Comparative Religion Study Notes: Shamans and Sacred Power
Religious Specialists in Animism
Definition of Shaman in General Context: While the term is often used specifically, in the context of animism, it refers generally to an intermediary between the physical world and the spirit world. However, within animism, there are several distinct religious specialists with specific functions.
Diviners:
Functions: They use specific techniques to answer difficult questions, solve problems, and reveal future events.
Methods: Diviners often enter a trance-state. They utilize tools such as bones, tea leaves, sticks, or cards. These items are cast, and the resulting patterns are interpreted by the specialist.
Healers:
Associations: This role is frequently combined with that of a shaman or a magician.
Natural Methods: Some healers focus strictly on natural methods, utilizing knowledge of herbs, plants, bark, and other natural substances.
Spiritual Origin: Even when using natural substances, a healer's ability is often viewed as being bestowed upon them by the spirit world.
Magicians:
Objective: Magicians seek to control events and influence the physical world through specific formulas and rites.
Mechanical Nature: Unlike shamans, magicians do not interact with spirits. They produce effects through mechanical means—by saying powerful words correctly or performing specific physical actions.
Astrologers:
Classification: They may be understood as a type of diviner.
Predictive Means: Predictions are based specifically on the alignment of celestial objects, including stars, planets, the sun, and the moon.
Cosmic Theory: Astrology is based on the idea that all things in the cosmos are linked. The position of celestial bodies at one's birth determines their path in life, and their movement through the Zodiac influences specific areas of existence.
The Shaman: Powers, Rituals, and Vocations
Interaction with the Unseen: Shamans are defined as specialists who interact directly with spirits and the spirit world. Through specialized training and inherent gifts, they move beyond normal human capacity to engage with the Unseen.
Ritual Practices:
They often conduct seance-like rituals.
They enter the spirit world via trances induced by drumming and singing.
Spiritual Capabilities:
The shaman can speak with spirits and the deceased.
They obtain secret knowledge and discover the causes of curses.
They battle evil spirits and locate lost souls.
They are capable of transporting themselves across time and space.
Animal Connections:
Shamans are understood to be empowered by animal spirits.
They are heavily associated with shape-shifting from human to animal form.
Their ritual dances and masks are specifically designed to facilitate interaction with animal spirits.
Risks of the Vocation: Being a shaman is described as a dangerous and exhausting activity.
Activities include spiritual travel, possession, and battles with powerful spirit beings.
Potential hazards include illness, entrapment in the spirit world, and death.
Theory and Application of Magic
General Definition: In an animistic context, magic involves acting on the physical world through supernatural means. It is distinct from stage magic (e.g., David Copperfield or Penn and Teller) and more analogous to "Harry Potter" style magic.
Sympathetic Magic:
The Rule: "Like follows like."
Mechanism: Ritual actions imitate a desired result on a small scale to cause it to happen on a large scale.
Examples:
A shaman spraying water to induce rain.
Humans engaging in ritual copulation to encourage gods to do the same, thereby ensuring fertile crops.
Contagious Magic:
The Rule: Things that have once been in contact continue to have a connection and can affect each other.
Mechanism: Utilizing an item from a person gives the practitioner power over that individual.
Examples: Using a person's hair, fingernail clippings, or clothing to influence them.
Combined Magic: The "Voodoo" Doll:
Sympathetic Element: The doll is shaped like a person; sticking the doll's foot with a pin causes pain in the actual person's foot.
Contagious Element: The doll usually incorporates a physical piece of the target, such as hair or clothing.
Mana: The Concept of Sacred Power
Definition: Mana is the idea that people, places, or objects can be filled with a concentration of sacred or spiritual power.
Availability: In animism, spiritual power is always available, but it becomes concentrated in remarkable ways at certain times or locations.
Methods of Acquiring Mana:
Extreme Achievement: Extraordinary power can be built up through bravery in battle, ascetic punishments (like the sun dance), or prolonged fasting.
Transcending Death: These scenarios involve encountering death; the individual transcends ordinary human limitations and returns imbued with power.
Divine Interaction: Direct contact with the divine can impart mana.
Example: In the Hebrew Scriptures (Exodus 34:29-35), Moses spends time with God on a mountaintop. Upon his return, his face glows with a shining appearance that frightens others—a physical sign of the mana he acquired.
Sacred Geography and Topography
Landscape as Alive: Animists view the entire landscape as potentially alive and spiritual. Extraordinary geographical features indicate a concentration of power.
Sacred Mountains:
Denali (Mt. McKinley): Located in Alaska. In the Athabascan language, Denali means "the High One" or "the Great One," indicating religious awe.
The Black Hills: South Dakota.
Devil’s Tower: Wyoming.
Uluru (Ayer’s Rock): Australia.
Mt. Kilimanjaro: Tanzania, Africa.
Mt. Fuji: Japan.
Other Sacred Sites: Sites of particular power include specific lakes, rivers, springs, and forests.
Sites of Divine Acts: A location can become sacred due to an event that occurred there.
Bodh Gaya: In Buddhism, the place where the Buddha attained enlightenment. It is a major pilgrimage site where people meditate to connect with the existing power of the location.
Taboo: Protective Prohibitions
Definition: A strong social prohibition designed to limit interaction with people, places, or objects filled with mana.
Purpose: Taboos function as protective rules to shield people from dangerous outbreaks of spiritual power.
Scriptural and Historical Examples:
The Ark of the Covenant: In the Hebrew Scriptures (Numbers 4:15), a taboo forbade touching holy things. Touching the Ark resulted in death, as seen in the story of Uzzah (2 Samuel 6:1-7).
Menstruation: Some cultures have taboos requiring menstruating women to seclude themselves. This was originally intended to protect others from the woman's intense spiritual power, which was linked to fertility and the monthly cycle.
Folk Prohibitions: Prohibitions against visiting "haunted" places or cemeteries after dark are intended to prevent negative encounters with dark or evil spiritual powers.
Case Study: "Why Mole Lives Underground"
Origin: Based on a tale reported by James Mooney in the 1890s, featured in American Indian Myths and Legends (eds. Erdoes and Ortiz, 1984).
Narrative Summary:
A man is sick with discouragement because a woman he loves dislikes him.
Mole (a powerful shaman) offers to help.
Mole burrows underground at night to the sleeping woman and takes out her heart. This is a spiritual action performed in a trance; Mole steals her soul/essence, not her physical organ.
Mole gives the "heart" to the man and instructs him to swallow it.
Upon waking, the woman is compelled by a strange desire to be with the man and marries him.
Analysis of Magic and Animism in the Story:
Contagious Magic: The man swallowing the spiritual heart creates a magical connection drawn between the two individuals.
Indigenous Worldview: Animals are not "dumb brutes" but wise, powerful spiritual beings capable of manipulating the relationship between the physical and spirit worlds.
Human-Animal Conflict: Human magicians were jealous of Mole's superior power and threatened to kill him.
Naturalistic Myth Explanation: The story concludes with a humorous explanation for natural phenomena: the reason the mole live underground today is that he is still hiding from the jealous human shamans.