A mysterious man in fancy clothes, kamlaya with a tambourine, a spirit charmer and a folk healer - this is how we imagine a shaman. Many inhabitants of Siberia still believe in the power of local soothsayers and sorcerers. And few people know what shocking facts are sometimes hidden behind the magical rituals of shamans.
Epileptic seizure
Arctic hysteria is a psychopathic disease that the inhabitants of Siberia and the Far North are prone to due to a number of objective factors, such as low temperatures, paucity, lack of vitamins, etc.
The Swedish religious scholar Åke Olmarx (1911-1984) believed that shamanism is a pronounced form of manifestation of Arctic hysteria when a person experiences epileptic seizures. The patient considers his hallucinations to be communicating with spirits and believes in everything supernatural. The only difference between ordinary psychopaths and a shaman is that he can control seizures, deliberately causing them using special techniques.
Death for abandoning shamanism
If the spirits of ancestors chose a person as a shaman, then he must accept his destiny or die. Among the peoples of Siberia, it is believed that before gaining the ability of a soothsayer and a healer, a person experiences the so-called "shamanic withdrawal". This is an inexplicable disease, which can be healed only by beginning communication with spirits.
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For many people, the visions that arise in them become a real shock, the usual perception of the world collapses, life plans are reassessed. If the chosen one is not ready to completely change his fate, then he becomes seriously ill. Rejection of shamanism for such a person means a quick death.
Marriage to a deity or spirit
Romanian historian and philosopher Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) wrote in his book Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy that shamans often enter into ritual marriages with various deities or patron spirits. They are confident that they enter into sexual relations with the inhabitants of other dimensions, being in a state of trance.
There were cases when such a mystical wife demanded a divorce from the shaman if he was married before receiving magical abilities. And mortal husbands did not dare to oppose the will of the "heavenly" ladies.
Shamanism involves not only business, but also sexual relations with spirits. This is the cornerstone of such beliefs.
Ejaculation during the ritual
Shamanic ecstasy is tantamount to symbolic intercourse. As a rule, the ritual of a ritual with a tambourine ends with ejaculation. A special state of consciousness, when the soothsayer "connects" with spirits, goddesses, magical assistants, almost inevitably causes an erection in a man.
Often the mystical experiences of shamans are associated with sexual emotions. And the close connection between what is happening in a person's consciousness and the physiological reactions of his body to imaginary events does not raise doubts among psychiatrists.
Are they werewolves?
Spirits-helpers of shamans often appear in the form of various animals, birds, fish and reptiles. Imitating the movements and habits of the totem animal, during the ritual, a person symbolically reincarnates into a representative of the fauna. He puts on the appropriate skin and mask, makes sounds like a roar, growl, howl or scream. Reincarnated, the magician leaves for the taiga, believing that he has actually become a beast.
Many Siberians believe that shamans are werewolves. Moreover, not only wolves, but also bears, beavers, wolverines, snakes, ravens … According to legends, light and dark shamans sometimes fight to the death with each other, being in their animal guises.
Drugs for ecstasy
Usually, to achieve a state of trance for a shaman, monotonous beats of a tambourine and ritual dancing are enough, but to enhance the ecstasy they use additional means. As a rule, these are drugs. We are talking about eating hallucinogenic mushrooms, inhaling the smoke of intoxicating herbs, smoking special mixtures.
Shamans widely use drug intoxication to communicate with spirits and divination. Such substances, they believe, help to better tune in to the perception of the supernatural world and its inhabitants.
Sex reassignment and "transformation" into a woman
Among Kamchadals, Chukchi, Koryaks, and representatives of some peoples of Siberia, there are transvestite shamans. More often men "turn" into women, although it happens that shaman women begin to dress and behave like representatives of the stronger sex. Such people can even enter into marriages, which are now called LGBT unions.
The transformation of a man-shaman into a woman is not ritual, but quite real. Well, maybe without sex reassignment surgery. And all at the behest of the spirits who appeared during the ritual, of course. Moreover, some shamans are so disgusted by the very thought of such a thing that they prefer to commit suicide.
Torture by fire and frost
A young man who received the gift of a shaman from his ancestors is going through a lot of trials. And this is not only magical withdrawal. Having accepted his destiny, the young man finds a teacher - an experienced colleague who tests the neophyte's resolve and shares his knowledge with him.
The future Siberian shaman endures real torture both by fire and frost. For example, it can be wrapped in wet sheets and put outside on a winter night, where the air temperature often drops below -50 ° C. And he should stand until the sheets are completely dry.
In addition, the shaman needs to acquire symbolic power over fire. To do this, he touches the hot metal with his hands and feet until the limbs lose sensitivity. But then it hits people, calmly interacting with fire.
Fortune telling on shamanic turtles
Shamans are usually buried not in cemeteries, but in forest thickets so that no one bothers them. But every Siberian people has its own traditions. For example, among the Yukaghirs, the corpses of soothsayers and healers were dismembered, and the bones were divided between relatives, since it was believed that they saved from evil spirits.
Special attention was paid to the skulls of shamans. They were framed with wooden frames and kept as heirlooms. In Siberia, they even used such ritual remains to make fortune telling; living shamans "asked" their deceased colleagues for advice on various issues.
Orynganym Tanatarova