“Before becoming a shaman, a person is sick for a long time, and it seems to him that the souls of the dead shamans, his “utkha” (ancestors), come and teach. When these dead shamans come, then you become unconscious, as if you are talking to them as if they were alive . No outsider sees them. Sometimes one comes, sometimes several, many, almost all the dead shamans come.”

(testimony of Mikhail Stepanov from the book of G.V. Ksenofontov “Legends and stories among the Yakuts, Buryats and Tungus”).

“One hundred and fifty years ago, in the 4th Kharanutov clan of the Kudinsky department, there lived a Buryat named Aldyr-Areev. For fifteen years he was ill, went mad, went mad. In winter, he ran naked for five miles. Then he was already found by utkha - Baruunai (from Khondogor-Shosholok). (Utha says to him) - “What are you fooling about? You don't know us, you be a shaman, depend on us - utha! I agree?" - Agreed.

(testimony of Bulagat Bukhasheev from the book G.V. Ksenofontov).

As we can see, the utha, “the spirits of dead shamans,” play a significant role in the disease. In the Buryat tradition, utkha is also associated with the meanings of the root, the blood right to become the chosen one. If a person has strong shamans in his family, then this means that he has an utkha, so the spirits can offer him the difficult fate of the chosen by the spirits. In the proposed passage, Utha appears as a personified phenomenon that addresses the initiate. In most cases, Utha asks about the agreement or disagreement of the chosen one with the new role, as well as about what the subject should do in order to safely pass the path of Initiation.

Modern ideas about the course of a shamanic illness are mainly associated with nightmares. Their depth and realism is amazing. In the late 90s. 20th century the following case has been described. Two spirits of Mongolian shamans began to appear to the Buryat woman. The visions were terrible: the woman was pursued by hands, palms. The dream mingled with reality. One day, after another nightmare, the woman woke up, opened her eyes... And to her horror, she saw above her the same palms that she had met only in her dreams. Only after a scream of horror and a light lit by relatives in the room did the vision disappear. The tragedy of the woman also consisted in the fact that she did not know the Buryat language. And Utkha spoke with her in Buryat. The chosen one simply did not understand what the spirits of her ancestors wanted from her.

In a word, shamanic disease is a sacred phenomenon, which naturally has its own mythology. The idea that the world is inhabited by spirits, on which the life of the genus greatly depends, dates back to the times when man was defenseless against the forces of nature. A person especially closely peered and listened to the world around him, developed those qualities and sense organs that gave him information that allowed him to survive. Obviously, then the belief arose: spirits live next to a person, but not all people can see them. This ability is characteristic of the elect, which appears in the process of initiation, shamanic disease.

“While a person has not yet become a shaman, his soul (amin) is taken by utkha (those shamanic spirits from which the shaman comes) to the sky in Saitani suulgande (suulga - meeting gathering) to heaven and they teach. When the teaching is over, its meat is boiled so that it ripens. In the old days, all shamans were boiled so that they knew the shamanic letter<...>

(At this time) the shaman lay dead for seven days. When he lies half-dead, relatives gather, they sing songs: “Our shaman will be alive, he will help us out!” Women don’t come, only men.”

For the Siberian peoples, the place where learning takes place is quite arbitrary. It may be the sky, or it may be the lower world. Sometimes they say that the “color” of the shaman depends on this: white or black. But a black shaman is not a shaman who is supposed to harm people, he just communicates and resorts to the help of the spirits of the lower world. Here is a fragment of the visions of Spiridon Gerasimov, a Yakut shaman:

“When I was lying in this position, they began to pull to the left by the nose bridge with an iron hook. I raised my head, my eyes were still able to see. It turned out that I was lying at the mouth of the Bloody River, flowing back and forth ... They scooped water from this river and gave me a drink, then, having drilled my ears, they put me in earthenware ... and said: “You have become a famous shaman with a bloody foot." They threw a piece of dried blood the size of a pillow and, placing me in it, said: "You be famous among the evil shamans with a bloody foot." I repeated these words, without knowing why. They put a noose of rope around my neck and took me somewhere very far away. (V.N. Basilov. Chosen spirits. - M .: Politizdat, 1984).

As we can see, we have before us a description of the shamanic illness of an "evil" or "black" shaman. The image of the Bloody River attracts attention, which gave the chosen one the name of the famous shaman, who has a bloody foot. The riverbed branches, creating the image of a tree. In this sense, water as a symbol of Chaos becomes the shaman's main guide in the Lower World. Thus, we are talking, of course, about the World Tree, connecting the Upper, Middle and Lower worlds. The mouth is the beginning of the river, the point from which the tree grows. Therefore, Spiridon stands at the foot of the tree, which he intends to use to travel to other worlds. In the Yakut tradition, the souls of unborn shamans were fed in nests or "cradles" of the world tree. Similar ideas were evidently inherent in the Buryats as well. In particular, in the materials of Zhamtsarano, in the description of the initiation of a shaman, three bird nests are mentioned on the “mother tree” and one on the top of the “Father tree”.

Equally important is the symbolism of suffering. Before becoming the chosen one of the spirits of the applicant, the spirits were boiled in a cauldron, killed ... Perhaps it was the degree of torment that befell the initiate that determined his future strength:

“Now we will cut your meat, cook it so that you ripen. You will lie dead, (and we will put your meat back) and you will come to life, becoming a shaman. Not only you will cook meat, (therefore you need) to recognize your meat. If we apply someone else's, then stupidity will come out!

(testimony of Bulagat Bukhasheev)

According to other sources, the spirits of the future shamans counted the bones. If there were the required number, then the “applicant” could become a shaman, if not enough, the person died. It was considered a good sign if a shaman had more bones than an ordinary person. This was a sign of his strength. Therefore, the Buryats greatly revered six-fingered shamans, who had a biological deviation. The famous Olkhon shaman Valentin Khagdaev has six fingers on one hand.

One way or another, the meaning of shamanic illness is the death of an ordinary person and the birth of a shaman. Under normal conditions, such a birth is the result of a call of a person by the spirits of ancestors. True, there is evidence when shamans became differently:

“In the Bulagat khoshun, ten years ago, a big black shaman (hara buo) named Mylyksen Baltaevsky died. When he became a shaman, he gave his utkha seventy people (out of) his relatives. He didn't have his own utkha, so he shouldn't have been a shaman... He climbed in by force, took someone else's utkha... Through this he was punished... he laid down seventy people and became a shaman."

(testimony of Bulagat Bukhasheev)

“The Buryat Mylyksen gave seventy people from his relatives to his utkha to become a shaman. Previously, he had no utkha, and out of seventy people a new utkha was formed. A shaman who has utha should not give.”

(testimony of Buin Bulagatov and Bagdui Bashilkhanov)

It remains a mystery how this shaman survived the shamanic illness, if he did not have uth, how he managed to make contact with the spirits from whom he bargained for the right to be the chosen one. And what does it mean 70 people whose lives he was forced to pay? Did this become a fate that haunted him all his life, or did he symbolically sacrifice his relatives and deprive them of their protection, or something else.

Have you ever wondered how one becomes a shaman? Familiar with general concepts shamanism know that these are people just like you and me. They are born, grow old and die. They have a family, children, grandchildren, and apart from certain abilities, nothing speaks of their magical nature.

Shaman by inheritance or? ..

Sooner or later, the Shaman makes his last journey in earthly life and passes into another existence, becoming a Spirit. As a rule, one of the relatives becomes the heir of the shaman, but it can also be an absolutely stranger who is not even aware of the predestined path.

A potential Shaman has a basic ability - sensitivity, that is, sensitivity. Scientists have proven that such people are not fiction, but individuals whose right hemisphere of the brain is more developed than its left logical part. The spirits of the old servant cannot remain without an intermediary and seek him among the inhabitants of the community that their former master/guide served.

When such a person is found, the Spirits begin to introduce him to other worlds, and such entry does not always go smoothly. The term was even introduced shamanic disease, which characterizes a person's condition close to insanity, inadequate states and other mental disorders.

Is it really that much of a disease?

At some point, Spirits come to the Chosen One and begin to introduce him into the world of dreams. These beings are either his patrons from the upper world, or helper spirits from the middle and lower worlds. Being in a state where reality and the subtle world are perceived simultaneously, the future unprepared Shaman cannot always adequately respond to those around him and to what is happening to him. The problem is complicated by the fact that outside observers do not see what he touches, and the shaman himself does not understand that he is not understood.

This condition has entered the scientific literature as "shamanic disease". Over time, the Shaman learns and gets rid of this "ailment". There are two ways here:

1. Together with the Spirits, he independently examines all the acquired properties and begins to manage them by trial and error.
2. If the condition of a young Shaman does not improve, and he cannot cope with it on his own, fellow villagers seek help from an experienced Shaman from another community, so that he can teach the uninitiated.

Help with shamanic illness

In order to learn to distinguish between the worlds (the real world and the world of spirits) as quickly as possible, the Chosen One learns to perform rituals. As soon as Spirits come to him, he begins ritual actions. A more experienced Shaman helps his follower to make a tambourine (or gives his own), a rattle or a khomuz. When the Spirits approach, the Chosen One begins to beat the rhythm on a musical instrument and intensifies the state of trance. This helps to separate the two worlds in consciousness and learn to control the ability to enter a trance. Gradually, the brain becomes accustomed to the vibrations and rhythm of the tambourine, and it takes less and less time to enter the trance state.

The end of the ritual means a return to reality.

What is the line of "shamanic disease"?

During training, that is, the course of a shamanic illness, the Shaman is shown paths along which he can walk, they are introduced to different worlds and corners of these worlds. He learns to manage and call on Spirits-helpers, to communicate with patrons from the upper world.

Practically for an experienced shaman there are no impossible tasks. He can get rid of diseases, return the soul to a person or his lost vitality, solve life's problems. All this is given with the permission and with the help of Spirits of different levels. So the Shaman asks the Guardian Spirits which god he should turn to in a particular situation, and starting from the answer, he sends his Helper Spirits to the desired world or part of the world.

The main thing in all learning is the ability to control transitions from one state to another. It is this control that distinguishes the Chosen One from a not very healthy person. By and large, a Shaman is a very strong and self-sufficient person who knows how to find the right way out of any situation. Teaching is not easy, but dissolving in nature, the ability to catch all the vibrations of the surrounding world help to overcome any barriers.

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Shamanism very often resembles a fairy tale - spirits, rituals, a tambourine, a journey between worlds. But few people know that the chosen one and the path of a shaman are connected with the so-called "shamanic disease", which is an obligatory stage of training, in fact, it determines whether a person becomes a shaman or not. So what is this “shamanic disease”?

Definition of "shamanic disease"

"Shamanic disease" is a series of specific human conditions that accompany the formation of a shaman. It is not a disease in the usual sense of the word, as it is not the result of any infection, contagion, physical injury, or mental disorder. In a sense, we can say that it is both a test and a “reformatting” of the entire structure of a person who is ready to become a shaman. That is why the “shamanic illness” can be considered as the first stage of shamanic initiation, because this often happens - it gradually turns into initiation.

In general, the “shamanic illness” is a kind of period of the “birth” of a shaman, as painful, but necessary, as the usual birth of a person, because during the “shamanic illness” a person’s behavior completely changes, his attitude to life, the body and etc.

Signs and symptoms of "shamanic disease"

The most characteristic symptoms of shamanistic illness are increased drowsiness, often accompanied by nightmares, a tendency to loneliness and long walks in unsociable places, visions, hallucinations of various kinds, frequent headaches, which in some cases reach epileptic seizures, as well as convulsions of strange origin and excessive thoughtfulness. .

Whatever the symptoms of the “shamanic disease” are, it is impossible to eliminate them by any medical or “magic” method, on the contrary, this will only worsen the situation, since its nature is associated with more powerful forces than human ones.

Why does the “shamanic disease” arise and when does it pass?

"Shamanic illness" occurs when a person is chosen by spirits to become a shaman. Moreover, in some cases, it appears only as a result of the fact that the chosen one does not want to be a shaman, and then the spirits will torment him for as long as necessary. And in some cases, it is just a stage in the formation of a shaman. But in any case, no matter what the cause of the “shamanic disease” is, the chosen one of the spirits has no choice but to accept his fate and engage in shamanism, after which the “shamanic disease” and all the negative that was associated with it disappear without a trace, as if nothing had happened.

Shamanism. One of the most controversial phenomena in magic. Shamans, like everything connected with them, have always been hidden behind a curtain of mysteries and superstitions.

The very word "shaman" means "one who is excited, touched by the mind."
It is believed that shamans are an intermediate link between the world of spirits and everyday life. Shamans are able to heal diseases, predict the future, control the weather and interpret dreams.
Shamans, and they can be both men and women, sometimes inherit magical power, but most often acquire it through revelations through dreams, during illness or during periods of psychological imbalance, which is overcome in a mysterious way.

One of the characteristic features of shamanism is "Shamanic disease". It is from her, as is commonly believed, that the formation of a person as a shaman begins.

The shamanic gift, as a rule, was a heavy burden for its owner. In early childhood or adolescence, the future shaman experienced a deep mental shock, which "awakened" the shamanic illness. This disease consisted of painful emotional experiences (meetings with the spirits of ancestors that forced a person to start shamanism) and physical suffering (epileptic seizures, severe forms of hysteria, sudden loss of consciousness, etc.). In practice, the person chosen by the spirits for shamanic service had no choice. One way or another, the spirits forced the victim to submit. After the chosen one began to shaman, the disease receded, and the suffering ceased.

Nothing is really known about the shamanic disease. The spiritual aspect is mainly described. Experiences and visions of a shaman.

For example, Mother Bird of Prey.

According to legend, it looks like a large bird with an iron beak, curved claws and a long tail. This mythical bird appears only twice: at the spiritual birth of the shaman and at his death. She takes his soul, takes it to the underworld and leaves it to ripen on a spruce branch. When the soul reaches maturity, the bird returns to earth, tears the candidate's body into small pieces and distributes them to the evil spirits of disease and death. Each of the spirits devours the piece of the body inherited by him. This provides the future shaman with the ability to cure the corresponding diseases. This rite tells about such a part of magic as sympathetic, or magic of similarity, eaten by some kind of disease, the shaman becomes one with it, as it were, which allows him to understand the underlying cause of this disease and gain power over it. After eating the whole body, the spirits depart. The Mother Bird puts the bones back in place and the candidate awakens as if from a deep sleep.

There are many such beliefs, but all of them are permeated with a common meaning: "a person, passing through torment, facing death, receives knowledge and strength."

As for the specific physical manifestation of the disease, there is very little information. It is believed that people who are destined to become shamans often have special marks, like a birthmark, an extra finger, two crowns, or something similar. Basically, it is said that the shamanic illness looks like an incomprehensible ailment, which worsens every month at the new moon and stops only with the beginning of shamanic practice.

The most plausible story of shamanic illness I've heard is the story of Isaac Tens:

“An American Indian named Isaac Tens at the age of 30 began to involuntarily fall into a trance. Dramatic and often terrifying images of animal spirits haunted him. After one such ecstatic state, Tens began to sing: “The song came out of me against my will, and I could not stop. Soon I saw huge birds and various animals in front of me. They called me... Such visions happen when a person is ready to become a halaait (shaman-healer)»»

As for me, my interest in the shamanic disease is not accidental.
A year ago, I started having seizures, during which my blood pressure dropped sharply, and the level of leukocytes in my blood dropped to a critical level.
I was in the hospital twice, but the doctors diagnosed a food infection and that was the end of the matter.
The attacks were repeated at first once every three months, then every two, and now the last four attacks are repeated every month on the same dates, on the new moon of the month.
I don’t know if my illness can be called shamanic, however, during it I can see people in the room, their movement without opening my eyes (and this doesn’t surprise me at all in a “sick” state), the walls of the room seem to arch and inflate. There is a general sense of unreality.
When the attacks were once every three months, the body was completely restored in 5-6 hours. Now, it usually takes a day to recover.
After I started collecting information on the shamanic illness, I was very surprised by the fact that two tops are also referred to as “special marks”, because. I have so many of them)))

The beginning of shamanic practice or initiation into shamans by another, experienced shaman can remove all signs of the disease, but there are no such signs nearby, and I don’t know if it is possible to cope with this ailment in any other way.

"In the shamanism of various peoples, we encounter a unique phenomenon called "shamanic disease" and which is, as it were, evidence of the shamanic vocation of the future adept. Although the "shamanic disease" is very common in various regions, it cannot be considered an indispensable attribute of shamanism. We meet with it only where there is an idea of ​​the chosen shaman and where the future shaman is powerless before the will of the spirits, which is in no way consistent with the personal will of the chosen one (this is very typical for Siberian shamanism). a practicing shaman even in childhood, or shamanic service becomes the result of a conscious and voluntary choice of a person (as with the Eskimos), "shamanic disease" is unknown. Very often we meet with this type of psychophysical pathology in the genera of hereditary shamans, even break with tradition. There are cases when young people from shamanic families, brought up in the conditions of Soviet society, in atheistic and materialistic beliefs, nevertheless suffered from the "shamanic disease" and got rid of it only when they started practicing shamanic psychotechnics and, in essence, becoming shamans.
(For me, this is a tribal spirit-settler, there is an agreement on cooperation with him in the family, he is the only one and they pass it on by inheritance, while choosing someone who is stronger energetically or the youngest of the shaman’s children. Working out by the family of 7 and often over the period after 40 years, when this 7 is included, because the previous carrier of the settler must die. Several children can have a 7 breed, it is generic, but it will manifest itself in full force only in one of the genus in one generation.)

What is the "shamanic disease"? This is a whole complex of pathological conditions that future shamans experience in their youth (often in puberty) (actually after 40 years, but it happens when a double or a lower channel turns on for a period) and which, in the eyes of shamans, are evidence of the choice of a person by spirits for shamanic service. Very often a person tries to resist these states, not wanting to become a shaman, but the pathological symptoms grow, becoming painful and unbearable. And only by turning to a shaman for help and passing through a shamanic initiation (initiation), a person completely and completely gets rid of painful sensations. (i.e., those who are strong psychologically and energetically overcome these states, in order to work later in this field, you need to be strong, but the weak psyche is more likely to be destroyed by this disease, they often die from a shamanic disease, or rather more often)"Shamanic disease" usually manifests itself in bouts of drowsiness, headaches, nightmares, auditory, visual hallucinations and other forms of pathological conditions. The patient begins to hear the voices of the spirits calling him, sees strange and frightening visions. After shamanic initiation and the beginning of shamanic activity, all these symptoms disappear forever, which is explained by shamanists as a result of a person following his calling and agreeing with the will of powerful spirits and shaman ancestors. (the student is being trained by an older friend who develops his psychic abilities and teaches him to live with it)

The phenomenon of "shamanic disease" made many researchers (Olmarks, Nioradze, V.G. Bogoraz-Tan, D.F. Aberl and others) see the roots of shamanism in psychopathology, namely in the so-called Arctic hysteria. This point of view was completely debunked by M. Eliade.*

* See: Eliade M. Shamanism. P. 23-32.

Firstly, arctic hysteria (a disease that is very common in the northern latitudes associated with lack of light, cold, vitamin deficiency, etc.) cannot be the source and cause of shamanism, if only because shamanism (and "shamanic disease") is widespread around the world, and by no means only in the Arctic and subarctic regions. Very developed shamanic traditions exist in the tropics (for example, in Indonesia), where there are no reasons for endemic psychopathology.

Secondly, the experiences of a neurotic and a hysteric are in themselves devoid of religious content and religious value and can be compared with religious transpersonal states only in terms of some purely external parameters. Moreover, the native bearers of the shamanic tradition themselves perfectly distinguish shamanic charisma from psychopathology: for example, epilepsy is very common among Sudanese tribes, but epileptics never become shamans.
(epilepsy arises from the same cause as a shamanic illness, the spirit being possessed. But with epilepsy, when switching or taking control of the body by the spirit, the owner’s soul resists, hence the instant shutdown of the spacesuit and switching to another soul. I have observed attacks on my friend since 7\ 7th in kind. Until he began to use his settler, he did not get rid of these attacks.)

Thirdly, the shaman is by no means just a sick person, but a healed sick person who fully controls his state and manages it. The difference between shamanic trance and pathological states lies in the fact that these are controlled states achieved through a special psychotechnical procedure developed in this tradition. (I agree 100 percent, a person who has agreed with his spirit and even cooperates with him, the spirit usually does all the work and he also gives information, again a strong psyche is needed)

Fourthly, shamans represent the intellectual elite of their peoples. Their intellectual level and strong-willed qualities are generally much higher than those of their average tribesman. It was the shamans who, as a rule, acted as the keepers of national culture and traditions, folklore and epos. Therefore, the authority of the shaman is extremely high in his environment, the latter is also proved by the fact that in the early period of collectivization in the USSR, shamans were very often elected chairmen of collective farms. (The strong survive energetically and mentally, and therefore intellectually. If the "kind is weak", they began to sin in the family, the offspring become smaller, then the shamanic family will simply die out.)

It should be added here that shamanic activity was precisely a service. "It's hard work" - as one Siberian shaman put it in a conversation with ethnologists. And this is selfless service. The shaman usually earned his livelihood by other labor that had nothing to do with religion (hunting, fishing, etc.).

Thus, the psychopathological concept of shamanism can certainly be considered completely untrue. In the meantime, we ask the reader to pay special attention to the following: a shaman goes through an illness and heals himself, moreover, having gone through an illness, he comes out of it renewed and with higher intellectual and psychological characteristics than before. The method of healing and self-disclosure of the personality and individual abilities of a shaman is initiation (initiation).