Shamanism dates back to the Bronze Age and the Neolithic Age, when people lived in close unity with nature and believed that everything in the world happens under the influence of otherworldly entities - spirits. Human illness, childbirth, luck or failure - it all depends on them. A person who knew how to penetrate into the subtle world and communicate with spirits became a shaman.
Once shamanism was widespread among ancient cultures, its heritage can be found in ancient culture. However, many peoples still use the services of shamans, and they enjoy great authority and respect from their fellow tribesmen. These peoples include the inhabitants of the north: the Nenets, Samoyeds, Buryats, as well as the inhabitants of Africa and a number of southern countries. For centuries, shamanic practice has been widely used here, to which people resort to help in difficult situations.
It is believed that the ability to shamanism is inherited. However, if a person feels in himself an irresistible craving for this kind of knowledge, then he, too, can become a shaman. Usually men become shamans, since carrying out rituals and rituals requires enormous physical and mental costs. However, sometimes women can also become shamans. The signs of a future shaman appear already in early childhood: such children are unsociable, prefer to spend time in the forest and alone, and are immune to cold.
Often, children have large birthmarks or extra fingers on their bodies, which serves as another confirmation that the child is marked with perfume for his own purposes. There is such a definition: "shamanic disease", which the future shaman will surely suffer from. The symptoms of this disease are reminiscent of seizures of epilepsy, seizures accompanied by a disorder of consciousness.
At such moments, a person hears the voices of spirits that incline him to become a shaman and become a mediator between their world and people. If a person does not want this, then his torment continues until he gives his consent. Often, the "shaman" has a protracted period and is accompanied by severe pain. After the spirits achieve their goal, they "carry away" the soul of a person, and his body, after destruction in the other world, is reborn. This initiation process ends with the future shaman fully recovering, receiving his guardian spirit, and showing the ability to communicate with spirits in a trance state.
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Shaman training begins at an early age and lasts a very long time. Sometimes a shaman reaches his prime of power only by the age of 60. Very powerful shamans may have several guardian spirits. When such a person dies, he must, without fail, transfer his spirit-assistants to another shaman, otherwise the spirits will not let go of his soul and torment their master for a long time.
Shamans are white and black. White shamans communicate with the spirits of the Earth: water, sky, mountains. They interact with the spirits and ask people to fulfill their requests. Black shamans can go out into space and descend to the lower worlds in order to take from there a person's soul, stolen by spirits. Having entered a state of trance, the shaman, during the rite of ritual (always with a tambourine), goes into the subtle world, and must convince the spirits to release the soul in exchange for what they demand: it can be a sacrifice, or the performance of some action.
In the process of training, the shaman learns the Universe and the creatures living in it, practicing magicians admit that at first it is quite creepy, and then addiction occurs. During the communication of the shaman with the spirits, witnesses of the ritual hear extraneous voices, levitation of small objects is observed.
Among the shamans of Chukotka, there are sometimes so-called "soft men" who behave like women, dress in women's clothes. This happens when the spirits order the shaman to “change sex”. Some of the shamans, not wanting to obey this order, committed suicide.
The shaman's craft is very risky. A magician who does not have sufficient strength during the transition to the spirit world can lose his soul. Those who accidentally interfere with the shaman during the ceremony can also die, even if they are his closest relatives. The release of energy of extraordinary power in a trance state is uncontrollable, and there is a known case when a shaman caused the death of his own daughter, not wanting it at all.
Shamans heal people, help fulfill their desires, but this is a very difficult craft. To avoid problems with spirits, white shamans advise people not to offend nature spirits, not to destroy their environment, and perhaps then a person will feel much healthier and happier.