A shamanic healer is a specific type of spiritual practitioner who serves as a direct intermediary between the physical, everyday world and the unseen spirit worlds. This individual’s primary function is to enter an altered state of consciousness to interact with spirit allies, diagnose the spiritual cause of illness, and perform healing work on behalf of a client or community.
Definition of a Shaman
The shamanic healer, often just called a shaman, is fundamentally a “walker between worlds.” This person has a foot in both ordinary reality (the world we see and interact with daily) and non-ordinary reality (the collective spirit worlds). Their entire practice is based on the ability to consciously move between these two realms at will. They are not a priest, who follows a set religious dogma, but a direct technician of the sacred, gaining information and facilitating healing through first-hand experience in the spirit realms.
Shamanic Calling and the Wounded Healer
In most traditional, indigenous cultures, one does not choose to become a shaman; one is called. This calling often manifests as a difficult, life-altering event, frequently an illness or a profound psychological crisis.
This is the archetype of the wounded healer. The prospective shaman is “wounded” by life or by the spirits themselves, forced to undergo a dismemberment of their old self, and must learn to navigate the spirit worlds to find their own healing. Through the process of saving themselves, they gain the intimate knowledge, resilience, and spirit partnerships necessary to heal others. This initiation is a profound, personal, and often arduous transformation.
Skills of a Shaman
The shaman’s abilities are not learned from a book, though techniques can be refined. Their skills are deeply experiential.
The Shamanic Journey (Altered States)
The shaman’s primary skill is the shamanic journey. This is a specific, disciplined method of entering an altered state of consciousness (a trance) to travel in the spirit world. This state is most commonly induced by a monotonous sonic driver, such as the steady beat of a shamanic drum or a rattle. The shaman “rides” this sound as a “shaman’s horse” into non-ordinary reality.
Partnership with Spirit Allies
A shaman never works alone and does not heal with their own personal power. The shaman’s power is derived entirely from their established, working partnerships with helping spirits. These are compassionate, sentient allies who do the actual healing through the shaman.
- Power Animals: These are guardian spirits from the Lower World (a realm of nature and instinct) that provide the shaman with protection and personal power.
- Spirit Guides: These are guides from the Upper World (a celestial realm of higher wisdom) who often appear in humanoid form to teach the shaman specific healing techniques.
Shaman’s Role in the Healing Process
A shaman operates on the principle that the physical, mental, and emotional ailments have a spiritual root. The shaman’s job is to journey to their spirit allies, diagnose that root cause, and then perform the healing intervention.
Common diagnoses include:
- Soul Loss: A state where a part of a person’s vital essence has fragmented and fled due to trauma. The shaman performs a soul retrieval to bring this part back.
- Spiritual Intrusions: Pockets of misplaced energy that do not belong in a person’s body. The shaman performs an extraction to remove them.
- Loss of Power: A disconnection from one’s guardian spirits, which the shaman rectifies by retrieving a lost power animal.
Shamanic Healers vs. Other Spiritual Roles
The role of the shaman is distinct from other spiritual practitioners.
Shamanic Healer vs. Priest
A priest is a representative of an organized religion and follows an established dogma. They are part of a hierarchy and mediate between the people and a deity. A shaman is a direct mystic; their authority comes from their personal, first-hand experiences in the spirit world, not from a book or institution.
Shamanic Healer vs. Medium
A medium often acts as a passive vessel or channel for spirits, particularly the spirits of the dead, to communicate through them. A shaman is an active traveler. They are in full control of their faculties, initiating the journey and commanding the spirits they work with, rather than being passively used by them.
Shamanic Healer vs. Energy Healer
This distinction is important. An energy healer (such as myself) typically acts as a conduit for universal, non-sentient life force energy. A shamanic healer works in partnership with specific, sentient spirit allies who are called upon to perform the intervention.
Neoshaman: A Modern Shamanic Practitioner
It is necessary to distinguish between a traditional shaman and a modern shamanic practitioner (neoshaman). A traditional shaman is an individual deeply embedded within an indigenous culture, serving that specific community.
A neoshaman is a modern person who has learned the techniques of core shamanism—the universal principles of the practice, separate from any one culture. For instance, as an adept who practices Chaos Magick and other forms of energy work, esotericism, as well as meditation, I have found these techniques (e.g. shamanic extraction or working with power animals) to be universally effective principles of healing. These skills can be learned and integrated by any dedicated adept, demonstrating the practical, results-based nature of the shaman’s work—however, the sole act of using some shamanic healing techniques does NOT make me or anyone else a true shaman.
