Human beings crave ritual. You get out of bed on a certain side because it is your ritual. Everyone’s life is structured around different forms of ritual because they structure the sacred. Rituals emerge from the instinctive need to move the power of the Divine through us into creative action, to perceive the Divine as a cause-and-effect routine that routes power in a particular way.
The Shaman or Medicine Man has a rapport with power through sensing the sacred spirit in nature. To become a Shaman or Medicine Man involves initiation processes of maturation and refinement with elders. Initiations cannot be sought; they are delivered when the timing is right. And initiation requires that you go through the tunnel between domains and reverse yourself so that your spirit becomes stronger than matter, versus matter having dominion over your spirit. In order for that to happen, the physical world has to present itself in a threatening way to confront your spirit, like spending three days in the sarcophagus and having to rely on the strength of your spirit against the physical form, so that your spirit proves stronger than the matter. You are then considered an initiate. Initiation is a painful process because pain is the element that most people use as the excuse as to why they have sold their soul or betrayed others: “I was scared; I was hurting.” Therefore, pain has to be part of the initiation.
The initiations of spiritual masters entailed great pain, fasting for forty days in the desert or starvation under a Bodhi tree, processes that reveal whether or not the physical world commands your spirit. The soul needs to develop endurance and the initiation experience is a test as to whether or not you have mastered endurance. The shadow side of the Shaman and Medicine Man/Woman resembles the dark world of Spellcasters, and dark Magicians/Wizards. Dark magic is very real, and shamanism is magic of the Earth, involving how to use spells and herbs from the Earth. If you can send positive thoughts at a distance, you can send negative thoughts as well – there is no difference.
What the Gods watch are simply the quality of thoughts you send, period. The other person receives the thoughts you are sending. That is why you pray, because you want a field of grace that screens out these free-radicals. You want a field of grace that shields against negative thoughts that do not belong to you; you do not want those thoughts to touch you or be in you. The ability to confront evil in the form of possession by destructive or antisocial impulses in oneself and others is as valuable today as it was in the time of Jesus, the master Exorcist. Just as modern biblical scholars suggest that the demons Jesus cast out may have been forms of psychological illness, so we can see our own inner demons as arising from forces that we feel are beyond our control. Shamans conduct rituals for the release of negative spirits from a person’s soul. To include this among your family of archetypes, however, you would have to find a lifelong pattern of exorcising the negative spirits of others or of social groups or society. The shadow Exorcist attacks the evil in others without having the courage to face his own demons.. Film Reference: Jason Miller, 'The Exorcist'
