5 principles of shamanism that can be applied in real life
Scientists have long found out that people have a tendency to so-called magical, or mystical, thinking. Belief in telepathy, mind-reading, predictions, and similar things has always been with men. But not all types of magical thinking can be questioned — some of them can be applied in real life.
For example, various meditation practices are used by Buddhist monks. Or shamanism, attracting by its ancient nature and repelling by the primal fear that emanates from it. And, as it turned out, we all have something to learn from those who beat the tambourine, perform strange dances, whisper incomprehensible words, as if dictated by the cosmos. We have identified 5 principles of shamanism that you can use in your life.
Getting out of your head
No, this is not the same as leaving the body, which is practiced by many shamans. However, there is something similar between these two things. Only going out into your astral body is an attempt to achieve a sober and correct view not only of things that are happening around you but also of yourself; this is an opportunity to look from the outside.
Getting out of the head is a way to get rid of the bias of judgment, since in most cases when faced with new information, the brain looks for confirmation that it has thought up in advance, which is why thinking is polluted.
But this is not the only way the brain tries to deceive us. He may be drawn to motivated reasoning when the information confirms our current beliefs. He can also act on the principle of biased assimilation when only the information we need for argumentation is cut off from the evidence. Therefore, if these three things move a person in solving his problems, then they will not be solved, and he will only come to a dead end.
In order for this not to happen, it is necessary to use the shamanic principle of getting out of your head, which will remove bias, allowing you to think more fully and broadly.
The exit process begins with the acceptance that all thoughts are an illusion, and in order to solve a particular problem, you need to go in search of new ones that are most suitable for this.
The study of consciousness
Shamans are people who actively search for signs. And not only of nature, as one might think, but even those that come from their consciousness. They listen carefully to everything that happens there, afraid to miss the next clue. We should learn this from them because the human brain is a reliable search engine much more globally than the same Google familiar to us.
But it is quite expensive to “maintain” your brain. For its best safety and cleanliness, you should not only not drag any junk into it, but also monitor the health of your intestines. Studies have shown that the larger a person’s brain, the smaller the intestine, which should not be expanded because this can slow down the work of the gray matter.
Thanks to our brain, we have the ability to do a lot of amazing things with space and time, which many do not use just because it all happens in the head. However, the possibilities are endless, which shamans have long understood, and we still haven’t come to this.
We do not need to strain our heads too much to solve some simple problem because the answer lies on the surface. But there are also cases when the task is not completely clear, and it is necessary to look for a solution right now. This is where the brain is superior to any search engine. Combining in our heads a variety of ideas that can only be imagined next to each other, modeling an alternative reality, imagining our future and its various outcomes, sooner or later, we will come to the necessary answer. The main thing is to allow your consciousness to work for everything, without rejecting any option, even if it seems stupid or too fantastic because that’s how brilliant ideas are born.
Temperature rise
Shamans often resort to a state of trance or meditation in order to get out of the world-conditioned boundaries and better understand this reality. We will try to explain how it works on the metal firing process. The first step in this process is heating the metal, which allows it to become very flexible. We can do the same with our consciousness. In a state of flexibility (both metal and brain), new horizons open up, and boundaries expand, which can only be explored under high-temperature conditions.
The second step is to return to the primary state, which will no longer be the same. It is necessary to “cool down” gradually. If the metal cools down too quickly, then the crystals necessary for strength will not have time to dock with each other, which will make it more brittle.
In slow cooling, the crystallization process goes better, which allows you to strengthen the material, fix in your head the best decisions that came during meditation.
Taking your dreams seriously
Full awareness of your dreams among shamans means that you open the door of your mind to the flow of new ideas, without immediately choosing the best one. Here an important role is played by the fact that the main thing is to silence your inner critic, allowing yourself to hunt for fresh information in this process.
And, of course, the first shot does not mean that it will be accurate. To create something really worthwhile, you have to wade through the wilds of thoughts, failures, and lost ideas. This process has received such a name from comedians as the “rule of nine” in our world. It says that if you come up with ten jokes, then only one of them will be good — all the others will be about nothing. But if you come up with ten good jokes, then 9 of them will become average, and only one will remain really good.
Listen to the legends
Shaman culture has always taken myths, beliefs, fairy tales, legends, and national traditions very seriously. Whether it’s from a lack of education in the field of fiction, or from the fact that for them it remains one of the most sacred things to this day.
Just like trance, various legends allow you to develop the flexibility of the brain by moving the astral body or spirit in space and time. It is for this that the legends of shamans are created.
And they are in vain at the root because we all think in images — few people have only solid numbers in their thinking. Stories help a person to become more aware of himself and the reality in which he finds himself, and also create the potential for emotions and opportunities that allow him to look further than possible. For shamans, legends are another kind of support on which you can climb and see what is behind the wall.
Many of the theories and inventions familiar to us today were created only thanks to the bold images that man imagined. Einstein, before proclaiming his theory of relativity, imagined flying on a beam of light. Steve Jobs invented a computer screen on which to draw.
We all need to take this layer of culture more seriously, as well as our unconscious, which allows us to reach a new level for ourselves.