The mission of the International School of Shamanism is to create a healing planet by teaching individuals how to heal themselves using unconditional love and acceptance, one person at a time. A person can practice shamanism regardless of their religion, background, and belief system because it is not a religion. The International School of Shamanism teaches unconditional love and acceptance as a means of healing the mind, body, and spirit.
The International School of Shamanism is dedicated to this fundamental, profound shift in which at the core of the experience is a sense of ease and an inner expanse of boundless presence that shamanic school is both benevolent and wise. You are able to unconditionally love and accept yourself and others here, so you can respond to the needs of the whole from your higher self, from the depths of your silent wisdom, as the unique expression of truth that you are. When you trust the divine presence inside of you that is your centre and source, you can also see it in others.
What is Shamanism:
Shamanistic religions are based on the idea of interacting with spirits worlds by shifting into altered states of consciousness. The goal is usually to direct these spirits or spiritual energies into the physical realm for healing, divination, or other purposes.
The beliefs and practices categorized as “shamanic” have attracted the interest of scholars in a variety of fields, including anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, religious studies scholars, philosophers, and psychologists. The subject of shamanism has been the subject of hundreds of books and academic papers, with a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the subject.
The Roles of Shamans:
The significance of spiritual roles in many cultures cannot be overlooked, but whether or not they are all comparable (or even separate terms) is debatable. It has been argued that such universalist classifications portray indigenous societies as primitive while exemplifying the civility of Western societies. That being said, shamans have been viewed as those who have the power to gain knowledge or power in the spiritual realm. They receive visions or dreams that convey messages. According to some shamans, they possess or have acquired numerous spirit guides who guide and direct them as they travel through the spirit world. The spirit guides are always said to be with the shaman, although some say they only come into contact with him in trance.
The sea duck is regarded as a spirit animal by the Selkups. According to Siberian belief, ducks fly in the air and dive in the water as they are associated with both the upper world and the lower world. The upper world is the afterlife that people reach by travelling through a portal in the sky. As a result, the lower world is generally associated with animals and can be accessed by passing through a portal on the earth. In shamanic cultures, animals are considered to be spirits.
The Beliefs of Shaman School:
There are many variations of shamanism all over the world, but there are several common beliefs shared by all forms of shamanism. According to Eliade (1972), the following common beliefs exist:
- There are spirits and they play an important role in the lives of individuals and in society as a whole
- Shamanism allows communication with the spirit world
- They can be beneficent or malevolent
- A shaman can treat sickness caused by malevolent spirits
- Shamans use trance-inducing techniques to induce visionary ecstasy and undertake vision quests
- A shaman’s spirit can leave the body and search for answers in the supernatural world
- The shaman invokes animal images as spirit guides, omens, and messengers
- In addition to divination, the shaman performs scrying, throws bones or runes, and can sometimes predict the future.
- According to Alice Kehoe, Eliade’s concept of shamans perpetuates notions of the dead (or dying) Indian and the noble savage.
Shamanism holds that the physical world is pervaded with invisible forces or spirits that affect human existence. Though diseases are caused in the spiritual realm, stimulated by malignant spirits, both spiritual and physical methods are employed to heal them. A shaman “enters the body” of a patient to confront the spiritual disease and heals by banishing the infectious spirit.