Shamanic Practitioner Training Courses - The Four Levels
Facilitator: Dr. Mike Meredith
A certificate is awarded on successful completion of each Level - to record your investment of time and effort and to record specific attainments e.g. successfully drumming a shamanic journey for others, completing project work etc.
Each course gets more challenging than the one before, but so long as you can find the open-mindedness, persistence and sense of adventure to try things out of your comfort zone sometimes, you will find it possible to progress all the way through.
The Foundation Level Course of basic shamanic principles and practices, core skills and arts is a good place to learn about what a shamanic lifestyle can look and feel like, and to acquire basic skills and understandings. You will NOT be required to take on any dogma, pressure or beliefs in this course - there are many ways and choices to practise shamanism and your right to find your own formulation at your own pace is respected. This course is also suitable for anyone needing shamanism refresher workshops or wishing to work more at this interesting and fun but none-challenging level.
The Intermediate Level Shamanic Practitioner Training Course is for folks who are committed to a shamanic path of their own choosing and feel ready for some self-transformation work in order to deepen their connection to the world of spirit, spiritual community and holistic living. The course is not prescriptive, but participants are expected to engage in at least some of the series of powerful exercises and practices on offer e.g. soul retrieval work, trance dance and rebirthing. The Foundation Course helps people to get ready for this more challenging course and teaches basic self-awareness, self-empowering, emotional clearing, spiritual guidance and self-stabilisation techniques that are important for confronting and moving-through transformative processes.
For entry to Intermediate Level the course you will have to have mastered connection to spirit ["earth spirit", "sky spirit" and personal spirit guide] via the varied routes including shamanic journeying, breathwork, chanting, drumming, sacred ceremony, smudging, emotional intelligence training and shamanic circle dance - all taught in the Foundation Level Course.
For entry to the Advanced Level Course you will need to have mastered soul retrieval, drumming a journey for others, trance-dance, timeline healing, channelled energy healing and rebirthing during the intermediate course. This course includes cognitive therapy training, cathartic healing practices, deep meditation and fasting practices and advanced healing skills. The fourth level of Shamanic Practitioner Training is the Mastery Level Course.
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Foundation Shamanic Practitioner Training Course
Programme of Themes, Exercises + Study Resources
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Week 1: Find Your Path - Out of a Rut, onto Your Path of Destiny, Purpose & Fulfilment!
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Beyond the boundary of experience flows "The Way"
Ever greater - yet more subtle - than the world
[Do Your Work then Step Back!]
"Shamans see their lives, not as a series of steps towards a goal, but as a process that is endless and flowing.
There are no guarantees of prizes at the end of the trail; there is only the magic of the path itself!"
[see Indigenous Shamanism in a Postmodern Age]
STEP 1: Envisioning - Expanding Awareness: Journeying into Transcendent Oneness with the Sun Invocation
Finding Our Place in the Great Scheme of Things via the symbolic movements of this traditional Native American Chant.
Connecting to Earth, Community and the 4 Directions - The shaman never lives or
works alone!
KUAKE, LENO LENO MAOTE, HAYANO, HAYANO, HAYANO
Let Me be One with the Infinite Sun, Forever, Forever, Forever
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Relaxation/Meditation/Visualisation
The "Lakota Lullaby" [Video of Lakota Lullaby]
Lakota language:
cante' waste' hoksila ake istima, hanhepi kin waste' waleyahiye
English translation:
Good hearted little boy go back to sleep - the night is good!
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Transcendent Oneness via Breath-Based Chanting Practice
Mantric Chanting: "Om Namo Bhagavate" - By singing and breathing together we ground this two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old resonant mantra into our body and community, while simultaneously soaring on the transcendent wings of spirit. In traditional shamanic terms, we are integrating our "EARTH-SPIRIT" and "SKY-SPIRIT" energies. This chant can connect us to the sadness in our life. Breathing and chanting through our present-life sadness connects us to the spiritual experience of "Divine Nostalgia" - an awakening of the dormant memory ["inner knowing" that our true home lies in the world of spirit and that one day we will return there - when our current journey into the adventure of earthly life is over.
You can download an MP3 version of this chant here for your iPod, iPhone or MP3 player, or buy the entire CD |
STEP 2: Igniting the Spark to Engage in Our Personal Shamanic Path:
Many people choose to live their lives "stuck in a rut" - miserable and unfulfilled, unprepared for death. Engaging in The Way (lifestyle) of the Shaman begins with nurturing our desire and passion for fulfillment - for living more fully, achieving more of our potential and having a fuller experience of ourselves and of the integrated earthly/spiritual life for which we have incarnated into this lifetime. For this we will draw on the Native American wisdom of the Medicine Wheel incorporating the 4 compass directions...
STEP 3: Moving into Skilfulness
Before we can do healing work on ourselves, or on another, we must "step back" and invest a little time and effort to let go of any current unskilful states and enter into a skilful state i.e. a state of mind, body, emotions, spirit & soul characterised by...
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acceptance (wholeness)
empowerment (resourcefulness)
awareness (vitality)
truth (reality/authenticity)
simplicity (letting go of what is unhelpful)
humility (open-ness to learning, healing & self-actualization)
a love of life & of living things
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See also Point Healing
We will practice meditative movement, spiritual practice and cognitive therapy techniques for letting go of "unskilful states" such as tension, agitation, drowsiness, misery, struggle, anger, inflexibility etc. Our natural state of being is "skilful", so we don't have to create "skilfulness", we just have to become aware of, process, clear and release, any current "unskilfulness".
STEP 4: Alignment with Self
Self-awareness - Integration of Senses & Feelings
The Reflective Breathing technique as a self-awareness tool which integrates mind, body, spirit, perceptions, senses and feelings. Self-awareness is essential for healing self or others - it is the starting point for choice (self-empowerment) and personal transformation. There are 4 types of outcome of this exercise:
STEP 5: Aligning with Life's Transitions: Self-Awareness & Healing community
Demonstrated via the Circle Dance: "Steal Away" - a meditative dance to a Celtic ballad (lyrics & music details) reminding us of the Celtic Shamanism tradition of our ancestors in the British Isles. The dance steps were devised by Cambridge Circle Dance teacher, Pam Adcock, drawing on her long experience of the ancient circle dancing tradition. Circle dancing provides individual relaxation, integration & inner harmony and also promotes healing and harmony within communities.
This particular circle dance centres on the theme of "Moving on". Shamans & shamanic healing have traditionally played an important role in helping people to cope with change - the inevitable need for "Letting go", moving on and adapting to a new phase of life (e.g. a new relationship, job or home, but also a change in our health, wealth or social status). One of the great "misalignments" of our current society is what psychologists call "hyperarousal" (as in the condition Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD which is being seen increasingly in our children). The changing rhythms of this dance gives us a quick indication of whether hyperarousal is currently an issue for us and it also great for quickly slowing us down into a more skilful state.
Aligning Ourself to Divine Guidance & Support: Chanting a Healing Mantra
"Ra Ma Da Sa Sa Say So Hung" is one of the most powerful Healing Mantra chants known. Encodes sound healing properties for balancing the chakras but also used for divine connection & alignment purposes. These sounds are found in healing mantras from a range of spiritual traditions. They are a way of clearing the chakras & human aura so that the energetic connection to our higher self/unconscious mind/the spirit world (according to your culture / experience / structuring of reality).
We used a Kundalini Yoga version of this mantra, now formulated now as monotheistic but with ancient pagan roots going back to Ancient Egypt, Greece & Rome, the Man-God Hermes Trismegistus, the Sun God (symbolising masculine energy & qualities) "Ra" and Moon Goddess (symbolising feminine energy & qualities) "Ma". The musical version of the chant that we used can be found on this beautiful CD: Angels' Waltz by Sada Sat Kaur. More about the background and technology of this mantra can be found: HERE
Introduction to "Indigenous Shamanism", "Core Shamanism", the basic principles of Shamanism and the role and diversity of rituals and spiritual practices.
A Celebration of Cosmic Renewal - The Aramaic Prayer of Yeshua [Jesus]
From "The Hidden Gospel" - Details: U.K. Canada U.S.A.
We chant and dance the last line in chakra-resonant Aramaic with meditative movements
symbolising the shaman's role in connecting earth (everyday world) and heaven (spirit world)
plus transcendence of the death/rebirth cycle into soul-conscious eternal life.
The Legendary Jesus was a shaman healer who drove demons out to cure illness,
a child of Great Spirit who shapeshifted [the transfiguration] and performed feats of magic
Try the Holistic Experience: Middle-Eastern Shamanic Practices Workshop |
STEP 6: Aligning to our Power & Authority: Correcting misaligments
Sometimes (often?) life does not go the way we think it should - the direction we feel we need, the direction that is "fair", or the direction have planned. In response to these experiences we often go into "misaligned" states of disempowerment such as: frustration, victimhood, self-pity (an impoverished distortion of self-love), rationalisation ("There's nothing I can do, I will just have to put up with this"), "learned helplessness", blaming (= giving away our power and control), martyrdom etc. We will practice a cognitive therapy healing process in which we regain our power and authority to reach a more skilful place of either commitment to the unwanted turn of events, or a renewed determination and creativity to change what is happening. We will practice doing an individual variation of this process as a homework exercise and practise the partnered version in class.
Tutor for this course: Dr. Mike Meredith Email Mike
Further Reading Materials & Shamanic Studies Resources
"The World of Shamanism : New Views of an Ancient Tradition" (Amazon details: UK Canada USA)
"Entering The Circle" is a classic book on modern shamanism - the true story of how a psychiatrist was drawn to ancient shamanic practices.
"Crones Don't Whine" (13 Qualities to Cultivate)"Angel Tech: A Modern Shaman's Guide to Reality Selection" (Amazon Order pages: UK Canada USA)
 Working with Animal Totems - Power Animals
Shamanic Totems - Books & Music CDs:
UK & Europe Canada USA
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Shamanic Journeying: Guides - CDs - Tapes
CHEAL: Cambridge Healing & Holistic Lifestyle Group
Holistic & Shamanic Healing: Compared with Evidence-based Scientific Medicine
U.S.A.)