It is known that almost every nation has people with otherworldly knowledge. They are called differently: sorcerers, witches, wise men, etc. For many tribes and peoples of the North, these people are shamans.
It is believed that special people of the tribe, entering into a trance, go to the abode of supernatural forces. There they receive the patronage of higher entities, secret knowledge and a special Power that helps them solve a variety of problems, and also protects them from various vicissitudes of fate.
But at the same time, when this person is endowed with special Power, he undertakes to follow the established rules and very clearly observe certain taboos, breaking which he himself can suddenly, for no apparent reason, die.
The shaman has always played a very important role in the tribe. The forces that surround him, and the spirits that patronize him, can have a serious impact on the life of the community as a whole and the affairs of each person individually. And as long as the members of the tribe are in harmony with themselves and the world around them, they do not bother the shaman. Otherwise, the shaman is trying to save his fellow tribesmen from the difficulties that have arisen.
Therefore, the connection of the shaman with supernatural forces, vital for the tribe, which he carried out with the help of special techniques, has always been the main idea of shamanism.
The shaman performs many different functions. He is a healer because he is contacted in case of illness or injury, he is a forecaster because he is asked to predict the weather, he is a futurologist because he can predict the future.
In addition, he is also a specialist in various types of magic: for example, in hunting and love, as well as a local investigator who can find lost things or people, solve a murder or, if necessary, wound the enemy himself at a distance.
Moreover, some shamans of a number of northern peoples use a special practice of revitalization. Before the beginning of this session, the shaman removes everyone from the plague and lies prone next to the deceased. He is in this position for three days, and all this time no one should enter the chum. When the allotted time has passed, a shaman and a deceased person may appear on the threshold of the plague. True, it also happens that the magical effect does not bring the expected result.
Promotional video:
In general, the shaman is the creator of conditions for the normal life of the entire community of people who surround him.
However, it should be borne in mind that a shaman is not only a bearer of goodness and nobility. The shaman could also use his supernatural Power to inflict evil, for example, damage someone or a serious illness.
In this case, one should turn to another shaman, who could defeat his evil rival in the astral space and thereby save the victim from witchcraft.
It should be noted that conversations about the supernatural Power of shamans are not just legends, but a very real phenomenon. There are numerous examples of hard-to-explain manifestations of the Power of shamans, which are confirmed by the observations of famous ethnologists, historians, travelers and other researchers. Moreover, these data are not disputed by modern science.
For example, Edwin Denig, who traded with the Indians of the northern Great Plains from 1833 to 1855, described the following amazing story: “A few years ago, a man of the Assiniboine tribe was surrounded by three Blackfeet. Three enemies shot at him and all three bullets hit the target. One broke the thigh, the second the lower leg of the other leg, and the third pierced the stomach and came out right through near the kidney and spine.
The Blackfeet rushed to him, intending to scalp, stabbed him in the head with a knife and even partially ripped off the scalp, but the assiniboine continued to fight back fiercely. Then the Blackfeet struck him from top to bottom with a long spear, the tip of which pierced the wretch deeply under the collarbone. In addition, they pierced his body with their knives several times.
Resisting, the assiniboine managed to snatch the spear from the hands of the blackfoot and, jabbing it at the opponents, forced them to retreat a few steps. Meanwhile, the people in the camp, hearing the shots and suspecting the worst, rushed to the rescue. The enemies fled, and the assiniboins carried the bleeding wounded man to his tent.
A few days later the camp roamed past the fort, and I saw a wounded man. He was in such a deplorable state that one could not expect anything other than his death. The weather was extremely hot, his wounds were purple, smelled badly, and had all the signs of gangrene. The camp moved away, and after a while the wounded man recovered.
The half-torn scalp was placed in place, and it took root again … This man is still alive, and now his fellow tribesmen call him the One Who Received Many Wounds …
Of course, saving a person who has received so many injuries, many of which are almost incompatible with life, even today, with the indisputable success of medicine, would be a rather difficult matter.
The amazing results of treatment that some shamans have shown have been reported by many American officers. One of them, John Burke, wrote: "I can mention, among many other cases, two Apache leaders who recovered from the treatment of their shamans after our military doctors abandoned them."
And this story, which once again very clearly confirms the special power of the shaman, happened already in our time, in 1958. Then one elderly woman from the Apache tribe was admitted to the hospital. Doctors diagnosed her with a fatal form of tuberculosis. Not wanting to die in the hospital, the woman asked to be allowed home.
As soon as the patient was at home, her husband made an agreement with one famous shaman that he would conduct a very powerful healing ritual of the Mountain Spirits. It took the shaman four nights.
On the first night, the patient, who was brought into the house on a stretcher, was able to get up and, sitting down, drank some broth. On the second night, she wanted to eat. And although on the third night her condition did not improve, the next night she got out of bed and took several careful steps around the room.
Twelve years later, in 1970, a 70-year-old woman who was considered hopelessly ill by American doctors was still alive, although she suffered from tuberculosis.
And here is another story told by the American ethnographer and traveler Fred Reiser. This scientist spent several months in the forests of Kenya, in a village of the Maasai tribe.
Raiser once witnessed an amazing healing procedure that a local sorcerer named Mpayo performed with a member of the tribe suffering from a serious mental disorder.
The sorcerer's assistants quickly dug a hole one and a half meters deep, where they then placed the tied patient and, together with him, also the tied goat.
The pit was quickly covered with earth and a huge bonfire was made over the “grave”. For the next hour, Mpayo paced around the fire, waving a staff inlaid with mysterious patterns and chanting magic spells. When the fire died out, the ritual ended and the grave was dug up. The person who underwent the "therapy" not only turned out to be safe and sound, but at the same time got rid of all the signs of mental illness. The goat buried together with the man was "less fortunate" - he died of suffocation.
Shocked by what he saw, Raiser tried to find out from the sorcerer how a person who had been lying at a depth of one and a half meters under a thick layer of earth for an hour had managed not only to survive, but also to recover. Mpayo refused to reveal his secret to the white man, but explained that the patient, when he is buried alive in the "grave", is in a special condition. The patient plunges into it after drinking a magic drink and a special ritual dance in which he took part.
“While the patient's body lies in the grave, his soul remains in heaven,” said the African sorcerer. - During the ceremony, the disease passes to the goat, and the animal dies.
Like any scientist, Raiser was critical of Mpayo's words, but the fact was obvious - the man survived underground and recovered, and the goat died either from lack of air, or for some other unknown reason.
In general, experienced shamans believe that only two main causes cause disease. First, something enters the human body that should not be present in it. This “something” is energy that does not belong to the patient. By removing it, the shaman heals the patient. Secondly, something that should be there disappears from the body. By returning this "something" back to the body, the shaman relieves the patient from the disease.
For the treatment of the sick, the shaman does not use his personal power, since his own reserve of energy could quickly be depleted and he himself would become a victim of the malaise that he was going to eliminate. Therefore, he draws energy from an inexhaustible source located in the higher spheres and feeds a sick person with it.
Sometimes the shaman enters an altered state of awareness in order to extract harmful energy or restore the patient's personal strength …
Sometimes shamans and magicians show even more unique abilities. An example of this is the following story, which occurred in 1586 during the war between the Netherlands and Spain. In one of the battles, a Spanish soldier was captured, whom Prince William of Orange ordered to shoot.
They placed him near a tree and fired several volleys. However, the Spaniard survived without even receiving a single scratch. Then the clothes were ripped off the prisoner, suggesting that there was chain mail under it. But only an amulet hung around the prisoner's neck. When he was removed, the first shot struck the Spaniard …
At the end of the 19th century, a wave of rumors swept across Europe about a certain Ethiopian sorcerer, who was allegedly also not taken by a bullet. Once a group of skeptics decided to check how much truth is in these conversations. And the magician, in order to dispel their doubts, for little money, allowed them to fire several shots at him from a gun. But not a single bullet touched the magician, even when fired from a very close distance: having escaped from the barrel, the bullets described a parabola and fell to the ground …
Some Indians have a unique ability to escape bullets. So, during the battle in November 1876 between American soldiers and warriors of the Cheyenne Indian tribe, in the midst of the battle, an old Indian climbed a hillock, lit a pipe and, sitting down on the ground, began to smoke. Bullets whistled all around, but the old man didn't get a scratch. After some time, he was accompanied by another tribesman. Under the hail of bullets, he also took a few puffs. And he also remained intact.
No less curious is the story of a Cheyenne shaman nicknamed Mad Mule. “Once in the upper reaches of the Powder River, four Cheyenne approached him and each shot him. He stood with his back against a tree. After the fourth shot, the shaman bent down, took off his moccasins and poured four bullets out of them …"
The Indians have a lot of similar cases. So, in the Sioux tribe people with such abilities were called "wakan" - "mysterious." Sometimes they demonstrated their unique talents to their compatriots. Before the start of the “performance,” they painted the body in a special way and, putting on wide bandages on their hips and magic whistles on their necks, the “wakan” lined up in a chain and moved towards the people shooting at them. And the arrows that touched their bodies bent or broke, and the flattened bullets fell at their feet, leaving no damage to the wakan's body.
Of course, this is hard to believe. But facts, especially if they are numerous, are stubborn things. Therefore, some scientists have tried to investigate this phenomenon. As a result, it was found that many of the "invulnerable" had special magic items with them: hats, magic stones, sacred weapons, which served as protective equipment against bullets and arrows.
In addition to individual talismans, there were also those that belonged to a group of people or the entire tribe. For example, the Sioux tribe had four so-called "web" shields, which consisted of a hoop, the inner space of which was braided with straps. And such a shield could not be pierced by arrows or bullets.
Perhaps, indeed, there is some mysterious force hidden in the Indian amulets that can influence other bodies in an unknown way? Unfortunately, science does not yet have an answer to this question.
By the way, the magicians of Thailand and India are well aware of a special astral fluid called akashi, which, if properly controlled, can form a dense shell around a person.
Bernatsky Anatoly