The Characteristics of 

"Shamanic Vocation"

          The following attributes of "shamanic vocatioin" are quoted from  Holger Kalweit's Shamans, Healers, and Medicine Men [and even as often cited in his own book through examples, I want to add:  and femine/feminist traits that reflect the nurturing concerns shared by these indiginous or First-People cultures]:

 

ILLNESS
	Serious suffering over a period of years
	no improvement or help from conventional medicine
	but help from an indefinable nonhuman source
SELF-HEALING
	an astounding cure that no one expects
	an attempt to free oneself from a superhuman or unconscious force in order to follow a particular lifestyle
	followed by capitulation to an unyielding demand
	acceptance of one's fate
DEVELOPMENT OF HEALING POWERS
	the beginning of a new life
	along with a willingness to acknowledge latent extrasensory faculties and to use them for the sake of humanity
	the development of further paranormal faculties

 

          When we take a look at "shamanic vocation" as still evidenced in many indigenous cultures in contrast to the well-studied aftereffects of the near-death experience and EHEs in general as they have been examined within the framework of Western science and Western culture, the similarities are unmistakable, such as congruities of values (e.g., healer disposition, concern for the Earth and all its creatures and humanity) and outcome (a shift in consciousness that  results in a major life adjustment, frequently including a new calling or vocation).  For those who have gone through an extended initiatory, healing, wholeness-making travail of this nature, there is absolutely no danger of its losing its effect over time.  

          Since the other-worldly experiencer is integral to a culture that recognizes and has high regard for this life path, for such a one, there is little-to-no doubt heshe has been "chosen" for this special role.  They have the added advantage of a community that is prepared to openly acknowledge and accept them in this capacity.  Quite a whole other piece of cloth than what traditional western culture is prepared to recognize in its exceptional experiencers, not to mention accept and integrate within the the society as a whole, although in many ways this too is shifting. 

          Within the context of a traditional shamanic journey, the more thoroughly impacting any type of exceptional experience and the more one surrenders into the experience and its gifting and suffering [defined by H. Kalweit as "the disintegration of one's own system of thought in order to perceive a new world in the higher space"], the more permanently and profoundly affecting are the aftereffects.  Kalweit speaks of this transformation in terms of an inner paradigm shift, a new vocation, as do quite often those who have had other types of deeply affecting EHEs and cultural backgrounds within which to comprehend them and integrate them.

 

 

 

 

 

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Culture, context, and origin of EHEs can play a powerful role in how we may be enabled [or sometimes less-abled] toward  understanding, accepting, integrating, valuing, and utilizing such Gifts as EEs/EHEs.   Compare these several different experiential points of view, which  basically all point to the same characteristics of shifted consciousness, which PMH Atwater describes as "Brain Shift / Spirit Shift":   1. An overview of the five-stage EHE Process:  Drs. Rhea White and Suzanne Brown, as a  result of their research and an exhaustive review of the pertinent literature in the early 1990s, identify five stages within the EHE process itself.  Two other short articles delineate the whole 5-stage EHE Process.  One by R. A. White offers an objective view, and S. V. Brown counterbalances with a subjective view.  Another even more direct trait-related article by White is this one:  Brief Overview of Exceptional Human Experiences.        2. Near-Death Experiences model [Kenneth Ring ; Evelyn Elsaesser-Valarino]   3. Cultural Creatives' Values [Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson]   4. Shamanic Vocation [Holger Kalweit]   5. Translucent Experiences [Arjuna Ardagh]   6. Mystical Experiences [Louann Stahl]   7. The long-studied observations of the Spiritual Emergence Network [Stanislav and Christina Grof]   8. Presencing / Presence [Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, Betty Sue Flowers, and also Eleanor Rosch, whose work extensively supports this perspective.]   9. Theory U [C. Otto Scharmer; this and Presence (#7) are closely related.]   10. Brain Shift / Spirit Shift [PMH Atwater's NDE-based model describes these aftereffects in the context of an explicitly unique consciousness.]   11. The collaborative, life-long lived inquiry and experiences of Sri Aurobindo Ghose and Mirra Alfasa [aka, The Mother] [see Satprem, essential biographer for both]                The surprisingly universal focus, by the time one has made a clear commitment suggestive of the values and meaning-filled lives shared with such emphasis, regardless of whichever "lens" one might look through, is about a lifepath of service to others, to the good of the whole, and to the Earth as a sacred being.   What particularly stands out is the reverence for all life that lives in Experiencers [EHEers, no matter which model you use], as well as in EHE Empaths, and their passionate and compassionate altruistic instrumentality within community and for the world, which could be deemed an active expression of "moral consciousness."  The more profoundly Shifting the experience, the more fully the Experiencer recognizes the sacredness of all life as a Living Whole.  Such EHEers live and speak and act within the perceived context of [our] ONENESS, as if there is a Singular Consciousness that pervades and is recognizable, accessible, and communicative from within all beings and being, even the most seemingly inanimate.