“Shaman Speaks” the Teachings. By Don Trudeau

A journey to old shamanic practices

North American shamanism is a subject that was forgotten for ages but is now given new life thanks to authors like Don Trudeau and countless of alternative healers, who practice the principles of traditional shamanism in the modern healing system.

In North American literature, every healer, high priest, or ritual expert was considered a “shaman,” and therefore shamanism is a broad term that envelops many different teachings and practices popularized by North American natives.

If we examine the role of North American shamans back in their age, shamans are people with a perceived high power to contact the paraphysical sphere for information, assistance or growth in several aspects of one’s life. They are, in a sense, mediators of the spirits. However, they are not to be confused with ordinary mediums as getting in touch with the spirit is just one facet of their common shamanic rituals and practices.

The Shaman as leader

Shamans were for their people, leaders, and teachers of spiritual aspects. They had the power to influence their surroundings by using supernatural means and discovering new spiritual pathways. These specific powers are hard to explore by external researchers as many were hidden and buried through history. We will never really know all their specific principles and powers. However, we are lucky enough to have a good sample of shamanic sources and artifacts.

The siege of power by the Shamans is often portrayed by an object or symbol e.g a feather or an athame, as a means to objectify the unseen and the spiritual. In that sense, there are several power objects used by North American shamans: herbal medicine, charms, chants, songs, ritual tools, etc. This perceived power was highly emphasized and even dramatized by ritual magick acts and performances.

Enter the Shaman

People originally gain access to spiritual abilities in a multitude of ways such as inheritance (passed by generation through generation), personal quest and exploration, election/choice made by the people and society in general, extraordinary experiences and negative experiences with evil.

These spiritual knowledge and powers entail many aspects of an individual's life--from its birth to its death or “passing” to spirit, as the shamans saw it. Shamans had their own theory on what causes disease and death in people--the existence of an obstacle, an “object” which blogs the individual’s health and well-being. This was believed to be a result of evil intent, acts, spirit or black magic. And the course of treatment for this, was to “suck” out the energy from the object through a tool and from the spot where the illness came from so it seized to exist.

Even though some these principles may appear too far-fetched for today’s standards of healing, Don Trudeau in his book titled “The Shaman Speaks: the Teachings By Don Trudeau” aims to demonstrate all the passed knowledge from Shamans to foster personal growth and “stand prideful among one’s peers”.

As Shamans were perceived as shapeshifters and manipulators of reality, we can too follow their example and shift our own perceptions and reality in our own ways. This book through his author Don Trudeau teaches you just that.