What Is Shamanism?

Shamanism is one of the oldest spiritual and healing practices on Earth, dating back at least 30,000–40,000 years (evidenced by Upper Paleolithic art and burial practices). It is not a single organized religion but a cross-cultural technology of ecstasy and healing found on every inhabited continent (Siberia, Mongolia, Korea, Amazonia, Australia, North America, Southern Africa, etc.).At its core, a shaman is a person who can intentionally alter their consciousness to enter non-ordinary reality (what anthropologists call “spirit worlds” or “upper, middle, and lower worlds”) in order to:

• Retrieve knowledge, healing, or power
• Help individuals or the community
• Restore balance between humans, nature, and the unseen

The shaman does this with the active help of compassionate spiritual beings—most importantly, power animals (also called totem animals, spirit animals, guardian spirits, or nagual in Mesoamerica).

What Are Power Animals?

A power animal is a spiritual being that appears in the form of an animal (bear, eagle, jaguar, wolf, snake, dolphin, raven, etc.) and forms a lifelong (or long-term) alliance with a human being, especially a shaman or shamanic practitioner.

Key characteristics:

1. They are archetypal energies – A “Jaguar” is not just any jaguar; it embodies the universal essence of jaguarness: stealth, boundary-crossing, mastery of the night and the underworld, fierce protection.
2. They are teachers, protectors, and sources of power – They lend their medicine (specific gifts and abilities) to the human partner.
3. They hide and protect the soul – In many traditions, when a person suffers severe trauma, illness, or soul loss, part of the soul is believed to hide in the spirit world under the protection of the power animal. Soul-retrieval journeys often involve finding the power animal first.
4. They can be inherited, gifted, or discovered – Some are family or clan guardians passed down generations; others appear spontaneously or are sought during initiation rites.

Common Power Animals and Their Typical “Medicine”

How Shamans Work with Power Animals:

1. Journeying – Using drumming (typically 4–7 beats per second), rattling, or plant medicines, the shaman enters a trance and “rides” the power animal into non-ordinary reality.
2. Merging / Shape-shifting – In deep trance, the shaman may temporarily become the animal (feeling claws, wings, gills) and use its senses and abilities directly.
3. Extraction & Healing – Power animals help locate intrusive energies or lost soul parts and remove or return them.
4. Divination & Guidance – The animal may deliver messages through movement, song, or direct telepathic speech.
5. Protection – They act as spiritual bodyguards, especially when the shaman travels to dangerous realms (e.g., the Lower World to retrieve souls or the Upper World to petition celestial beings).

The Initiation Crisis and the Role of Power Animals

Classic shamanic initiation often involves a “shamanic sickness”—severe physical or psychological crisis (near-death experience, psychosis-like episodes, chronic illness). During this ordeal, power animals and helping spirits literally dismember the initiate in visionary reality, clean the bones, and reassemble them with added power (extra eyes, crystals in the body, etc.). The power animals are the ones who rescue the initiate from death and grant the new shamanic body.

Modern and Neo-Shamanic Perspectives (Core Shamanism) 

Since the 1980s, Michael Harner’s Foundation for Shamanic Studies popularized “core shamanism”—a distilled, cross-cultural set of techniques stripped of specific cultural ceremonies so Westerners can practice ethically. In core shamanism:

• Everyone is encouraged to discover their own power animal(s) through a simple journey to the Lower World.
• The first journey is usually to meet a power animal; its appearance four times in the same form is considered confirmation.
• Regular “dancing” or journeying with the power animal maintains the relationship.

A Note on Cultural Sensitivity

While the techniques are remarkably similar worldwide, the specific animals, songs, costumes, and taboos belong to particular indigenous cultures. Many traditional shamans ask that outsiders not appropriate their exact rituals or claim their specific animal allies without transmission. Practicing the universal techniques (journeying, honoring your own power animals) while respecting living indigenous traditions is the widely accepted ethical path today.

In short: 

Power animals are not just symbols or psychological archetypes (though they can function that way too). In the lived reality of shamanic cultures—and for hundreds of thousands of contemporary practitioners—they are real, sentient, compassionate beings of great power who choose to walk with certain humans to heal, teach, and protect the web of life.