SHAMANIC THERAPY AND THE ELEMENT OF SELF CURE

Carminha Levy - Clinic Psychologist, Pedagogue
Psychological Clinic : Rua Prof João Brito 116 - São Paulo S.P. Brazil.

Therapeutic art, Jungian specialization. After participating in 1981 of the Shamanic Journey in Esalen, California (with Michael Harner), Mrs. Levy has been dedicating herself to the spreading of Shamanism through the Journeys in the Brazilian states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco (Recife), Rio Grande do Norte (Natal), and Bahia, and events like the "Second International Congress of the Body" (Sao Paulo), "First Journey for Liberty" (Sao Paulo), and Group Studies.

Published articles: "What the Psychologist owes to Witches", in the magazine "Viver Psicologia".

Summary: The author analyzes the Myths and Facts of Shamanism - the most ancient technique of cure and its possible use in therapy. Concepts such as collective unconscious, images, symbols, Shadow, Manna Personality (the Shaman) and Self, are offered as structures for psychotherapy in which the shaman archetype as the primordial therapist will mobilize the self-cure factor. (Uniterms: Shaman, Self-cure, Archetype, Collective Unconscious, Shadow, Self).

The first manifestations of shamanism date from the Paleolithic ages, as can be proven by paintings showing rituals of hunting and cure. It was a universal phenomenon, mainly dominating in Central Asia and Septemtrional and Arctic areas. Today it is present in Africa and the Americas.

THE MYTH
In the beginning of mankind, men were in chaos inside as well as outside, decimated by the demons of illness, hunger and death. In their helplessness, they asked for help from the Supreme Being. The eagle was sent. Initially, it was rejected, since it was only a bird, but then it came back with the Supreme Power that would be given to the first being found. It was a beautiful woman with whom the eagle copulated, generating the first shaman - son of Wisdom and female energy, an indication that the cure and protection must come from the human being itself and from his capacity of enlarging his consciousness. Cure must come from the instinct which is inside all of us marking our condition as animals, and of the consciousness of the ego.

THE FACT
"Living Archetype", the shaman can be searched in the characters of our quack and medicine man, or through the brilliant work of Micea Eliade "The Shamanism"*, among others. Presently, Michael Harner, American anthropologist, has been dedicating himself to the spreading of the Shamanic techniques of cure through workshops in which he "translates" the "Shamanic world" to an accessible language for the so-called civilized man.

The shaman emerges in the tribe as a distinguished being, where he starts with his noble condition of "initiated". The mystic call is revealed by an isolation from the clan, by speaking to himself, by having visions and feeling sick. It is the initiation sickness with which the shaman measures the precariousness of the human soul. In ecstasy, he goes into an "initiating coma" and is taken to an ancestral Shamanic cave, where his head is taken from his body and his eyes are washed, so he can see his own death, being dismembered and born again. His skeleton is dismantled, his flesh is cut up in pieces and thrown to the four parts of the world, so that it can be eaten by the demons of sickness. So, knowing all the sicknesses and diseases, he has the power to cure them. His body is rebuilt, but a small bone will always be missing, indicating human imperfection. The dismembering strengthens the right to cure. Still in ecstasy and in company of his tutor animal (ally) that protects and completes him, he descends to hell in order to meet the master of the Deep Worlds, with whom he will be confronted every time the soul of the dead is taken to its dwelling place. At last, in a climate of well being, he goes to heaven, meets the Supreme Being and, in epiphany, enjoys all the sacred and profane pleasures.

The initiation starts in an internal universe, but is confirmed in an external ceremony in which all the clan participates with intense happiness. They are no longer alone, one of them participates of the mysteries of the unknown, the sickness and the cure. Dressed in his Shamanic costume and carried by drums, considered his means of transportation, the shaman enters an altered state of consciousness, sings and dances while he climbs a previously planted big tree (the world tree) in which nine cuts have been made corresponding to the nine heavens that he will reach. The return of the shaman is a big apotheosis in which he intensely dramatizes the adventures of climbing and shares all this with his clan. Singing and dancing, the shaman reveals the mysteries of the unknown (sickness, death, rebirth). The shaman made order in the inner chaos, established a geography of the world of the dead, and revealed poetry, epic literature, theater and dance out of his euphoria.

THEORETICAL BASIS
From the myths and facts of the shaman we will reach the possibilities of self-curing which rests in the collective unconsciousness, represented by the innate potential of the human behavior - the archetypes - psychic equivalent of the instinct. In a typical situation as mother-son, man-woman, sick-healer, the human being reacts archetypically. The archetypes are always activated by a complement: the child awakes the maternal behavior in the mother, for example. In the psyche of every woman there is the potential to this response, meaning that the son was already within the mother. Therefore, the sick would also have within himself the complementary healer, for he has in his psyche the archetypical power of healing. The initiation of the shaman shows us that those who have a disease also have the cure inside themselves. The polarization disease/cure is ruled by an internal guardian that has the instinctive pattern power of the shaman (the personality manna for Jung). We can find this polarization in different cultures: in Greece the myth of Chiron, the wounded healer; in India, Kali is the goddess of death and cure; in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé, Omolu is the "Orixá" of sickness and cure and is seen as "doctor of the poor". In the every day sentence: "he was able to overcome death" we find forces of the healer inside us in full function. The external doctor, called to interfere in the process of cure, will polarize the internal doctor (healer), the only real possibility of cure. Accepting the existence of a shaman inside, of the "manna personality" as the archetype of cure, brings the hope of cure to all diseases.

Being part of our genetic heritage, the shaman rests in the collective unconscious, natural reserve of the archetypes. As one contacts the collective unconscious in the Shamanic therapy, the patient enters the caudal healing, creative and religious (from "religare")from our primitive. To rescue this primitive world which was split by the Jewish-Christian culture means to contact a huge energetic load originating from the Self and, as such, reorganizers. By the technique of Shamanic therapy, a direct contact with the images is possible. Intensive psychic representation closer to the internal perception, flow and tide of creativity, the image is the representation of fantasy, a vision that emerges with the use of poetic language. By being image phase before the idea (its "terra mater")thought previous phase, the direct contact with it helps to register, without verbal censorship, the improbable and the contradictory which exists in us - the human paradox. And a paradox which will always need the symbol "machines converting the psychic energy" to make the synthesis of the opposites.

The nature of the symbol is neither rational nor irrational. One of its aspects is accessible to reason, others come from an internal and external perception. The contact that is made with the animal world in the Shamanic therapy is at a symbolic level. The tutor animal (ally), a positive aspect of our shadow, is the retainer of the vital energy which nourishes the human animal. Confronting the Shadow is like confronting the threshold guardian (this always appears in myths and fairy tales) and is the primordial condition to get to the treasure - the Self, organizing center of the total psyche. The confrontation between conscious and unconsciousness makes the bridge for the contact with the Self, which operates the Ego through this "religare". Such conquest is made with the help of the archetype of the manna personality - the shaman, the wizard who reveals our primitive power. By being the son of an eagle, who brought the power of protection and cure, with a beautiful woman, it can be considered the archetype of the self-cure that only happens when the individual takes upon himself the task of being the instrument of his own protection and cure.

SHAMANIC THERAPY TECHNIQUE

The shaman differs from other healers because he only works in an altered state of consciousness: the ecstasy of SSC (Shamanic State of Consciousness, for Michael Harner). In this state the archetypical Shamanic memory allows us to experience the power of mineral, vegetable and animal cure. In the SSC the shaman remains lucid with complete control of the Ego. It also differs because it always has an animal (or more than one) as tutor or protector at his service. Traveling in the drum, he descends to the Deep Worlds or goes up to the Upper Worlds with his animal. It is in this altered state of consciousness which establishes a direct contact with the collective unconscious that the Shamanic therapy takes place. The therapeutical resources are external - drum and therapist, and internal - tutor animal and Shamanic tunnel. Individually or in group, in a calm and dark environment, the shaman therapist takes the patient with soft and rhythmic drumbeats to penetrate SSC. The experience happens as a dream, but the patient has complete control of his actions and can, if he wants, manage his own trip. The trip to the Deep and Upper Worlds always intends to cure, and has a clear specific purpose that can be the knowledge, power restoration or the search for the lost part of the soul (soul retrieval) redemption of the Ego and enlargement of consciousness. Therapy starts when the tutor animal meets the patient in the Shamanic tunnel, which is a passage to the Deep Worlds. There is material for several sessions here, because of the patient's first resistance, defenses, and basic distresses in any therapy.

After the discovery of the tutor animal, the ally, (superior function) and of dancing his dance already in the OSC (Ordinary State of Consciousness) of the Ego leading the process, there is a confrontation with the bi-polarization of the animal and its personality characteristics, corresponding to our animal Shadow.

In the positive aspect there is an intense load of creative-healing energy, which are added by the vital powers of the human animal.

Following the meeting with the helping animals (helping functions), the hero begins his long journey in which he will receive his secret Shamanic name, his clothing, his power objects. The manna personality arises (the healer and us) and the patient faces the power. He learns the song of force and "step" of Power, with which he will protect himself in the long journey of self understanding. This will take him to the meeting with the wise animal, the equivalent of the Old Wise Men, with whom he will seek understanding, knowledge, balance, and harmony. And finally the animal of cure will be searched in the Deep and Upper Worlds between the four elements: earth, fire, water and air, symbols of the Self. Organizing center of the total psyche, the Self is the primordial source of life, from where we come and where we are going to, and as such is holder of the power of Eternal Youth, the Faith, real factor of cure, without which it has no Meaning. However, most of the therapeutical work is in search of the lost part of the soul, for which therapist and patient travel to recover. This part always refers to the great fight of the hero (Ego), with its personal complexes that will be analyzed in the state of O.S.C.O., the work of taking of the layers of the complexes corresponds to new perceptions and changes of the attitudes - final concept for cure, according to Jung.

CONCLUSION Being a therapy in which the patient is led to dive into the collective unconscious, where the restructuring archetypes rest, the factor of self-cure is mobilized in its source in the person of the Shaman, the Primordial Healer. The symbolic Shamanic experience restores the connection conscious-unconscious and a new organizing center of conscience appears - the Self, which will conduct the process of marriage of the instinctual with the ego conscience. The patient, conducted by the archetype of the Shaman, transforms himself into a device for the self-cure.

This report was presented at the Second International Alternative Therapy Congress in 1988, in Sao Paulo (Brazil). Mrs. Levy has been deepening her knowledge of Shaman having taken the Two-Week Advanced Course in Shamanism and Shamanic Healing at the Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California (USA); presently she dedicates herself to spreading the Afro-Brazilian Shamanism abroad.

Mrs. Levy is also a member of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, based in Norwalk, Connecticut (USA).