What is shamanism?

Shamanism as Spirit Manipulation and Animism

So, what is shamanism? Shamanism is a method where an individual, a shaman, attempts to solve problems through manipulation and contact with the spirit world. In shamanism, everything has a spirit, known as animism, and is alive, including rocks, clouds, trees, rivers, as well as animals and people.

This means that all things that have spirits are equal with us. These spirits are everywhere, they permeate our world, and can affect our lives. Shamans use altered states of consciousness to contact these spirits, which can either be good or bad.

The shamans do this in order to learn the future, make decisions, and attempt healings of people who might be oppressed by bad spirits. Shamanism uses spirit guides, and they try and contact these spirit guides in order to have them direct people's lives.

Shamans also use astral projection, that's where the spirit of a person leaves the body and travels into the spirit world, and sees things, and encounters these other spirits and presences. It uses other means, various means, of trying to predict the future, such as throwing stones, bones, and things like this.

They try and learn about the conditions in the spiritual world so they can hopefully have an influence and a prediction of what might be happening in the future. Essentially, shamanism is divination and sorcery, and is generally practiced in Indian tribes.

Biblical Condemnation of Divination and Sorcery

The Bible condemns such practice as sin. Leviticus 19 .26 says, You shall not eat anything with blood, or practice divination or soothsaying. Deuteronomy 18 .9 says, There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens or a sorcerer.

Avoiding Shamanism

So stay away from divination, stay away from shamans, it's not good stuff.