Looking For Shamanic Guidance.

There is something about altered states of conciousness that always made me pursue them. When I was 16 I started heavy research on psychedelics. I've tripped before I even smoked weed. Felt in love from the first time.
I have long history of mental problems, depression, bipolar, schizoid, nobody had a clue what was going on with me.

Was on meds for good 6 years and stopped few months ago. First thing I did after stopping and waiting a bit was binging on acid. I have taken countless things, but never real lucy.
I have lost all my money on drugs, and when I had last couple notes, guy texted me that he has it.

The change was incredible, in couple days I got a job (lasted 3 days), girlfriend and managed to restore few of my collapsing friendships.
I started appreciating what I have, people that I know, learned to look behind peoples masks, learned to read them.


I'm living on nothing for a month now. And I mean nothing. Not a coin. I don't feel guilt for anything I have ever done, but I know that I fucked up big and that I need to suffer, because otherwise I won't learn the lesson and jump back into the spiral of self-destruction.


I have fully accepted myself, got rid of anxiety, started being social. I feel no fear anymore and I don't worry. I think I have healed myself.




I haven't taken anything in a bit, except from occasional smoke with friends, but I still can see. I'm living in two worlds and I don't want it to go away. I am making much more connections right now, things are finally starting to make sense. I don't just go with the flow. I control the flow. In regards to what I have researched, I have started opening my third eye.


I have tried to retrieve my power animal by myself, but all I can see are eyes. Could be owl, could be cat, I don't know.
Sometimes I see humanoid things, just contours of them. It is usually strange green. Other times smiles, other times eyes. You remember that cat smile from Alice from Wonderland? It is kind of like that, it is always full, wide, to some degree creepy smile.


Other time I thought I was being posessed. (under influence) It felt like I was a puppet in someones hands. I resisted for a bit, then let it do its thing and nothing bad happened.



Thoughts on all of that?
Other than that I am crazy, because I have noticed that.

 

Look inside... We are our own best teachers.



(We can also be our own worst teachers, but never mind that)

 

I'm sure you know your shit. Tell me more.

 

My advice would be to proceed with caution with shamanism. If you can find a shaman who is a member of a culture where shamanism is still active and alive, well and good. Maybe they could help you. A lot of the westerners who call themselves shamans should be regarded with suspicion. The version of 'shamanism' many of them pursue is far removed from what it was in a tribal cultural setting. And we live very far removed from such a culture. Simply chucking down loads of psychedelics won't do it. From my own researches in this area, I've learned that shamans very rarely choose their path. More often it is something that comes to them without their having much choice about it.

If you want to get informed about real shamanism, I'd suggest reading 'Shamanism - Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy' by Mircea Eliade. It's a scholarly account of shamanism from many different cultures, and really puts it all in it's true context.

Otherwise, what Ty said above is good advice. Look within yourself. Really that's the thing with shamanism - it's not mediated like religion, yoga or similar things. All down to the individual shaman.

 

I wanted to be psycho leader but I feel this is what I should pursue. I've noticed I can have very strong effect on people just with one sentence.

Chucking down loads of psychs did it, but I agree that you need right circumstances for that, so it wasn't 'simply'.

I'm not bound to single ideology or concept, I'm just looking for answers.

Thanks for the book.


It has to be the cat btw, that smile and then the eyes when I was looking for it. I was expecting something obvious, but thats not how it works.


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Actually, why can't we have both? Owl and cat, now it all adds up. I guess I already had the answer but didn't realise it.

 

If taking psychedelics has done it, why do you seek guidance?

 

Because I'm not sure what I am doing and how to proceed. But I guess thats where looking into myself comes.

 

there are things you need to have experienced, and then also to have certain kinds of perspective, to even begin to be able to be taught.

even in indigenous cultures, where this kind of teaching might be available to you, its not something that everyone can.

all this stuff the op was talking about, even the word 'shamanic' itself, has problems with.

what tyrson said is certainly part of it. that much IS available to everyone.

and everything beyond that, has to start there too.

learning to see what you're looking at, (instead of what someone else has told you to see), and learning to look and analyise instead of taking anything for granted.

all the details, every culture has its own approach to them, and there are hundreds of different cultures, and you really, in only life time, even with training,
only learn the details of any one of them.

if the op is looking to see beyond what the culture, the mundane dominant western culture, doesn't look at and takes for granted that is good,
but having these expectations of what it assumes about everything else, well that just isn't going beyond itself.

and the dominant culture is self blinded. seeing beyond it, like seeing beyond anything, begins with looking. really looking. and not being afraid to apply logic either.

all you're doing with this idea of 'altered states' is turning off, or looking to find ways to turn off, this inner dialog of the ego, that gets in the way of honestly looking.
however you achieve that, its all about in order to see you have to look, focusing on how to turn off whatever gets in the way of looking, i mean that's a distraction too.
its just really, in order to see, you have to stop whatever stops you from looking.

maybe for some people chemistry helps, i don't know,
maybe for just as many others that's just another thing in the way instead,
maybe for no two people the same thing will.

whatever stops what keeps you from looking that doesn't kill or enslave you,
really that's the whole ball game,
in order to see you have to look.