Three Core Principles of Shamanic Practice

Each an Essential 'Heartbeat' of The Shamanic Mysteries...

Shamanism is deeply instinctual.

It emerges within humanity much like the hairs of an animal grow from it’s skin, or blood cells flow from bones.

It’s just ‘there’.

Shamanic practice happens, and has happen countless times throughout the human story.

What breathes life into it is not dependent on established traditions, and what drives us into it as a species sinks far beneath the surface layer of time and culture.

It reverberates unapologetically within our souls, moving us like a sonic wave towards a direct engagement with the underlying forces that both create and destroy reality. It appears that all human societies begin their spiritual pursuit through a shamanic framework first, before they formalize into religious context.

In other words…

Shamanic practice is the taproot of the whole tree of human spirituality.

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A ‘taproot’ is the primary root that spouts downward from plant life to anchor it to the Earth beneath it, and the rest of root system spreads laterally from this ‘central channel’.

If you peak behind the veil of most major spiritual traditions, you can see shamans dancing and rattling in the distance.

If I were a betting man, I would ‘go all in’ on there being a strong chance that ‘once’…every human on Earth existed within a shamanic tradition, or engaged in shamanic practice of some form or another.

There is yet an indigenous culture encountered by Western civilization, that did not engage is something resembling Shamanism. Shamanic practice runs so deep within our makeup, that it emerges in every indigenous culture (whether big or small) on Earth. Archeological evidence of shamanism going as far back as 200,000 to 500,000 years has been found.

In all likelihood, 200,000 years ago, shamanic practice was already old.

Source: Canva

For many, the idea of shamanism might conjure up images of offerings, sacrifices, ecstatic dancing, trances states, spirits, drumming, psychedelics, and ‘shamanic journeys’ (of one form or another). On the surface, this may ‘seem’ like the essence of the practice, but these are simply some of tools of the trade, riding on a current made possible the true nature of the world.

Humans (and other now extinct hominids) were made to surf this current.

It exist as an inherent drive because the core principles of shamanic practice reflect back to us the raw aspects of ‘existing’, in ways that go straight to the beating heart of reality.

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The Core Principles of Shamanic Practice

1. The First Principle: All reality is interdependently arising a.k.a ‘Relational’ (and multi-dimensional)

‘There is nothing whatsoever that is not dependently arisen’ - Noble Nāgārjun

At the heart of shamanism is the principle of relationality—the understanding that all things are interconnected.

The Lakota for example have a phrase called ‘Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ’, which means ‘all are related’ or ‘all my relations’.

There are layers of depth to this.

At a more superficial level, one could easily ascertain the validity of this statement by studying climate, ecology, and biological systems. It’s clear that the environment affects us and that we in turn affect it.

Sinking a little deeper, we can start to notice how we are altered through cycles of time by the experience of Ancestors, the history of the cultures we are born into, and systems that arise from these interactions.

At the deep end of the pool, the experiencer, the experience, and what is being experienced are interdependent and interconnected to the point of being inseparable.

A few examples but…

Consider weaving them all together into a unified whole:

Environmental context, relations through time and the inseparability of consciousness from experience and experience from consciousness, and you begin to hear beating drum of shamanic practice.

At the deepest level of this pool is the primordial core of all existence, and how everything that exist flows from god, and returns back to god.

All of totality is total by definition.

Even modern science points out that our five senses don’t capture the true nature of ‘directly’ but rather, process information that the brain interprets (and warps) to create a coherent experience of a 3D world based in time and space.

‘Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality’ - Neuroscientist Anil Seth

‘The Earthkeepers believe that the world is real, but only because we've dreamed it into being’ - Courageous Dreaming: How Shamans Dream the World into Being by Alberto Villoldo

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Modern perspectives often isolate experiences: we perceive ourselves as separate from the things we interact with, shamanism however, apprehends that these separations are illusions.

Even the principle of ‘separation’ exist as a part of the integral unity, and is not ‘seperate’ from it.

This understanding of ‘interdependent origination’ extends beyond the of substance and form as we understand it, to include multiple dimensions and even multiple universes.

Let’s get something straight…

Ancient peoples engaged with ‘raw reality’ much more reliably.

Wildness, hunting, gathering, campfires, torrential weather, physicality, ritual, nudity and the proximity of death is as ‘real’ as it gets. It has a way of ‘purifying the senses’. Because of this they were able to understand an aspect of reality that modern people in their cushy settings can be tricked into believing is false: We are multidimensional beings who exist in a vast ecology of spirts and energy.

Within the context of relationality there is a cosmos of beings that do not inhabit bodies, that are interacting with us (and us with them).

Gods. Ancestral spirits. Hungry ghost. Ghouls. Phantasms. Angles. Demons. Nature spirits.

These forces do not just exist ‘outside us’, which they most certainly do.

But also inside us.

Remember, we are all interpedently arising.

And as the cosmos races towards the space beyond the most distant stars, its also implodes inwards to the very core of your being, passing through an ecosystem of subpersonalities, your body-verse and your soul-verse, to arrive at that same space beyond those stars.

Shamanism understands this relational-verse and decides to engage it consciously.

2. The Second Principle: Right Relationship a.k.a Dynamically Balanced & Health Aligned Relating

If all is relational then a logical next question arises: how are we to be in relationship?

Shamanism emphasizes the importance of being in right relationship with all beings and all forces. Variations of this concept emerges in a wide variety of cultures and traditions; although the specifics of which are often mediated by the underlying spiritual values of the people from whom the concept is born.

What this means is that as ‘existing beings’ we sense and understand that all relationships across the spectrum of reality are characterized by a wide variety of potential energetic dynamics.

Consider…

One can enforce their will upon another in the act of rape, or one can connect joyously with another enthusiastic participant in the act of lovemaking (and everything in-between). ‘Relationship’ does not define parameters. ‘Right Relationship’ apprehends that there are a ‘limited’ set of parameters that are desirable or ‘ideal’.

Source: Alex Grey

It describes a kind of relating.

And this form of relating includes not only the material world but also the spiritual dimensions that intersect with our everyday lives.

This is what the ‘first shamans’ came to Earth to teach humans.

There is striking similarity in the myths of many indigenous cultures about the first shamans, who were often powerful, shapeshifting beings who came to this dimension at great personal cost to instruct humanity in relating. As the myths go, humans fell out of balance with themselves, each other, the greater multidimensional ecologies they existed within and even with the God-force itself.

The first shamans taught us cosmology, ritual and meditative technology, the secrets of consciousness, the tools of multidimensional connection and the ever present reality of the divine. They did that so we could be in ‘right-relationship’ with the greater whole.

Being in right relationship implies that every action and exchange carries a consequence, whether we’re interacting with the environment, other humans, or the ‘spirit world’.

Right relationship carries qualities of mutual consent, reciprocity and coherence in real time; in other words: dynamic balance.

This is simple alignment with ‘natural law’, for ‘all water eventually finds level’. Reality as we know it does not tolerate imbalance for long, and the more energy present in a system, the more true this is. Homeostasis, regulation and balance of ‘charge’ are aspects that flow through all existence.

As sentient spiritual apes with multidimensional capacity, our relating will be regulated by these laws in some form or fashion, and right relationship calls us to this truth. This is why offerings are so central to shamanism: they highlight the essence of giving and receiving, consent, and harmony.

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What these principles all point to is ‘health aligned’ connection.

Health is a state that refers to homeostatic, harmonious and coherent relationships whether that is between the systems in your body, a bodies connection to it’s immediate ecology or a cultures connection to the Earth itself.

However, a healthy harmonious response is situational.

If one is attacked, then perhaps the key to right relationship in that moment might be to defend yourself, for if one is threated, one may need to guardship. However, what if the person attacking you is someone you have deeply wronged in egregious ways, and you inherently feel that the attack is ‘deserved’?

All factors to consider.

Harmony in shamanism isn’t always about peace and tranquility; it can also involve setting boundaries, engaging in necessary conflict, or defending what is sacred.

The goal is always to return to balance, to re-establish right relationship, even if times that requires engaging in struggle with other beings or forces.

3. The Third Principle: Becoming an Active Conscious Participant in Relating: a.k.a Immersion

What does it mean to be immersed?

It means becoming a drop of water that absorbs fully into the ocean.

Once we grasp that all reality is interpedently arising, and accept in our hearts that we desire to exist in right relationship, then a third understanding emerges: we are called to participate actively in the manifestation of right relationship inside all our relations.

Hence many of the tools of shamanic practice.

At it’s core shamanism teaches us that we are multi-dimensional beings living in a multi-layered reality, and everything is entangled, thus our all experiences, whether physical, emotional, mental or spiritual—are all part of a larger web of relationality.

Like stones dropped into a lake, we are rippling out with each step, and each breath. We are constantly engaging with this web, participating in the cycles of creation and destruction, and learning how to be in right relationship with the world around us is is what shamanic practice calls us to.

To be immersed in the relating while carrying our share of the load. To bear responsibility for what we contribute and actively participate in the whole. Multidimensionally.

Each human is a essential aspects of all reality in a dynamic of ongoing process of ‘completing itself through us’.

A essential example lies in Ancestral veneration practices, which have all but disappeared in the Western world due to the encroachment of Abrahamic traditions, which posits that dealing with the dead is Satanic necromancy best left untouched (or for the clergy).

For eons we knew (because the first shamans taught us), that health aligned Ancestral practices which tended to the dead, were our responsibility, not God’s.

Our actions here, and how we cared for the spirits of the deceased, reverberated through the spirit worlds and impacted the lives of descendants for generations to come. An Ancestral line full of hungry ghost disrupts the ecologies of living and the dead.

Beyond this collective responsibility we also face the responsibility of caring for and tending to our own soul. In this lifetime, and across others all others; which is to know that our actions while alive impact what happens to us when we die.

In nearly every tradition that apprehends this ongoing cyclical process of death and rebirth, the ultimate emphasis always ends in God, divine forces and The Great Mystery.

Here our relationship to the Primordial is called into question; and the strangest relational dynamic wafts into our awareness: all is god relating to itself, and your participation is guaranteed. Whether or not you are conscious and skillfully navigate relationality, is another question altogether.

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Thank you for reading fellow traveler.

If you are called into going deeper into applied practical and esoteric shamanism, consider becoming a member, and getting access to the Primordial Shamanism ‘Lightstone Body Phase Course’, right here on Substack.