Spontaneous Shamanic Initiation

Page 36 Volume 3, Issue 2 October 2010 The Journal of Shamanic Practice

above me. As I proceeded in this fashion, Iwas suddenly confronted by astream of people coming hastilyfrom the opposite direction. One ofthem stopped at the sight of me andsaid, “You shouldn’t go any fur-ther—there’s been a terrible earth-quake!” “That’s alright,” I replied,surprised at my own calm. “I havecancer anyway.”

As often happens with suchdreams, I allowed my plans forthe day ahead to erase it frommy mind. And yet years later Ican still recall it. It must havehad some effect, however, forwithin a year, I had quit my jobin UC Berkeley’s IT Department.My older daughter, Krystal, hadgone to college; my youngerdaughter, Leigh, who had neveraccepted my remarriage, hadmoved in with her father; andmy husband Lewis and I hadmoved to Mendocino County to

join the rest of the city’s expatriates onCalifornia’s North Coast.

My Path to Shamanic InitiationWithin a few short weeks of our exodusand reestablishment in a tiny two-roomcabin on Cameron Road in Elk, all hellbroke loose. One of my cats was killedon the road the day we moved in. Leightelephoned to say that her father wasmoving the family to Georgia. The win-ter rains began early and, overcome byloneliness and grief, I soon developedconstant, excruciating abdominal andback pains. Over the next severalmonths, despite many visits to a localdoctor, the pains—accompanied by

I define a shaman, first and foremost, asa healer. A shaman possesses specific talentsor abilities that help others and themselvesto communicate with the unseen spirit worldand thus, attain healing and/or greater lev-els of harmony with the world(s) at large.This healing is energetic and requires theshaman to be a seer of sorts – to be able tosee into a person and the spirit world – to getto the heart of the matter and act on behalf ofthe one being healed.

First DreamThe path was narrow, winding tightlyaround huge red boulders, and stretched farinto the distance. I inched forward, clingingto the right side of the cliff that towered

There has been considerable controversy inrecent years about the validity ofspontaneous shamanic initiation.Advocates insist that this is the mostauthentic method by which ashaman is “made.” Detractors, onthe other hand, believe that onlythrough a process of many years ofrigorous training with a practicingshaman can an acolyte become anadept. Rather than argue the valid-ity of one method over another, thispaper discusses the experience ofone shamanic practitioner—my-self—and correlates my experience,as well as those of various clientsand students, to theories of sponta-neous initiation prevalent withinboth historic indigenous societiesand the contemporary shamaniccommunity.

During a period of three years(1983-1986), I was spontaneouslyinitiated and worked shamanicallyto heal the catalyst of my initia-tion—ovarian cancer. This experience in-spired and continues to inform my currentwork as a shaman, transpersonal psycholo-gist, and founding director of a nonprofit or-ganization devoted to the healing ofindividuals, communities, and the planet.

IntroductionWhat, precisely, is a shaman? Whilethere are many versions of shamanicpractice that run the gamut from thepath of power to the path of heart, thefollowing definition, offered by Rhian-non, one of my shamanic studies stu-dents, is the one best suited to thisarticle:

SHAMANIC PRACTICE

Spontaneous ShamanicInitiationValentine McKay-Riddell, PhD

The Journal of Shamanic Practice Volume 3, Issue 2 October 2010 Page 37

rapid loss of weight, hair, and energy—persisted. In the end, I was diagnosedwith ovarian cancer. I had no medical in-surance and very little money; thereforeWestern medicine was out of the ques-tion. Besides, my father had died ofesophageal cancer in 1980, and I wasconvinced that the medical protocol hadhastened his death—a prospect whichterrified me even more than the distinctpossibility that I might die myself forlack of proper care. I decided to try toheal myself, reading everything I couldfind on the subject of alternative healing,and soon plunged into an alien world ofmacrobiotics, meditation, yoga, and acu-pressure.

The following spring we moved to alarger cabin on Greenwood Ridge. Weput in a vegetable garden, and I sent offfor a correspondence course in herbol-ogy and began to experiment with herbson myself. Our 70-year-old neighbor be-came a good friend and taught me gar-dening “from the ground up”—adiscipline every bit as life-affirming aslove.

However, as often happens in suchcases, a visit that summer from Leighwhich coincided with a visit from mymother brought my dance with cancer toa crisis point. I had resented my alco-holic mother since early childhood forabandoning my sister and myself to thetender mercies of our great aunts and aScots nanny. Angered by her inability tocontrol her drinking, I sent her back toWashington DC, where she was diag-nosed with cancer herself and admittedto a hospital in Buffalo, New York. There,she had a cardiac arrest shortly afterChristmas but was put on life support, asituation that she would never haveagreed to and one which the familycould not afford.

Finally, after nearly a month of let-ters, late night bedside reports, and end-less long-distance conferences with thedoctors, I managed to convince everyonethat not only would our mother have ob-jected violently to a vegetative life, therewas no money to pay for it. Within a cou-ple of days, papers to cancel extraordi-nary life support arrived by ExpressMail. I signed them, and we were allmore or less free to pursue our separatepaths.

Mine seemed to have reached aplateau. I was no worse, but no better ei-

ther. Still terribly thin and subject to oc-casional bouts of pain, I turned to art-making for relief. A local chiropractorhad diagnosed scoliosis and this upsetme tremendously. I’d made a smallsculpture of my twisted spine which veryaccurately represented my inner state aswell as my physical condition.

Meanwhile, Leigh announced thatshe had been seriously considering sui-cide, and my sister called to say that

she’d had a modified radical mastec-tomy. I didn’t know, then, about the con-nection between deep grief and physicalillness. All I knew was that the life I hadtried so hard to control was in totalchaos, and that the people I loved mostin the world were either sick or crazy ordead.

Talking with a friend in Mendocinoone day, I shared this sadness—and myfeeling that this was what was keepingme from healing. Concerned, he loanedme a book on Huna, the Hawaiian sci-ence of healing and magic. One ofHuna’s most important teachings is thatwhat you send out into the universe

comes back to you. I thought about my gloomy spine

sculpture and promptly began a secondone, a mobile woven of rice paper andrainbow-colored strips of mylar, hungbetween two pieces of driftwood thatbalanced beautifully. Six weeks later thechiropractor announced that my spinewas actually beginning to straighten out. It occurred to me that I might be able toapply this same process to the healing ofcancer. I made two sculptures of my ab-domen with instant plaster cast band-ages—one painful-looking purplishthing with moss and prickly horse-chestnuts for ovaries to acknowledge theseverity of the situation, and one brightpink one with silver mylar ovaries—amessage to my inner self that I wasready to heal.

Meanwhile I continued the study ofHuna in the writings of Max FreedomLong. I had read Carlos Casteneda inthe mid-70s, and later I would discoverSerge Kahili King, Michael Harner, Joséand Lena Stevens, Sandra Ingerman,and others. At this point, however, I waspretty much on my own. Still, as Ilearned and practiced various skills suchas shamanic journey and communicat-ing with nature in all its many forms,the pain seemed to lessen and some ofmy energy slowly began to return. I metMurray Goldman, a kahuna or doctor-priest in San Francisco, who prescribedvisualization and journeying exercisesand instructed me to say the Ho’o’pono-pono, the Hawaiian prayer for forgive-ness, every day.

After several months of this newpractice, I ran into my friend in townagain and gave him a progress report. Iwas much better, but still not completelywell. He suggested that I might benefitfrom a psychodrama session with hispartner. During the ensuing three-hourpsychodrama session I was directed toplay the roles of my mother and myself,moving back and forth between twoempty chairs to do so. While playingMother, however, I noticed that thewords I spoke were not mine, and thefeelings I had were unfamiliar to me. Icould only conclude that she was some-how communicating through me. Thefollowing morning, I mulled over thenight’s events, and I suddenly realizedthat the problems I’d had with mymother were not her problems, but

One of Huna’smost important

teachings isthat what yousend out intothe universecomes back

to you.


mean? Then, late that same evening as Iwas getting ready for bed, I realized thatit was about art-making. My sponta-neous initiation must have begun withthe first dream. I was already an artist,had been since childhood, and my artreflected a kind of deep inner connec-tion with both the physical body andspirit. I stopped doing this in the early1980s in order to work at UC Berkeley,because we needed the money. It wasreturning to art that began the healingprocess (with the scoliosis sculpturefirst, and then the series of cancer sculp-

tures and paintings). I already kneweverything I needed to know in order tobe useful. I would be able to help peo-ple heal with a combination of shaman-ism and art!

Although this was a real break-through, I had to acknowledge that I nolonger felt “normal.” I didn’t recognizethe person I’d become, and even won-dered, from time to time, whether someother spirit had entered my body—per-haps during sleep—and taken over. Iwas certainly no longer the woman I hadbeen—the life of a healer had never oc-

curred to me. As a Catholic, I’d been adevout and rather odd child and a rea-sonably well-behaved teenager. I’d be-come a wife, mother, and artist, and hadnever conceived of being anything else.Suddenly the old roles were meltingaway and I found myself fumbling in thisnew one. I knew that was happening tome was similar to what Arnold Mindelldescribes:

Chronic illness, feelings of being tornasunder by opposing forces, and near-deathexperiences frequently have the goal of“cleansing” you from your own self and re-filling you with nothingness or with pure na-ture….Either you become fluid, or natureerases you in its own way.

Despite my hesitancy and unfamil-iarity with the “new me,” however, Igradually began teaching the process Ihad learned, which I called “HealingArt.” I soon came to love this work andcouldn’t imagine how I’d ever lived with-out it. Not only that, as I worked withother people, teaching what I’d learned,my body responded eagerly. Within ayear all the symptoms were gone. What-ever I was supposed to do with my lifehad begun.

Methods of Shamanic Initiation:Historical MethodsWell-documented examples of shamanicinitiation are almost too many to count;here I include only a few of them. Notethat these are accounts of several initia-tory practices: spontaneous initiation (inwhich the candidate is “called” to the roleby an illness, accident, or the suddenemergence of unusual abilities and otherparanormal phenomena); hereditary ini-tiation (in which the shamanic powersand responsibilities are passed downboth through a genealogical family aswell as a spiritual genealogy); people’schoice (in which the candidate is chosenby members of the community); andself-selection followed by rigorous train-ing with a practicing shaman.

Spontaneous InitiationAccording to Mircea Eliade, Central andNortheast Asian shamans have twomethods of recruitment: hereditarytransmission and spontaneous vocation.Shamans recruited by these methods areconsidered more powerful than the “self-

mine! Mother had simply been herself—my disapproval of her mothering stylewas my own issue.

With this realization, a huge weightlifted, and I felt I could breathe morefreely. Over the next few weeks I beganto notice that while I still cared deeplyabout my sister and my daughters, I did-n’t feel so responsible for them. Theywould make their own decisions, andthat would be okay. As for my mother,now that I understood the root cause ofour alienation, I could begin to feel somecompassion for her. If our relationshiphad been painful to me, I thought, howmuch more difficult might it have beenfor her?

Healing progressed rapidly afterthat. The combination of shamanic jour-neying, working with power animals (apractice that had occurred to me before Iactually read about it), art-making, andforgiveness was medicine far more pow-erful than I could ever have imagined.Later I would realize this was a form ofshamanic initiation, and since it seemedto arise of its own accord, I think of it asspontaneous. Then I began to think thatperhaps I could share some of what I waslearning as a health practitioner—not al-lopathic medicine, but naturopathy—and sent to Bastyr University in Seattlefor a brochure. When it arrived I wasshocked at the cost and realized I’d haveto relinquish that idea. That night I wentto bed feeling somewhat desperate. Iwas eager to learn, eager to teach and tohelp—but how?

Second DreamI was on a high platform—towering hun-dreds of feet above the ground. The air wascold and thin and the sky a brilliant blue—much like the Sierras in the fall. There wereothers there—several gentle brown-skinnedpeople wearing simple clothing in colors ofred, black, and white. They didn’t speak, butthey smiled at me and I realized they ex-pected me to walk to the edge of this plat-form. A message came clearly into my mind:“All you have to do is jump.”

Terrified of heights, I approached theedge. I leaned over, just enough to gauge howfar I was going to have to jump, and saw astaircase leading all the way down to theground.

I awoke early, and as I movedthrough the various tasks of the day Ipondered this dream. What could it

The combinationof shamanicjourneying,

working withpower animals,art-making, andforgiveness was

medicine far morepowerful than Icould ever have

imagined.


made” shamans or those chosen by theclan. Interestingly, however, in many in-digenous cultures, such as that of theAraucanians of Chile, the candidate isone who is “… sickly or morbidly sensi-tive, with weak heart(s), disordered di-gestion(s), and subject to vertigo….(they) claim that the divinity’s sum-mons…is irresistible and that a prema-ture death would inevitably punish(their) resistance and infidelity.” How-ever, Eliade draws a clear distinction be-tween the shaman and the mentally illpatient, who “proves to be a caricature ofa mystic.” He further notes that whilevarious illnesses are “frequent in the vo-cation of medicine men and, that like aninvalid, the shamanic candidate isshown the solitude, danger and hostilityof the surrounding world...the...sha-man…is above all a sick man whohas…succeeded in curing himself.” Inthis case, the healing of the candidate isconsidered equivalent to initiation. Eli-ade notes that “it is not to the fact that heis subject to epileptic attacks that the Es-kimo or Indonesian shaman owes hispower and prestige; it is to the fact thathe can control his epilepsy.”

In everyday life, a successful Wintuor Dyak shaman must, in spite of suchmanifestations, have excellent neurolog-ical health and above average intelli-gence; Australian medicine men “areexpected to be, and usually are, perfectlyhealthy and normal.”

Sandra Ingerman states that ashaman is one who has had a brush withdeath in some form or another, one whohas gone “to the other side” and returnedwith the knowledge of how to survivethat journey and the ability to share theinformation. Barbara Tedlock notes thatwhether a shaman is chosen directly byspirit or learns through her family’steachings, she cannot be initiated unlessshe has also been called during a dream,vision, or illness.

Regardless, the spontaneous call toshamanism is not easy to answer, nor theshamanic path a smooth one to follow.According to Roger Walsh, while themessages we are sent in dreams can (asin my case) be ignored, the shamanic ini-tiation crisis cannot. “It explodesthrough the shaman-elect with life-shat-tering force, disintegrating the old equi-librium and identity and demandingbirth of the new.”

Hereditary initiationHereditary initiation, in which the an-cestor’s abilities are passed down to theson or grandson, daughter or grand-daughter, may be somewhat easier to ex-perience.

Unlike the shock of spontaneousinitiation, this transmission is expected,both by the candidate and by the mem-bers of his or her family. On the otherhand, Walsh writes:

When selection occurs at birth it mayplace an enormous responsibility on the fu-ture shaman, the family, and, indeed, on thewhole community. The appropriate ritualsand taboos must be followed in minute de-tail and can be painfully restrictive.

Walsh quotes Rasmussen’s descrip-tion of American and Iglulik Eskimoshamanic preparation as an event con-sidered so serious that some parentsburden themselves with onerous tabooswhile waiting for the birth of the shamanto be.

Such a life, hemmed in by countlesstaboos and circumscribed by self-chosen re-strictions, is hard to imagine. Yet for tribalpeoples these taboos are as essential to life aseating. To flout them means offending thespirits and thereby risking death and disas-ter.

Community’s ChoiceA community may choose an individualto serve as mediator to the spirit worldbecause of some striking feature or ex-periences—an unusual physical appear-ance, an illness such as epilepsy,

unexpected recovery from severe illness,or a variety of other omens.

Black Elk, the great medicine manof the Oglala Sioux, describes his ownprocess of shamanic initiation. At theage of nine, he became quite ill, and dur-ing this experience he was given manyvisions which, upon his recovery, hefound himself unable to share with thepeople of his tribe:

They told me I had been sick twelvedays, lying like dead all the while, and thatWhirlwind Chaser, who was StandingBear's uncle and a medicine man, hadbrought me back to life. I knew it was theGrandfathers in the Flaming Rainbow Tepeewho had cured me; but I felt afraid to say so.…Everybody was glad that I was living; butas I lay there thinking about the wonderfulplace where I had been and all that I hadseen, I was very sad; for it seemed to me thateverybody ought to know about it, but I wasafraid to tell, because I knew that nobodywould believe me, little as I was, for I wasonly nine years old.

Only as he grew older did he feelcomfortable sharing the visions he hadreceived during his initiation, and his vi-sions eventually began to manifest. Itwas then that he was recognized by hispeople as the healer and leader that hewas.

Spontaneous Initiation inContemporary SettingsAmong interesting examples of sponta-neous initiation in the modern world arethe near death experiences (NDEs). J.Timothy Green writes:


The field of near-death studies shares anumber of interesting, often compelling, sim-ilarities with the ancient spiritual traditionknown as shamanism. Not least among thesesimilarities is the fact that a near-death ex-perience (NDE) is a time-honored form ofshamanic initiation. …. A deep NDE canpropel a person who had no prior knowledgeor interest in shamanism into spontaneous,often classic, shamanic experiences, whileliving an apparently normal life in the midstof modern Western society.

My personal experience, initiationthrough illness and subsequent recoverysans medical intervention described inthe beginning of this article, falls underthe category of spontaneous initiation.According to recent popular literature aswell as scholarly research, I am not alonein having experienced this phenomenon. Paul Levy, a healer in private practice,writes at length of his initiatory process.

In 1981, I spontaneously went into suchan ecstatic state that I was hospitalized bywhat I call the “anti-bliss patrol.” The au-thorities had become alerted because I wassimply unable to restrain my enthusiasm atthe “good news” that was beginning to revealitself to me about the nature of reality….dur-ing that next year I was thrown in mentalhospitals a number of times and (mis)diag-nosed as having manic-depressive (bi-polar)illness.…Little did the doctors realize that…I had actually gotten “drafted” into a deeperpsycho-spiritual process of an entirely dif-ferent order – a spiritual awakening orshamanic initiation – that was blowing mymind as it was simultaneously revealing it.

While many self-healed individualshave gone on to share the fruits of theirjourneys with others for altruistic pur-poses, a great number of people do notassume the mantle of shamanism. Insome instances the lack of family andcommunity support provides the deter-rent. Levy, who does innovative work indreaming but did not become a practic-ing shaman, writes, “Tragically, with thesupport and blessing of the psychiatriccommunity, both of my parents passedaway convinced their son was crazy.”

Levy’s self-assessment is similar tomy own post-initiatory state of mind.While I didn’t exactly consider myselfcrazy, it was clear that my world hadbeen turned upside down, and it took a

long time to find firm footing in this newenvironment. However, despite my ini-tial hesitation and a notable lack of sup-port from various family members,friends, and the professional healingcommunity (one medical doctor, towhom I suggested that what I’d learnedmight be helpful to his AIDS patients,accused me first of witchcraft and thenof practicing psychology without a li-cense), it seemed to be the only viable

path. My own Native American heritageinfluenced me to define this path asshamanic. The clear sense that I hadbeen “saved” in order to serve throughsharing with others the learning experi-ences I had had impelled me to followthe path of a healer. This path had manybranches.

As soon as I realized I was actuallyhealed, I wanted to understand moreabout it. Murray Goldman, the kahuna Imet in San Francisco, gave me a greatdeal of information about what had ac-tually happened to me and why I waspracticing as I was. For example, with-out any training at all, I had discoveredthat I could see inside my body and the

bodies of other people, discern what wasnot working, and intuitively sense howto “fix” it. As I did this, I would visualizesurrounding the dis-eased part of thebody with white light and then withwhatever other color seemed appropri-ate. I made art pieces illustrating the un-desirable condition in order to validatethe message from what Huna calls the“Little Self” and followed this with artpieces depicting the desired healing, as amessage to the Little Self that the patientwas ready to heal.

After learning that this sort of workwas loosely categorized as vibrationalhealing, I apprenticed myself to a well-known healer in Mt. Shasta and studiedwith her for two years, learning andpracticing various healing techniques,including Reiki. Finally since Westernsociety insists on such credentials, I re-turned to school to earn masters anddoctoral degrees in clinical andtranspersonal psychology. However, mywork as a psychologist is still very muchrooted in shamanic practice.

Spontaneous InitiationTwo Case StudiesOver the years I have had the privilegeof working with students in many capac-ities. As a shamanic practitioner and aReiki master and teacher I have facili-tated many Reiki empowerments, prac-ticed Reiki with clients, and have taughtstudents Reiki and a combination of Na-tive American shamanism which I feelcame to me through my Apache blood-line. Recent interviews with two of thesestudents revealed diametrically opposedviewpoints.

A student I’ll call Morgana, a 26-year-old woman living in Texas, does notbelieve she was spontaneously initiated.However, her practices include NativeAmerican drumming, journeying, andwork with animal spirits; various Hunarituals; Vudun use of body parts (i.e. hair)to communicate and heal long distance;and Druidic runes for protection. Whenasked how she became interested inshamanism, she replied that she hadbeen “interested in it in some way or an-other my entire life, thus when I had achance to learn I jumped on it.”

Morgana explains:

With my childhood illnesses and otherchronic (considered terminal) illness…in my

Shamanism is apath filled with

initiations, and it isthrough the process

of initiation thatshamans grow,

allowing them tomove into their

visionary abilitiesand healing gifts.


late teens, I began to be curious as to what Icould have done better or differently in thislife or another to prevent what seemed likean overbearing karmic weight to bear.

It was at this time that she was par-ticipating in a shamanic training pro-gram that I was offering at ITP. Duringthat time she realized she had the skillsof a shaman. I would call this her initia-tory experience, even though she did notperceive it that way at the time.

When asked whether she appliedshamanic principles in her daily life,Morgana replied:

Yes…. I have started to infuse theSpirit world I am becoming familiar with viathe medium of shamanic study in every as-pect of my life. I feel I now have a dual per-spective to life that includes many thingsunseen when looking at the lessons and/orobstacles before me.

And yet this young woman refusesto call herself a shaman, believing that atrue shaman never uses that term. Thisis similar to some indigenous practition-ers of shamanism, who prefer to callthemselves “medicine people” or “heal-ers” in order to define themselves bywhat they do, not so much by a title ofwhat they are.

Morgana continues:

To further clarify why I would not call my-self a shaman YET, [it] is because I am onlyproficient using these practices to help my-self and those closest to me. I have not yethad the experience of anyone approachingme for help in a shamanic way except forpeople close to me….Until this happens I …won’t know if I can act as a workingshaman/healer for just anyone.

Rhiannon is a 29- year-old womanliving in Michigan who describes herselfas having had a long-term associationwith shamanism and states that she usesboth Native American and Hawaiianpractices. She notes that she has feltclose to nature since early childhood.

Upon learning what shamanism stoodfor I realized I already inherently held thosebeliefs. I did not have a name to put onto thisbelief system until a couple years ago.

When asked whether she considered

herself to have been initiated shereplied:

“Definitely. Since childhood….I re-member putting together a little ritual out-side once behind some bushes. It was thefirst time I ever went there to sing and hideout. I decorated this little fort area withsticks and stones. I dedicated it to God. Isang songs and felt an overwhelming con-nection to God. I inherently knew that Godwould be with me always and that no matterwhat happened, I would be okay. It felt likea quickening of my faith.

I would say that her use of shamanicprinciples in her daily life, which in-cludes giving back offerings for what shehas received and “maintaining a sense ofgratitude for all the blessings in my life”stems from her childhood communica-tion with plants and animals.

This was one way in which theshamanic path manifested early andspontaneously in her life. She believesthat this ability and the emergence of anability to “feel into an environment” en-abled her to avoid dangerous situationsin her home, and that these are furtherevidence of her early shamanic initia-tion. She believes that she is a shaman(rather than a nature mystic) because ofthe way in which she makes use of thesecommunications – for purposes of heal-ing and divining.

Rhiannon describes this as follows.

I have developed my ability to pay at-tention and “see” into things to get ideasabout what is going to happen. This intuitivedevelopment guides me in my healing work.I implement journeying into many healingsessions, both for myself and others, to ob-tain insight and guidance. Many times dur-ing these journeying sessions, I will help myclient interpret any plants and animals thatshow up. I have also created rituals to helpmanifest certain things or events I wish tohappen in my life. These rituals include acommunication and exchange with a spirit –sometimes in the form of a plant or animaland sometimes in the form of a god/goddess.I have done this since childhood. As a childI would create rituals as I felt led to doso…now I still follow my intuition but I havealso received formal training.

She adds that she incorporates soul


retrieval into her work as a Reiki practi-tioner and follows the Lakota traditionof shamanism under the direction of apersonal teacher who also follows a pathof Love. Finally, when asked if she con-sidered herself to be a shaman, she re-sponed:

Yes, because I feel very connected withthe principles of shamanism. When I readabout shamanic practices and ways of being,I feel like that describes me. I am doing thosethings. I am within that state of being. Ivery much believe those things. At the sametime, I just do what I do…it seems natu-ral…so if shamanism is what we are callingit…then great.

These students’ responses sur-prised me. I expected Morgana, whohas recently completed a shamanicstudies course and apprenticeship to ashamanic practitioner in her area, to feelmore grounded in shamanic practice,and Rhiannon, with whom I am cur-rently working, to be less so. The differ-ence might be due to the fact thatMorgana has found new practices andnew ways to incorporate them into whatshe has already learned; she states thatshe does not know what to call herself orher beliefs because, apart from the factthat they are all rooted in Earth-basedspirituality, they vary widely. Rhiannon,however, is quite immersed in hershamanic practice and is currently plan-ning her vision quest. To me, the ques-tion of spontaneous initiation inRhiannon’s case is clear. Regardless ofher early Catholic upbringing, her con-

nection to Spirit was immediate, per-sonal, and nature-based, and has con-tinued to be imbued with thesecharacteristics throughout her life. Shehas not merely accepted, but embraced,her shamanic abilities.

On the other hand, I happened to bepresent during what certainly appearedto be Morgana’s spontaneous initiationwhile she was undergoing her first Reikitreatment, in which she reported beingable to see the spirits of departed rela-tives and experiencing a tremendous

surge of energy throughout her body.This was followed by several days of dis-orientation and a new ability to commu-nicate with spirits, animals, and otherbeings in what she later described as aplace that is “not of this earth, yet seemsto run… parallel to it.” I can only con-clude that perhaps she is not yet readyto claim this aspect of herself. In defenseof each of these students’ shamanic abil-ities, however, I point to Wesselman’s as-sertion that the ability to achieveexpanded states of awareness beyondthis physical world, to enter inner worldsand communicate with their inhabitants,and to use these abilities to help them-selves and others are qualities that de-fine true shamans and set them apartfrom all other religious practitioners.

ConclusionIt seems safe to say, at this point, thatspontaneous shamanic initiation is a farmore frequently experienced event thanis commonly recognized. Even practi-tioners of mainstream psychology andmedicine are being forced to take noticeof this psycho-spiritual phenomenon.Certainly many examples of spiritualemergency present symptoms that fallunder this category. Stanislaus andChristina Grof note that:

The concept of spiritual emergency,which differentiates transformational crisesfrom psychiatric disorders, is supported in-dependently from many different fields. Par-ticularly important are the data related to theshamanic traditions found in the historicaland anthropological literature.

Indigenous accounts of sponta-neous shamanic initiation that go backmany years if not centuries recount thesame onset, prognosis, and conclusion asin the Grofs’ descriptions of spiritualemergency. The Grofs define a variety ofsuch experiences, among them spiritualemergence and renewal, many clinicallydiagnosed psychoses, kundalini experi-ences, psychic opening, UFO encoun-ters, and shamanic initiation.

It is also important to be aware thatshamanic initiation is not necessarily aone-time event, but rather an ongoingprocedure: As Sandra Ingerman andHank Wesselman write:

Shamanism is a path filled with initia-

It seems safe to say,at this point, that

spontaneousshamanic initiation

is a far morefrequently

experienced eventthan is commonly

recognized.


tions, and it is through the process of initia-tion that shamans grow, allowing them tomove into their visionary abilities and heal-ing gifts….Shamanic initiations often occurwithout our having to ask for them. Thespirits will create new life experiences to helpyou move into a new level of awareness.

What is most important here, how-ever, is not to argue with “hard science”over the existence of this phenomenon.While science continues to debate thevalidity of spiritual emergency orshamanic initiation versus psychoticbreak, shamanic practitioners must turnto each other for validation of such life-altering experiences, in themselves andin those who come to them for help. Ourtask, as I see it, is to support each otherand not to fall prey to the critical stanceso prevalent in science and academia.Tedlock writes that the renaissance ofshamanism is a worldwide spiritualmovement whose practitioners insist ontheir right to practice both ancient andmodern methods of healing and restora-tion of the planet, their communities,and themselves.

As shamans, ours is a largely un-charted and ever-changing world—onein which the spirits of curiosity, accept-ance, and adventure must be our chiefguides. We must continue even morecourageously, in these confusing andoften distressing modern times, to “gowhere no man has gone before,” follow-ing intuition and knowing in the verycore of our beings that we tread a well-worn path, and that even though it maywind through city streets, rather thanvirgin forest, it is truly the path withheart.

ReferencesCasteneda, C. (1968). The teachings ofDon Juan: A Yaqui way of knowledge.Berkeley: University of California Press.

Eliade, M. (1972, 1974). Shamanism: Ar-chaic techniques of ecstasy. BollingenFoundation, Princeton: Princeton Uni-versity Press.

Green, J. T. (2001). The near-death expe-rience as a shamanic initiation: A casestudy. Journal of Near-Death Studies. 19:4,209-225. doi: 10.1023A:1007859024038

Grof, S. & Grof, C. Eds. (1989) Spiritualemergency: When personal transformationbecomes a crisis. New York: JeremyTarcher/Putnam.

Harner, M. (1980). The way of the shaman:A guide to power and healing. New York:Bantam & Row.

Ingerman, S. (1991). Soul retrieval: Mend-ing the fragmented self. New York: HarperCollins.

Ingerman, S. & Wesselman, H. (2010).Awakening to the spirit world: The shamanicpath of direct revelation. Boulder, CO:Sounds True.

King, S. K. (1990). Urban shaman: Ahandbook for personal and planetary trans-formation based on the Hawaiian way of theadventurer. New York: Fireside/Simon &Schuster.

Levy, P. (2009). “We are all shamans-in-training.” (Retrieved from www.awak-eninthedream.com/artis/we%20are%20all%20shamans.htm 2/21/2010.)

Long, M. F. (1948, 1976). The secret sci-ence behind miracles. Marina del Rey,CA: DeVorss& Co.

Mindell, A. (1993). The shaman’s body: Anew shamanism for transforming health, re-lationships, and the community. New York:HarperCollins.

Niehardt, J. (1932, 1959, 1962, 1972, 2008).Black Elk speaks. New York:SUNY Press.

Stevens, J. & Stevens, L. (1988). Secretsof shamanism: Tapping the spirit powerwithin you. New York: Avon/The HearstCorporation.

Tedlock, B. (2005). The woman in theshaman’s body: Reclaiming the feminine inreligion and medicine. New York: BantamDell/Random House.

Walsh, R. (1990). The spirit of shamanism.New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.

Wesselman, H. (August 8, 2009). En-counters on the shaman’s path. Re-trieved from http://www.themetaarts.com/archives/artuvw.html

Wesselman, H. (September 9, 2009). Themodern shaman. Retrieved fromhttp://www.sharedwisdom.com/arti-cle/modern-shaman.

Valentine McKay-Riddell, PhD is thefounder and Executive Director ofOrenda Healing International, a 501c.3.nonprofit organization devoted to pro-moting individual and communityhealth and wellbeing. She holds a PhDin Transpersonal Psychology and aMaster's degree in Counseling Psy-chology from the Institute of Transper-sonal Psychology (ITP) in Palo Alto,California, and a BFA in painting andsculpture from the San Francisco ArtInstitute.

Spontaneous Shamanic Initiation

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