Three friends these, bosom buddies, without which some would go insane.
Not friends really but three emotions that reside in many who are living out their lives in prison. Two of these play on the A’s and I have become the focus of the evil that is within them. Bobby was present when someone was killed so received a long sentence due to the felony-murder rule. It was a drug deal gone wrong, a not unfamiliar circumstance. He heard the judge sentence him to twenty-five to life when he was eighteen. Now thirty-two and with another eleven years before he can be considered for parole, he will spend at least his twenties and thirties with Bubba and the boys. No girlfriend, no wife, no kids, no job, no friends, no nothing, and not much chance this will ever change. Rage, anger, and hate–this is all he’s got.
Joe is in the same hell hole except he is a three striker and with a longer sentence. Not sure what the strikes were as he never talks about the crime, but at age forty-five he could easily do another twenty years. Again, no wife, no kids, maybe a boyfriend, but nothing anyone would want to lay claim to; he lives with rage, anger, and hate.
Frankly, I do not feel bad for either of them; few would want them back on the streets.
You can get written up, a 115, and have more years added to your sentence or even be moved to another prison. It is this last possibility that keeps a lot of cons from losing control completely. San Quentin is a desired home, close to lawyers and courts, and outside visitors come into the prison seven days a week. Plus there are a myriad of programs, educational, and religious chapels, and there is baseball.
Neither Bobby or Joe are big tough guys; and few other cons, including A’s players, identify with them. When I ask for a reason for the power Bobby and Joe seem to have, I am told they are in tight with the “white boys.” I am not convinced of the truth of that. Based on what I have experienced over the years, I think I have become a convenient target to vent anger and frustration.
Why me? There are reasons among which are the fact that I have a loud mouth; sometimes I am too belligerent and unyielding, and sometimes my efforts to bring correction and discipline to those I think need it is not appreciated. Apparently, I have developed a bad reputation amongst some convicts. I have been dumped into the category of a bad cop. This has gone on for years, but Bobby and Joe have played the con with precision this year. One thing for sure, I am not perfect, and I can be a real ass hole–I admit it. Nothing new.
I saw it last year. There was a rumor I was a racist. It did not get very far because of the fairly even numbers of the races on the Giants. This year the rumor got more traction as I was accused of reverse racism. As it happened there were only two whites on the Giants, no Hispanics or Pacific Islanders, so it was racism but different. This was dangerous and maybe was why a kite was dropped saying that I was going to be killed. A “kite” may be written or whispered, but it gets to a correctional officer who is then bound to report it and so I get a call from the investigative unit saying I can no longer come into the prison. The season is nearly over, and I still cannot come back in.
The cops in charge of investigations started interviewing inmates and the accusations mushroomed to the point my beige, or volunteer, card was pulled. I am effectively barred from returning for the rest of the year.
Just before the kite was dropped, I made an appointment with a higher-up type in the warden’s office who assured me that the rumors I was hearing would be dealt with and speedily. He told me, “You have nothing to worry about.”
I am still not sure what happened, but two days after the talk I had with the higher-up the kite was communicated and here I sit, writing this which is as close as I will get to the team and the game I love, at least this year. I may never get back.
Rage, anger, and hate must go somewhere, mainly either in or out. Now I have to deal with these myself. They are not friends; I don’t want them, that is clear. Knowing this is not helping right now though, in fact, it is plain that I am not fairing so well.
Anyone who has read this far might conclude that I have been overly familiar with some of the convicts at San Quentin. If such an observation, or accusation, were made, I would have to agree with it; according to all I have heard in the volunteer meetings, I have at least approached being too personally involved with inmates.
The count I just took in my head runs to over a dozen convicts. There has been nothing sexual, no contraband substances or items brought in,[1] nothing of a personal nature, but bonds of various types, even friendships, will be established–it cannot be helped or avoided.
Team sports are this way. I have played on and managed baseball teams for fifty-two years now and it never fails that there will be an inner core, maybe not extending to all, but a core of people with whom bonds of friendship will develop. It is part of the game. A team sport–you cannot do it alone; you are dependent on others. Winning as well as losing contribute to the bonding process. Sports are emotional to the extreme, the ups and downs can be dramatic, and especially has this been true in San Quentin.
Every game is an event, an experience. In North Block and in H Unit, the players will talk endlessly about the games and all that was a part of it. Nothing is too insignificant not to be examined minutely. There are few secrets among team members especially in a prison environment. There is no place to hide; it will come out, and in that place of vulnerability, bonds of friendship will form.
What will I remember ten years from now? I know, it will be the players, the coaches, the opposing players, too, it will not be scores of games or batting averages, no, it will be the people, it will be the winning and losing, the pain and frustration, the loves and the hates. Here was life and a touch of freedom. Here was a chance to be a kid again, innocent, and happy having fun.
When I think about my days at the prison I will remember the people–Pete, Bilal, Marcus, Red, Johnny, Curtis, Doug, Frankie, Terry, Stafont, Mike, Chuck, and a host of others. I will think of Kevin, Elliot, Mike, Stan–my dear friends. And I will think of Chaplain Earl Smith, who along with Leonard, Jimbo, Jason, and Tim got the whole program going. Then there is Don DeNevi who stuck with me through it all, the state employee who was my immediate supervisor. Wow, did we have a time of it, boys of summer, we did it together.
[1] Coaches will bring in certain items like cups for catchers, a pair of cleats for someone with either really small or large feet, maybe a glove even (2 players on the Giants are currently using my gloves and will likely have to keep them since I won’t be able to pick them up), and other items related strictly to baseball equipment needs.
Baseball can be a dangerous game. Some have died even.
A baseball is hard and only 9 inches in circumference. A pitcher can throw a pitch 100 miles an hour, though this is rare. Major leaguers are clocked in the nineties, and only a change-up will dip into the low eighties. A pitch thrown at ninety mph can come back to the pitcher faster than it was thrown.
A bat is made of wood, hard wood, and is an incredible weapon if so desired. The prison no longer allows bats to be on the grounds; our coaches have to bring them in for every game and practice–and leave with them.
More injuries occur when a ball is hit of course, or in trying to catch them. Baseball requires a complicated set of skills; running, throwing, sliding, hitting are only the tip of the ice berg. These may come in combinations and quickly forcing the body’s joints, ligaments, tendons, and muscles to extreme stress. Our seventeen man Giants team has anywhere from one to five players with some kind of injury.
One law of baseball is when you are on the field, or near it, keep your eye on the ball. Stan failed to keep the rule.
Every other Monday evening the Giants get the field for a practice; the A’s get the next Monday and so on. Due to injuries there were two guys working out at new positions. Mike Tyler was at first, a position he had never played before, and Duck Harris was at second, just coming back from surgery to his left thumb. They needed practice and I was hitting them ground balls with Frankie Smith catching for me.
The baseball diamond is situated so that the sun goes down behind right field, a little to the right of Mt. Tamalpais, which can be seen from the field. Stan wanted to talk to Frankie, no doubt dealing with some issue, and he simply walked up to him while Mike made a throw in from first base. Mike’s throw was high and off target. Bang it hit Stan in his right, just a smidgen above it, and down Stan went.
Stan is seventy-five at least, strong, wiry, good shape, but down he went. The ball was not thrown terribly hard, but there Stan was lying almost on home plate in the dust and there was blood. I flung my bat in the dirt, not sure why I did that, must have been frustration, and I knelt beside Stan. I looked to find Mike and could not. Turned out he went immediately to dugout and sat down.
When blood is spilled it is a big deal at the prison. An officer, who knew Stan well, rushed over and called for a medic. I made a quick exam and thought it was no big deal, but who knew. Protocols took over and Stan would have to go to the hospital, not the prison hospital, but Marin General in Greenbrae and for reasons I am not sure of.
Stan complied as he was a little shaken up by the blow to the head, and he said he would call his wife Alberta to meet him at the hospital. Off he went then and the practice proceeded.
Mike, not a starter, very fleet of foot but a terrible base runner, did not get in too many games. He would mope around sometimes, and at times I thought he might quit the team, but he held on. His sport is football and he had played on the flag football team I had started some years earlier, The Blues Brothers, and would play for my son Vern who was now running that team. But baseball–Mike mostly sat on the bench.
One look at him and it was plain he was thunder struck by what happened. Mike was one of Stan’s favorites and vice versa. Mike felt so bad all he would do was sit and look glum.
Practice ends right about 7:30 and Stan had been transported to the hospital at about 6. Just as we were packing up, all of a sudden there was a commotion at the entrance to the dugout. It was Stan, he was back, bandage over his eye and forehead, but there he was and he was hugging Mike. And there were tears in Mike’s eyes but a big smile on his face. Stan and Mike were actually jumping up and down together. Quite a scene.
I caught part of the conversation between the two. Mike was apologizing, Stan was telling him it was okay, assuring Mike that it was a pure accident and that he never should have been on the field talking to Frankie in the first place.
Stan, the retired cop, had arrested plenty of black kids like Mike during his career. Mike had no doubt hated, and feared of course, white cops growing up as a gang banger in the Bay Area. The old white cop and the young black banger. Stan told me later as we were going up cardiac hill that he would never forget the tears in Mike’s eyes.
hamanism “is a methodology, not a religion” according to Michael Harner.[1] If not a religion, it is a spiritual system and worldview that underlies religious systems. Since the 1970s, shamanism has enjoyed a resurgence or revival, especially in the United States and Europe. According to Michael Harner and others, five things are responsible for this revival: (1), the use of LSD and other mind expanding hallucinogens, e.g., ayahuasca;[2] (2), soul survival following near-death experiences; (3), use of monotonous percussion sound to enter altered states of consciousness; (4), a multitude of practices under the general rubric of holistic health; and (5), the acceptance in traditionally Christian cultures of a wider range of spiritualities, some flowing from the East and others springing from the revival of paganism, centered on the belief that the planet is alive and spiritual in its essence.
Following now is an explanation of the core aspects of shamanism, including general origins, how it works, and what it influences.
Animism – the foundation for shamanism
Animism is the ism that forms the foundation for all forms of shamanism. Animism encompasses the belief that there is no separation between the spiritual and physical world, and that souls or spirits exist not only in humans but also in animals, plants, and all living things as well as rocks, mountains, rivers, and other geographical features. Examples of animism can be found in forms of Shintoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, ancient forms of paganism, Islam, and Neo-Pagan practices such as Wicca.[3]
In the animistic worldview, spirit, soul, or mind is in all, whether organic or inorganic, and soul is in people but has an existence apart from the body.[4] The spirit or soul can be communicated with and manipulated to some degree. Spirit may be understood as energy, force, or that which is part of the “Supreme,” the “One,” the “All.”
The shaman
The origin and definition of the word “shaman”[5] is variously and ambiguously described; more important is what the shaman does. Siberian origins of the word have been proposed, either from the Siberian tribes Tungas or the Evenki. Ethnologists and anthropologists have grouped witches, witch doctors, medicine men, seers, wizards, sorcerers, magic men, and holy men with shamanism, with shaman becoming the catchall term for these individuals.
Spirit and soul are closely related terms and are concepts that are essential to shamanism. Most shamans hold that human beings have more than one soul, the more the better. The shaman is able to work with spirits and has the power to usher a soul to heaven or retrieve a soul from hell. He is a mediator of and traveler between the visible and invisible worlds.
Anthropologist David Stern says shamans “believe that unseen spirits permeate the world around us, act upon us, govern our fates. By turn doctors, priests, mystics, psychologists, village elders, oracles, and poets, they are the designated negotiators with this hidden reality, and they occupy an exalted position within their societies.”[6] Stern further says there are many different forms of “shamanisms” but the common thread is “the ecstatic trance, or soul journey, as it’s sometimes called, a signature phenomenon.”[7] By means of ecstasy, meaning a trance state or altered state of consciousness, the shaman connects with spiritual powers for healing and other services beneficial to the community he or she serves. Harner puts it this way: “A shaman is a man or woman who enters an altered state of consciousness – at will – to contact and utilize an ordinarily hidden reality in order to acquire knowledge, power, and to help other persons.”[8]
The shaman is the priest from primitive eras who has survived into the modern age.[9] Shamanism may well be the most practiced religious or spiritual form in the world. Shamans are everywhere and operate in the world’s largest religions. But there is no individual known as a shaman in Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, Sikhism, Taoism, Shinto, Christianity, and others. Nevertheless, shamanism is present in each of these, though often in disguise.
Shamanism is intimately intertwined with modern paganism such as Wicca; in fact, Wicca may be classified as a form of shamanism. A book on Wicca could just as easily be described as a book on shamanism, and vice versa.
Shamanism touches Christianity by connection with Santería,[10] though Santería is not classified as part of Christianity. Santería, loosely translated as “that saint thing,” blended to a certain degree with Roman Catholicism. Its shamanistic male and female priests, called santeros, santeras, and babalawos, are often mistaken as Christian.[11]
Charisma[12] does not directly connect with shamanism but does so indirectly by means of the trance state.
Origins of shamanism
Mircea Eliade, the French anthropologist whose book, Shamanism, is regarded as the classic work on the subject,[13] concludes that shamanism developed in Siberia and central Asia somewhere in the Paleolithic era and is thus tens of thousands of years old. Harner agrees that shamanism is at least twenty to thirty thousand years old.[14] Eliade proposes that it spread when the shamans from Siberia migrated into all of Asia, Indo-Europe, and Africa, and also crossed over the frozen bridge between present day Russia and Alaska, with shamanistic views and practices continuing southward down to the tip of Argentina. It has flourished ever since.
Others suggest it developed independently in various locales due to the tendency of humans to inadvertently experience trance states. Roger Walsh, Ph.D., M.D., author of my favorite book on the subject of shamanism, poses the possibility that human experiences “such as isolation, fatigue, hunger, or rhythmic sound” might lead to the discovery of altered states of consciousness, chief among them being the trance state.[15] Since such experiences are common to humankind, trance states would be a shared phenomenon and form a context for spiritual development in many places.
Michael Harner suggests that the altered state of consciousness is an evolutionary adaptation that helps secure the survival of the species. He views the SSC or “shamanic state of consciousness” to be superior to the OSC or “ordinary state of consciousness.”[16] Indeed, athletes, artists, musicians, writers, and even scientists have explored the SSC as a means of developing their particular skills and insights. The basic fact that shamanism around the globe shows an obvious uniformity, Harner says, points to a possible DNA encoding mechanism that eventually yields something akin to shamanistic views and practices. Shamanism is worldwide, Harner insists, because “it works.”[17]
Perhaps each of the above views has some validity and may even have worked in combination. The seemingly universal quest for altered states of consciousness may be the central factor for the similarity of expressions in shamanism wherever they are found. It is in the trance or passive state that, in my view, a human is most open to contact with spirits, regardless of what they are called. One objective of this book is to focus on the identity and nature of the spiritual entities that make shamanism and its offshoots work. The issue of what these spirits are is much debated. Most observers and practitioners are aware that not all spirits are beneficial; few, however, see them as evil or identified with the demonic.
The shaman and ecstasy
Shamans are identified with ecstasy. Not all those who engage in ecstasy or trance states are shamans, but the shaman’s claim is that his or her[18] soul, while in the state of ecstasy or trance, leaves the body and ascends to the sky or descends to the underworld.
Anthropologist David Stern quotes a shaman named Dorzhiyev who lives in the Russian Republic of Buryatiya in Siberia and who described the shamanic trace experience:
As you start to fall into the trance, you feel some force of energy coming closer to you. You can’t see it – it’s like a human form in the fog. And when it comes even closer, you see who it is, that it is a spirit. Someone who lived long ago. He enters you, your consciousness departs. Your consciousness goes to somewhere beautiful. And the spirit takes over your body.[19]
To obtain the shamanic vision, i.e., knowledge of and contact with the spirit world, the trance state is essential. The most experienced and respected shamans are able to enter into a trance easily and quickly. Some means of doing so are dancing, chanting, repetitive singing, deep meditation or contemplation, sensory deprivation, sensory overload, and hallucinogenic drugs like ayahuasca, peyote, mushrooms, LSD, tobacco smoke, alcohol, or any of the preceding in combination.
Shamans have contact, even relationships, with spirits. A spirit may identify itself as the soul of a dead person, a nature spirit, a mythical or real animal, or a god or goddess. There are many possibilities, and the spirits’ purpose is to assist the shaman. The identity of the “spirit” is of vast importance to our study. Are shamans correct in their identification? Our thesis says no, and further explanation follows.
Shamans and their power
Shamans are said to control the spirits rather than be possessed by them. This is said to be the mark of the practiced and mature shaman, but at times and in certain places, shamans can be under the control of a spirit. If all proceeds as the shaman wants, however, and he is the controller, the spirit guide or helper will give him the ability to communicate with the dead, other spirits, souls, and demons.
Since the dead are said to know things about the unseen world that living humans cannot, the shaman also engages in divination or fortune telling. This form of shamanic work may be referred to as “journey foreseeing.” As in SSC, the shaman journeys, usually with the help of a spirit animal or plant helper, to see what will be in store for a client. In addition, a “shaman may engage in clairvoyance, seeing what is going on elsewhere at the present moment.”[20]
Shamans are healers and have learned secrets to work cures. During long periods of human history, the shaman with his knowledge of healing techniques and the application of various herbs was the only medical practitioner available.
In a tribe or society, Shamans are the elite due to their unique ability to manipulate the unseen world. The shamans are the mystics of any religion, those who are comfortable with the forces of the spirit. In a trance or ecstasy, the shaman is able to determine the cause of an illness and find the means for a cure. The shaman is the holy man who accompanies the dead to the “Realm of Shades” and serves as a mediator between them and their gods, celestial or infernal, greater or lesser. The shaman is the specialist in the human soul; he alone ‘sees’ it and can learn its destiny.
While shamans use power derived from spirits and souls of the dead to achieve certain ends such as healing of disease, the same power can be directed toward harmful or negative purposes. The shaman may be either a healer or a sorcerer, depending mostly on the needs and desires of a client. Shamans recognize the reality of demonic or evil spirits but are supposedly not alarmed or influenced by them. This is also said of the santeros, santeras, and babalawos of Santería and of the witches of Wicca. Each and all of these are aware of the “negative” forces, as they may call them, but they pride themselves in their high intentions and assert that they are careful not to use the power they have for harmful purposes.[21]
As will be shown, their assumption that there is a difference between good and bad spiritual entities is a superficial and false conception.
There is a “beautiful side of evil,”[22] which is initially alluring and attracts adherents to shamanistic systems, so it is not surprising that shamanistic techniques and practices are attracting new followers around the world. More alluring than beauty, however, is the quest for power. Beauty is the bait; power is the hook.
Sources of shamanic power
The list of the sources of shamanic power is akin to what the Wiccans utilize. Several books I consulted on shamanism, as previously mentioned, could just as easily have been about neo-paganism, particularly Wicca, and the reverse is also true. The concepts are virtually identical, and this is most evident when speaking of the shaman’s power sources. The sources are (1) power animals, (2) spiritual teachers or guides, (3) objects infused with power, such as a rattle, drum, totem, etc., and (4) the elements of nature such as quartz crystals, the four directions of north, south, east, and west or the basic elements of fire, water, earth, and air.
The guardian spirit and other helping spirits
Each shaman will have at least one guardian or helping spirit which is usually represented as an animal, e.g., wolf, coyote, or eagle. This spirit may be with the shaman from birth but may leave after a period of time and need to be retrieved.
The guardian spirit may be referred to as a friend, companion, angel, or familiar.[23] The shaman uses these spirits while in an altered state of consciousness or SSC.
The shaman acquires spirits from three categories: animal helping spirits, spiritual teachers (dead or still living), and souls of the dead (often more than one). Spirit teachers can access power or directly provide power to the shaman, who may use rattles or drums to summon spirits and may appeal to the elements and the four directions of the planet, which the shaman believes are alive, to obtain power. Living spirit teachers or guides may be elders in the community. Non-living guides may be spirits of community ancestors, local deities, aliens from outer space, and mythical or legendary gods and goddesses, including those from the Greco/Roman pantheon. Shamans working in the Christian tradition claim angels as guides. The teachers and spiritual guides may appear in a human-like form, animal-like form, as a light or aura, or in a symbolic form.
Power animals such as eagles, coyotes, deer, horses, fish, or others can transport the shaman to the “other world.” This is done in a trance state, and the shaman often carries or wears something that symbolizes the animal, such as a feather or the image of a coyote painted on a garment. They access the power of the animal represented. Some shamans have a stick horse fetish they “ride” on their journeys.
The drum and rattle of the shaman may be referred to as a “horse,” “mount,” “steed,” or “canoe” that serve to transport him to the “lower world” or “upper world.” The beat of the drum and noise of the rattle, performed just right, are the means of powering the journey.[24] Harner states that research “has demonstrated that drumming produces changes in the central nervous system” and that “the shaking of the shaman’s rattle provides stimulation to higher frequency pathways in the brain than does the drum, reinforcing the drum beats and further heightening the total sonic effect.”[25]
Power objects are also important in the shaman’s tool palette. Ceramic depictions of a turtle, bird, pine cone, egg, and other objects of nature are examples, and they need periodic feeding or re-energizing.[26] Shamans must placate and feed their power animals periodically in order to keep them from wandering off and to thus maintain empowerment.[27] There is a connection apparent here with the feeding of the Santerían “otanes,” which will be described in the next chapter.
Power Song
Every shaman needs a power song. Michael Harner’s own power song is as follows:
Stanza one:
I have spirits,
Spirits have I.
I have spirits,
Spirits have I.
I have spirits,
Spirits have I.
I, I, I.
This is repeated three times then on to stanza two:
The second stanza is repeated three times then back to the first stanza; this pattern is continued for as long as needed to enter into to an altered state.
Quartz Crystals
Quartz crystals are considered to be power objects. They are thought to have great spiritual significance, and thus shamans traditionally carry one or more on their person, preferably in a pouch made of a wild animal skin. The bag is the “bundle” or the medicine chest of the healing shaman. Many shamans enter into a special relationship with their crystals much like one would with a pet, even to the point of feeding them with substances like tobacco juice. Once again we see, or will see in the next chapter, a connection with certain Santerían practices.
Power Plants
In addition to power animals and quartz crystals, a shaman will depend upon the power of plants; they serve as spirit helpers. Plant power is not as strong as the animal or guardian spirit but is nonetheless essential for certain ceremonies. A shaman may have only one or two animal helpers but may have hundreds of plant spirit helpers. Shamans will acquire power plants while wandering in deserts, forests, and other places where exotic plants grow. Once such a plant is discovered, the shaman develops a relationship with that plant.
The recruitment and initiation of the shaman
There are generally three ways in which a person becomes a shaman. First is by heredity, from father to son or grandfather to grandson. This is referred to as “the hereditary transmission of the shamanic profession.” Second is a spontaneous vocation, a call, or an election. This may occur when a person is healed through the agency of a shaman and is “called” at the same time. Third is a personal desire and decision to become a shaman. Shamans with either hereditary title or those elected spontaneously are considered the most powerful. The least powerful and respected are those who pursue the position through self-entitlement.[29] In some religions, shamans (holy men or medicine men) are sought among those who are peculiar or exhibit signs of what more cultured societies would term mental or emotional illness. The unusual person, perhaps exhibiting epileptic seizures or schizophrenic behavior, is looked upon as having a gift from the gods or spirits. The mentally ill, however, often prove to be unsuccessful mystics. Shamans from this third class are likely to lack religious content in their communications. In general, neither epilepsy nor any other brain or mental malady is considered genuine possession. More often the shaman is a very gifted person in the tribe or clan, an honored and respected person.
Often a candidate for shaman will simply undergo a change, becoming more meditative, seeking solitude, sleeping a great deal, seeming absent-minded, having prophetic dreams, and sometimes having seizures. In more advanced cultures this is the more likely process.
In whatever way a person is recruited into shamanism, he is not recognized as a shaman until he has received two kinds of teaching. One is instruction or initiation through the ecstatic experience, meaning the entering into trance or having dreams or visions. The ease with which a shaman is able to enter into ecstasy is a sign of his power and ability. The second kind of teaching involves initiations and messages from either living or dead shamans. The teachings consist of mastering the complicated techniques of shamanism, learning the names and functions of the spirits, absorbing the mythology and genealogy of the clan, learning a secret language, and discovering how secret spiritual knowledge is accessed.
The initiation by way of the ecstatic or trance experience and the didactic initiation through rigorous learning may take place over a long period of time, perhaps years. More recently, the process has been significantly shortened, mostly among westerners.
The threefold path of initiation
The threefold path of initiation for the shaman is suffering, death, and resurrection. The would-be shaman suffers an illness, emotional or physical – the suffering; he then retreats from the tribe – the death; and re-emerges whole again – the resurrection. This may take place in reality, an event that the entire tribe witnesses. Or it may take place in an ecstasy, which the candidate experiences and then reports. In ecstasy the would-be shaman may see himself being dismembered, perhaps by birds or spirits tearing away flesh, blood, and bone; this is the suffering. The suffering results in the physical body’s destruction and death. The body is then reconstructed or remade, thus completing the cycle with resurrection. Herein is the suffering, death, and resurrection, all of which the candidate for shaman must experience. Initiations are different among different people, but the same pattern is generally observed.
Once the shaman candidate has experienced the suffering and death, the resurrection, to be complete necessitates both an ascent to the sky where he speaks with the gods or spirits and a descent to the underworld where he converses with spirits and the souls of dead shamans.[30] Because the soul journey occurs only during ecstasy, the initiate must later recount his experience and thus satisfy the community that he is now a complete shaman.
The candidate must be expert at ascent and descent, because these will be major parts of his work on behalf of people who have lost loved ones or are suffering from some sort of illness. To accompany a deceased’s soul to the sky – heaven – is a shaman’s valued work. Of equal importance is the shaman’s ability to retrieve a soul from the underworld – hell. These are among the chief functions of the shaman.
The First Shaman
There are legends that speak of a “first shaman” whose pride led him to enter into competition with the supreme god. This first shaman’s body was made of a mass of snakes. The god sent down fire to burn the first shaman, but a toad emerged from the flames, and from this creature came the demons. I refer to this legend, because it reminds me of the biblical account of creation and the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden by the serpent (see Genesis chapter three). Certainly there are pronounced, even unmistakable, similarities between the two stories. That perhaps one is dependent on the other seems reasonable, but which comes first is unknown. In terms of origins my view is that the story of the first shaman is borrowed from the biblical account and is a natural distortion of the story of creation accounts found in the Bible.
Among certain tribes the eagle is considered to be the creator of the first shaman.[31] Because eagles ascend to the sky, it is usual during ecstasy for the shaman to transform himself into an eagle in his ascents or be escorted there on the wings of an eagle. The eagle and other birds predominate in shamanistic ceremonies. Costume and ritual objects often utilize representations of various kinds of birds, including feathers and other bird-like features. The eagle’s ascent into heaven occurs in the mind of the shaman and may be acted out by the shaman as an actor might act out a scene on a stage. To a considerable extent, shamans are also story-telling entertainers.
Real or imaginary, internal or external?
The issue then becomes whether what is reported by the shaman is real or imaginary. Various authors writing on shamanism, Santería, or Wicca hesitate to say that what goes on in an ecstasy has a separate reality apart from the mind. Others are clear, however, that what happens is real contact with the spirit world, that the animal spirits, souls of the dead, and so on, are real, although all taking place within the head and mind of the shaman, santero, witch, or medium.
Our research confirms that the locus of the shamanic experience is internal; neither the shaman nor his ‘soul’ leaves his body and travels into a spirit world. The shaman may think he is on a soul journey, but the journey takes place within the shaman. There is, however, an actual spiritual event occurring; the shaman is not merely imagining things. The soul journey is rather a deception that the indwelling or possessing spirits are perpetrating or performing. The shaman may or may not realize the difference.
Research for this chapter reveals that there is a marked distinction between the classical shaman and the westernized contemporary shaman. The classical or tribal shaman is less likely to be concrete as to what is occurring in his ecstasy. The modern western shaman is more likely to claim actual contact with an otherworld inhabited by real spirits, although not all westernized shamans are open and plain about this.
Tutelary and helping animal spirits
A tutelary spirit is one that protects and guards the shaman. The tutelary spirit is even said to choose the shaman. A tutelary may give the shaman other helping spirits as well. Sometimes the tutelary spirit is female, even being called a “celestial wife.” There is a close relationship between mystical and carnal love in shamanism, and there is no doubt that sexuality plays an important part in the shamanic story. A shaman can have sexual relations with female spirits or, if the shaman is female, with male spirits. This is the age-old story of the incubus and the succubus, which are spirits imitating humans and having sexual contact with them. In occult-oriented writings, spirits that impersonate men and women are reported to have actual sexual relations with the humans they possess.[32]
Tutelary spirits are also known as guardians. It is the tutelary spirit that the shaman ‘calls up’ in the séances, because they evidently have more power than the helping spirits. The majority of these spirits have animal appearances, and a chief characteristic of a shaman is the ability to adopt one of these forms.[33] However, even though the shaman has ‘face-to-face’ experiences with gods and spirits and sees them, talks with them, prays to them, and implores them, he is in control, if at all, of only a limited number of them. Any spiritual entity invoked during a shamanic séance is not ipso facto one of the shaman’s guardian or helper spirits.
A certain amount of confusion or lack of clarity persists in the accounts of the various spirits encountered in shamanic ecstasies. There is nothing in the literature that could be considered standardized or identified as authorized fact.
The use of narcotics in achieving ecstasy
By ecstasy is meant trance. Ecstasy is the moving out of a normal state of consciousness into a trance-like or altered state of consciousness. The trance entered into may be light, moderate, or deep. The experienced shaman can enter the deep trance easily. Other shamans, however, need help and resort to narcotics. Rum, tobacco juice, hemp smoke (cannabis), peyote, ayahuasca,[34] and psilocybin mushrooms, among others, may be used. Some shamans use a steam room or sweat lodge instead of a narcotic; combinations of the foregoing are often employed.
The Shaman as psychopomp
A psychopomp is one who conducts souls to heaven or retrieves them from the underworld.[35] In Greco/Roman mythology, Hermes was a psychopomp.
Illness and disease in shamanistic societies are seen as possibly caused by a “rape of the soul” or the result of a soul wandering away or getting lost. The remedy is for the shaman to retrieve that soul, and if it is in either heaven or hell, the shaman has the power to go there, capture the soul, and induce it to come back into the patient’s body.
In some cultures, soul retrieval is a major industry, because it is believed a person can have a number of souls. Only the shaman can work the cure; only he sees the spirits and knows how to deal with them. If the soul has left the body, only he knows how to overtake it, all of which is done in a trance.
Since sickness may be interpreted as a flight of the soul, the cure involves calling it back. If the soul has gotten lost or is merely wandering about, the shaman may read a litany of pleadings in which the patient’s soul is implored to return from the distant mountain, valley, river, forest, fields, or from wherever it may be wandering.
Shamanistic cosmology, the three cosmic zones, and the World Tree
The shamanistic worldview sees the universe as having three levels – sky, earth, and underworld – that are connected by a central axis, hole, or axle, often referred to as the axis mundi. It is through this axis or hole that the three levels can be traversed. The gods descend from heaven through the hole and the souls of the dead descend through the hole to the subterranean regions. It is through this hole that the shaman, and only the shaman, can fly up in ecstasy to the celestial or down to the infernal regions.
A “center” is where there is a possible breakthrough in the axis or plane and, therefore, here is where spiritual power breaks through. In some circles these “vortexes” are known as places of power. In Marin County where I live and work is Mt. Tamalpais, and many neo-pagans consider that mountain to be a spiritually powerful place.
Shamanistic people will erect poles or pillars to mark a sacred place, and this pillar, pole, stake, or totem is treated almost as a god, often with a small stone altar placed at its foot to place offerings. These may be the center pole of a yurt, igloo, tent, home, lodge house, and so on. The pole is the link between heaven and earth. The hole in a tent that allows smoke out, as depicted in images of North American Indian tepees, also serves as access to heaven or hell.[36] In a larger sense, the “pole” can be a mountain, tree, pillar, pyramid, stele, and so on.
The cosmic tree is essential to the shaman, and that tree represents the World Tree. He may plant a birch tree, as representative of the World Tree, somewhere close to his residence and may make his drum from its wood. In climbing the ritual birch tree he believes he can reach the summit of the cosmic tree, heaven, the ultimate celestial place. He may keep artistic representations of the tree inside his dwelling place and on his drum. The tree connects the three cosmic regions of heaven, earth, and the underworld – the leaves reach heaven, and the roots extend to the underworld, while the trunk is the middle or present world.
The World Tree symbolizes the universe in continual regeneration, the inexhaustible spring of cosmic life, or the reservoir of the sacred. It also represents the idea of ultimate reality and immortality. The World Tree somehow becomes the Tree of Life and Immortality.
We see a connection with the biblical Tree of Life and also the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as described in Genesis chapters one to three. While it seems probable that there was borrowing, we found no evidence establishing a common origin.
Journeying is a core shamanistic practice
Shamanism and Wicca clearly intersect and have a great deal in common when it comes to the concept of journeying. In shamanism, as discussed above, the journey is to the lower, upper, or middle worlds, and the destinations are keyed to the structure of the universe based on the World Tree. Again, the leaves represent the upper world, the trunk down to the ground is the middle world, and the roots are the lower world.
The journey begins only when the shaman is in the trance state, and any number of techniques can be used to enter the altered state of consciousness – dancing, drumming, chanting, meditating, taking hallucinogenic drugs, or breathing in specially prescribed techniques, and these, again, are often accompanied by infusions of tobacco, rum, and so on. These techniques are meant to trigger a shift to an altered or passive state of mind.
A power animal, such as an eagle, may be the form of transportation, and the reason for the journey usually has something to do with a healing or the solving of a problem for an individual or the community.
Once in one of the three worlds, a guide is necessary, perhaps the soul of a dead ancestor, and then the journey is underway. Shamans will see spirits or spiritual energies and will communicate with spiritual beings. Perhaps the shaman is on the hunt for a soul whose absence from the body of a patient has caused an illness.
The question always is: What is going on here? Is the shaman really encountering actual spiritual beings and souls of the dead? Over the course of my research on this, I have found writers to be fuzzy on this point. Some, however, state unequivocally that it is all real but occurs in the mind of the shaman, santero, or witch, etc. Psychiatry puts great pressure on writers, since it is generally thought that some of the things that Wiccans and shamans say might suggest mental or emotional pathology.[37] Whenever I engage in email exchanges with those who routinely go on soul journeys they will hesitate, equivocate, even become angry when I ask about the nature of the journeys and the entities encountered along the way. Any suggestion that there might be demonic spirits involved always ends the ‘conversation’.
The shaman’s chief function is healing. Of first importance is the discovery of the cause of an illness. Generally, two kinds of illness are considered: one, due to the introduction of a disease-causing object, and the other, as a result of “soul loss,” discussed earlier. In the first, the treatment is to expel the foreign object mystically. The second is to find and return the patient’s fugitive soul. In the latter, the shaman is absolutely necessary, for only he can see the soul and capture it. In the first, a séance is conducted whereby helping spirits are summoned who reveal the problem and give the means to effect a cure. The shaman speaks as a medium and describes the activity and pronouncements of the spirits that take place while he is in a trance state.
The flight of the patient’s soul may be due to dreams that frighten the soul away. Or it may be due to the soul of a dead person fearing a lonely journey to the “Land of the Shades” who then captures a living person’s soul to take with him for comfort and protection. Or, a person’s soul may simply stray from his body of its own accord.[39]
When spirits or the souls of the dead carry off a soul, the shaman is believed to leave his body and enter either heaven or the underworld. The shaman’s ecstatic journey is generally indispensable, even if the illness is not due to the theft of the soul by demons or ghosts. The shamanic trance forms part of the cure; whatever interpretation the shaman puts on it, it is always by means of his ecstasy that he finds the exact cause of the illness and learns the best treatment. The trance sometimes ends in the shaman’s possession by his familiar spirits. In most cases possession merely puts the shaman’s own helping spirits at his disposal.[40]
In the thinking of the North and South American Indians, every person commands a guardian spirit acquired by the same techniques the shaman uses to obtain his own spirits. The difference between layman and shaman is quantitative; the shaman commands a greater number of tutelary or guardian spirits and a stronger magico-religious power. In this respect we could say that every Indian “shamanizes,” even if he does not consciously wish to become a shaman.
Many are familiar with what is called the Ghost-Dance, which continues among North American tribes to this day. To prepare for the coming of the savior of the race, there are five or six days of continuous dancing. The dancing is intended to put the participants into a trance where the dead are seen and conversed with. The dances are ring dances around fires; there is singing but no drumming.
Do shamans employ trickery?
Shamans can be entertainers, dancers, and singers who put on the best show in town. They may act out a wide variety of parts and will most often cast themselves as the heroes of the story. They can at one time be a bird and at another time a wolf. They are narrators of lively battles between the spirits and themselves; they are usually, but not always, the winner. But, is it just theater?
Shamans will admit to trickery, but it is excused as being for a good purpose. If a shaman secretly places a dead and bloodied worm in his mouth, then proceeds sucking at the body of a patient to the point of pain, then suddenly pulls the worm from his mouth – is this deception? Is it perhaps the employment of positive thinking or the use of a placebo? Is the victory shout of the shaman an authentic healing mechanism, or is it trickery?
Shamans do perform as described above, producing some ostensibly beneficial though questionable results. But what about the journeys they take to the lower, middle, or upper worlds? Do they really escort the dead soul to the final resting place? Do animal spirits assist them and give them power? Is it all in the mind or does it have a separate reality?
Additional shamanistic practices and concepts
The Craft of the Smith, the worker of fire and metal, ranks immediately after the shaman’s vocation in importance. Smiths and shamans work together in many cultures. Smiths are said to have power to heal and even to foretell the future. Smiths, it is thought, are constantly threatened by evil spirits. The smiths’ tutelary gods and spirits do not merely help them in their work; they also defend them against the onslaught of evil spirits.
Like the smiths, the shamans are masters over fire. But the shaman’s power is greater. The smiths work with fire in forging their tools, most often weapons such as swords and knives. Control and power over fire is central, and protection from fire reflects shamanistic power and prestige.
Magical Heat is associated with control over fire, and advanced shamans are not merely masters over fire but can also incarnate the spirit of fire to the point where, during séances, they emit flames from their mouths or noses. The idea of mystical heat is not an exclusive possession of shamanism; it belongs to magic in general.
Often the shamanic ecstasy is not attained until after the shaman is “heated.” There is every reason to believe that the use of narcotics was originally encouraged by the quest for magical heat. Smoke from certain herbs and the combustion of certain plants has the quality of increasing power. The narcotized person grows hot; narcotic intoxication is “burning.”
The Bridge allows the shaman to travel from earth to heaven. By crossing the bridge that connects the world of the living and the dead while in ecstasy, the shaman proves that he is spirit, is no longer a human being, and thus may be able to restore the communication between the two worlds.
A myth that supports this concept is that the shaman does in ecstasy today what could be done by all human beings at the dawn of time. All humans could go up to heaven and come down again without recourse to trance. The shamans’ ecstasy re-establishes the primordial condition of all mankind. We see here a restoration of ancient customs. For the shaman in ecstasy, the bridge, tree, vine, or cord, which originally connected earth with heaven, does so once again, even if only for an instant.
The Ladder concept is another means to the sky; it is another “road of the dead.” In addition to the ladder as a way to heaven, there are stairs that reach from earth to the sky. The sky can also be reached by fire or smoke, by climbing a tree or a mountain, or by ascending a rope, a vine, the rainbow, or even a sunbeam. All these symbolic images of the connection between heaven and earth are merely variants of the World Tree and the Axis Mundi.
The shaman is an elect or privileged being, but he is not alone in being able to fly up to heaven or to reach it by means of a tree, a ladder, or the like. Other persons can do so as well: sovereigns, heroes, and initiates. Shamans differ from the other privileged categories by the one technique they employ, which is ecstasy. The shamanic ecstasy can be regarded as a recovery of the human condition before “The Fall.”
Once again is found a connection with the opening chapters of Genesis. Before the rebellion against God called the Fall, in which humans broke the single command to not eat of the fruit of a certain tree, humans were living in the presence of their Creator. All their needs were met, and they had peace with each other, comfort in their environment, and even daily communication with God. But then this paradise experience ended, and the disobedient creatures that had been made in the image of God were forced to leave.
Is it all real?
As spoken of previously, the core issue is whether the journeys into the otherworld and the spirits, souls, guides, and more that fill the world of the shaman are real or imagined. Some in shamanism do not care, as long as it serves some beneficial purpose, and those who maintain this have in mind consciousness expansion and relief from mental and emotional troubles.
My experience and research indicate that what is encountered in trance states can be either real or imagined. That said, it is the realness of the beings encountered by the shaman that is of chief concern. My position is that the beings are real but that they are not what they present themselves to be, e.g., the souls of deceased people who have returned to benefit those still living; they are, in fact, unclean or evil spirits. Obviously, many shamanism, Wicca, Santería, contemplative prayer, and charisma advocates will resist this conclusion, and while some will accept this evaluation, they will continue their practices, failing to realize the real danger.
Most controversial among my opinions is that the way of the shaman is the road to demonization, the possession by unclean or evil spirits. I cannot play the role of either the anthropologist who merely observes and reports or the psychiatrist who believes the spirit world is part of the human brain. The spiritual realm that shamanism enters is ultimately horrific.
My abiding or overarching interest in shamanism and associated phenomena is that there are those who desire to be free from the beings or entities that they encounter and with which they have involved themselves. Finding that Satan does not cast out Satan, they turn in other directions to find relief. The only relief is, in fact, Jesus Christ, who triumphed over the demonic forces through His death and resurrection and alone has the power and authority to cast them out.
The shamanic lure
Shamanism today is enjoying a revival of interest. The lure is primarily power, as stated earlier, and secondarily knowledge. The shaman’s supposed control of spirits is a strong attraction. In our materialistic and scientifically-oriented world, it is a heady and life-changing experience to suddenly come into personal contact with spiritual entities and the vast spiritual universe. Jesus and the biblical writers were very much aware of this reality and spoke of how deceptive and dangerous it is.[41]
The lure of power and knowledge is found in many religious teachings. It is also present in Santería, Wicca, and charisma. There is an additional enticing element identified by many writers discussing Shamanism, Santería, and Wicca, and that is sexual. Writers in these areas will speak of the possibility of having sexual relations with guide spirits or even animal spirits. Despite attempts to blunt the sheer force of what they are saying by intimating that the sexual relations are merely bonding techniques, descriptions of these sexual relations are clearly powerful lures. Such spiritual experiences can be life-changing and addicting, and may extend for years. I’ve learned from counseling those who have been snared in this way that this thrilling allurement has a shelf life, and after that the product turns wormy.
Connecting points
Similarities exist among shamans around the world, both in ancient and contemporary times. Some of these are a belief in a celestial god, shamanic initiation, relations with the souls of ancestors or dead shamans, relations with familiar spirits (relations that sometimes reached the point of “possession”), the conception of illness as soul loss or the intrusion of a magical object into the body of a client, and the shaman’s insensibility to fire. These seem to have a broad similarity around the world.
The notion of the “soul” is fundamental to shamanic ideology. Wherever one looks at shamanism around the world, in both ancient and modern practices, the concept of a soul is indispensable. This cannot be over-emphasized. The belief in soul is as integral to shamanism as is the trance state or ecstasy. The origins of the concept, even the doctrine, of the soul are impossible to pin down, but it is certain that the ancient Greeks held to a dualistic philosophy that infiltrated many other philosophies or worldviews. Theirs was characterized by a good god struggling with an evil god, a division between light and dark, and a dis-integration of the individual into mind, heart, soul, and spirit on the one hand and the body or the flesh on the other. The spirit was considered good, while the body and all material was considered evil. This dualistic concept was imported to northern India around the onset of the first millennium before the Common Era and radically impacted the ancient form of Hinduism known then. The result was belief in an immortal soul that did not die with the physical body but transmigrated to other living forms. Thus the doctrine of karma developed and with it the idea of reincarnation. This is straightforward history.
Christianity was also impacted by Greek dualism in the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ, due to a revival of Greek philosophy sometimes called neo-Platonism. Although there is no concept of an immortal soul in the Hebrew or Greek biblical Testaments, the concept nonetheless entered the Church of that day and is embraced by a large percentage of Christians still. It survived to impact many of the churches that emerged out of the sixteenth century Reformation. The power of the doctrine of humans having an immortal soul is so strong among Christians that one who claims it is not a Bible-based concept is often labeled “liberal.” What I call “soul confusion” has opened the door to some of the concepts found in shamanism.[42]
The future of shamanism
Traditional shamanism exists in many parts of the world and has not undergone significant alteration over the millennia. However, modern shamanism greatly changed when it encountered contemporary western cultures. The acceptance of alternative or contemporary healing techniques has pushed shamanism into the current discussions of treatments for any number of physical complaints. Shamanism fits in neatly with the New Age and self-help movements.
Michael Harner sees a bright future for shamanism. Toward the end of The Way of the Shaman he writes:
The burgeoning field of holistic medicine shows a tremendous amount of experimentation involving the reinvention of many techniques long practiced in shamanism, such as visualization, altered state of consciousness, aspects of psychoanalysis, hypnotherapy, meditation, positive attitude, stress-reduction, and mental and emotional expression of personal will for health and healing. In a sense, shamanism is being reinvented in the West precisely because it is needed.[43]
Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D., author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Shamanism, writes,
So where is the Shamanism in these modern practices dubbed “Shamanism”? Where is the New Age? Again, they seem almost completely blended together, while the practitioners are using new terms and definitions and claiming ancient links. They are essentially repackaging as Shamanism modern-day teachings about health, wellness, and holistic healing that have been circulating since the 1970s during the heyday of Esalen. That’s when the humanistic and transpersonal movements in psychology swept from the West Coast through much of America, and now they seem to have swept up Shamanism, too.[44]
Scott speaks of five branches of shamanism that are current today. One is Traditional Shamanism, which is found in areas untouched by modern influences, e.g., the Asmat tribe of Papua, Indonesia. Second is shamanic practices used for healing and counseling in modern settings often as a business enterprise. Third is the blending of shamanism with medical practices, often using herbs. Fourth is shamanistic journeying techniques employed to contact spirits and other entities. (This is the backbone of Wicca, as will be evident in chapter 3.) Fifth is the blending of shamanistic techniques in journeying and healing methods used in New Age, self-help, and personal development techniques.[45]
With a big push from the consciousness expanders, whether by way of drugs, the importation of Eastern religious practices, or the study of and experimentation with transpersonal psychology by ‘progressives’ at Esalen in Big Sur, California, the world of the shaman came to middle America. And it is growing today. Even psychologists and therapists are seeking to treat people through altered states of consciousness, supposing that the worlds imagined in the mind are nothing more than imagination or visualization and are beneficial in working out complex emotional issues. Shamanism, in all its forms, is undergoing a revival.
Shamanistic-based practices are found around the globe. This is so even for people who know little or nothing about shamanism as traditionally understood. Take, for instance, a person in a trance or state of ecstasy, induced by any number of methods, who thereby contacts and has interaction with otherworldly spiritual beings or the spirits or souls of the dead, and then acts as an intermediary for others in performing a variety of duties – this is essentially a shaman, whether he is called a medium, fortune teller, witch, santero, channeler, medicine man, or holy man. David Stern asserts that shamanism is growing, not only in the lands of its origin, Siberia and Mongolia, but in many parts of the world.[46]
Shaman-like persons are found in Buddhism (especially Tibetan Buddhism), Hinduism, Taoism, Shinto, Islam, and Christianity. Though I am a Christian, I am aware that shamanistic influences have also infiltrated parts of Christianity.
[1] Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman, HarperOne, 1980, 1990, xiv.
[2] Harner states, pages xv and xxv, that one may “will” one’s way into a SSC or shamanic state of consciousness, thus escaping the rigors involved to do so for the traditional shaman, which typically necessitate years of meditation, prayer, or chanting.
[4] Animism is not pantheism, which means all is God. It is not panentheism, which means that God is in everything. Animism sees all things as having mind, soul, or spirit and are thus alive and can be communicated with, appealed to, placated, and prayed to.
[5] In the word shaman the “a” is short as in shahmahn.
[6] David Stern, “Masters of Ecstasy” National Geographic, December 2012, http://ngm.nationoalgeographic.com/2012/12/shamans/stern-text.
[11] Crystal Blanton, a Wiccan high priestess, combines the worship of the Santerían goddess Yemaya with her witchcraft. See Sage Woman issue 84, pp. 27-30.
[21] Based on emails I have received responding to essays I have written on Santería and Wicca there seems to be no hesitation to send beings from the nether regions to do me harm. These messages have arrived weekly for years now, and most are obscene.
[22] A phrase coined by Johanna Michaelsen in her book of the same name, in which she describes her exit from involvement in the occult.
[23] Interestingly, in the King James Version of the Bible demonic spirits are sometimes called “familiars,” e.g., Lev. 19:31; Deut. 8:11; 1 Sam. 28:7; Isa. 29:4.
[26] The same concept is found in Santería and is one of the reasons animals are routinely sacrificed, as the blood is said to feed the power objects, usually a representation of an orisha, which is a Santerían god or goddess.
[29] It is becoming increasingly common for single individuals, apart from a community, to seek to become a shaman. It is even possible to receive initiation via the internet.
[30] Ethnologists and cultural anthropologists who observe shamans in their natural setting are not attesting to the validity or reality of the gods, spirits, and souls. This is largely an issue avoided.
[32] The suggestion of sexual relations with spirits may sound strange, but in my years of casting out demons, while rare, it was not absent. By spirits I mean demons. And typically, what began as pleasurable turned into something far less. It was the change that would motivate a person to get rid of the unclean spirit.
[33] It is not that the shaman suddenly looks like an animal but that he speaks like an animal and moves like an animal. This “act” is highly polished and miraculous in many ways, and it may continue for extraordinarily long periods of time, demanding strength and energy far beyond that of a normal human being.
[34] This powerful hallucinogenic drug, also known as yage or yaje, can be highly toxic and dangerous.
[35] From the ancient Proto-Germanic shamanistic world the word “hel” is used for the underworld and is where we get our English word “hell.”
[36] “Hell” is sometimes used by various sources in place of “underworld” and other similar terms. Obviously some sort of borrowing was going on.
[37] Occasionally, I have been able to establish contact via email with an author whose book I am studying. Usually I receive favorable responses, but once I bring up the above issue, the communication stops abruptly.
[38] Rather than survey shamanistic expressions globally, we will confine ourselves to the Americas, which should be adequately representative. Though there are differences from place to place, tribe to tribe, the overall schematic is consistent. There will be, of necessity, considerable overlap with previous descriptions of shamanism.
[39] The language we employ does not mean that we agree with the shamanistic worldview; rather we are describing how it is for the shaman. Research and discussion with shamans have shed no light on how a soul strays from a body and whether this is the same as out-of-body experiences documented elsewhere.
[40] What has just been described is the work of the shaman as psychopomp.
[41] See Matthew 24:24 and 2 Corinthians 11:14-15.
[42] The topic of Soul is discussed in more detail in Section 2-3.
If you are weak you can be taken advantage of. Maybe it will be desserts handed over, money for the cantine, maybe clothes, maybe sex.
Brutal, mean, and cruel are words that describe the animal kingdom. It also describes prison life. Without a “car” meaning a group of people that you belong to, a convict is vulnerable.
Gangs are a way of life even if you are in a prison where known gang members are shipped out to prisons better able to provide higher levels of custody. It is mostly racial, the blacks, the whites, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders, and a few others but smaller tribes. Sociologists study tribal behavior and they would only have to spend some time in a prison to find a good sample to run a study on.
Old cons will have demands made on them by younger, tougher cons. The old guys, without backing, can be made into sexual slaves. Strong language, well, I don’t think so. The weak, the gang less, the tribe less–these become prey.
Race, sex, drugs, and power are the driving forces of prison life. Race is the larger tribe; being a member of a dominate race brings power, power to get what you want, mostly sex and drugs, but also smaller favors .
Every convict that comes into the prison is scouted to determine their power position, by other cons. Even the buff, strong looking guys are vulnerable without a gang identity. Sometimes cons will claim an incoming inmate as a sex punk before they even arrive. This is not lost on the administration, and there are segregation cells for those who ask for protection due to one thing or another, but the predators most often, eventually, have their way.
The chapter is titled “bullies,” which is not a prison term but a contemporary word used in the society at large. Bullies are active in schools, from elementary all the way to college, but mostly among the younger kids. Finding a weakness in others is a kid’s game. I remember telling bullies even at Woodlawn Grammar School in Portland, Oregon during the 1940s, “My dad can beat up your dad.” In high school I was bullied all the way until my senior year. I know what it is like and I hate it. When I became a man, I refused to give in to anyone; I will stand up for myself even if it means getting the crap beat out of me. This attitude has gotten me into a lot of trouble at San Quentin.
Perhaps my intolerance to going along to get along is why I have survived thirty years as a volunteer at the prison. Maybe, but it sure has landed me solidly in the trouble I am in now. I refuse to give into the bullies who made demands on me, accuse me of racism, and put out death threats against me. Throw me out completely, okay, but I am not going to bend over so I can keep my beige volunteer card.
Someone might ask, “How could a convict bully a volunteer?” Let me count the ways. One, plant a contraband item in a coach’s equipment bag. Two, accuse the coach of over familiarity like groping or something akin to that. Three, accuse the coach of bringing items in to favored inmates, again, over familiarity but more serious. Four, have friends on the outside make unwelcome contact with the volunteer. Five, start a rumor campaign designed to defame a coach, which it appears is happening to me right now.
This last one may seem less serious than the others, but to me it is not. My reputation is important to me and I will stand up for it. The trouble is at the prison volunteers have little opportunity to address the issues brought up in rumors. The prison officials don’t have the time or the obligation of doing so. Often the accusation of a convict will be enough. No appeal, no chance to confront an accuser, no defense at all. The inmates are aware of this and use it to their advantage. Bully all they want and it rarely results in any discipline.
Most volunteers come into a prison like San Quentin to do some good and are naïve about the dynamics swirling about them. So many quit when they feel the pressure; others are not able to and become foils, the ducks cons love to __uck.
Reality is there are the good, there are the ugly, and there are the bad.
Red quit the team the first week in August, the second to last game I was with the team before my exit.
Not the easiest man to get along with, Red was one of the few convicts I could be a little afraid of. Powerfully built, he could get a strange look in his eye. More than once he had utterly stopped communicating with me. For two years he would accost me while I was coaching the flag football team, during games, and start in on some harangue that I never could grasp the meaning of. And I tried, too, to make sense of the nature of the trouble.
Red was elected captain by the team for 2011. Johnny had been the captain in 2010, but for reasons unknown, he was rejected. When I heard about it, I was not pleased. Johnny was the guy I would confide in and he could be depended on to tell me the truth. Now he had been replaced.
Being captain means little more than handling internal complaints among the players so the coaches are not burdened with them. I don’t think Red saw the job that way; what he wanted to do was to be able to get on the players for making errors in the field and not hitting at the plate.
This misunderstanding of his role surfaced in June. The Giants lost a couple of games back to back, which always spells trouble, and Red was getting on players in the dugout for their errors. Seeing this, I took Red aside and explained that, at least during a game, we do not get on players for either physical or mental mistakes–it is a coaching thing and to be worked out in a practice. Red disagreed, strongly, and the conversation ended dismally. However, Red did stop the confrontations with the players, but only for a while.
Not sure how old Red is, early forties at least, but his skills are declining. For years he had the number four hole in the line-up. Clean-up is what we like to designate it, and there is pressure to perform. Red’s performance began to slip until it disappeared. This was when I worked with him on his hitting and it improved to some degree. That last only a few games then he fell back into the old way of swinging, the softball swing, and it was painful for everyone. There was no choice, and Kevin, our great co-manager and long time friend, and I agreed–Red had to be moved to a lower hole in the batting order. I can see the look on his face right now when he came into the dugout to look at the line-up card as though he knew what he would find. Yep, batting seventh. He never said a word and proceeded to go hitless in three at bats with one strike out.
Next game it started again; he was getting into player’s faces if they made an error. It sounded mean and degrading so I had to ask him to step outside the dugout for a little chat. This was not an exciting time for me. He would not listen but insisted as captain he had the right to rebuke and reprove team players. He walked away from me in mid stream.
The next game we played a tough team and were behind from the first inning. Red was at first base, hitting sixth now because Kevin and I wanted to give him something, and he was playing badly, two errors in the field, two strike outs looking, but worse, dogging it, and Kevin would have none of it.
This was a game I was running and I was at the third base coaching box. After an inning’s third out, the team broke from the dugout toward their defensive positions, except Red. He sauntered out to first, and late, with no baseball in his glove for warming the infielders up, and Kevin yelled out to him to hustle it up. Soon as he heard it, Red stopped, turned, threw his glove toward the dugout, tore off his cap, jerked off his shirt right about when he got alongside the pitcher’s mound, and that was it. He quit.
Kevin approached him and the two got in a terrific argument, which drew the attention of a lower yard officer. If a fist fight were to break out, or even some shoving, the whole program might suffer. I entered the dugout and tried to quiet the men, and failing that I told them that a cop was approaching. That at least cooled things down, but Red was gone.
What a shock, but it was not over. The trouble spilled over to the rest of the guys and a heated argument erupted between Johnny and Kevin. By that time I was out at third base again and did not know what was taking place. At the end of the inning there was no Johnny in the dugout–he had quit the team, too.
I was crushed; I felt empty. My confidant on the team, gone. The captain, gone. We got beat and badly on top of it. Team chemistry, gone now, and where do we go from here.
Convict mentality – the good, the bad, and the ugly
A cliché I know, but it fits.
Some of the finest people I have ever known are convicts. I think of Chris Rich, who killed his wife with a baseball bat. He fell into alcohol dependence after his very promising baseball career ended. If you spent some time with him you would know why I think so highly of him and it all started out on a bad note as I identified him as part of the reason I got bounced, for a couple seasons, from the Giants to the A’s. He even confessed his part in it to me.
Bilal Chatman, a Muslim,[1] I think, a man I trust and consistently has been a credit to the Giants. When he lost his starting position due to lack of production at the plate, his positive presence on the bench was noticeable. And what a face, his character shines through. I nicknamed Bilal “The Rock.” I wish I had spent a lot more time than I did just talking with him, and now I may never the chance.
Chris Marshall, Marcus Crumb, Stafont Smith, Doug Winn, Orlando “Duck” Harris, Mike Tyler, Charles Lyons, all Black like Bilal and YaYa, I include these men among the “good.” A Black A’s player, Marvin Andrews, a fine man I have known for years–they don’t come any better. And there are others I could mention but who did not have a chance to sign a release form.
A Pacific Islander, another designated racial group at the prison, is Eli Sala. Quiet man, stocky, strong, not fat, a gold tooth right in front, he can hit, run, and field. He also can pitch. For years now he has been on one of my teams and even though he can only show up on Saturdays due to classes he takes during the week, I welcome him on the team anyway. From time to time I hear complaints from other Giants about Eli’s unavailability for Thursday night games.
Eli is like gold, like the tooth. He is not the best guy ever to be in a SQ Giants uniform; he will always be an mvp to me.
Curtis Roberts, Pete Steele, these men I have gotten to know well. Also there is Frankie Smith, our first base coach–a fine man, who I just heard has been diagnosed with head and neck cancer, which has spread throughout his jaw and lower mouth. Stage four I think someone said; seems improbable now that I will ever see him again.
One of the last games I managed before being forced out, Frankie pitched for the opposing team. Only seven players showed up and without a pitcher or catcher. Marcus volunteered to catch and Frankie to pitch. He must be fifty-five, as far as I know had not been throwing, nevertheless he pitched five solid innings and only gave up three runs, which was enough for a loss, but what heart. By the fourth inning I could see he was in pain; he sucked it up and keep firing.
Pete Steele deserves a whole chapter devoted just to him. He is the con who came out of nowhere to pitch for what were the Pirates ten years ago and win that game throwing to Donnie Worthy behind the plate. Later that year we lost Pete when it was discovered he had created a document, somehow, forged a captain’s signature, and was able to get himself from H Unit up to the lower yard after the restrictions placed on him for some kind of mischief. Then, after the season, he disappeared only to show up in May of this year and has become our most dependable pitcher.
Pete can play anywhere, pitcher, first base, short stop, third base, outfield, and he is so far the home run champ. Tall, strong, now forty years old, athletic but does not necessarily look it, he took a bad hop during a game, hit him right in the mouth, blood everywhere and a front toot punctured his lower lip. Hideous injury and away he went in an ambulance. That was on a Thursday, that next Saturday, he pitched nine whole innings and won the game for the Giants, even hit a homer.
Meth has been his problem; that drug is so hard to resist. I have been told that it would get me to if I ever tried it. The whites like meth, speeds them up for working, sex, and fighting. Matt White, Frank Braby, and Pete–each good men, not bad or ugly, and the attraction is powerful. Pete has a wife, kids, a home, and a job waiting for him. Sounds like he has started going to the chapel. He really wants to make it. Such a likeable guy. He is going home, here in the same county where I live, at the end of August and I hope he gives me a call.
I did not mention Mario Ellis, have not said much about Mike or Charles, but fine men. Mario, a superior athlete, is hard to manage. He redefines “defensive.” Mike and Charles, not great baseball players but will be stars on the football team, and are, without a doubt, the fastest guys in the prison.
The bad, can’t go too far with this and I don’t want to judge. Who knows what any man would do given the conditions that many have to live with. Take away hope and meaning and what is left. Prison is a place where struggles are being fought to maintain one’s humanness. Not to have any real goal, or mission as it is often put, robs a man of something that goes to the core. It is possible that a mission might be to try to cause the collapse of the baseball program. All the guys that have been cut from making a team over the years or those who have proven to others and even themselves that they just don’t have it anymore–the search for meaning goes on.
I have heard a lot of sad stories, usually second hand since convicts rarely carry on much. Stoic might describe it. There is danger that lurks in over sympathizing with the convicts. Not uncommon to see someone naively trying to make a convict’s life a little better by bringing in some form of contraband. Innocent, ignorant, foolish, yes, which become criminal and illegal. I will never forget the seventy-two year old woman who, as a long time volunteer with the Protestant Chapel, brought in items that actually led to her arrest. I knew this fine woman well and I will not easily be able to get out of my mind the sight of her being taken out of the building that houses the warden and the other higher-ups in hand cuffs and being escorted to a waiting police car. Strangely, I never heard of her again, nothing but silence.
The ugly, there is ugliness in everyone, myself included. Ugly lies in wait and hidden because it is costly to display it. I see it more plainly in some of the correctional officers. Among these are the good; I would like to talk about them but I should not. Every convict knows the good cops and these men and women are respected. The good ones are firm, fair, and approachable. They do their jobs, obey the rules, and are not mean. The mean ones, the bad and the ugly, in perhaps the majority. The worst are those who have to show they are tough by being mean and vengeful. They play the ubiquitous game of pay-back. They have not internalized the golden rule of treating others as you would be treated.
Due to my longevity at San Quentin I have seen officers turned and changed. At the start they are pleasant, business-like, but human. Over time I have seen the move from good to bad. And it is ugly.
[1] Interesting that I am a Christian, two of my staunchest supporters have been Muslims during this tumultuous 2011 season, Bilal and YaYa. Both African Americans, converts to Islam, have consistently proven themselves to be reliable and honorable men.
What started it all? How did it get to this place?
I can only guess at what happened, but I think it goes back to 2004 when all the media attention began.[1]
There were rumors that I was in danger. I would need to step back, as I heard it. I did not since I did not see or feel any real problem.
Prior to the start of the 2005 season a big meeting was planned. Word was that I was bumped from managing the Giants and the powers that be intended to reshape the program. To counter I suggested the formation of a second team, a resurrection of the old Pirates, which I would manage thus leaving an un-named person to manage the Giants.
Coming into the prison for the big meeting, I was stunned to find that my brown card was not in its normal place at the East Gate. The officer at the gate, a person I had known for many years, explained that an un-named person had pulled it out of the box only moments before. I asked to make a call from the phone in the east gate shack and try to contact the person who was putting the meeting together. That move got me into the prison, into the meeting, and manager of the Pirates.[2]
It was not long before I found out the reason for the trouble: media attention and all the cons knew it. It was intolerable to the un-named person that I should be getting the attention, which there really was not much of. However, unbeknownst to me a documentary was to be done on the baseball team, and though I had managed the team alone for years, a change had to be made.
Put a camera in front of someone’s face and magic happens. Nearly everyone succumbs. I am not immune either. During the late 1960s and early 1970s I had my share. A leader in the Jesus People Movement, I had made Time magazine and even had some television interviews. For years I had travelled with a band called Joyful Noise and flew around the country like a big deal. After awhile it all passed and I never realized anything out of it except grief and disillusionment. Sure, I was a little resentful at being brushed aside, but that did not last too long. Most ball players wish the press would just go away anyway, unless of course you are a convict.
That was then, and for a number of years, things returned to normal, one had one team, the Giants, much of the media attention went away, and things were good. Then it started up all over again, and the rush to mug in front of a lens changed things–at least, this is part of what happened as it seems to me.
Red Sox versus the Yankees, Dodgers versus the Giants–historic rivalries, and we love them. San Quentin Giants versus the San Quentin A’s, some love it, I would like to love it, but there is no real history to it, no naturalness to it, no fun to it either. But it rages and it is getting to me. I can see myself deteriorating, see myself losing my balance. Stress is a killer and I am stressed out, to the point of becoming combative. Something has to be done.
[1] I wish I could be more concrete but I cannot. People and places could be named certainly, and things said, yet it is necessary to be vague. We are talking about prisons and convicts, and convicts often get paroled.
[2] The original San Quentin team was the Pirates. The Pirates became the Giants when the San Francisco Giants gave us their winter uniforms.
Prisoners play a lot of softball; few play baseball. The softball played is slow pitch where the ball is arced 6 to 9 feet in the air and the batter will use an exaggerated upper cut to hit the steeply falling ball. Often the batter will “step in the hole” meaning that the back foot is moved backward and downward suddenly during the swing. The result of it is that the head moves a great deal. This does not matter much in slow pitch softball, but it is death in fast pitch hardball.
The whole thing is that the head moves way too much for a batter with a softball swing to hit a baseball thrown at seventy miles per hour or faster. The brain tracks the trajectory of the ball and with reasonable hand-eye coordination, the bat will meet the ball. Or, at least a good baseball swing, with less head movement, has a better chance to put a ball in play.
Adrian “Red” Casey, a Black man with red hair and blue eyes, our captain, number four hitter and first baseman, due to playing softball for a whole lot of years, understandably came up with an awful softball-style swing. For a couple of years he was going for the home run record, which is thirteen, but in the last twelve games this year he is batting under 200 with no homers. Red and I have had our disagreements over the years. Indeed, for two seasons he was mad at me and only talked to me if he had to. Last week I could see he was desperate.
Red was voted the team captain this year over last year’s choice, Johnny Taylor, for the first time ever. Two games in a row he was taken out of the game for a player who I hoped might have a better chance of putting the ball in play. Red no longer had that coveted clean-up role. Before I made the moves, I told Red what was happening and he just looked at me and nodded. He knew why.
A week ago, June 20, I asked Red if I could talk to him about his swing. Not that I know that much about hitting a baseball, but I ended up playing in two scrimmage games and was hitting .500 with only one strike out. Not bad for a sixty-nine year old guy. Funny thing, the players paid more attention to my instruction after that, and Red did too. He wanted some help.
I showed him what I knew. Negative load, front foot down first before the swing begins, arms in close, swing pretty much straight down, level the bat through the zone, then a slight up with the bat in the follow through. That and discipline yourself as best you can, unless of course you have two strikes on you already, to swing at pitches you can hit without reaching for the pitch. Standard stuff, taught at most high schools, standard in college and professional levels, but not the rule in prisons due to the softball swing.
The lesson lasted less than two minutes. Red grabbed the bat out of my hands and said, “I got it coach; I’ll have it for next game.”
He did too, well not the next game but this very last one. It took him a little longer to adjust than he thought. I could not have done it. I barely have it down and I was at it forever it seems before I was able to keep myself from striding while swinging. For fifty plus years I have been swinging the bat wrongly so that if I hit it, it would be largely an accident. Had to “re-pattern” my muscles and my mind.
I’m proud of Red, surprised too. Murder two, long, long sentence, not sure he will ever get out, but as a muscular solid athlete hitting from the left side it sure will be nice to see him loft a few over our short-porch in right field.
Thinking About How Others Would Be Impacted If I Killed Myself
My brother Gary’s suicide is still embedded in my mind, and I experience periods of regret to this day, which makes me very sad. I have to accept the fact that the memory of it will never go away.
Gary was four years younger than me and was a combat engineer in the Army. He was part of a team that would move into neutral or enemy territory and make ready for later teams of soldiers to have a little fortress, so to speak. It was dangerous stuff.
When he returned home from Nam, about 1968, he moved in with his and my parents, on Whitegate Avenue in Sunland, CA., still within the city limits of Los Angeles. Gary was a tough guy, started a gang called The Eagles, and twice I took him to an emergency room, once to get his jaw wired and another to do the same to a wrist. All the Philpott boys were boxers; my dad trained us to do this when we were really little. I still pound the body bag and work the speed bag every Wednesday at the gym. Our brother Bruce ended his career as a cop as chief of police of Pasadena. After he died, we found boxing trophies in his closet won in a boxing league formed by L A cops plus the county’s sheriff’s department.
Gary and I were very close, and I blame myself for not acting when we found out he shot himself in the hand. My parents were very concerned and started getting him help at an Army hospital. But one day, early in the morning, he drove to a Lutheran Hospital in San Fernando Valley, parked his VW Beetle under an American flag, and shot himself in the head. My mom, dad, brother, and I were shocked to the core, and we each blamed ourselves for not taking action earlier.
You can see where I am going with this. Yes, what about my family members, my five kids, eight grand kids, three great grand kids, and here their relative, and a long-time pastor, killing himself. Then my ex-wives, my present wife, and all my friends at the church, all the kids I coached at high schools in Marin here, and more as well. How would my suicide impact them? Certainly not good, and some likely very badly.
Right now I am sitting here typing this and I am not feeling good at all. I am almost shattered to even think like this. To be truthful I have wanted to write this little booklet a long while ago, but always seemed to find ways not to.
This is likely the number one reason that when I have considered doing myself in that this issue comes up. I may seem like a real basket case to you reader right now, but let me say I am far stronger now in my desire to continue living than ever before. Please do not worry about me.
I am putting this little chapter toward the ending of this booklet so as not to upset any reader. But it is this reason, the possibility of hurting and damaging others who know and love me if I killed myself. Especially my dear daughters and son, these would be shattered and would never get over it.
Also, I am presenting this chapter so that others who might be considering doing away with themselves to stop and think about how this would trouble others, those who love and know you, even those who you do not feel good about.
Now then, as we near the conclusion of this short series of essays, if you reader are mired in a desire to kill yourself, stop and think it over. Give a family member or friend a call and start talking with them, be real about what is going on in your head and heart. You do not have to feel embarrassed about this, it takes courage and strength to reach out for help.
Feeling, thinking, or planning to take your own life is not at all unusual, especially in this crazy mixed-up world we are living in. I mean, it goes with the territory. To have thoughts or a desire to end it all is not surprising, and I would guess that a sizeable percentage of the population today is experiencing such things, especially the young people. You would be surprised if you knew how many of the people you know are going through some rough spots.
Last Sunday at church, we had a congregational meeting following the morning service. At one point, while making a summary of what was coming up, I talked about writing this book. And wow, so many looked at me and nodded their heads in agreement. Turns out, I was not the only one who had these disabling ideas in their heads. It was at that point, when with the heads nodding and a couple of thumbs up, that I knew this little booklet had to get out.
