Introduction into Shamanism | For Beginners (Feat. an Interview with Shamans from Spirit of Wolf)

today we're going to talk about a very complicated subject that has taken me months to figure out how to put it into words and no matter how this video comes out in the end it still will not be perfect or the best way to talk about this but it needs to be talked about and i want to talk about it today i want to talk about shamanism or shaminic practice because this is something that has become very important to me over the last couple of years and i definitely use shamanic techniques within my ritual practice but there is such a rich and long history to what is under the term shamanism that it's really hard to even think about getting into one video so this is probably going to be a multiple video series depending on how much i'm able to cram into this one video here but my objective is to give you an introduction into shamanism to describe what it is give you the basics and then maybe how it can help you within your own personal spiritual practice but also just to start the conversation because again this is going to be an ongoing conversation probably for years to come so as i hinted the history of shamanism goes back for over 10 000 years the oldest recorded shaman or someone that would be known as a shaman for a culture goes all the way back to like i think 10 000 bce and then cultures across the world have had shamanic practices or things that we would call shamanic practices and they of course would call it something different but a lot of these cultures and tribes have come to the same conclusions which is why someone named michael harner started researching these tribes and chemic practices in the 1970s and michael harner developed what is known as core shamanism and core shamanism is what most people are going to learn because then there is also traditional shamanism but first we need to actually talk about the difference between a shaman and shamanism and then of course there's all kinds of different techniques and all these things it's complicated but i'm not alone in this video and in this conversation i reached out to spirit of wolf a shaminic organization that is all across europe and up into siberia and is starting to spread around here in the united states so i got a couple people from there miriam and anthony to talk with me in an interview to answer some of the basic questions about shamanism but first i want them to introduce themselves and talk a little bit about spirit of wolf so my birth name is miriam and my shamanic name being given by my teacher is easy dear come or easy dear come not like easy but you write like i z i and h and um yeah i work now as a shaman and i have been an educated psychologist and i combine those things in my uh we call the wolf cave [Laughter] my practice here in holland and i am anthony um i have yet to receive my shamanic title because i have not been initiated in spirit of wolf but on instagram you can find me as wolf pack healer i've been a shamanic practitioner for four to five years right now and earlier this year i joined spirit of wolf other than being a shamanic practitioner i work a lot with people as a barber and that helps me understand the human psyche a little bit more because it's not really hairdressing or barbering when you have very personal talks with your clients and i work one-on-one so that gives me plenty of room to to be to go deep on certain subjects and um so i add a little bit of a shamanic flair to my work as a barber too um so to kind of just roll off that into another question uh can you describe spirit wolf shaman uh and just like you know the organization around that and just give us an introduction to what the group is yes um the spirit of wolf is actually a tradition from um carcassia or cacaos this is a republic in siberia and it's between a squeeze in between the altai and tuva and this tradition is a family tradition of shaman gargare and garga now lives in moscow and he founded an organization around his family tradition called spirit of wolf i believe if i say this right in 2010 and this quickly became very popular because shaman karage is very famous in siberia famous like he did miraculous healings and he's a very known uh well-known shaman in russia and he made this organization and community around spirit of wolf also for preservation of shamanic heritage and also to help and heal people and his um family tradition was also um they took in shaman morsuk maybe some of you who are listening uh also follow him on instagram shaman morsuk and he is my teacher and so i learned from him and um the whole organization is now um given to him and he lives in austria and is given to him and he now coordinates this in europe and uh so the wolf has entered europe and uh this is basically very short where we are now if you can't tell this is not going to be a short video there's no way to condense all this together um but this conversation i had with anthony and miriam uh lasted for over an hour and a half and that entire interview will be available either on podcast form or video form we're still kind of trying to figure that out uh both on the wisdom of odin uh and on their podcast as well and so if you want to listen to that full conversation will be available to you but i definitely try to take the highlights of that and bring it to this video and so really the first thing here i want to make sure i specify as well and that they saw is very important and i see is important is the difference between a shaman and shamanic practice or shamanism and so a shaman is someone who actually has the role of a shaman within a community whose job and profession it is to heal people to help people to use what they've learned from another shaman that trained them in order to do these things and so someone who is actually a practicing shaman is it is their profession it is a career whereas someone who uses shamanism or shamanic practice like myself learns from shamanism typically core shamanism in order to enrich their lives in order to get connected more to their spirituality perhaps to their gods and so it's just one of those things where you know the terminology is very difficult and you know and i wish it was a lot easier i like to boil things down to simplicity but it's not that simple um but yes really you have the shamans that are you know should be highly respected it's a craft it's something that takes years and years of training it's something that is orally passed down it's going to be different from each tradition and then you have some minute practice which is more than likely what you'll be watching this video for so just as i have in the past with other subjects i've broken this down into categories of who what why where and how and answering these questions i think uh to make this a little bit easier of a conversation and then we'll kind of cover some things that i know a lot of people have questions about uh so yeah uh you know there's timestamps down below but first we're gonna cover what is shamanism shamanism now has two ways one of the practicing of the techniques and the other is the shaman and the shaman traditionally is the one that does uh healing he's also a priest uh he's a storyteller a doctor a psychologist and he also performs marriages and is involved death birth and everything else that involved in the community shamanism for me is um exactly as miriam said divided in those who practice who practice it and those who are a shaman um in which the role of the shaman is the healer the psychologist the doctor the one who tells you the things you have in your head but don't know how to listen to and i must add that the most important thing in shamanism is that you have the connection to the spirit world i was just gonna say that i'm sorry and the one that connects with spirit you said it first that should be the first thing that we should have said but it's just so obvious that uh it's so hard to explain this when you're fully into this so yes answering the question of what is shamanism is complicated it's a big question because it's many different things to many different people and many different people groups but as we've mentioned before and as we've talked about quite a bit already michael harner is probably the one most people are going to go with right away the way of the shaman was written quite a long time ago and the research done in this was you know of course quite a long time ago as well and it does have importance it may sound like we're negative towards course shamanism uh and it's not inherently a negative thing it just needs to understand that there's so much more to shamanism than just core shamanism written by michael harner in fact i think miriam puts it best in the way she describes her relationship with core shamanism it's like what you say um core shamanism takes the core from everything around the world and michael harner tried to find all the similarities around the world so he said like every shamanic tradition around the world uses bonds for example i just say something the one uses trans uh induced by plants the other does it by the drum etc so he says one component of shamanism of the core of shamanism is the trance so this is the way he uh how i perceive it or how how i uh have understood it um that he wanted to get some to the core of what real shamanism what shamanism was and is and um to make i believe it's it's not a bad starting point for us here without any tradition without any shamanic tradition because in the i believe in the late 70s or 60s a lot of native american uh rituals came to the west and uh the native american elders they said like you in the west have lost your shamanic tradition and we want to help you and you can use our rituals our sacred rituals so uh this was actually i believe a good starting point because there's a whole tradition it's like a full tradition and michael harness core shamanism um is of course not an existing tradition so he made a system to be uh to be clear and um this system i think it's not bad it's not bad it's not it's very it's very good actually and i've seen good results to up a certain point um for people to learn shamanism as as do i have learned it as do all of us probably have learned shamanism through books of sandra ingerman and those are very good books and they're absolutely not bad and i have no criticism about them whatsoever like i said everything's welcome in this world which is deprived of their connection to nature you know so everything's welcome but if you um if you want to bring a local aspect in uh i would prefer that more and um what's the difference well yeah well local tradition like uh heathenry is very local it's it's it connects with the plants with animals with a climate that is in a certain area and it also connects to the ancestors so the traditions that your ancestors have practiced as well so this makes up a broken line so this the hope is of course that we can reconnect this line and so people try to uh combine this core shamanism with research research into old tradition and and deities and all that kind of stuff so they almost use coarse shamanism as like a base to build off of yeah like a basis yeah and that's not a bad idea i think that's a good idea actually to to start fresh and if there is no other option or alternative this is the best way i think you can reconstruct your tradition your shamanic tradition but it's not um well in in fact it's now a tradition it's a tradition of michael harner so when you learn from michael hartner it's a tradition of michael garner hornet tradition you can call it this way so i believe yeah this is the tradition courthouse tradition so i liked how she described it as michael horner's version of shamanism his tradition of shamanism uh but i think it's important to note that there are many books that are very similar to michael harner's work as well so this is another one i picked up by paul francis and it's just called the shaminic journey and there's several books in the series and again it's not necessarily a bad thing and i learned a few things from this book it has some techniques that may help you out but at the end of the day it's very similar to michael harner's work and so i think a lot of the books you're going to find are going to be more similar to this than anything else but when it comes to specific information about shamanism and the tribes and cultures that have practiced them i can only say go to those cultures and tribes then if they want to share their shaminic practice with people from the outside i think that is perfectly fine and wonderful but i think it's ultimately up to them because this is a very sacred thing now likely spirit of wolf you know this is a siberian tradition but it has spread globally and so i really respect this way of thinking how they're sharing these sacred traditions and rituals with people around the world and i really really respect that now when it comes to the nordic perspective here for the people that you know watch the wisdom of odin for norse paganism this is when it gets really complicated because norse paganism and shamanism really don't have much of a link outside of vulva work or sather work now there's not many books about nordic shamanism and most of them are written by the same person which is evelyn reisdike rise dyke i believe is how you pronounce her name and i have one of her books here on uh physical copy which is this called spirit walking now this one isn't particularly about nordic paganism but she has another one that i have on kindle called the norse shaman and so these books are very similar in ways and they they go off of each other so clearly she took a lot of her writings from spirit walking which i think is a good book and then transitioned it over to norse shaman or vice versa but they're very similar but north shaman does focus on what we know historically about nordic shamanism or what would be called nordic shamanism or would be called nordic spirit walking and i think that's another key term here is spirit walking is a term you'll see a lot for shaminic practice as well so as far as the north shaman goes it does focus a lot on what we know about vulvas as well as say their practice a lot of this comes from archaeological evidence which we'll talk about more later when we get to spiritual garb and wear so she really tries to reconstruct off of very little information what a vulva say their practice would be now again when it comes to these things you know when i went to denmark and i went to the arena viking center there very clearly was you know pagan stuff happening there magic work happening and when i talked to the people there in denmark they said oh there's a vulva that lives here and so i tried to get in contact with her but i couldn't seem to get a hold of her uh she was one of those that definitely doesn't have a lot of social media and i think that's a common thing when it comes to schematic practice as well is it's hard to transcend the internet because a lot of people that practice this really stay away from the internet uh and so yeah it can be hard to learn more because of this but you know it's just it's complicated but yeah you know in conclusion as far as nordic shamanism it's really hard to say you know more than likely they had this kind of practice because the majority of cultures had some form of spirit working practice spirit walking practice that we now would call shamanism and the lump term but again it's just hard to say uh the same goes for the druids and the celtic uh belief system the celtic paganism uh if you haven't already the celtic paganism video will cover this in much more detail how complicated celtic paganism is but the druids themselves would fulfill a shaminic-type role as they were the spiritual advisors uh they helped with rituals they you know they were also the medicine men they were the people that healed and so they fulfilled a lot of the role of what shamans feel but they would be called druids and what they do would be called druidism uh and so it just it gets really complicated uh so yeah again it just it's really complicated here but you know it can be really hard to find specific norse things when it comes to shamanism and so that's why you know you know someone like me i look at what we understand from norse paganism and then look at uh you know core shamanism and try to draw those conclusions and just as miriam said a course shamanism can be a good foundation to build your own practice off of uh so yeah it just shamanism to me is a very personal experience that can be shared with others but requires an incredible amount of spiritual honesty between people now we already talked about this a little bit with nordic paganism and how that kind of goes into shamanism but i did ask miriam and anthony what they thought the who was of shamanism so who are involved in the practice of shamanism of course you yourself and you in connection with the spirits means the spirits of nature the elements the sun the moon the earth the sky the ancestors and all other beings that you don't know now how they would look like or how they're named but you will probably meet some so in the uh spirit of wolf tradition is there any like d that's like set deities does it follow like a deity path or is it more of like focus on the the actual practice of it uh well we we don't have deities uh we do have well we um get them get them we do have we do have deities um but it's it's not in the same form as um the norse structure we have father sky we have mother earth we have um apparently a god from the middle world that i learned yesterday about um yeah uh and then you have the god from the middle world or one of the gods from the middle who is uh uh he was a bear and he was actually the first one to give the the tambourine or the drum to the first chalmer so the thing i like here is like again this is one of those things especially with core shamanism and global religious beliefs as you see these uh lines you know come together in the sense of the ancestors being an important component you know they're being higher beings that do have importance and connection to us you know the most simple of them being sun moon earth you know and then getting more complicated from there but then also the idea of spirits spirits is i think the common ground that anyone that practices shamanism will find and the more i learn about you know paganism and how it's evolved in cultures who have not been removed from their pagan belief systems that's more or less how it is seen it's this animistic idea of us living in unity with the spiritual world around us now a couple of you know clean up questions here because of the when and the wear of shamanism and where you practice it you know these are just kind of simple questions but i thought maybe they would help you out uh it depends on tradition uh and it depends on your own needs and the way in shamanism that you've chosen but we in spirit of wolf we are active during several calendar days when we honor the elements and they have special days we honor the equinoxes and the solstices and we make ritual during the new and full moon to ride on this flow of energy of rise and fall and rise and fall again preferably in nature but we are living in 2022 in which we have more plants than we have children so you can connect with those but also in your homes uh these these have spirits too they care for you they will look out for you they will bring fortune for you if you treat them well and you can actually just do it everywhere if you find a nice rock on the street you just grab it sit down with it have a little talk with it it doesn't say anything that's perfect too but at least you have a nice lot nice rock now as far as me you know me i'm the outside guy i prefer to do things outside but i will say when i was just getting started with shaminic practicing with trance work with spirit walking i did it at my house because i didn't feel comfortable going outside and doing it but at the end of the day it is about nature it's about feeling more connected to everything about the lives that exist all around us about the trees about the grass about the bugs and so i do like to do it outside when i can but of course finding a space for it isn't always possible especially if you're using a drum but right here i think i found the perfect space for it it's a grove with a three triple tree growing in the center and so of course i'm like this is a perfect spot and there's no one here and so uh yeah i might do a little something out here we'll see but yeah as far as the wear it really is up to you where you feel the most comfortable uh but ultimately it can be done anywhere but just remember it is a nature-based thing so i highly recommend doing it outside now this next question is going to be the big one and i i uh you know i love asking this one to uh mary and anthony to see their answers but it's the question of why practice shamanism yeah why would someone practice shamanism um it brings you more into contact with nature with your own soul or spirit whatever you may call it um brings you more in touch with your feelings and can bring you a deep resting connection with the world around you yourself and others one should practice one should practice shamanism for its own benefits for mental health for physical health for spiritual health to learn to know yourself better in many levels for me it was a lifesaver and i'm sure it was for many people and will be for many people um the intense and beautiful bond you create with yourself and the spirits that are around you that's just worth it for for me now obviously this answer is going to be slightly different depending on if you want to be a shaman or if you want to practice shamanism being a shaman is going you know and wanting to be a shaman is going to be very different uh than someone that wants to practice shamanism and so for me personally as someone that just wants to practice shamanism that wants to use these techniques to enrich my spiritual practice and and connect more with the gods uh you know to me it is just deep in my ritual practice because ritual is one of the most important things to me when it comes to how i communicate with the gods and and how i communicate with the spirits and so using these shaminic techniques of drumming of singing of dancing have enriched the way i connect to the energies around me and so that's why shamanism is important to me and why i practice it so now we kind of really covered an introduction into what shamanism is and the different components of shamanism uh we need to talk about the actual techniques of shamanism so the three i was taught in the beginning at least from the books i read were drugs drums and dancing with three techniques now obviously one of these i consider more of a crutch because it's an easy way you take some drugs and you can have a spiritual trip the technique comes in when you're just using drums and dancing or singing to enter a trance-like state but first off really what is a trance state so trance isn't quite a meditative state meditation's more about clearing your mind where a trance is more about going on a journey having a destination and and this is really where the belief in the spirit world comes into play uh because this is what you're interacting with when you're going into a trance you're interacting with the spirit world now there are so many different varieties of trance out there so you know there of course is like a hypnosis trance where you know someone's kind of guiding you through it and typically when you get started with trance you want a guided trance you want someone guiding you through it someone else playing the drums and it actually takes quite a lot of work and practice to get to the point where you can drum and get yourself into a trance and this took me a long time as well so i highly recommend finding a playlist of a trans music there's plenty of them out there i've used them in the past you have to find what works for you and i know whenever we've had these guided meditations at our uh our retreats at our gatherings as a community we have music as well to help people uh kind of get into that state but when it comes to the actual ritual environments we rely very heavily on drums so drums are the quintessential way to get into a trance now these are not used necessarily by every shamanic group out there by every tradition in fact when it comes to the northern shamans the nordic shamans we have no evidence of them using drums to achieve trans-like states they did have some form of like vulva staff or sather staff that we know existed that was used in some form of ritual manner but drums we don't know definitively if they used in fact we don't know a lot about northern shamanism um if you want to learn more check out that book i recommended north shaman so yeah drums are to me the best way the best way to get into it right away uh to get into a trance state so look for a playlist um you know i definitely recommend picking one up yourself and getting used to drumming for a very long time and i guess you know the science behind it there is science behind trance-like states is when you you know have a semitic being you know uh a certain amount of beats it alters your brain chemistry and puts you in a different mindset and it's pretty crazy once you actually get there and so again like drugs can get you there like on their own you don't need anything else but it is pretty incredible when you can use uh drums to get to that state now dancing and singing um are something that i kind of go hand in hand with that that's something that you want to add more layers to and this is why shaminic techniques you know shamanism takes years to learn if not a lifetime not multiple lifetimes that's why it's passed down between shaman the shaman is because there are so many techniques that you can master to achieve you know what you want to achieve those spirit walking moments uh and so there's a lot of trust here when you get into a shaminic trance about what you're seeing what you're experiencing and really uh shamanism in general especially for shamans uh like actually working shamans you know there's a lot of trust involved because when you interact with the spirit world you know you're the one seeing it you're the one experiencing it and then bringing it back to others and using those effects and using what you see to help others and guide others as well so there's a huge amount of trust when it comes to shamanic practice and you know that's one of the reasons it's really hard to talk about uh just rolling into that question uh is you know can you describe a uh you know spirit of wolf shaman ritual you're the teacher there's no such thing as a spiritual typical ritual but one of the main rituals that you also find not only in our tradition but also in tuva and other places of siberia is the kamlani ritual which uh followers of mine or anthony have also seen coming on are up on our instagrams and um this is like a very ancient and basic sort of shamanic format for a ritual and um the kamlani is a fire ritual in which there is uh of course a fire and um this fire well the kamlani kam is means shaman so this for first and foremost and kamlani basically means something like the shaman communicates with his spirits and that's basically it and um the kamlan is for the shaman to be the mediator in this ritual so there can be people involved for healing there can be a blessing there can be a wedding there can be a celebration it can be an uh transfer of power or an initiation but this ritual is like a very well-known ritual across the whole eurasian continent and uh of course this goes uh together with several um other actions not only making the fire but the fire is made are built in a specific way and this way corresponds uh with the goal of the ritual so is it a blessing we make another uh fire or you build it in another way then we would if we would do an extraction ritual or or how we would say or a sort of exorcism ritual and um um the the the thing is that is uh pretty interesting for the listen listeners is that um how i was taught shamanism is mostly inwards so uh when we contact the spirits we we close ourselves off from the external world and we go inside and you see everywhere these images that people lie on the floor and doing trans uh journeys and these chance journeys are very popular you see them everywhere and again that is not a criticism or anything it's perfect uh but a difference is that the kamlani is very active so we create a ritual space there is a fire and the shaman has uh his tongue his shamanic costume or coat he has his own and he has his drum and he goes clockwise or against the clock or but mostly clockwise around the fire with his drone so he is very active and of course the shaman is known as the a person who goes into extas and he he um he or she of course but i use he now um he invites the spirits into this place into this field the spirits are actually there and can touch you and you can see them and they can do stuff with the fire and they do stuff with the wind and um this is of course very different than the trance journeys in which we travel to another place and the kamlani is like we invite them to come with us and be with us so this is an important i think an important distinction between what we maybe are used to here in the west so for me a basic schematic ritual involves a drum that's really it so that's a really basic one and if you actually look at all these books i've recommended throughout this have a lot of beginner techniques i recommend a lot of them are very simple just simple journeys uh simple conversations with spirits and and things like that uh but i you know i would say like the first one which is a really good one is just like a gratitude one uh this is the first one i learned uh is just going into a shaminic trance and then just saying to the the realms that we're in now the middle realm you know thank you thank you for everything thanking the spirits that are around you for every lesson they teach you um it's it's a really wholesome and great way to connect with them uh and then once you've connected here in the middle realm it's a lot easier to to start exploring elsewhere because the middle realm is what exists now i mean it's this tree right next to me it's this valley it's this clown's above me you know all the spirits that exist around me that's the middle realm so it's more tangible but when it comes to things such as the upper realm and you know what is above us and connecting to deities and higher beings it gets a little bit more complicated uh and then actually going down and talking with the ancestors and primal spirits that's a whole another story uh so there's so many layers to this and and all things i can't cover in an introduction video but this idea of going up and down the world tree uh going up down and down the tree or upper and lower and middle realms and all those things that is kind of the core thing that you're trying to do with a shaminic ritual uh there is one more subject i want to cover before we end the video because i think this is going to be one that people are really interested in and that is ritual clothing because i i think this is something people fixate on really quickly and so i want to make sure we cover it so yeah let's talk about ritual clothing or spiritual guard when it comes to shamanic practice so hey it's me again back at the sacred grove that i was discussing earlier and we're getting to the section of this video talking about ritual clothing so before we dive too deeply into that and i'll share with you miriam's and anthony's answer and talk about my own experiences with ritual clothing i want to say that i see a lot of people they focus on this too much as soon as they get into shaming practice they want to get the clothing right away this should be a natural progression it shouldn't be i really truly believe it shouldn't be something that you're like okay i need to buy all the clothes so i can fit the part i think that is too common we see across a lot of facets of life of people that want to get into hiking and buy all the hiking clothes but never go hiking the people that wouldn't get into working out or you know going to the gym more they buy all these athletic clothes and they don't actually work out and so this is something that's just a human condition and it's the same with shaminic practice truly in my mind what you need is a way to get into the trance that is one of the most important aspects to me of shaminic practice and so buying a drum making a drum that is where you want to start the clothing the wear it'll all come in time again we'll share with you where this clothing comes from where i've kind of discovered it in my own path and of course where the spirit of wolf tradition comes in so if you want to get into shamanic practice for the first time what i truly believe you need to pick up before the visor before the headdress before the robes before the necklace is before anything else is a drum um well the the tongue the shamanic costume um like is hanging behind me and miriam um it contains a few parts you have the shamanic crown or headdress which is set upon the head and you have the tongue which is the divestment that you're wearing it's like a rope but a little bit different this first and foremost it brings protection it brings protection to to ourselves but also to the people around us especially if we're hosting a ritual where other people are included the earring that are hanging the snakes that are hanging from uh izzy's um shamanic costume these are spirits that are actually helping her along her path uh in the rituals but also in healing work and in uh if i'm correct about this daily life um and they at it's it's like having a personal army with you that will help you um that will help you with healings with guiding with calling in the right spirits so that nobody gets like um bad experiences um and the like you said was correct um the tone as we call it is um the snakes are indeed uh iren as we we called in erin is basically a spirit house or spirit doll or whatever name or amulet or something that contains a spirit and these snakes are given by initiation so this is a very big difference between the ritual garment that you see who also other people from traditions are wearing who are not initiated and this is your proof of initiation so you don't need anything to uh if i go to siberia and i come like this they they see you are shaman within the tradition because this is what you get when you are initiated and the snakes are also power from the underworld but this is a very large topic that i cannot explain fully right now it's indeed an armor and it's of course very personal in spirit of wolf this the tone the the coat is very personal um because we are very non-dogmatic because it's very free in its very authentic connection to nature uh for example in buryat tradition you see that the shamans often wear the same garment or the same dress and on the head is always feathers because if no feathers then the shaman cannot fly to the other worlds this is the the thought of it and we also have some very traditional places there where you place some things and this has to do with the cosmology for example here this is uh the sun representation for spirit of the sun and this is on the right side because we see sun as male and the right side of the body is also male and the moon is on left side on the back because the sun is consciousness and that we can see with the light of the sun and the moon is dark and is unconscious and subconscious so this is on the back for for just an example and students of spirit of wolf who have not yet been initiated they all make this costume um but this costume is not important for if you just do shamanism most of the people who start with shamanism in our tradition are called white shamans and they work with spirits of the upper world and we see this as as spirits that are helpful and that are not so much dangerous and you have the black shaman who works mostly with the underworld spirits and also is very much involved in healing so um this is more important to have more protection but it's also it's of course most important that you start with the easy things and the the good things and the good is not a good um word for it but uh the helpful spirits before you go to the harmful spirits and you see anthony has also made the headdress and the coat and when he is ready and spirits want it so he gets initiation and then he gets the snakes in the shaman name so in spirit of wolf is a big big big difference because we in spirit of wolf if you join spirit of wolf you go on the path of the role of the shaman so you don't uh you are not uh involved in a hobby or or just um without responsibilities this way will lead you and educate you to become maybe a shaman or not it can also not be it's not like you join spirit of off and then you get initiation it's not that simple um some people take years before and and some people never never get initiation but they just work within the tradition and sometimes people get initiated in a tradition but are not shamans and get no shaman name this is also possible so a big difference between what we do and what we teach is that we bring back this profession of the shaman back in europe and this is very much different than using shamanic techniques which is also very beneficial to this world but we make this profession we bring this profession back in europe now when it comes to the ritual garb i really don't think i can add too much more than what miriam and anthony talked about is this is going to become something from the tradition that you're working with if you're working with like spirit of wolf they have a very specific way that they do their spiritual guard but there's also the organic component that's going to determine what it is and specific details about your spiritual wear when it comes to me and my personal practice what i have as far as my spiritual like items and what i wear during a ritual has been something that has been very organic and explorative because nothing of my shaminic garb is something i bought all at once many of it is stuff that i have made i've replaced stuff that just has memories to me like the green robe i have there is nothing special about that green robe i bought it off amazon and i and i'll admit it i bought it off amazon but i have worn it dimmering so many rituals the first time i wore it was at the midsummer gathering of the first midsummer gathering we ever had and i've worn it at countless rituals since then so now it has a story and now it has purpose to me and there's no book out there that says you have to wear a green robe during your certain rituals or anything like that but now that green robe is important to me even though it's just an amazon row by bot it has a story and a meaning and that's another reason that shamanism is difficult to talk about is because it is a very personal spiritual experience and so really it's going to be different for every single one of you out there but i do have a piece of advice here at the very end for you to help you along your way if you're interested in getting into this i highly recommend picking up a journal a handwritten journal preferably because it it's nice to have something tactile that you can touch and again there's this you know shamanism and shaminic tradition is normally an orally passed down thing and so even talking about it and putting on the internet just feels slightly wrong at times and so having a book is really nice but this is a really good way to just you know write down your shamanic experiences and record it because it's a highly visual and again personal experience for instance i'm going to show you right here something i saw on one of my spirit walkings this is how my myself my soul my mind interpreted the world tree when i was on a spirit walk you know i saw a purple ocean i saw a golden tree and you know and at other times i've seen a field walking up to that same tree and so your mind's going to interpret these images in different ways and the more that you do trances and you do spirit walking the more these images become solid and more known to you and again these are personal to me i can't you know go on the internet be like this is what the world trade looks like i saw in my mind i had a trance this is what it's like that is toxic shamanism toxic spirituality this is personal spirituality this is showing you hey i went into a trance i used shamanic techniques i saw these things isn't that cool wow what did you see wow that's a really interesting interpretation our minds are going to interpret what we see very differently in our spiritual experiences and so having a journal to write down and draw what you see i think is very important even if you're not a good artist you know like i've seen these things as well during you know deep trances slash meditation so you know seeing different symbols okay what do these symbols mean let's hunt down these symbols uh or maybe you do another trance and you see these symbols again um you know to some people it might sound like nonsense but truly these are how you start building your stories and building your uh your shamanic journey that's a lot this was a big episode and there's gonna be a lot more i talk about like you know i'm gonna release another video talking about my spiritual garb uh the story behind everything here even though that's a scary prospect um but you know it's one of those things where i i feel like we need to talk about it more because you know one of the things that anthony and miriam were telling me is that shamanism and to be a shaman is a dying art and what i'm learning more and more is that the idea identities of paganism across the world and shamanism and all these things they're dying off and if we don't do do something to preserve them or have the conversation you know they are going to continue to die and and just because shamanism is is complicated and it's hard to talk about doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it um to me it's all about respect can you respect the source material can you respect one another when you have a conversation and so that's all i can ask of the universe i this video is not perfect this video was very hard to make but i hope it has been able to give you a starting point off in your research to figure out more about shamanism on your own please hop down and join in the conversation down below if you want to talk about shamanic practice and you know and just learn from one another a huge shout out to miriam and anthony for helping me throughout this video uh helping me throughout the process and of course sitting down and having that interview with me um i'll leave a link down below wherever that interview full interview ends up so thank you to you both um i wouldn't be able to have done this without you and i hope i was able to honor what you taught me in the brief times that we talked um you can find me on instagram this is right now my main source where to find me and it is wolf pack healer one word um i try to share as much as i can i'm not always good at it but i tried to share good content yeah and for me uh without spelling my whole name and everything around it it's uh best to just look for izzy there come and i think jacob would be so nice to put it somewhere uh around where you are listening right now so uh you can go to the instagram and there you can find my website and there you can find spirit of wolf but if you are very much interested in spirit of wolf and not in me or in anthony you can go to spiritofwolf.net to look for more info on the tradition oh yes and of course you can also find miriam and i talking about all things shamanism and healing on our podcast which is called woodwolf which jacob will also be so kindly to link in the description that's got a lot of me right now i gotta link a few oh my gosh uh with that thank you all so very much those names going down here these are the amazing people that support this channel that make sure i'm able to do this research and this work and make these contacts come out here and film these things and edit it and all this stuff so all these people thank you very much if you want to get your name in the credits head down to patreon uh there is a tier that allows you to get your name and the credits here along with a lot of other benefits including our community discord live streams early access videos and the book supporter tier uh so thank you to all these names thank you everyone that watches this content and until the hall let's go [Music] you

Channel: Jacob Toddson

Views: 84,220

Keywords: pagan, Paganism, Norse Paganism, Norse, Norse myth, Norse mythology, asatru, Viking, Vikings, heathen, heathenry, books, list, Odin, Thor, Freya, old gods, religion, wicca, Wiccan, shaman, shamanism, Nordic, yule, pagan holidays, winter, pagan christmas, offering, sacrifice, heilung, ritual, Asatru for beginners, spirit walking, shamanic practice, core shamanism, traditional shamanism, Shamanism for beginners, Introduction into shamanism, what is shamanism

Id: _lN6BAXsj9g

Length: 47min 52sec (2872 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 21 2022