There was no place to walk in this world where there are no elders, no medicine people or even knowledge of such things. A child growing up, seeing and being aware of realities, thoughts and such that others seemed not to notice. Being smart enough not to talk of what I experienced, lest I be punished or put into some mental ward as often happens in our society Diagnosed MPD and other medical and mental illnesses, treated by western medicine and never healed. But then they didn’t know what they were dealing with. How many others wander the streets or seem ‘odd’ to others we will never know in a society that lost touch with its routs and history. By the time I was taken to a Shaman at about 40 years of age, I was seeing my body in a state of decomposition in a mirror or window as I walked by. It was normal for me to be in and out of my body, into different times and places. Over time I’d finally lost control to hide what was happening to me. It is referred to as the Shamans Death but that would have meant nothing to me.
In one Soul Retrieval this man took me from the point of insanity to my defined illnesses being gone. It was only much later I learned what had happened and started putting the pieces together with help of both native and non-native Shamans who took me under their wing and helped through the awakening process.
This article explains some of the process.
"The “shamanic sickness” is a common theme, though many shamans never experience any such “death” and “rebirth.” This is almost certainly the basis for the common beliefs in a dying and rising god, as detailed by James Frazer in his classic, The Golden Bough. The shaman experiences some crushing trauma, whether physical or emotional, which threatens death (even if only by suicide). This usually culminates in a dream featuring the vivid, painful and terrifying dismemberment of the afflicted. Once dismembered, the afflicted is re-assembled by the spirits.
The shaman’s task is very often portrayed as a painful ordeal, but this “shamanic sickness” provides a severe impetus to pursue that path. The afflicted is forced to become a shaman. The alternative is to die. As a “wounded healer,” the shaman may then use the skills and spiritual alliances she formed during her own healing to help others. Her own brush with death leaves her somehow “touched” with the spirits, drawing her forever afterwards closer to that world. In this excruciating way, the shaman neither chooses her own path, nor is chosen by the people; rather, the shaman is chosen by the spirits.
Shamanic cultures also consistently teach that the most valuable training a shaman recieves is not from other people–not even other shamans–but from the spirits themselves. The spirits teach shamans “power songs” and other information they will need to be effective shamans." The Shaman’s Vision by Jason Godesky
