Be sure your question is not long, complicated, or ambiguous. To remove ambiguity, eliminate the words “and” or “or” from the question. This is to prevent the sentence from having two or more questions built into it.

A cornerstone ethic of the use of shamanic healing practices is to engage in treatment only at the request of the patient (in the case of minor children, at the request of a parent), for practitioners should not try to presume what is ultimately good for someone else. An underlying philosophical factor, particularly in life-threatening situations,

In order for these intrusive spirits to have enough power to penetrate the body of a person, they generally must be sent by another person or persons. This can be done either consciously or unconsciously. In indigenous societies, such intrusions are commonly the result of conscious hostile spiritual acts by sorcerers.

In shamanism, “seeing” also involves seeing with the heart, or knowing in your heart that what you are perceiving is truth. This emotional certainty is fundamental to the experience of direct revelation and is one of the features that usually characterize shamanic seeing.

Shamans see with the heart, not just the mind, which means that for something to be the same for two people in nonordinary reality, it must be the same in the heart, whatever the external appearances.

Nothing you are shown in your journeys is really insignificant. In nonliterate cultures, where note-taking was not possible, shamans had to discipline their memory to recall as many details of their journey as possible. To forget what the spirits told or showed them was disrespectful, and the shaman could eventually lose their continued help.

One account of his discovery (there are many versions, but they all tend to be visionary) was that he was alone at home one night in 1859 when he saw in the darkness a serpent holding its tail in its mouth, forming a circle. He immediately recognized that the animal was using body language to communicate the answer that had escaped him up to that t

That is when the animal turns and runs away. If that happens, then run after it. The animal will lead you on a journey—showing you the answer. That is, the sights you see on the journey constitute the answer to the question. Much of the journey work of the evolving shaman consists of learning how to “read” such journeys; in other words, of learning

For the shaman, one of the significant reasons that prayer is often of limited success is that the compassionate spirits of the Upper and Lower Worlds are not all-powerful outside the realms in which they dwell. Since their power to affect circumstances in the Middle World is limited, they characteristically need ordinary-reality allies to help cre