PTSD Shaman: Involuntary Call and Covering Your “Spiritual Back”
When the Master Shaman sends the apprentice shaman into the wilderness to be tested by the spirits, the Master Shaman covers the apprentice’s “Spiritual Back.” The phrase, “I’ve got your back” applies both to our spiritual development as well as to our physical protection. For the modern American, however, the traumatic encounter in the wilderness [...]
PTSD Spirituality: Ecstasy Self-Help Test
In the PTSD Ecstasy Self-Test we apply the definitions of ecstasy to our own personal experiences. In doing this exercise we hope one sees how the ancient understanding of ecstasy and ecstatic experience can help us to better understand our own experiences and our PTSD, and perhaps contribute to soul healing.
Ecstasy: The term ekstasis has the following range of meaning:
1. distraction, confusion, terror, literally, being beside oneself (often with a sense of amazement).
2. trance, ecstasy, a state of being brought about by God, in which consciousness is wholly or partially suspended.
PTSD Spirituality: Voluntary Call to Shamanism
While most PTSD survivors did not embrace the voluntary call from the spirits to have an ecstatic trauma event, it remains valuable to understand the voluntary side of shamanic initiation. This will help us understand better why so many traumatized people later commit suicide, even though they survived the physical damage of their trauma. We [...]
PTSD Spirituality: Shaman’s Call: Ecstatic Experience and Feeling Alive
So far we’ve discussed the usefulness of ecstatic and ecstasy terminology to understand the visible body and invisible soul aspects of PTSD Spirituality. We know that at times of high stress and trauma, people sometimes report watching the action happen as if they were literally beside themselves, or up above looking down on the happenings. [...]
PTSD Spirituality: Shaman’s Call: Ecstatic Experience and Trauma
PTSD & Shamanism: The Call from the Spirits
PTSD’s soul wound is often precipitated by an ecstatic experience. The experience is one that can take us beyond ourselves. It can be a joyful or a grievous experience. It can be one which is Good or Evil (capitalized on purpose!). The ecstatic experience is anything but mundane [...]
PTSD Spirituality: From Trauma to Shamanic Formation
The connection between PTSD and Shamanism on the PTSD Spirituality Blog continues below.
In Western Hemisphere Shamanism there is a Three Part Model for the Formation of the Shaman:
1. The Call of Ecstatic Experience (Candidacy to the Vocation. Can be read as a voluntary or involuntary event)
2. The Dismemberment (Being taken apart and then reassembled. This [...]
PTSD Spirituality: PTSD and the Shaman
There is a connection between surviving PTSD and Western Hemisphere Shamanism. Shaman’s receive a portion of their spiritual formation through interpreting and surviving trauma. The PTSD afflicted person has survived trauma and then needs to interpret their experience of trauma and its meaning. This chain of experience and interpretation allows one to serve in one [...]
