Healing and Seekers of Knowledge: What Shamans Do

Byambadorj Dondog, a Mongolian shaman

There’s a connection between the midwifery and herbal healing practiced by my grandmother and the divination and healing of Don Andrés and his wife, Doña Talín. Their blend of physical, psychological, and spiritual healing has come to be called “integrative medicine” or “holistic healing.” Such healing depends on emotional and bodily contact between healer and patient. It emphasizes psychological and spiritual components in the causes and cures of sickness. Holistic healers recognize the innate healing mechanisms of the body and insist that an individual has a responsibility for restoring and maintaining health through behavioral, attitudinal, and spiritual balance.

Shamanism is the oldest spiritual healing tradition still in general use today. As a graduate student, I was taught that it began in North Asia more than forty thousand years ago and only later spread into the Americas with the migration of big-game hunters who crossed the low-lying land where the Bering Strait is now. A common point of origin, followed by geographic diffusion, is supposed to account for the similarity of Siberian and Alaskan shamanism.

The problem is, as we’ll see in later chapters, that Paleolithic sites on other continents, including Europe, Africa, and Australia, also show evidence of shamanic practices. The countervailing argument—that shamanism was independently reinvented over and over in many places—is supported by research in neuroscience and medical anthropology. These studies reveal that shamanic consciousness and healing practices are based on an understanding of the human immunological system and psychobiology rather than on a narrow set of culture-historical traits or patterns.

(continue with How Effective is Shamanic Healing?)