I prefer to approach shamanic experiences in terms of the paradigm of dreaming. I use “dream” and “dreaming” in the larger sense, beyond sleep dreams. The concept of dream moves beyond those gifts of the night, sleep dreams, and includes lucid dreams, active dreaming re-entry (active imagination), even coma, and of course the active dreaming of the intentional the shamanic journey. I’d like to share an initiatory story in which this Siberian shaman candidate enters Dreamtime by way of illness. This will be followed by an intentional entry into shamanic initiation-space, with a guided journey of dismemberment and skeletization. Initiation can come unbidden, or be actively sought, but both occur in the visionary-imaginal space of Dreamtime.

Mircea Eliade gives us an extended example of an Avam Samoyed shamanic initiation with a young man who was very sick with small pox. I will retell and paraphrase the essence of this amazing account of a Dreamtime shamanic initiation. The shamanic candidate’s consciousness was profoundly altered by the sickness, and psyche opened wide for him. He reported that underwent a near-death crisis, was unconscious for three days, and during this time he experienced himself being carried out into the middle of the Sea, and then he heard from the Sprit of Sickness (of small pox). The voice said to him “From the Lords of the water you will receive the gift of shamanizing. Your name will be Houttarie (Diver).” Then the Spirit of Sickness troubled the sea and caused it to bring the young man ashore, where he undergoes a series of initiatory ordeals, beginning with the Lady of the Water, who is naked and clasps him to her breast, and he began to suckle like a baby. She said “you are my child, that is why I let you suckle at my breasts. You will meet many hardships (ordeals) and be greatly wearied.”

The husband of the Lady of the Water, the Lord of the Underworld, gave him two animal spirit guides, an ermine and a mouse, to guide him to the underworld, and upon arriving there encountered some men of the underworld, men of the Great Sickness, who tore out his heart and threw it into a pot. He visited other yurts and met the Lord of Madness, and the Lords of all the nervous disorder, and met some evil shamans as well. This was a kind of shaman school in which he learned all about the illness which torment and pester humankind. Then his animal guides led him to the Land of Shamanesses who worked on his throat, and strengthened his voice.

He then moved on discovering other locales in the underworld that the spirit guides showed him He came to the shores of the Nine Seas, in the middle of one of them was an island with a young birch tree rising up to the sky. This Tree was named the Lord of the Earth and was a magic tree and beside it grew nine herbs, the ancestors of all plants on earth. Surrounding the island were seas on all sides and birds and water fowl. Also in these seas were the other seas, some hot some cold, some of salt and some freshwater, and he visited each one and learned from their teachings, and he learned to fly with the birds of the seas. He learned much about the qualities of waters and which was best for ritual healing use.

After visiting the other seas he returned with the island with the magic Tree. He looked up into the tree tops and saw men on its branches. They were from various tribes: Tavgi Samoyed, Russians, Dolgan, Yakut, and Tungus. He heard the voices speaking from the Tree, “You shall have a drum from the branches of this tree.”

He heard a call from the from the Lord of the Tree, “My branch has just fallen; take it and make a drum of it that will serve you all your life.” “I am the Tree that gives life to all men. The Tree then instructed him in the surrounding ancestral plants, about their value in the art of shamanizing.

The mouse and ermine spirits then lead him to a rounded mountain. There was a cave opening into it, the cave walls were covered with mirrors and in the middle something like a fire. The shaman-to-be saw two naked women dancing,–naked, but covered with what looked like reindeer hair. It turned out that there was no fire, but a light descending from above. One of the women was pregnant and she told him she would give birth to two reindeer, one as a sacrificial animal, one for the other tribes. The other woman also said she would give birth to two deer, symbols of the animals whose spirits would guide his shamanizing work, and also feed him. Both women gave him some hair which they said would aid him in his shamanizing work.

These two women sent deer to the forest people (Evenki and Dolgan) by sending dear out a North and South entrance to the cave. They told the initiate that when he shamanizes he should turn mentally towards the cave.
He then left that cave a sojourned with his guides towards another mountain, crossing a long desert. He entered an opening and came upon a naked man working a fire with a bellows, and open the fire set a huge cauldron, “as big as half the world.”

Before he could think the naked man caught him with a pair of tongs, cut of his head and hacked his body to pits and threw all pieces into the cauldron. The body parts were boiled for three years [time distortion]. Finally the naked man forged the man’s head on one of the three anvils—the one reserved for the forging of heads of only the best shamans. Then threw that head in another pot in which the water was coldest. He instructed the shaman-to-be in the use in the assessing of the prognoses of his patients: cold water meant a healthy man, warm water meant he would recover, and hot water meant he would die.

The blacksmith then fished the bones out of a river and assembled them, and then covered them with flesh. Having counted the bones, the blacksmith told the candidates that he had three extra bones, and that we would need three shamanic costumes (regalia). He put the forged head back on the body and taught the candidate to read the letters inside it. He reversed his eyes so that when shamanizing he can use his inner mystical eyes. He pierced his ears so he could better hear and understand the language of the plants.

After this ordeal, the candidate finds himself on the mountain top, as if magically transported. He then awakens in the yurt, surrounded by family. From now on he is able to shamanize indefinitely, without fatigue.

Initiatory experiences like this that come unbidden, as in a case of radical sickness, have essentially the same phenomenology as those that might come through active imagination and the shamanic journey technique. I have developed a script for a guided shamanic journey of initiation called Skeletization. It focuses only on that aspect of the initiation that has to do with the theme of dismemberment, reduction to a skeleton, and the cleansing importance of the experience, as well as the way in which it is directly revelatory of the nature of pure spirit or consciousness. You may record and play this while having someone shamanically drum for you, or you can read it through carefully, then put on a shamanic drumming CD, close your eyes, and follow the suggestive script to see what unfolds for you. Do not worry if you depart from the script, as there are many ways.

Reduction to a Skeleton ©2009
A Guided Shamanic Journey of Transformation

Close your eyes and take a few slow deep breaths…

Ground your self by allowing gold or silver threads to gently and firmly wrap around your ankles, and the go deep, hundreds of feet deep into the bowels of Mother Earth, anchoring you securely there.

Imagine your self walking along a green forest path, deep in the woods, late in the afternoon, just before twilight– letting yourself notice and take in various things you see, and smell, hear and feel.

Notice the gentle breeze on your skin and the feel of it in your hair. Become aware of the rich smell of the soil you walk on.

As it gets later and becomes twilight, with darkness falling, the stars and the moon come out, which you can see through the tree tops. Eventually you come to a large clearing in the forest where there is a Magical Lake illuminated by silvery moon light. You may find pine trees around it, and hear crickets, and perhaps the howling of wolves, the rummaging of raccoons.

You are now ready to take a journey beneath the waters of this magic lake. Let yourself dive in and move towards the deep bowl-shaped bottom, where you will find a little hole, it is an opening to a tunnel. Go through the hole and follow the passage-way of the tunnel until you come up from the water into a cavern, an old ancient chamber that is dark, yet you can see in it faintly.

Sit up on a ledge and look around in the dim space, become aware of the presence of a helping spirit, it may be in animal form. It is there to help initiate you.

It speaks to you telepathically, without words, yet you feel and know what it is saying, as it asks you if you are ready to die tonight. Muster your courage and trust your guide to take you through death and find what remains on the other side.

When you consent, immediately you become aware little allies in the room that are peeling off your skin, exposing underlying tissue and muscle. They whisk the skin away and then your guide says to you “See, you didn’t need that, it is not you, it is just your envelope.” Then you become aware of the little allies taking off your muscles quickly, one by one, disconnecting ligaments, and whisking it all away. You are not your muscles either.

Then the little allies come back and begin removing vital organs. They begin removing them from your abdomen, and as each organ is removed, you become aware that You are not that either.

Next they take the eyes out of your sockets. This is very strange, for some how you can still see and be aware. You are not your eyes, nor are you any of your sensory organs either. You are simply the one who has been using them.

Then you begin to feel an odd sensation in your spine as they lift out your brain and spinal cord, it feels like a snake crawling out, perhaps— and they whisk it away also. You aren’t even your brain. Just like your senses, you have used your brain and spinal cord to sense and feel and know the physical world, and to think. Yet still, you are here, you are aware that you are the one who had that brain.

Now you are reduced to a skeleton. You can still see, somehow, and you lift up your arms and look at them in the dim light. You see only bones…. You look down and see your rib cage, more bones….and your legs, again more bones. You touch your thigh bones and hear the clicking of bones as your finger-digits touch them. Bones, bones bones!

You have now been stripped to the bare bones, and still, … You Are. Still, …you can say “I AM.” Being stripped to the bare bones is a taking you down to your core human form. You might feel you have arrived at the absolute truth of You, but this is not so. The bones still have human form and are your bones. Who is this You that has these bones in this life?

Suddenly you feel the spirit allies dislocating and separating the bones in your hands, and then your arms…then they take your toe bones and feet bones, they take apart your leg and thigh bones, and the your rib cage comes apart, followed by your skull detaching from your spinal column …ahhh! Now each vertebrae separates and each bone swirls away from you in the atmosphere of the cavern. It is freeing, …like a deep breath of fresh air.

The bones begin clicking together you can hear a kind of musical rhythm as they dance before you in the dim light of this dark cavern. You feel an unusual sense of spaciousness, of vast openness. There’s not a single thing left that you had identified as you or yours, and still, You Are! Still you can say “I AM.” Yet, there is nothing left to identify with. You are deathless. Those bones and that body are your vehicle for a life, an incarnation in the field of space/time. This means that you are fundamentally and always Free. You can create your life by intentionally using all those things you identified with in service of Life.

Take a moment to just feel this truth and enjoy it….

A little time passes and you notice that the bones have stopped clicking and the spirit allies begin rapidly reassembling your bones…. Finally you have your skeleton back, like you have put on some of your clothes for this life. …The allies have washed and cleaned your brain and spinal cord and now reinsert it. …They also washed and cleaned your organs and place them properly back in your body. They bring back cleansed muscles and ligaments…and…all things are hooked up right again. You can inwardly sense your stomach, feel your lungs expanding and contracting as you breathe. Take a deep breath. Smell the musky scent of the cavern, Finally, here comes the washed and cleansed skin, made more sensitive. Your body is sealed back up, and you can now touch your skin, feel your lips and hair….feel the water on your toes. It is so good to have a body to be in the world with.

Move your hand and realize that you are the Force that moves that hand. It doesn’t own you, You own it! It obeys you! It is the same way with your mind. Rather than it owning you, now You can own it, make it obey you. It is here to be a servant of the heart, of the core of You, not the other way around. Now you can realize that You are Life and you are Deathless in your deepest being. This life is an opportunity for you to create a beautiful life. You can do it because you are the 7th Direction! You are Life incarnating here and now, incarnating in this Hoop.

From the depths of your heart, Thank the spirit allies, and thank the spirit-guide who has helped you discover what is on the other side of death.

Then, say “Good Bye” and dive back in, going through the tunnel passage and back out of the hole at the bottom of the Magic Lake. Swim to the surface, and walk gently back along the path to this place here. Take your time, feel with your senses, let yourself move to the light of Grandmother Moon. Perhaps you see pinpoints of star-lights poking through tree branches.

Keep a felt-sense of the insight and expanded awareness and bring it back into the ‘here and now’ of this world. When you are ready, you may write in your journal. Then we will share a little about our experience, if we wish.