Magi and Shaman
Magic is the unveiling of the Mysteries. Persons of Power—Magi and Shaman—are ‘Workers of Magic.’
Magic was the ancient science of the supernatural—the Otherworldly. It was the power-center of ancient religions.
Magic was intimately connected with the origin of all mythology and also with the ancient creeds of philosophy. Zoroaster, the founder of what is called the Magian religion, is supposed to have lived about 1500 BCE.
Zoroaster is said to have been the originator of the Magi, but the religion he founded eventually degenerated into an idolatrous form of fire worship.
The Magi, who are believed to have been a distinct caste of the Medians, can be traced back to about 591 BCE, and were known as the magicians or wise men. They claimed to be searchers after Truth, for that alone, they claimed, “could make a human like God, whose body resembled light and whose soul or spirit resembled Truth.”
It has often been observed that nearly all religions have arisen out of the ‘supernatural’ traditions of shamanism, a set of beliefs common to virtually all tribal peoples, and known to have been practiced since the dawn of human culture.
As a spiritual system of heaven and earth, shamanism is a journey of the soul conducted by the shaman, master of the spirit helpers. The shaman adventured consciously among ancestors or creator gods and goddesses, spirits, and energies on other planes of reality, and returned with sacred knowledge that would benefit themselves, others and the community. The earliest shamans had neither a patriarchal nor a matriarchal worldview, but recognized the oneness of all.
The shaman, as the intermediary between heaven and earth, communed not only with the spiritual entities of the heavens, but also of the earth. Today, the shaman is often put into a box of earthly dogma and is viewed as being strictly an earth-based practitioner. Shamans did look to the wisdom of the earth and nature, but not at the expense of the stars.
The original shamans were balanced in their work of the heavens and the earth. The true shamans of old were not only healers, but were also priests, philosophers, astrologers, warriors and mystics—specialists and generalists in all spiritual aspects of the earth and the heavens. To view the shaman otherwise is ridiculous because the sole purpose of the shaman was to maintain harmony and balance within the people, the community and the land. And balance was only achievable through an equality of heaven and earth. This equality eventually leads to an oneness of self and community.
Shamans were able to retrieve knowledge and insight into the mysteries of heaven and earth by entering a trance-state, an altered state of consciousness. These ecstatic states were achieved through ascetic training; in other words, a form of shugyo. This type of shugyo could be repetitive movement (such as running), repetitive sounds (in the form of chanting or singing), ingesting hallucinogenic plants, fasting, isolation, and extremes of temperature (such as cold water immersion).
In many aspects, the Norse God Odin was the archetypal supreme shaman. Odin the wanderer was a seeker of knowledge and wisdom while enduring many trials and dangerous adventures. In this travels he wrung what wisdom there was from all things that he encountered.
And from his self-sacrifice, hanging for nine days on ‘Yggdrasil’—the great evergreen tree, he discovered the secret of the magical alphabet known as the ‘runes.’
In conclusion, Dr. Husfelt feels that the Hawaiian shamans – the kahuna sorcerers – were quite possibly the most powerful of all the various indigenous magical practitioners known to humankind. (Please see Wizards of the Pacific.)