What Is A Shaman and What Does A Shaman Do?

[Ishtar]

This is my first topic as a new member, and so please forgive me if this subject has already been covered. A look around this forum tells me that it hasn’t been, but I may have missed it. I have, however, found much about extra-terrestrial contact which involves spaceships and in some cases, much discomfort and lying in trays of gel for days on end. So I thought that news about an easy and simple way to achieve intra-dimensional contact with the spirits might be welcomed. That way is called shamanism, and it was successfully used by our ancestors to contact the spirits for hundreds of thousands of years before being morphed into the Mystery religions and then driven completetely underground by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century CE.

Shamanism, or shamanic healing, is making a come back today and I’ve been a practising shaman for a number of years.



(That wasn't me, by the way! )

So what is a shaman and what does a shaman do?

A shaman is someone who crosses into other dimensions where he obtains information, guidance and healing from the benevolent entities that he meets in those dimensions. These entities have been given many names throughout history — devas, spirits and gods to name but a few. The Sumerians called them the Annunaki.

The shaman then brings this information, guidance and healing that he gleans from these entities back to his tribe or community.

The shaman crosses into other dimensions while in a trance state. This is what’s known as the shamanic journey. It is not a physical journey. The shaman’s physical body does not go on a journey. If you saw a shaman crossing into another dimension, all you would see is his body prone on the floor looking like someone who’s asleep — except for the occasional twitch as power surges through him.

The trance state is also known to scientists as the theta state. They have found that if a person is exposed to a certain rhythm (between 4 and 7 beats per second), their brain will enter the theta state. This is why shamans use drums, and the beating of the drum is the usual, classical way that a shaman enters a trance — although there are many other ways, including the ingestion of psychotropic herbs (soma and ayuhasca to name to be two).

The shaman lives in two simultaneous realities: the inner dream space in which spiritual encounters transform perception of the external world, and the external world which becomes the stage on which the shaman acts out his divine purpose as healer. Each time the shaman enters trance for the good of patients and community and confronts the agents of affliction, there is psychological integration for the shaman. The shaman brings together heaven and earth, spirit and humankind. Shamanism appears in every culture. Amongst Tibetan people, it predates (and is woven into) Buddhist philosophy and practice, and is a vital and living wisdom tradition practiced from ancient times into present day.

From The Ghe-Wa (Tibetan Death Rite) for Pau Karma Wang Chuk Namgyal, by Larry Peters (for Shaman's Drum.)

But why am I not called a shawoman?

I am not called a shawoman because the ‘man’ bit of the Siberian word ‘shaman’ does not refer to the male of the species. So it is not a gender specific word and that’s why a bunch of shamans are not called a bunch of shamen. The correct collective noun would be a bunch of shamans. Or a gaggle of shamans … or something like that.

Anyway, as mentioned, the word ‘shaman’ comes from Siberia. But thousands of years ago, there were shamanic practises of one kind or another all over the world, in every populated country. And so the shaman and shamanism was known by many different names, and it might be useful to know a few of them, so if the word comes up in different cultures, we’ll know what they’re talking about.

Andean (Quecha) shaman — P’ago
Arab (pre Moslem) — Baksylvk
Australian shamanism — Wulla-mullung
Australian spirit — Budian
Bedouin form of shamanism — Fugara
Celtic shaman - Druid
Chinese shaman —Tang-ki
Hawaiian form of shamanism — Huna Kane
Indian Vedic shaman — Rishi
Indonesian shaman — Dukun
Inuit shaman — Angakok
Jewish shaman — Baal Shem (in Hebrew, it means "Master of the Name")
Korean female shaman — Mondang
Korean shamanic initiation — Nae-Rim-Kut
Lakota spirits — Wakan Tanka
Meso American shaman — Nagual
Nigerian shaman — Babalawo
Norse female shaman —Voelva/Volva/Vala/Seidhkona
Peruvian shaman —Sheripiari
Siberian shaman - Shaman
Tibetan shaman — Pa’wo
Tibetan shamanism — Bonpo
Turkish shaman — Sahir-þairl
Ukrainian female shaman — Znakharka
Voodoo female shaman — Mambo
West African spirits — Kontomblé

If you have any questions about any of this, please do ask as I’m always happy to help.

[Mod Edit: I'm sorry that I needed to delete the links to articles written by Ishtar in this post. Unfortunately they violated the Forum Guidelines for personal promotion, however I have encouraged Ishtar to copy them for all of us without the attached advertising.... Dawn ]

Thanks, Dawn, and I apologise for breaking the guidelines. I wasn't intending it as personal promotion but to help, but I can see how it would have looked because the links went to a blog that in the sidebar, promoted my services as a shaman. I entirely understand and won't do it again.)

Mod Edit: Ishtar, you are an amazing woman and I am so happy to have you in the Avalon Forum. Newbies can make mistakes without apologies. I am glad you are so open to changing... Much love.... Dawn

[Cidersomerset]

Welcome Ishtar a good subject to start with.....................

With reference to the blood drinking cults I have just watched this weeks 'have I got news for you'
and there was an item about the royal family and that charles can trace his roots back to Vlad the impaler the inspiration for Bram Stokers Dracula stories......

Maybe David Icke is on the money when he is talking about our blood sucking royalty...

At the end of this clip about beautifull Carpathia Charles himself tells the interviewer he is ralated to Vlad the impaler and that he has a 'stake' in the country !!.......Quite witty for him....Steve

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNTTCg7WD0

[Sierra]

Thank you Ishtar.

This is going to be fascinating reading!

[Lisab]

Thankyou Ishtar looking forward to reading your articles. X

[Castaneda]

Thank you for sharing this Ishtar! As i myself have started my iniations into the Shamanistic traditions i am truly glad that you bring forward this information for all to see! I belive that in the coming times we will all benefit from the ancient teachings

[Amysenthia]

Great post. I will definitely read your articles. Also Welcome!! You picked a very auspicious day to join.

[Fred Steeves]

Posted by Ishtar (here)
A shaman is someone who crosses into other dimensions where he obtains information, guidance and healing from the benevolent entities that he meets in those dimensions. These entities have been given many names throughout history — devas, spirits and gods to name but a few. The Sumerians called them the Annunaki.

Hi Ishtar, welcome to Avalon, and nice first thread. Very informative, but I'm wondering how you came to understand the Annunaki in the same light as devas and spirits.

Cheers,
Fred

[ulli]

In 1974 I revisited my first college roommate Solange who was then living in Glastonbury with Rollo Maughling.
Rollo was the most accurate of all the people who had a trance vision about my future. He also performed a powerful healing as I was quite ill at the time.
Did you ever meet him, and would he be considered a shaman? I know he is a Druid.

[Ishtar]

Hi Fred. To answer your question, I remember my last lifetime as a priestess of Ishtar, which is why I was given that name by my spirit guides on my initiation. So some of the things I talk about come from those remembered experiences, the understanding then about the nature and function of the Annunaki being one of them. From those experiences, whenever I read the Enuma Elish or the Descent of Inanna, or any of the Sumerian/Babylonian texts, I'm reminded of what I already know.

I know others have different ideas about Annunaki. I have no wish to quarrel with them, only to talk from own experience. It is my experience that a new back story is being created for humanity now that Christianity has failed as a control measure, and it is one in which the Annunaki are being discredited. I don't believe these stories myself.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Yes, Ulli, I have heard of Rollo. He was Archdruid of Ynys Witrin (Glastonbury) before I got here. Now the Archdruid is Drew who is very good in that role.

[ulli]

Ishtar,
your thread and your articles are so interesting they deserve to be bumped to the top of the forum.

[misericordia]

Thank you very much Ishtar for the thread and I too look forward to reading your Blog material.

Also, are you familiar by any chance with Franco Santoro who is a member of the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland?

Hope you are well.

[Ishtar]

Posted by misericordia (here)
Thank you very much Ishtar for the thread and I too look forward to reading your Blog material.

Also, are you familiar by any chance with Franco Santoro who is a member of the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland?

Hope you are well.

Hello Misercordia. I'm familiar with the Findhorn Foundation where they work with the elementals and Nature spirits, but I don't know Franco Santoro.

[shamanseeker]

Posted by Ishtar (here)
If you’ve like to learn more about shamans, shamanism and shamanic healing, I’ve already written a number of articles, each one going into more depth about the roles of the shaman and the shamanic healer:

[Mod-edit: I had to remove the links referred to here for the reason I stated in the post at the beginning of this thread. I hope Ishtar can include this information again in a format which complies with the Avalon Guidelines..... Dawn]



If you have any questions about any of this, please do ask as I’m always happy to help.

Hello Ishtar, Thank you so much for these links: they are fascinating reading! You explain things in a way that is not only very informative but also easy for everyonel to understand.
I have 2 questions:

You say that if a person wants to become a shaman, they shouldn't wait till they're too old because it's difficult to decalcify the pineal gland when a person is older. I'd like to know if a person decalcifies their pineal gland, does it stay that way when they are older if they are a practicing shaman or does it calcify with increasing age any way?

I was very interested to hear that you think that the Annunaki are benevolent spirits. Is it possible in your opinion that in the terrestrial realm there could be Annunaki- human hybrids who are negative? For those who believe this, there are also Annunaki descendents who are not negative, I believe. Or would these people not be Annunaki but something else in your opinion?
Thanks again!

[Ishtar]

Posted by shamanseeker (here)

You say that if a person wants to become a shaman, they shouldn't wait till they're too old because it's difficult to decalcify the pineal gland when a person is older. I'd like to know if a person decalcifies their pineal gland, does it stay that way when they are older if they are a practicing shaman or does it calcify with increasing age any way?

I was very interested to hear that you think that the Annunaki are benevolent spirits. Is it possible in your opinion that in the terrestrial realm there could be Annunaki- human hybrids who are negative? For those who believe this, there are also Annunaki descendents who are not negative, I believe. Or would these people not be Annunaki but something else in your opinion?
Thanks again!

Thanks for your thanks, shamanseeker. I'm glad you found this information helpful.

On the pineal gland, like anything in the body, it seizes up with disuse. But once you're using it, it should stay open and clear. It's a question of use it or lose it, I believe.

I can only talk from my own experience about the spirits.

Different entities exist at different frequencies. At the frequency I inhabit these days, I'm unlikely to encounter what are known as 'evil spirits' which are usually just the 'fetches' of magicians who work in their own interests. If you work solely in the interests of the highest good of all, and in line with the Divine Will, you are very much protected by benevolent entities. I also work quite a lot in the Christ Consciousness, which is the ultimate in Truth, Goodness and Beauty. (This is not, by the way, the same as saying that I believe in the historocity of a person called Jesus Christ. But the Christ Consciousness definitely exists and it a wonderful state of being to be in.)

Shamans don't believe in 'evil' as such. What most people would call 'evil', shamans would think of as 'energy in the wrong place'. Here's an example, if you were walking through the jungle and a tiger jumped you from behind, would you call that tiger evil? No, of course... that tiger was just being a tiger, but in this case, you would have been the energy in the wrong place, in other words, you were out of your natural habitat and therefore, it was you that caused the problem.

So when people come to shamans complaining of evil curses or being inflicted with evil spirits, it usually means that they've strayed into one of these lower frequencies somehow and picked up some entity which although it has a perfectly legitimate purpose on Earth, it isn't doing them much good!

Another problem is that magic is no longer recognised as having any power and because of that, magicians can cause all sorts of havoc. I've written about this in Harry Potter and the Deathly Shallows.

But there's nothing a magician can do that a shaman can't sort out.

So are there evil Anunnaki? Well, there could be Anunnaki that are energy in the wrong place, but if there are, I haven't encountered them. Further, I truly do believe that all talk of the Sumerian gods is a psi-ops campaign to frighten and control us and it is only effective because we've forgotten shamanism and also how to read allegories in mythology (for which we have Christianity to thank).

I hope this helps.

[shamanseeker]

Posted by Ishtar (here)
So are there evil Anunnaki? Well, there could be Anunnaki that are energy in the wrong place, but if there are, I haven't encountered them. Further, I truly do believe that all talk of the Sumerian gods is a psi-ops campaign to frighten and control us and it is only effective because we've forgotten shamanism and also how to read allegories in mythology (for which we have Christianity to thank).

I hope this helps.

Thanks for your answers, Ishtar. I agree with what you say. I was just wondering about whether you think that our leaders and royal families are hybrids. From what I've understood they are reptilian-Annunaki hybrids and they aren't exactly working for our good at the moment. I'm certain that the royal bloodlines are reptilian because I have seen this with my own eyes. I suppose it doesn't really matter but I'm curious to know if these reptilians are Annunaki or not.

[Ishtar]

I have no experience, myself, in what you're talking about, Shamanseeker, so I cannot believe in it. I also don't believe entities from one dimension (us) can mate with entities of another dimension (Anunnaki).

I do believe however that we are ruled by predatory bloodlines which includes the royal families of Europe, the Rothchilds, the Warburgs, the Morgans and the Rockefellers etc, but that they are entirely human. I also believe that Psy-Ops campaigns, instituted on their behalf for thousands of years, are to keep us in line and the Anunnaki one and 11-11-11 is the latest one.

I'd be interested to hear what you mean by "I've seen it with my own eyes", because you do realise, I'm sure, that YouTube videos can be altered with special effects to show pretty well anything.

[ulli]

Posted by Ishtar (here)
I have no experience, myself, in what you're talking about, Shamanseeker, so I cannot believe in it. I also don't believe entities from one dimension (us) can mate with entities of another dimension (Anunnaki).
.

...how about 'immaculate conception"?

[Ishtar]

Nope... no experience of that either!

[markoid]

Hi Ishtar, thanks for this thread and your writings.. very interesting. Can you elaborate at all on your take on 11 11 11... it has piqued my interest a bit for some reason.

[Ishtar]

Hi Markoid

OK, this will read like a blog post because it is fresh from my blog and written last night:

THE LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO 11-11-11

We keep hearing on the internet about the possibility of invasions by extraterrestrials like the Anunnaki, so I thought I should give some clarification about who these Sumerian gods actually were. Then when the Psy Ops swings fully into gear on 11.11.11, we’ll be better prepared, psychologically, to meet it.

It seems that a new back story is being created for us, now that the old Christianity one has failed. There’s been a drip drip feed over a number of years, which is how Psy Op campaigns usually work, and now this one is building to a crescendo with the release of Darren Lynn Bousman’s latest horror thriller, 11-11-11. I haven’t seen it, but no doubt there will be a huge battle over the Brooklyn Bridge or some other equally iconic monument.



Darren Lynn Bousman’s says his latest schlock-horror flick 11-11-11 is based on the beliefs of the Acensionist movement of so-called Lightworkers. These beliefs of the Lightworkers are fed and watered by what are purported to be channelled communications from a number of anonymous sources that they have to trustingly believe in, because they’re told that applying critical or sceptical thought will prevent them from being saved. ‘Being saved’ means ascending to the Heavens on 11 November 2011, or 11.11.11.

So in this new back story being prepared for us, the Anunnaki are being labelled as the bad guys and responsible for all the evils of the world going back to Sumerian times. Now, depending upon who you decide to believe, these old Sumerian gods are coming to invade us on their planet Nibiru and will steal our all our women and all our gold, or they’re already here in reptilian form and other ETs are coming to save us from them.

The date 11.11.11 is also being mooted as the Event, a sort of Armageddon-type ET scenario ~ Revelations crossed with the War of the Worlds ~ in which all the good people will ascend to the Heavens.

Sound familiar? As you see, once again, the global elite are using fear and panic, to try to control us, and the script writers haven’t even bothered to come up with a new story. They must be from Hollywood where tried and tested formulas are always preferred over original thought, hence so many sequels. Or they might be written by Scientologists. L. Ron Hubbard had contact with the CIA and was also a prolific science fiction writer.

But in Armageddon II: The Second Coming of the Anunnaki, it’s also quite hilarious to see how all the various disinformation agencies are pedalling different stories about who’s coming to save us. In fact, it seems that the skies are going to be so crowded with the Saviours of Mankind that there may not even be room for the chemtrails!



Those who will be queuing up include the Andromeda Council, the Galactic Federation, the Arcuturian Group and the Ascended Masters and the guys from Sirius and the Pleiades… and these are just the main players. You’d have thought that Psy Ops would have got together to agree on their story first …. In a scene straight out of Enoch, I also hear that the Galactic Federation have split and the ‘fallen angels’ have formed the Galactic Council … I’m reminded of that Life of Brian sketch:

Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People’s Front?
Reg: **** off! We’re the People’s Front of Judea




But I remember my last lifetime as a priestess of Ishtar, which is why I was given that name by my spirit guides on my shamanic initiation. So some of the things I talk about come from those remembered experiences, the understanding then about the nature and function of the Anunnaki being one of them. From those experiences, whenever I read the Enuma Elish or The Descent of Inanna Into The Underworld, or any of the Sumerian/Babylonian texts, I’m reminded of what I already know.

In my experience, the ‘gods’ of the old scriptures, such as the Anunnaki, the Fae, the Tuatha da Danaan, the Vedic Asuras etc, are the intradimensional (not extraterrestrial) beings known as the spirits. They were known by many different names in different cultures. The Mystery religions of the late Neolithic period in Egypt and the Middle East turned them into ‘gods’ with human form, just to give them an identity that people could relate to and this includes the Anunnaki.

They are benign beings that live alongside us here ~ they are already here, but in other dimensions, and the shaman contacts them through trance for guidance and information. But I don’ t think they have any plans for landing here in spaceships and kicking out the existing order! However, they are quite easy to make contact with, through shamanic techniques.

What is shamanism?


... AND THEN THE REST OF THE POST GOES INTO MY ORIGINAL POST IN THIS THREAD ABOVE.