Shamanism for Beginners

Otherworld Journey and Ancestor Worship, Sweat Lodge and Firewalk

Harry Eilenstein

• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9783753454146
• eBook ISBN:
  9783753455402
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Geschichte & Theorie der Philosophie

Shamanism is the oldest form of religion. It is closely connected with the Mother Goddess, sweat lodges, astral travel, the awakening of the kundalini, as well as with firewalking and magic in general. Therefore, the knowledge of the basic features of shamanism is extremely beneficial for anyone interested in magic, mythology and religion.In this book, the history of shamanism and its transformations from the Paleolithic through the Neolithic, the epoch of kingship and the age of materialism to today's globalized worldview is also considered.From this contemplation then finally also results what a shaman or a shamaness could be in nowadays.

V The Mother Goddess

The mother is the central motif in the Paleolithic worldview, as is shown by the many statuettes and engravings of women that have been preserved.

V 1. The Mother

The female statuettes and the female rock engravings from the Paleolithic period have several characteristics, which, however, do not all occur at the same time in every statuette:

stooped posture	=> probably sexual union
woman/cow mixed form	=> fertility
a very corpulent body	=> enough food, pregnant
cow horn in the hand	=> vagina, horn of plenty, fullness
twofold representation	=> mother in this world and in the otherworld
left arm raised, right arm lowered	=> this world and the otherworld

According to these representations, there were at least three aspects in the conceptions of the mother goddess at that time. These three aspects existed on the one hand in this world and on the other hand also in the hereafter.

The Mother-Goddess in the Old Stone Age
Aspect		Area
	World	Otherworld
	woman, beloved	re-procreation-beloved
Procreation	procreation in this world	re-procreation in the otherworld
	mother	otherworld-mother
Birth	Birth of the living	Rebirth of the dead as soul
	breastfeeding mother	re-breastfeeding mother
Breastfeeding	the one who gives nourishment	origin of the ritual potion symbolism

The shaman will probably also have had the task to establish contact to the mother goddess, if a particularly intensive contact was needed due to the situation. It is unlikely that the contact to the archetypes of the mother was possible only through the help of the shaman – after all, every person carries this image in himself.

Probably the image of the mother was closely connected with the image of the group, i.e. the family or clan.

It can also be assumed that the image of the mother was connected with the summer feast of procreation – after all, this feast is about procreation and birth, which are firmly connected with the mother.

This midsummer procreation festival was necessary at that time, so that the children are born at the beginning of spring and then in the next winter are already somewhat stronger and could survive the winter, which was quite cold at that time in the Ice Age. The same function has in the cold countries the rutting season with the larger animals, which get young only once in the year. Remnants of this festival can be found in very many peoples in Europe, Asia and America, all descended from these Ice Age hunters in Eurasia.

(This necessity had the effect, that most of the humans of the Stone Age have had their sun in the astrologcal sign of Aries – the springtime sign. Thus the people of the Stone Age must have been mostly rash, impulsive, and bold, and must have preferred to life in the Here and Now.)

The aspects of the Mother Goddess are the procreation feast in this world and the re-procreation in the next, the birth in this world and the rebirth in the next, as well as the nourishing (breastfeeding) and the ritual potion (re-nourishing).

V 2. The sweat lodge

The first known hut was built 1.9 million years ago – a stone foundation wall of it has been preserved. Probably there were huts long before that, which consisted only of branches, leaves and possibly skins – of course no remains of them have been preserved. There are such constructions with many mammals and birds: the dens of the wolves, foxes, bears, badgers, otters, rabbits etc., the nests of the birds and some monkey kinds, the dray of the squirrels, the castles and dams of the beavers, and the like. These protective constructions of the early humans could go back thus quite far to their ape ancestors.

It can be assumed that these shelters were associated with the mother's womb – these two were the only "interior spaces" that existed at that time …

At the beginning of the ice age 600.000 years ago a heating of the huts became necessary. For this purpose, stones were made to glow in a fire in front of the hut and then carried to the center of the hut with the ...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• I. What is a Shaman?
• II. Shamans and Shamanesses
• III. Astral Projection and Kundalini
• IV. The Ancestors
• V. The Mother Goddess
• VI. The Animal Symbolism
• VII. The Otherworld
• VIII. Magic and Rituals
• IX. The Development of the Shamans
• X. Shamans Today
• Book List
• Copyright