Shamanism Quotes

• Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience upon which primordial shamanism is based is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego.

  Terence McKenna

  Ego, Psychedelic, Absence

  "Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution". Book by Terence McKenna, February 1, 1992.

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• Shamanism is a path of knowledge, not of faith, and that knowledge cannot come from me or anyone else in this reality. To acquire that knowledge, including the knowledge of the reality of the spirits, it is necessary to step through the shaman's doorway and acquire empirical evidence.

  Michael Harner

  Reality, Doorways, Path

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• Shamanism is the oldest form of communicating and healing. It probably resides in all of us.

  Amy Hardie

  Healing, Form, Communicate

  "Live Chat with Filmmaker and Dream Experts". Live Chat, www.pbs.org.

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• Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature
  is ourselves, to be cherished and explored. Shamanism has always known this,
  and shamanism has always, in its most authentic expressions, taught that the
  path required allies. These allies are the hallucinogenic plants and the
  mysterious teaching entities, luminous and transcendental, that reside in that
  nearby dimension of ecstatic beauty and understanding that we have denied until
  it is now nearly too late.

  Terence McKenna

  Teaching, Expression, Understanding

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• It isn't that a warrior learns shamanism as time goes by; rather, what he learns as time goes by is to save energy. This energy will enable him to handle some of the energy fields which are ordinarily inaccessible to him. Shamanism is a state of awareness, the ability to use energy fields that are not employed in perceiving the everyday-life world that we know.

  Carlos Castaneda

  Warrior, Everyday, Energy

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• Shamanism is not a religion. It’s a method. And when this method is practiced with humility, reverence and self-discipline, the shaman’s path can become a way of life.

  Hank Wesselman

  Humility, Self, Discipline

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• Nature is not our enemy, to be raped and conquered. Nature is ourselves, to be cherished and explored.

  Terence McKenna

  Inspirational, Life, Nature

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• What's really important about shamanism is that there is another reality that you can personally discover...we are not alone.

  Michael Harner

  Reality, Important, Not Alone

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• The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.

  Carlos Castaneda

  Positive, Attitude, Warrior

  Carlos Castaneda (2013). “Tales of Power”, p.106, Simon and Schuster

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• The Old Religion, as we call it, is closer in spirit to Native American traditions or to shamanism of the Arctic. It is not based on dogma or a set of beliefs, nor on scriptures or a sacred book revealed by a great man. Witchcraft takes it's teachings from nature, and reads inspiration in the movements of the sun, moon, and stars, the flight of birds, the slow growth of trees, and the cycles of the seasons.

  Starhawk

  Stars, Book, Teaching

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• You are human, whether your ancestors come from Europe, Asia, Africa, or wherever, shamanism once existed there. We are just attempting to go home to our spiritual roots before the state religions, the agrarian centralized religions rose up with autocratic government and said, 'This is what you're going to believe, these are the official revelations, take it from us, you can trust us, we got it.'

  Michael Harner

  Spiritual, Believe, Home

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• Shamanism is essentially a living tradition of alchemy that is not seeking the stone but has found the stone.

  Terence McKenna

  Stones, Tradition, Found

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• Cultural conditioning is like bad software. Over and over it's diddled with and re-written so that it can just run on the next attempt. But there is cultural hardware, and it's that cultural hardware, otherwise known as authentic being, that we are propelled toward by the example of the shaman and the techniques of the shaman. ... Shamanism therefore is a call to authenticity.

  Terence McKenna

  Running, Technique, Example

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• Shamanism is a kind of universal spiritual practice with indigenous cultures around the world, and one important element of it is taking care of spirits.

  Daniel Pinchbeck

  Spiritual, Practice, Important

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Shamanism is not a course, but a life journey.

  Alberto Villoldo

  Journey, Life Journey, Courses

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• In a way, this is a definition of shamanism. A shaman is a person who by some means has gotten out of their own culture.

  Terence McKenna

  Mean, Culture, Definitions

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• The reason for the emphasis on shamanism and on other techniques is, you will need techniques if you go into the deep water. And they can make your life very simple and save you from unnecessary suffering. Not all suffering is necessary. Maybe no suffering is necessary.

  Terence McKenna

  Simple, Deep Water, Suffering

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• Skywalker is a direct translation of the word shaman out of the Tungusic, which is where Siberian shamanism comes from. So these heroes that are being instilled in the heart of the culture are shamanic heroes. They control a force which is bigger than everybody and holds the galaxy together.

  Terence McKenna

  Hero, Heart, Together

  Terence McKenna (1998). “True Hallucinations: And, the Archaic Revival”, M J F Books

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• Shamanism is being reinvented in the West precisely because it is needed

  Michael Harner

  West, Needed

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• One of the things that's so striking about shamanism in the native context is the absence of mental illness.

  Terence McKenna

  Mental Illness, Absence, Native

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• Man has not really vanquished Shamanism and its spooks till he possesses the strength to lay aside not only the belief in ghosts or in spirits, but also the belief in the spirit.

  Max Stirner

  Men, Spirit, Belief

  Max Stirner (1982). “The Ego and Its Own”, p.71, Rebel Press

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• Shamanism, on the other hand, is this world wide, since Paleolithic-times, tradition which says that you must make your own experience the center piece of any model of the world that you build.

  Terence McKenna

  Hands, Pieces, World

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• Shamanism is a great metal and emotional adventure, one in which the patient as well as the shaman-healer are involved

  Michael Harner

  Adventure, Emotional, Patient

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• This is in fact what shamanism is all about, what the end of history is all about, what psychedelic drugs are all about, we are edge-walking on an ontological transformation of what it means to be human.

  Terence McKenna

  Mean, Drug, Facts

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• Shamanism is about shape shifting. Shamanism is about doing phenomenology with a tool kit that works.

  Terence McKenna

  Tools, Phenomenology, Shapes

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