Shamanism is a living, vital phenomenon, one that interests a wide range of people. Today it is clear that shamanism, as an area of academic study, is a rich and rapidly evolving field. Shamans are globally distributed and shamanism is an ancient spiritual practice. Most basically, shamanism can be defined as a religious belief system in which the shaman is the specialist in knowledge. The shaman knows the spirit world and human soul through “ecstasy,” the power of an altered state of consciousness, or trance, which is used to make a connection to the world of the spirits in order to bring about benefits to the community. Mircea Eliade, in his book 'Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy', saw the essence of shamanism in the techniques by which the shaman is able to travel into the supernatural world in a state of ecstasy induced by drumming or other means.
The broader definition of shamanism includes not only the kind of ecstatic relationship to the spiritual world involved in such journeys — the kind in which the shaman deliberately goes to meet the spirits and is in control of them or “masters” them — but also the phenomenon of possession, in which the spirits take the initiative, and the shaman is “possessed” by the spirits who then speak through the shaman as a vessel.
His intent was to define the notion of shamanism with greater precision, so that it would no longer be arbitrarily equated with magic and wizardry (Eliade 1989, 13). Eliade identified as shamanic phenomena certain basic characteristics that can occur in all religions and cultures.
Christian theological studies, on the other hand, seldom use the concept of shamanism and rarely discuss it as a component of Christian texts and tradition. For many years, shamanic activities were usually regarded as standing in opposition to Christian religious practices. The reason for this avoidance of the concept derives, at least in part, from the history of the dissemination of Christianity and is related to Christianity’s rejection of magic and wizardry. There were, however, syncretistic phases in Christian religious and missionary history during which pagan influences were integrated.
One such phase, for example, occurred in the sixth century C.E. when Pope Gregory the Great ordered a halt to the practice of destroying pre-Christian cult sites. But ever since the High Middle Ages and continuing into the early modern era, bloody missionary activities in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia set Christianity ever further apart from the religious rites of indigenous peoples. Christian dogma became progressively less willing to accept other peoples’ faiths as genuine religions on a par with Christianity. This hierarchical attitude, along with the definition of the concept of magic, had already become firmly established in ancient times.
Under the influence of the Greek enlightenment that started in the sixth century B.C.E., magic was deprecated, whether as part of religion or medicine; philosophy and the enlightened sciences rejected magic and distanced themselves from it. The so-called evolutionary view, which began during the epoch of the ancient city cultures, regarded magic as a relic of an earlier and more primitive agrarian way of thinking that had served its purpose and become obsolete (Graf 1996, 18). This rejection of magic became particularly obvious after Emperor Constantine recognized Christianity as the official state religion and ordered decapitation as a punishment for practicing magic or fortune-telling in 357 C.E. (Kieckhefer 1992, 54). Nonetheless, the relationship between magic and religion continued to be an ambivalent one for many centuries, into the middle of the medieval period.
“Monks in the monasteries employed magical healing methods with which they had become familiar partly from folk medicine of the native culture and partly from ancient medicine, both of which included magical elements” (Kieckhefer 1992, 72). Beginning in the thirteenth century, moral and theological condemnation of magic increased steadily, sometimes going as far as juridical indictment and prosecution. The Latin word for superstition (superstitio) carries the connotation of “a remnant of paganism.” The accusation, which claimed that adherents of superstition had misunderstood certain passages in the Bible, supported a division of piety into a lower religion in opposition to a higher religion (Kieckhefer 1992, 212–213).
This division into low cultures as opposed to more highly valued cultures became still further reinforced during the Reformation of the sixteenth century and the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and survived into the twentieth century. The history of research into the concept of shamanism reveals the influence of this tendency, with much of the work obviously judgmental in the words it uses as it attempts to deal with shamanic phenomena. Any discussion of shamanism or magic therefore requires “critical reflection about the conditional nature of the sources as well as the scientific, metalinguistic concepts and statements” (Motzki 1977, 16).
This religious and cultural history of Christianity has interposed itself and distorted the view on testimony contained in the Bible and on the dissemination of the Christian faith during the first three centuries C.E. Closer scrutiny shows that Biblical texts are by no means unanimous in their rejection of shamanic practice. Ever since the Christian faith was first committed to writing, opinions have differed, for example, about the way the work and person of Jesus as a healer ought to be judged and about the significance of ecstasy among the prophets and early Christian congregations.
A Shamanic Reading of Biblical Texts
The breadth of variation in the texts of the Christian tradition yields no unified picture. These texts indicate above all that shamanic activities were not fundamentally rejected, as they came to be in later apologetical discussion. On the contrary, elements of shamanic practice, such as the act of healing in Christ’s name or on his behalf and the ability to experience ecstasy, characterized the social work, welfare-related, and missionary activities of the early Christians during the first three centuries C.E.
In addition to orienting itself according to Eliade’s criteria and viewing the testimony from a phenomenological standpoint, this understanding of shamanic practice also relies on a functional definition of shamanism. Through the special way in which shamans practice ecstasy, they also have social significance, serving the community, for example, as intermediaries between the divine and the people or as healers of the sick (Motzki 1977, 48–49).
Mircea Eliade identified as specifically shamanic characteristics the technique of ecstasy and the shamanic flight as an ascent into heaven or a descent into the Underworld. In a wider spectrum, he particularly cited the special initiations that shamans undergo, the instruction they receive in the proper ways to conduct healing ceremonies, and necromancy.
Eliade also described important shamanic symbols such as the shaman’s costume and drum, and the special significance accorded to the numbers 7 and 9, the world tree, and the cosmic mountain (Eliade 1989, 148–268). In this context, it is essential to realize that the aforementioned basic forms and functions of shamanism, as well as its characteristic symbols, can all be found in the Bible with varying frequency and in different combinations (Wilhelmi 2000, 11–17). Many of these forms and functions are or were components of Jewish and Christian religion, at least during a particular span of time.
Ecstasy
Ecstasy was fundamentally affirmed in a story about Moses and Joshua (Numbers 11:16), where the spirit of the Lord came upon seventy elders of the people, who thereupon experienced a seizure of prophetic ecstasy. In response to Joshua’s criticism, Moses exclaimed, “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!” (Numbers 11:29). Moses, who was also shown in Exodus 7 as one who magically competed with Egyptian sorcerers and who, especially in later Jewish tradition, was regarded together with Solomon as the guarantor of spiritual and magical knowledge, was shown here as a prophet who approved of ecstasy for his entire people.
The First Book of Samuel described companies of ecstatic prophets. Seized by the spirit of Yahweh, these groups of people played rapturous music upon instruments and fell into an ecstatic state of consciousness (1 Sam. 19: 20–24). The prophet Samuel described such a group to Saul and told him he would meet them prophesying and be changed himself: “The Spirit of the Lord will come mightily upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man” (1 Sam. 10:5–6). The spirit was described as an irresistible power that transformed, overwhelmed human volition, and led to a state of prophetic ecstasy. Ecstatic experiences were also mentioned as occurring among prophets of the sixth century B.C.E., for example, Isaiah and Ezekiel.
In the New Testament, ecstatic gestures among the early Christian communities were welcomed by Paul as evidence of charisma. He described them as “speaking in tongues” (glossolalia) and said, “He that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh unto God” (1 Cor.14:2). Glossolalia was experienced in a communal setting, but not all people were capable of doing it. The story of Paul’s calling as told in the Acts of the Apostles is clearly related to shamanic ecstasy (Acts 9:1–19).
Paul saw “a light from heaven,” heard a voice, and was stricken blind for three days, during which time he neither ate nor drank. Guided and treated by a spiritual helper, he emerged from the ordeal healed and transformed, and afterwards bore a different name. Paul explicitly mentioned his special ecstatic gift in his First Epistle to the Corinthians: “I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all” (1 Cor.14:18). The Pentecostal story told in the second chapter of Acts likewise contains ecstatic elements.
The Shamanic Flight: Ascent and Descent in the Bible
The prophet Ezekiel deserves particular mention with regard to the second shamanic criterion, namely, the shamanic flight. Several passages in the Bible recounted how Ezekiel was lifted up into the air by the spirit and borne upon wings (Ezekiel 3:12, 3:14, 8:3, 11:1). The similarity to shamanic ascents is evident in the change of states of consciousness, the description of the visions, and the intervention of a spiritual helper in male or female guise.
Another impressive vision of an ascent with shamanic overtones can be found in the Old Testament (Money 2001, 19). Jacob’s dream at Bethel, in which he saw a ladder that stretched from earth to heaven (Genesis 28:10–22) suggests the possibility of shamanic ascent, especially when it is considered in the overall context of the story of Jacob, who is sometimes described as a “trickster,” and even clad in animal’s pelts, albeit to fool his father into thinking he is Esau.
The New Testament mentioned an ascent into heaven by Jesus himself (Mark 16:19 and Luke 24:51, Acts 1:9–11). Perhaps intended primarily to lend credence to Jesus’ divine nature, this story may have little in common with shamanic journeys. Nonetheless, the depiction of his death, its interpretation as offering salvation to souls because he has thereby carried away the sins of humankind, and his resurrection after three days all contain elements that bear strong similarity to Underworld journeys of the sort that can occur in the shamanic context.
Jesus as Shaman
The theologian Morton Smith discussed the evangelists’ texts primarily against the background of shamanic criteria (Smith 1978). In particular, he also included in his research certain statements that are recorded as having been uttered by opponents of Jesus and Christianity. Smith interpreted as characteristic of a shaman Jesus’ withdrawal into the desert, driven into the wilderness by the spirit of God for a lengthy period of time.
Smith also called particular attention to Jesus’ communication with “wild beasts and angels” during this time (Mark 1:12–13). Other passages in the Gospel according to Mark likewise indicate that the evangelist unquestioningly viewed Jesus as having powers that can be considered shamanic, as also can be noted in parallel passages in the Gospels according to Matthew and Luke, where they discuss this story (Matthew 4:1–11, Luke 4:1–13).
In these Gospels, too, the tale of Jesus in the wilderness formed the beginning of the story of his works. This episode, however, was depicted here in a far more finely differentiated manner than in Mark. Matthew and Luke likewise mentioned the spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness, but communication with wild beasts and angels went unmentioned. While Jesus was fasting in the wilderness, the devil appeared and tempted him to embark on a shamanic flight, but Jesus resisted and refused to cast himself from “a pinnacle of the temple.”
Jesus also denied the devil’s request to change stones into bread. Thus Matthew and Luke seem to distance themselves from the shamanic practices of flight and transubstantiation. On the other hand, the evangelists either approved of similar practices or emphasized descriptions of them. Dreams and visions, for example, are given particular significance in the Gospel according to Matthew.
Supernatural miracles such as the tale of the calming of the storm (Mark 4:35–41) likewise alluded to the shamanic motif of being able to exert a direct influence on natural forces (Kollmann 1996, 272). Jesus’ rebuke and pacification of the sea and wind seem to stand squarely in the context of ecstasy and the shamanic journey (Kollmann 1996, 275).
The gospels ascribed many shamanic roles to Jesus. Especially with regard to the functional definition of the shaman as one who practices shamanic techniques, it seems reasonable to speak of Jesus and his disciples as people who practiced techniques similar to those engaged in by shamans. Several different shamanic roles can be distinguished: (1) spiritual leader and guide (i.e., guardian of the consciousness of a people or group), (2) leader of ceremonies, (3) psychopomp (i.e., companion of souls), (4) bringer of good fortune, (5) healer and helper, (6) poet, singer, performer of shamanic acts (Hoppál 2000, 100).
The texts of the Biblical evangelists ascribed many of these shamanic roles to Jesus. The very name Jesus (deliverer) expressed his role as a healer. In addition, he was also assigned the roles of savior and spiritual guide. It seems most important in this context to call attention to his unconditional sacrifice for humankind and to his social and helping acts. Healing, in the classical definition, is foremost among a shaman’s various tasks (Eliade 1989, 208).
Another typically shamanic motif can be seen in Jesus’ repeatedly asking people to tell him who and what they believed him to be. Shamans do not call themselves shamans (Smith 1978, 43–44). Jesus only described his acts, and he mentioned as first among them, “I cast out devils, and I do cures” (Luke 13:32). Healing the sick and casting out evil spirits numbered among the principal tasks engaged in by those who felt that they belonged with Jesus. The dualistic notion of evil and good spirits, a dualism that is familiar in shamanic contexts, is also present here.
Although the healing tradition of ancient Greece had long since established itself in the Palestinian world, there also existed a vital tradition of ancient Jewish magical spells and rites designed to heal and help. There even seems to have been a comprehensive collected wisdom, attributed to King Solomon, about pharmacological medications and incantations (Kollmann 1996, 137).
Some stories in the New Testament are nearly impossible to interpret unless they are considered from the point of view of religious and cultural history, in the light of magical papyri and traditions handed down from Joseph and preserved by rabbinical Judaism (Blau 1898). As an example of this, consider the passage where Jesus says, “Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward” (Mark 9:41).
The meaning of this passage is difficult to understand unless one knows that a spilled cup of water was regarded as a sign that an evil spirit had departed (Merkelbach 1996, 6). From this perspective, it seems reasonable to reconsider and reevaluate many other passages in the Gospels. Although some passages urge that the person of Jesus not be reduced to his thaumaturgical abilities (Kollmann 1996, 379), passages about those miracle-working abilities are more numerous and more comprehensive than are passages that deal with other contents (Mark 2:17ff ).
Healing Rituals in Early Christian Communities
During the first three centuries after Jesus, his adherents and opponents alike testified to the importance that healings and psychopomp work played in the missionary dissemination of Christianity (Brown 1999, 41). As early as the Acts of the Apostles, explicit descriptions were given of several cures performed by Jesus’ disciples. Peter, for example, healed by means of talitha kumi, an ancient Aramaic phrase that means “arise” (Acts 9:34 and 9:40). Jesus too uses this spell. The healing of possessed and ailing people subsequently became a matter of course within the everyday life of early Christian communities, where such practices were regulated through the offices of the presbyters, “the elders of the church” (James 5:14–15).
Justin and Tertullian continued the tradition of these successful early Christian healings into the Roman Empire, whenever pagan conjurers, magicians, and pharmacologists failed or were too expensive (Kollmann 1996, 373). For Tertullian, it was important in whose name the possessing spirits were expelled. Tertullian reports on specific individual cases and, like Origen and others, he did not preach against the belief in spirits or psychopomp practice per se (Kollmann 1996, 374), as long as the spirit invoked by the healer is the spirit of God.
A turning point seems to have occurred during the fourth century C.E. In the context of confrontations with pagans and in the wake of Christianity’s recognition as the official state religion, thaumaturgic practice declined among Christians and ceased to be a basic aspect of the Christian mission (Barb 1961). Although Christian enthusiastic and spiritual groups (e.g., Pentecostal and revivalist congregations) have arisen repeatedly throughout subsequent centuries, it was the word of God that came to occupy the central position in Protestant theology.
Thought and thinking have continued to occupy the foreground since the Reformation and Enlightenment. Attempts were made to offer rational explanations for miracles, which were generally dismissed as more or less marginal events in the actual history of Jesus and his works. Only the general theology of the Resurrection and Epiphany remained untouched by this rationalist tendency to minimize the importance of wonder-working (Kollmann 1996, 379).
Liaisons with Foreign Religions: Motifs and Symbols
On the liturgical level of religion, motifs of the Christian faith entered into liaisons with similar motifs in foreign religions and often developed into new religions or cults. One example of this evolution is the contemporary appearance of the peyote cult. The central element of this cult is a sort of sacrament, a holy repast (Hultkrantz 1992, 270). The background of this sacramental banquet is a ritual practiced by Mexican Indians in which peyote is eaten in order to come into contact with supernatural beings. As time went on, this cult evolved into an independent religion containing certain Catholic contents.
When symbols that have been isolated from their cultural and historical surroundings are carefully reviewed, numerous relationships can be discovered between shamanic notions and corresponding Christian or Biblical ideas. In addition to the cosmic mountain, which plays a central role as Horeb in the Old Testament and as the “high mountain” where Jesus undergoes transfiguration in the Gospels, it is above all the symbol of the Crucifix that deserves particular emphasis. Within the context of Christian religious history, the meaning of the Cross soon became divorced from its historical form as an instrument of torture.
The cruciform symbol came to express the relationship between the world and the heavens as an orderly connection between God and man. The Crucifix is thus quite similar to the shaman’s drum in this sense. Furthermore, many men and women shamans have had and continue to have spiritual relationships with the person of Jesus Christ and can justifiably describe themselves— often in an ecstatic state— as having “Christ consciousness.”
A New Approach
A new approach to the relationship between Christianity and shamanism has evolved during the past several decades. Christian missionary theology is giving a new impulse to intercultural dialogue through the reawakened selfawareness of formerly missionized peoples of Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. Whereas in the past the declaration of faith in Christ meant a break with tradition, the encounter with indigenous religions is now being described anew, and the one-sided, exclusively Western pattern of interpretation is no longer being continued.
The situation in contemporary Korea deserves explicit mention here within the context of Protestant theology. On the one hand, evangelistic denominations have the largest number of adherents in Korea, and at the same time, shamanism thrives as a substantial feature of Korean culture. Korean theologians are formulating Korean Christianity’s encounter with the country’s native religions in a new way and do not necessarily regard the encounter as inherently confrontational or contradictory (Choi 1999).
This view has consequences for the future evolution of Christian theology in general. In the long ignored areas of creation theology and the awareness of nature, it can offer new impulses for a more holistically oriented view of the world and humankind. Another example of new impulses for intercultural dialogue about healing and ecclesiastical practice comes from missionary stations in Africa. After a long period of time during which a generally demystified understanding of the New Testament’s text had predominated, the African cultural context led to a rediscovery of the Christian healing tradition in accord with the continent’s own understanding of the nature of reality (Kahl 2001, 118).
This new access also led to changes in conventional Christian theology, so that religious services conducted with the intent to heal or rituals performed with the intent of bestowing blessings are again the subject of more intensive discussion. The history of the relationship between Christianity and shamanism has alternated between intimacy and aloofness. Throughout many centuries and even into recent times, the interpretation and exegesis of Christian texts has been characterized by an effort to distance Christianity from shamanism. Of late, however, a rapprochement has become evident, catalyzed in part by the current renewal of shamanic and indigenous traditions among various groups.
The practice of Christian counseling too is being stimulated and revivified in the context of the New Spirituality and through a return to its own early Christian roots. Renewed attention to features that are shared by both early Christianity and shamanism alike is helping to catalyze a reconciliation in the intercultural and interreligious context.
By Barbara Wilhelmi in the book 'Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture', v. 1, edited by Mariko Namba Walter and Eva Jane Neumann Fridman, ABC-CLIO, Inc. Santa Barbara, California USA, 2004, p.35-40. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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