The truth about shamanism

[DonJuan]

The practice of a Hmong shaman’s rituals and services revolve around rescuing the soul, negotiating with and battling “bad spirits”.  They also serve in appeasing spirits of ancestors.  The shaman performs ceremonies through chanting and with animal offerings to the appropriate spirit(s) to obtain good health, luck and harmony between the soul and the body. 
 
Shamanism is usually not well received in the younger generation due to the amount of money, work, time, and boredom associated with a ceremony.  Old and young generations are becoming more skeptical and doubtful of Shamanism.  Many causes are attributed to this drift:
The inability to furnish tangible and lucid explanations to a more eager scientific and information-based audience.
The failure to adapt to the new fast-paced western society, a shaman ceremony is time consuming and requires much inconvenience in the offerings and finding the appropriate people to assist.
The natural progression of assimilation into a dominant society
 
The general view of a shaman is a little old person who will jump around for hours and who in the end will be unable to explain anything.  During the ceremony, many will find themselves looking at their phone for time, and roll their eyes as their Saturday is being wasted away.  These dynamics establishes an unenthusiastic feeling toward the practice.  Shamanism becomes a-tedious-obligation-of-weekend-wasted-crude-blooded-jingle bell-ritual-by-an-old-person-who-does-not-even-drive.
 
Somehow, Hmong shamans only fulfill their duty when called; they perform to help, but the intention centers more in appeasing and limiting “da Nain” into intruding in their personal life. Disappointingl y, the error in Hmong shamans is not exploring and assessing beyond what they see/do and converting it into knowledge to practice and live a life in that awareness. 
In a plain term, they do not create a new set of social/personal behaviors to fit the energy and a person’s chi.  Perhaps this is due to Hmong history as a people always either at war or fleeing. 
 
Hmongs did not invent shamanism; shamanism existed at the dawn of man.  It existed when man existed when he tries to see energy.
Hmongs only practice one tiny small portion of shamanism: their primary application lies in the statement above.  From legends and stories, their practice sounded much larger.  However, nowhere do I find the energy knowledge translated into social/personal behaviors. It is crucial for Hmong shamanism to establish such norms in order to survive in the scientific western dominant society.
 
Shamanism is the energy knowledge outside the physical world.
And not tedious-obligation-of-weekend-wasted-crude-blooded-jingle bell-ritual-by-an-old-person-who-does-not-even-drive.
 
 

[Jubi]

Interesting. I respect Shamans, had some uncles they were great Shamans, many have passed on already. A personal and special neeg was performed on me a long time ago and it helped.  Our family does not do "jingle bell" and slaughter pigs and cows every weekend either. The last family one was done back in 2006.

[Christa]

I find this article somewhat not true. The shamans can explain, but if they want their explanations done in Englis, then ofcourse it'll be a bit hard.

[Eyedumgai]

I agree with the article. And you can say the same thing about any of the Judaio-Christian beliefs as well. Who wants to spend days at synogogues, mosques, or churches listening to blanthers whn we shoukd already know that it's bad to kill another person, rape their wives, or fling mud at thy neighbors?

[tetrapod]

Shamanism is OK but I do encourage it combined with western medicine.  I would prefer that shamanism eliminated to avoid problems such as giving false information that makes existing problems bigger than they really are.  For example, a person has a minor illness goes to see a shaman and the shaman told the sick person it is a serious problem making the patient scare to death.  Another problem with shamanism is that a person should really get treated by a doctor but family and the shaman may suggest the opposite.  Anyway, we all should know now that shamanism is just placebo effect. 

[realism]

Shamanism is OK but I do encourage it combined with western medicine.  I would prefer that shamanism eliminated to avoid problems such as giving false information that makes existing problems bigger than they really are.  For example, a person has a minor illness goes to see a shaman and the shaman told the sick person it is a serious problem making the patient scare to death.  Another problem with shamanism is that a person should really get treated by a doctor but family and the shaman may suggest the opposite.  Anyway, we all should know now that shamanism is just placebo effect. 

Blame the shaman, not the practice..some shaman are a fake

[DonJuan]

The placebo affect is a valid claim, but shamanism is a practice quite easy to confirm as real or fake.  Religions, though, merely require a person to have faith.  However, for the sake of arguing in order to extract such a claim, one must at least attempt to clarify the position one stands.
 
Religions are modern man’s attempt to explain one piece of shamanism: social and personal behavior according to the “chi”.  Man’s selfishness for power, money and status has contaminated many religions altering its original truth.  Some religions remain closer to the truth but words have been substituted either due to different languages or to disassociate themselves from shamanism. 
 
To understand this partition, shamanism in the dawn of time was the practice of seeking energy, chi, the void, 6th sense, God, psychic, ghosts, deities, energy healing, herbs, power plants, astro bodies, dreaming, black magic etc.  One simple term, Shamanism was the science of energy seeking.   Shamanism is like the physical Earth and religions are like countries.  Each religion and culture has a piece of the truth.  Separate, they do not make up the truth but together they make up the Earth.  Of course, the issue is that many truths have been distorted, and religions are emotional affairs. 
 
The downfall:
 Men back then did not have as much the intellectual understanding of physical/material world around them.  Many associated natural phenomenon with unnatural occurrences.
Because of selfishness, men began to seek energy for their own benefits and many shamanistic practices became awfully macabre. For example, many sought eternity on Earth by switching consciousness into trees, rocks etc.  In the height of Shamanism, knowledge was tremendous and acute.  Many legends and myths we now considered were a reality, flying men, talking trees, men turning into tigers or animals, being two places at one time etc. 
 
Many of these legends are found in most cultures.  As these things were going on, also was selfishness for power, men eating men alive to absorb their power, total control etc.
Shamans did not look for the behavioral portion of shamanism.  Only a handful understood that in order to control energy power, selfishness or ego must be obliterated from a person.  In time, most shamans were destroyed but the science of shamanism survived.
 
Having seen what shamans of ancient time have done, many labeled such practices as evil.  Most knowledge was lost and only older cultures still practice the bit of if that was left.  Still, they tailored that power to their personal needs, languages and cultures.
 
Out of Shamanism were born religions focusing of social/personal behavior in order to reach “God”, banning or labeling the practice of power as evil and primitive.  While this new focus is correct, it is only one tiny section of the truth.        
 
 

[tetrapod]

DonJuan,

How do you if a shaman is fake or real?

I don't understand most of your writing.   I do not live in such world.   

I do agree with you that modern religion evolve from more primitive religion. 

[DonJuan]

Go see a goood reader/shaman. If he is accurate and you yourself are very logic, ask yourself then: how would have he known? Study the questions and answers yourself. Don't dismiss with him getting lucky or evil work, but study it the question from a logical point.

[tetrapod]

Go see a goood reader/shaman. If he is accurate and you yourself are very logic, ask yourself then: how would have he known? Study the questions and answers yourself. Don't dismiss with him getting lucky or evil work, but study it the question from a logical point.

I tried wigi board and the spirits couldn't even tell the color of my under wear.

I will test 10 shaman and see if 6 of them can get the color right.

[tetrapod]

Ok, let's not joke anymore.  Time to be serious.

Let's have a mature discussion.

[DonJuan]

If you are hmong, you have had many exposures from shamanism than say a white guy. That could work against you because perhaps you may have had biases against it already due to shame, or assimilation, or perhaps you labeled that as the old ways.  A white person is less biased unless he is religious.  He believes and is stupefied right away if I'm accurate in his reading. He believes and wants to learn more. That has been my experience.

My personal experience is like many. Not a believer at all! No Hmong friends! No Hmong speaking until it happened to me. For many years, I did struggle with the shame of the usual portrayal of shamanism and of Hmong shamans until I saw and understood its misconceptions .

[DonJuan]

Lol. I understand your joke. But seeing energy has nothing to do with the color of your panty.

[hmongperson]

Shamanism, like with any other religion, requires a firm belief in it for it to take effect. And, like many other religions, it is not always a guranteed. Along with the many succesful attemps to reclaim or appease the soul, I have seen quite a few failed attempts. But, that does not necessitate that shamans do not have thier strong points.

Shamans have been able to heal where western medicine has not. Maybe not all cases, but enough for it to be worthy of consideration. As with any other religion, if you are not a believer but a skeptic, it will not work for you.

[tetrapod]

If you are hmong, you have had many exposures from shamanism than say a white guy. That could work against you because perhaps you may have had biases against it already due to shame, or assimilation, or perhaps you labeled that as the old ways.  A white person is less biased unless he is religious.  He believes and is stupefied right away if I'm accurate in his reading. He believes and wants to learn more. That has been my experience.

My personal experience is like many. Not a believer at all! No Hmong friends! No Hmong speaking until it happened to me. For many years, I did struggle with the shame of the usual portrayal of shamanism and of Hmong shamans until I saw and understood its misconceptions .

My grandmother is a shaman.

My grandmother proudly claimed that it was her that got me healthy after she ua neeb saib kuv (perform a spiritual healing).  She told me that as a boy I was constantly sick and my belly was bulging probably from having too worms in my belly.  She said ever since she did spirtual healing for me I grow up never getting sick again.  I must say I probably had build good immune system by exposing myself to all kind of disgusting stuff such as getting my feet cut by glass in muddy filled with trash stream, accidentally swallowing water contaminated with human feces, eating from my hands after playing in the dirt, got my blood sucked by leeches while catching fish.  I don't remember getting sick unless I didn't get enough sleep for many days.

I watched a shaman froze in the middle of his performance.  It took several men to bent him to get him to sit.

I recall having a chicken thigh and I felt special.  I feel special when I get sick because my parents would call a shaman, and then I would get eggs and chicken thighs.  The thought of that alone should got me well.

But I grew up to be a skeptic.