting). A captivating fractal of conceptual prisms in half-storytelling, half-theoretical prose, a rhythmic, poetic, insidious work that commands submission, Omnicide absorbs the reader into unfamiliar and estranging landscapes whose every subtle euphoric aspect threatens to become an irresistible invitation to the end of all things.

Slavic Sorcery

Slavic Sorcery
Author: Kenneth Johnson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1998
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN:

Until recently, few scholars were even aware that a Slavic Magickal tradition still existed. Kenneth Johnson's book presents his true-life experiences in Russia with the living practitioners of this ancient magickal discipline. It also serves as a course in authentic shamanic practices. Readers can learn about the mythology and lore of the Slavic peoples, and there is material on festivals, cosmology, the gods, Otherworld spirits, and ancestor beliefs.

Shamanic Healing

Shamanic Healing
Author: Itzhak Beery
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2017-05-25
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1620553775

A story-based guide to the techniques of shamanic healing • Details indigenous medicine tools and soul healing techniques, including diagnosis and energy cleansing with plants, stones, fire, flower essences, and sound • Offers protection and self-defense techniques for confronting negative energies such as spirit attachment and possession • Shares healing stories that each address a specific condition, such as panic attacks, PTSD, depression, cancer, chronic pain, grief, and relationship problems Shamanic healing is making an astonishing comeback all over the modern technology-driven and consumerist world. Millions of people have felt called to integrate both ancient and modern healing systems into a new model of healthcare. But what makes shamanic healing so powerful? Why have indigenous healers kept it alive for thousands of years? Revealing his personal journey and stories from his more than 20 years as a shamanic healer, Itzhak Beery explains who a shaman is and how he or she works, demystifying and destigmatizing the shamanic healing worldview. He shares shamanic wisdom from two of his teachers: a Yachak from Ecuador and a well-known Brazilian Pagé. He details indigenous medicine tools and soul healing techniques that you can practice with your own clients or in your own personal healing, including diagnosis and energy cleansing with plants, stones, fire, rum, eggs, flower essences, and sound. He shares protection and self-defense techniques for confronting negative energies, such as spirit attachment and possession. Sharing healing stories that each address a specific condition, such as panic attacks, PTSD, depression, cancer, chronic pain, grief, and relationship problems, Beery explains how a shaman is not responsible for curing everyone and will consult with the patient’s soul to determine its needs, which sometimes includes learning from the illness experience. By sharing these healing methods, Beery reveals the importance of shamanic practices in resolving our 21st-century emotional and physical problems and their importance to the future of humanity and the planet.

The Shamanic Themes in Armenian Folktales

The Shamanic Themes in Armenian Folktales
Author: Michael Berman
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2008
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

â oeIn Marxist anthropological theory, shamanism represented one of the early forms of religion that later gave rise to more sophisticated beliefs in the course of human advancement â ] The premise of Marxism was that eventually, at the highest levels of civilization, the sacred and religion would eventually die outâ (Znamenski, 2007, p.322). Though history has of course since disproved this, the theory clearly had a great bearing on what was written in the former Soviet Union about shamanism, and also on peopleâ (TM)s attitudes in the former Soviet Republics towards such practices. On the other hand, it has been suggested that â oeall intellectuals driven by nationalist sentiments directly or indirectly are always preoccupied with searching for the most ancient roots of their budding nations in order to ground their compatriots in particular soil and to make them more indigenousâ (Znamenski, 2007, p.28). Although this might apply to searching for the roots of Christianity in Armenia, when it comes to searching for the roots of pagan practices, interest on the part of the people of Armenia is generally speaking not so forthcoming. This impasse, coupled with the effects of the repressions against religions, including shamanism, unleashed by the Soviet government between the 1930s and 1950s, along with the recent surge of interest in the Armenian Orthodox church, a backlash to the seventy years of officially sanctioned atheism, makes research into the subject no easy business. However, hopefully this study will at least in some small way help to set the process in motion.

The Book of Shamanic Healing

The Book of Shamanic Healing
Author: Kristin Madden
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2015-01-08
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0738723983

This groundbreaking book offers a complete "healer's toolkit" for shamanic practitioners. Along with an in-depth discussion of the theories, practices, and ethics of shamanic healing work, this guide gives you first-hand accounts of healing experiences from the author's practice, exercises to help you develop your skills and abilities, and ceremonies to use in your own practice. The Book of Shamanic Healing covers all aspects of shamanic healing in a practical manner, with instructions on how to: Create sacred space and healing ceremonies Partner with your drum to create healing Develop your shamanic and psychic abilities Free your voice and seek your power song Communicate quickly and easily with spirit guides Explore your shadow side Perform soul retrievals and extractions safely Use dreams, stones, crystals, and colors in healing work Connect to the healing universe and live in balance

Georgia Through Earth, Fire, Air and Water

Georgia Through Earth, Fire, Air and Water
Author: Michael Berman
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2012
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1780992718

Despite being located on the extreme eastern boundary of Europe, and having been frequently conquered by invading people from Asia, including Arabs, Turks, Persians, Mongols, and more recently Russians, Georgians still regard themselves very much as Europeans and it is to becoming a future member state of the EU that the majority of the people now aspire. As for the traditional folk-tales from the region, one of their main characteristics is that they are packed with action: Whilst a written, “literary” novel or short story might devote paragraphs to descriptions of people or places, these tales usually settle for an adjective or two; “a thick impassable forest”, “a handsome stately man”, or a formula such as“not-seen-beneath-the-sun beauty”. Many of the heroes and heroines do not even have names (Hunt, 1999, p.8) Safely cocooned, or so we like to kid ourselves, in our sanitised western urban environment, we tend to take the elements for granted. However, tales from a time when the Earth was new help to jolt us out of our daily lethargy, as do the stories in this collection – a number of which have never been translated from Georgian direct into English before.