Shaman’s Sickness, Initiation and The Calling

“Shaman’s sickness,” refers to the specific, physical and/or mental illness that results when spirit chooses a new shamanic candidate and possesses the candidate or takes his/her soul into the spirit world. The sickness does not respond to normal treatment, nor does it progress like a normal illness. It may advance and retreat without reason and defy our understanding of how similar symptoms normally function in the body. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores how the shaman’s sickness appeared traditionally and the many ways it presents in our time. This illness is cured only when the one stricken surrenders to the will of spirit, faces his or her fear of death and cures that personal madness or illness. The individual forges working relationships with their helping spirits and gains shamanic power in the process only when they find meaning in the crisis and his or her own cure. As a result of this passage, the individual can work with the fears and madness in others having now crossed that emotional and psychological territory within the self.