Song Between the Worlds
Shamanic Aspects of Music-Thanatology
Music-Thanatology Training
Lane Community College
Eugene, Oregon
Professional/Academic Research Paper
Copyright © 2009 James Excell
James Excell
June 2009
AcknowledgementsAcknowledgementsAcknowledgementsAcknowledgements
A full roster of those whose influence contributed to this paper would be
prohibitively autobiographical, insofar as the written work reflects the concepts and
experiences gained along the haphazard course of an event-filled life. I’ve bumped into
quite a few would-be, almost-were and probable shamans, magicians, other assorted
seekers and at least one genuine bodhisattva over the years, and probably learned
something from each of them, for which I am grateful. In this phase of life, leading up to
and including the training that led to this paper, I have been blessed with the aid and
friendship of many extraordinary individuals.
To the faculty and administrators of the Music-Thanatology Training/Mystery
School at Lane Community College, particularly directors Jane Franz and Sharilyn Cohn
– I am in constant awe, bafflement and gratitude at your taking a chance on such an
idiosyncratic autodidact. To Alice Reich, my paper advisor – I will always remember
your patience, diligence and good humor under what must have been trying
circumstances.
I will always treasure the love and support of my fellow students. We all know
that we have only taken the first few steps on this path, and we will always be there to
help one another along the way.
The ManKind Project and the stewards of the Warrior Monk training struck the
spark that has led to my current conflagration. My Ashland support group, Sarah and
John Michael Greer, Talia Rose and Rico Herrera, Heidi Haehlen and Dudley Finch –
you have all modeled the grace and good humor essential to walking the Blessing Way
with hollow bones.
To Gwydion Pennderwyn, for a slow-burning initiation, I am always in your debt.
To Nantosuelte, goddess of winding rivers and hidden springs – every encounter is a joy
and delight. And to Elizabeth, muse of fortuitous tangents, love and laughter – every day
is a deepening adventure.
The modern practice of music-thanatology may include historically accurate,
received wisdom from the Cluniac monastic tradition. It may be conjecture developed
from a combination of historical and musicological research, the deep indwelling of a
faith-tradition and its attendant mythopoetic imagery and a sampling of both ancient and
modern theories on the nature of life, death and the fabric of creation. It has the potential
to become an ever-expanding and deepening field of study and practice that can have
enormous and transformative implications for humanity and relations between the living
and the dead.
Whatever the specific circumstances of its modern genesis, music-thanatology
employs techniques and states of consciousness that have their origin in shamanic
practices that probably precede our differentiation as a species and that, even today, span
indigenous cultures around the world and reverberate through modern Western culture.
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate some of the parallels between music-
thanatology and shamanic practice in various cultures and times, delve into the
neurophysiological and psychological aspects of shamanic practice in order to assess and
navigate the liminal state and, hopefully, give some small indication of the vast expanse
of human endeavor that supports us in our work, as well as the exciting challenges that lie
before us.
The word shaman comes from the Tungus tribes of Siberia. It refers to a person,
possessing spiritual and visionary proclivities, who works in a state of ecstatic trance,
1
often acting as an intermediary between the tribe and the forces, powers and beings of the
separate and underlying reality that is commonly termed the spiritual realm, or
Otherworld. The concept of shamanism has been popularized by modern explorers of
consciousness and extended far beyond
the Siberian tundra. The many intriguing parallels in belief and practice in indigenous
cultures around the world have led to the application of the term “shaman” to a wide
variety of healing, divinatory and ecstatic techniques.
In 1951, University of Chicago philosopher and historian of religions Mircea
Eliade addressed the problem of dilution and popularization of the concept of shamanism
in his essential and ground-breaking work: Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy.
i
He questioned the efficacy of using the term shaman to describe “ any magician, sorcerer,
medicine man or ecstatic found throughout the history of religions“, making the concept
at once “ extremely complex and extremely vague,” rendering it ultimately meaningless.
Nevertheless, within two decades, the image of the shaman, from the deer-dancer of the
Lascaux cave-paintings to Casteneda’s Yaqui brujo Don Juan Matus
ii
, became an iconic
figure in modern Western consciousness as the counterculture of the 1960s found that its
experimentation with psychedelics, group consciousness and the liminal state had an
abundance of historical precedents.
iii
The perspective on shamanism that has evolved in the half-century since Eliade’s
work, among many students and practitioners, has come to emphasize similar practices
and phenomena occurring in disparate cultural contexts on every inhabited continent.
Shamanic practices are recognized among indigenous peoples around the world as an
2
essential component of their cultural identity and a unifying factor in their efforts to
remain viable despite the depredations of the currently dominant culture. In Fire in the
Head: Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit, Tom Cowan writes: “Shamanism is
fundamentally a way of viewing reality, and a method or technique for functioning within
that reality.”
iv
Cowan goes on to define the core elements of shamanism found in most cultures
as (1) the ability to enter a unique visionary state of consciousness during which (2) one
experiences a journey into nonordinary realms of existence where (3) one acquires
knowledge and power for one’s own use or in service to others in the community. One
might add that music is another virtually universal prerequisite to the shamanic
experience.
The ability to undergo death and resurrection, to separate the spirit from the body,
traverse the noncorporeal realms, interact with their inhabitants and return to the living
world characterizes shamanic practice. The shaman experiences the death of the personal
ego-self countless times and becomes familiar with the liminal state and the otherworld in
the perceptual context of his or her individual and tribal cultural template. Experience of
this nonordinary reality requires an altered state of consciousness comparable or identical
to dream or trance states achievable through the combination of a wide variety of
methods, including the ritual, musical, meditative and the ingestion of psychoactive and
psychedelic substances. Among the gifts and abilities sought during the shamanic journey
are songs of power and alliances with entities that can aid the practitioner in the
accomplishment of healings, soul-retrieval and the safe conduct of souls into the
afterlife.
v
3
Shamanic practice is the primal experience of the religious impulse – the
development of all religion may be traced to it. Primal, rather than primitive – the
shamanic view of reality, like that of the indigenous cultures from which it springs,
possesses a subtlety, depth and complexity that easily rivals the most abstruse of
“civilized” theologies. As modern science probes the nature of both physical reality and
human consciousness, the many levels of creation come to increasingly resemble the
worlds of indigenous – shamanic – reality.
Shamanism as we know it today dates back at least to the hunter-gatherer
societies of the Paleolithic era, and developed in the context of small tribal bands.
Shamanism is highly individualistic – even in small social units, the shaman stands
somewhat outside the mainstream of the group – one foot in this world and one in the
next. As agriculture and animal husbandry made possible the rise of complex,
hierarchical civilizations, religion, doctrine and belief became standardized and the
emphasis on individual vision discouraged and suppressed. Joseph Campbell contrasts
the two world-views by comparing the priest to the shaman. The priest achieves power
and office within a framework of religious organization, ceremonial induction and
specifications of rank and duty that have been passed on to him, “while the shaman is
one who, as a consequence of a personal psychological crisis, has gained a certain power
of his own.” Campbell goes on to observe that, considering the likelihood that the
mythological lore of mankind was under the stewardship of the shaman for a period of
five to six-hundred-thousand years, the inner world of the shaman greatly influenced our
spiritual inheritance from that period.
“We must consider, therefore, what the visions within,
and springing from, the shamanistic world of experience may have been.”
vi
4
“ Unless you become as little children, you may not enter the kingdom of
heaven”
vii
To many, the first experience of the Otherworld has an aching familiarity to it – a
sense of finding what was lost, of coming home. We come into this world with the doors
of perception thrown wide open. Newborns experience synaesthesia, perceiving the color
of sound and the taste of light.
viii
The world is intensely alive, always in motion, always
in flux. The level of manifestation at which the world consists of interacting fields of
energy organized by consciousness is much closer, shimmering just below the surface.
It is only after three or four years, when the brain’s ascending reticular activating
system comes on line, that toddlers can distinguish between dreaming and waking
consciousness, as well as between self and others
ix
. The dream-state, particularly lucid
dreaming, is one occasion upon which we enter an aspect of Otherworld consciousness.
Another is the near-death experience, where a sense of immanence, of omnipresence and
meaning flood’s through one’s being as if a light has suddenly begun to shine. A universe
of spirit is once again revealed.
Some aspect of this mode of perception has been carefully developed and
nurtured in the vast majority of indigenous cultures. To a great extent, this is the
indigenous world-view: a reality in which every brook, tree and stone has its own innate
spirituality and consciousness, where animals, birds, fish and insects are our elder
siblings, where wind, rain and sun can be negotiated with, where everything is in relation.
“Mitakuye oyasin – all my relations” is the Lakota prayer of oneness and harmony with
all life, repeated in the darkness of the lodge amid the glow of the grandmother stones
and the reverberation of the medicine drum.
x
5
It is the blessing and the curse of human neurophysiology that, even in indigenous
cultures where perception of the Otherworld is valued and honored, access to this mode
of being fades as the cerebrum begins to dominate the older neural structures during the
maturation process and “waking” consciousness becomes the norm. It is the role of the
shaman to walk the path between the worlds, keeping it open to nurture the heart and soul
of the tribe. Techniques, both ecstatic and contemplative, for stepping over into this
larger reality have been developed over tens and possibly hundreds of millennia.
A common thread that runs through shamanic practice, the psychedelic
experience, lucid dreaming and the near- and nearing-death experiences
xi
is the bypass or
shutdown of many cerebral functions, allowing cerebellar consciousness to assert itself.
The ability to access deeper, more ancient structures within the brain while retaining
lucidity as an aspect of shamanic practice is congruent with some theories regarding the
evolution of consciousness itself
xii
.
Homo sapiens are distinguished from their predecessors by the development of
the cerebrum. While Neanderthals had a larger overall cranial capacity, the emphasis was
on the development and dominance of the cerebellum. Neanderthals had a widespread,
sophisticated and rich culture across Europe, Asia and Africa for hundreds of thousands
of years, through several Ice Ages, before the advent of Cro-Magnon man began to
supplant them some 40,000 years ago
xiii
. Whether Neanderthals were driven to extinction
or hybridization took place – of which we would be the result – remains a subject of
lively debate.
xiv
Genetic and archaeological evidence may support one theory, then
another as each new discovery is made.
xv
6
What is indisputable is that the newly-arrived Cro-Magnon culture existed side-
by-side with the ancient, indigenous culture of the Neanderthals for millennia. If
cerebellar consciousness is the consciousness of the dream-state, the shamanic trance,
etc., any mythogenic/religious inheritance from the older culture could easily involve
techniques for attaining that type of consciousness
xvi
.
The precise mechanisms of consciousness have yet to be determined, and indeed
may prove ultimately elusive. Many neurological studies of near-death experiences seem
to have a problem determining cause-and-effect
xvii
. The terms “cerebral and cerebellar
consciousness” simply denote structures within the brain that are particularly active
during various phases of perception. Each of us, at any moment, perceive along a
continuum of consciousness whose polarities may be indicated by these terms. In
Anthroposophy, the type of consciousness that arose within the cerebral-cerebellar
continuum when the cerebellum was still dominant is attributed to the Atlantean age,
when humanity had direct experience of the world of spirit on a continual basis –
particularly through the experience of music.
xviii
Many theorists equate the mythic,
Atlantean phase of evolution, a consciousness in which personal identity disappears and
the individual becomes one with the world of nature and spirit (what has been termed
“the Goethe effect”), with the age of the Neanderthal.
xix
In many cultures, shamanic proclivities may be marked from early childhood. A
child may be solitary by nature, “dreamy,” of an artistic temperament. Children may
converse regularly with animals, spirits, fairies, or the dead. In many cultures, tribal
elders might observe a child’s development for years, waiting for a critical moment
marking the onset of spiritual gifts, a quickening of powers. This onset is often heralded
7
by a serious illness, fever or trance-state, referred to as the “initiatory crisis”.
xx
Epilepsy
was once considered a sacred condition in classical antiquity, due both to the apparent
spirit-possession and the trance-state that frequently accompanies a seizure. Epileptic
attacks centered in the right temporal lobe frequently trigger a state identical both
neurologically and experientially to the near-death experience.
xxi
Epilepsy as initiatory crisis is still considered a primary indicator of shamanic
proclivities in many indigenous cultures. In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down:
A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures, Anne
Fadiman writes that a diagnosis of childhood epilepsy
added Lia Lee to a distinguished line of epileptics that has included Soren
Kierkegaard, Vincent van Gogh, Gustave Flaubert, Lewis Carroll, and Fyodor
Dostoyevsky, all of whom, like many Hmong shamans, experienced powerful
senses of grandeur and spiritual passion during their seizures, and powerful
creative urges in their wake. As Dostoyevsky’s Prince Myshkin asked, “What if it
is a disease? What does it matter that it is an abnormal tension if the result, if the
moment of sensation, remembered and analysed in a state of health, turns out to
be harmony and beauty brought to their highest point of perfection, and gives a
feeling, undivined and undreamt of till then, of completeness, proportion,
reconciliation, and an ecstatic and prayerful fusion in the highest synthesis of
life?’ “.
xxii
A state of consciousness in which perceptual levels fuse and the numinous is immanent.
Something Eliade might refer to as an “archaic technique of ecstasy”.
Even without a discernible physical cause, the initiatory crisis is a characteristic
feature throughout time and culture. Campbell describes the shamanic call and
distinguishes it from a nervous breakdown, saying:
the overpowering mental crisis is a generally recognized feature of the vocational
summons. Its counterparts have been registered wherever shamans have appeared
and practiced; which is to say, in every primitive society of the world…. For it is
a phenomenon sui generis; not a pathological but a normal event for the gifted
mind in these societies, when struck by and absorbing the force of what for lack
of a better term we may call a hierophantic realization: the realization of
“something far more deeply interfused,” inhabiting both the round earth and one’s
own interior, which gives to the world a sacred character; an intuition of depth,
absolutely inaccessible to the “tough minded” honest hunters (whether it be
8
dollars, pelts or working hypotheses they are after)…. the shamanistic crisis,
when properly fostered, yields an adult not only of superior intelligence and
refinement, but also of greater stamina and vitality of spirit than is normal to the
members of his group. The crisis, consequently, has the value of a superior
threshold initiation: superior, in the first place, because spontaneous, not tribally
enforced, and in the second place, because the shift of reference of the
psychologically potent symbols has been not from the family to the tribe but from
the family to the universe.
xxiii
Near-death experiences and serious wounding are another common theme in
shamanic development – an initiatory ordeal carried to a logical extreme. Serious scarring
marks the place where the boundary between life and death has been broken. In The
Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy, Eliade recounts a
shamanic experience, common in many metal-working cultures, in which the shaman is
seized by the smith-god, who throws him on his anvil and tears out his heart. The god
then reforges the heart and replaces it, with ribs of iron beaten back into place around it.
Other accounts of shamanic initiation involve being torn to pieces by otherworld entities,
purified and reassembled with the addition of iron and crystal components.
xxiv
In Black Elk Speaks, the Ogallala holy man recounts a severe illness at about the
age of twelve, from which he was not expected to recover. He passed from delirium into
a state of deep trance during which he left his body and was transported to a realm of
spiritual beings who give him a vision of all the nations of the world meeting in harmony
within the sacred hoop. He is filled with a sense of mission to realize his vision and
returns to his body with songs of power, symbolic imagery and sacred words that set the
pattern he will follow for the rest of his life.
xxv
As the onset of shamanic power exacts a physical toll, the debilitating effects are
often the first sign that the shell of waking consciousness is cracking open, allowing
another, more fully-realized self to emerge. The degree to which that emergence is
9
successful depends on a wide spectrum of factors, including the involvement of ritual
elders, the depth of the indigenous mythogenic system, the vagaries of genetics
xxvi
.
Despite the solitary nature of the practice, it is a rare shaman who attains full potential
without a supporting cultural template. Nevertheless, some aspects of shamanic training
are tantalizingly mysterious.
Most shamanic training includes extensive botanical knowledge, both in terms of
the medicinal and psychoactive properties of plants and fungi and the establishment of a
relationship with the spirit of each plant or fungus. Shamans of the Amazonian basin are
reputed to know the spirit and properties of over 80,000 plants, having become one with
them in the most intimate sense by taking their consciousness down to the molecular
level.
xxvii
The abilities to communicate and bargain with the plant and animal kingdoms,
read the weather, sense the flow of time and events and be in effective relation to the
spirits of earth and sky are also essential. The ability to diagnose and heal, to cast out
disease and malevolent entities from the body and soul is essential in serving the
community.
xxviii
Equally important is the shamanic role of psychopomp – conductor of
the souls of the dead to the next stage of their journey
xxix
, and retriever of souls who have
been separated from the body before their time.
xxx
The tools and allies characteristic of shamanism include musical instruments,
drums, rattles, amulets and talismans and animal fetishes. Accessing the older wisdom of
nonhuman consciousness through various animal totems expands awareness on myriad
levels of endeavor. The shaman may also work extensively within the dream-state.
Modern history abounds with stories of poets and scientists who return from the dream-
state with revelatory inspiration, often quite specific, concerning the work before
10
them.
xxxi
The night, when the waking, cerebral consciousness is in abeyance and the
cerebellum returns to dominance, is when most of us are in direct contact with the
Otherworld experience. The dream-state is generally chaotic and often frightening
because of the perceived lack of control, which is unsettling to the ego, yet it also affords
glimpses of unimaginable beauty and fulfillment.
xxxii
Some cultures, notably the Senoi of
Malaysia, consider lucid dreaming to be a normal and unremarkable ability, while to
many others waking and dreaming life are of equal importance.
xxxiii
Another characteristic of shamanic lore is that it is received from an older, usually
nonhuman source, stemming from a mythic time, such as the Dreamtime in Australia. In
Celtic lands and in parts of China, teaching may be received from fairies who are apt to
appear suddenly and spirit the potential trainee away, often for years at a time, returning
them transformed, if they return them at all
xxxiv
. A famous case from the thirteenth
century, cited by Robert Graves, is of Thomas of Ercledourne, known as Thomas the
Rhymer. Thomas encounters the Queen of Elfland on Huntleigh Bank, and she spirits
him away to her castle. In return for his companionship, she offers him a choice of two
gifts: she will make him a harper or a prophet. He chooses the latter; she names him True
Thomas and returns him to his lands, where he discovers that seven years have passed
xxxv
.
In similar fashion, a late-night encounter with otherworld entities and a large jug of wine
left the poet Li-Po with the martial-art style known as Eight Drunken Fairies. The 18th-
century harper Turlough O’Carolan took up the harp after being blinded by smallpox at
the age of 18, and early in his career recounted his experience of receiving music and
inspiration from the Otherworld as he lay on a fairy-mound.
xxxvi
11
In many tribal societies the poet/shaman is apprenticed in the Otherworld and
returns profoundly changed. Tom Cowan writes:
It was a fundamental assumption among the Celts that the poet sings the truth,
and that truth derives from the gods. Divine truth, and the universal order that
springs from it, creates what Anne Ross calls the Celtic sense of ‘the fitness of
things’, a key concept in Celtic thinking and a concept at the heart of shamanism.
It is similar to what the Navajo call hozro, usually translated as simply beauty, but
with much broader, more mystical significance; it is the beauty of cosmic order,
the pattern of perfection woven into the fabric of the universe at the creation.
Hozro is a combination of beauty and harmony, and the truth we find in the
blending of the two.
xxxvii
The subject of lore from an ancient source returns us to the enigmatic possibility
of Neanderthal inheritance and raises another troubling subject. Archaeological evidence,
such as altars, counting-sticks, cranial asymmetry and burial sites lead to several
hypotheses: Neanderthals were matriarchal, left-handed, had high-pitched voices,
practiced a religion that centered on both the moon and the menstrual cycle and were
probably cannibalistic. They had extensive red-ochre mines in Africa as far back as
500,000 years ago and probably followed a migratory path, never settling in permanent
structures. The latest genetic information suggests that they were red-haired.
xxxviii
While
all the proofs and ramifications of this information extend far beyond the scope of our
current subject, this does have a bearing on several crucial aspects of both shamanism
and music-thanatology.
Some cultures recognize both male and female practitioners of shamanism. Many
more restrict women from the practice. In tribal cultures from Australia to Oceania,
Africa and the Americas, a common legend has it that women once held all the spiritual
power, that men were able to steal it and they must never let women regain their former
primacy. Most of the cultures that hold to this view also keep their women in a state of
12
abject abasement and practice protracted puberty rituals that are debilitating and often
horrifying.
xxxix
There are, of course, similar restrictions on feminine participation in many
of the more “advanced” religious practices. One school of thought holds that the
widespread subjugation of women throughout recorded history is an outgrowth of the
long prehistoric struggle wherein a nascent culture either exterminated or absorbed its
ancient predecessor, while trying to adapt a spiritual technology that was both envied and
feared.
All speculation, of course. And yet, the last few thousand years in particular have
included both popular and institutionalized persecution of the feminine, the left-handed,
the red-headed and those who stand outside the mainstream of post-tribal, civilized
societies. The augmented cerebellum of the Neanderthal created an occipital bulge in the
cranium known as the “Neanderthal rose”. This type of bulge is found today in
approximately one of every 5000 individuals. The following information is drawn from a
report in the London Sunday Times in 1972:
Excavations at Norton Priory (a monastery in the north of England) discovered the
skeletons of 85 individuals, most of them identifiable as monks. Dating from the twelfth
century, these skeletal remains and associated artifacts had been preserved by reason of
their internment in stone coffins. Forty of the eighty-five skulls had a sizeable bulge at
the back of the head – that is, the extended occiput or “occipital rose “ of the
Neanderthal.
xl
It’s hard to resist speculating about the attractions of monastic life for those who stood
outside the mainstream in an often brutally violent society, and the monks of Cluny and
the Benedictine Pax Dei.
Carl Sagan weighed in on some of the unusual capacities of the cerebellum in The
Dragons of Eden:
There is, for example, an African fresh-water fish, the Mormyrid, which often
lives in murky water where visual detection of predators, prey or mates is
difficult. The Mormyrid has developed a special organ which establishes an
electric field and monitors that field for any creatures traversing it. This fish
possesses a cerebellum that covers the entire back of its brain in a thick layer
reminiscent of the neocortex of animals.
xli
13
The cerebellum seems to be highly responsive to electromagnetic energy fields.
Neanderthals and their successor shamans made liberal use of red ochre, covering their
entire bodies, or at least their heads, for ceremonial purposes and depositing large
quantities in graves. Red ochre is a hydrated iron oxide and is magnetic. Some tribes
today still consider it the menstrual blood of the Great Mother, fallen to earth.
xlii
Just a few more facts to consider: while the cerebrum crosses through the
amygdala in hemispheric dominance, so that the right hemisphere controls the left hand,
the cerebellum is wired directly, so that the left hemisphere controls the left hand. A race
with cerebellar dominance would be naturally left-handed, as is attested by the
asymmetrical wear-marks on the inside of Neanderthal crania.
xliii
The human female
cerebellum averages 40% higher activity than the male. Left-handedness is also found in
greater proportion in women.
xliv
The medieval style of harp-playing, as propounded by
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, makes the left hand the treble hand, so the sound-box of the
harp is held against the heart. The fact that left-handed playing would also stimulate the
cerebellum is probably just a bonus.
It would be disingenuous to omit the central role the use of psychoactive
substances plays in almost all shamanic practice. The plant kingdom abounds in
opportunities – frequently extremely risky – to open a doorway into a larger reality.
Amanita muscaria was and is the preferred sacrament of the shaman of the Tungus tribes,
and indeed throughout Eurasia. Soma, the sacred drink of the Vedic gods, is most likely a
decoction of amanita. For at least 2500 years, the Eleusinian Mysteries were practiced in
Greece – initiation into the mysteries was considered a prerequisite in the Classical world
to becoming a fully-realized human being. The sacramental beverage at Eleusis was an
14
infusion of claviceps purpurea, the rye-ergot mold from which LSD is synthesized.
xlv
The rites at Eleusis centered on the myth of Persephone and her journey to and from the
land of death. Initiates were said to no longer fear death, regarding it, like birth, as a
sacred transition from one stage to the next. Medieval Culdee monks of the Celtic
Christian church used amanita in their meditations.
Once again it must be emphasized that, from the perspective of indigenous
science, it’s not a matter of cause-and-effect. Everything is in relation. Do the chemicals
in the plant or fungus act upon the brain, or does the brain seek an alliance with forces
that work through the substance to accomplish a transition to another level of perception?
At a certain point in many traditions, once sufficient proficiency and experience in
attaining access to the Otherworld has been demonstrated, the initiate no longer requires
the aid of the physical aspect of a plant ally to make the journey. At a certain point in
Castaneda’s account of his apprenticeship in Yaqui brujeria, after several years of work
with peyote, psilocybin and datura, Don Juan tells him that the plant allies were only used
to “crack you open”, to get beyond the level of modern, cerebral Western intellectualism
and begin to perceive with a wider spectrum of senses. “ You were rather dumb. You
needed a jolt”, Don Juan says “Not everyone does.”
xlvi
Scientific research into psychedelics had shown much promise before legal
restrictions effectively shut down most formal studies. The counterculture of the 1960s
and the backlash against it are directly attributable to the influx and unstructured use of
extremely powerful drugs into the general population. To the survivors, it stimulated an
interest, in many cases, in placing the period in some historical context, leading in turn to
increased study and awareness of the psychedelic component in much indigenous
religious practice. It is only recently that enough perspective has accumulated to allow
the resumption of formal scientific research in some areas, including thanatology. In The
15
Last Dance – Encountering death and Dying, the authors note that, while the biochemical
action of LSD on the brain is still not completely understood:
“Nevertheless, its amplifying and catalyzing effects on the mind are well
documented. From the earliest studies of LSD, researchers noted that it activated
‘unconscious material from various deep levels of the personality’. Most notably,
it seemed to inaugurate a ‘shattering encounter’ with certain critical aspects of
human existence: birth, decay and death. It seems to open up areas of religious
and spiritual experience that are intrinsic to the human personality but
independent of a person’s cultural or religious background.”
xlvii
The deliberate and quite specific use of both vocal and instrumental music to
induce particular reactions in both oneself and others – emotional reactions, visions,
trance-states, etc., is a hallmark of shamanic practice. Celtic lore is filled with instances
of spells and enchantments sung and played by both the Gaelic and Brythonic tribes and
the indigenous Fair Folk they encountered when they arrived in the green islands of the
grey North Sea. Druidic Bards learned specific strains for healing, inducing sleep,
dreams, prophecy, joy, sorrow and love. In a culture where writing was a rare, magical
act, the laws, genealogies, myths and sagas of immense length and complexity were
drawn from memory under the stimulus of rhythm, rhyme and melody. A Druid carrying
a harp could walk unscathed through the most frenzied battle and call a halt to it with a
word.
xlviii
It is important to recall that Celtic myth and legend have their origins in a tribal,
shamanic culture with roots in the Central Asian, Indo-Aryan diaspora. When the first
Gaels migrated to Ireland from the region of northern Spain now called Galicia, the first
of their number to set foot on the land did so singing, playing his harp as he strode
through the waves to the shore. His name was Amergin; chief bard of the sons of Mil,
16
and his song identified him with the elements, the gods and all the kingdoms of life as he
entered into this new realm:
I am Wind on Sea
I am Ocean-wave
I am Roar of Sea
I am the Bull of Seven Battles
I am the Vulture on the Cliff
I am the Dewdrop
I am the Fairest of Flowers
I am the Boar for Boldness
I am the Salmon in the Pool
I am the Lake on the Plain
I am a Word of Skill
I am the Point of a Weapon that pours forth com bat
I am the God who fashions the Fire in the Head
Who smoothes the ruggedness of a mountain?
Who is He that announces the ages of the Moon?
And who, the place that falls the sunset?
Who calls the cattle from the House of Tethra?
On who do the cattle of Tethra smile?
Who is the troop, who the god who fashions edge s,
Enchantments about a spear? Enchantments of Win d?
17
This identification with all levels of existence, the ability to identify with, to
penetrate into the secret heart of all creation and live every life is the hallmark of
shamanic experience, and the return to one’s own consciousness the completion of the
shamanic journey. Amergin is echoed by the Welsh bard Taliesin, who sings:
I have been in many shapes
I have been a narrow blade of a sword
I have been a drop in the air
I have been a shining star
I have been a word in a book
I have been an eagle
I have been a boat on the sea
I have been a string on a harp
I have been enchanted for a year in the foam of water
There is nothing in which I have not been
xlix
The poet Theodore Roethke felt that his manic episodes were the source of his
inspiration. He recounted intense mystical experiences during what were perceived as
mental breakdowns. He wrote in his journals:” I can project myself easier into a flower
than a person. I change into vegetables. First, a squash, then a turnip…I become a
cabbage, ready for the cleaver, the close knives. I knew how it felt to be a tree, a blade of
grass, even a rabbit….I wish I could photosynthesize.”
l
In a sacred, liminal space, when transition is being made from one realm to
another, as the Hopi elders say: “Everything we do must be done in a sacred manner and
in celebration”. The viewpoint is common to the tribal, indigenous world-view.
18
The songs of power, songs that can harm or heal, that can open or close a path
between the worlds, in Celtic culture are considered to originate with the Sidhe, the
indigenous fair folk who have always inhabited the land and exist on a slightly different
plane of reality. They have a particular fondness for human musicians – especially
harpers – and are inclined to share their music and pass on this nonverbal legacy. Many
of the most famous and affecting songs in the Celtic canon are said to be of Faery origin
– a topic that would easily take another full paper to address adequately. W.Y. Evans-
Wentz saw the many parallels in Celtic culture to the shamanic practices of central Asia.
His first major work, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries was published in 1911 and
makes interesting reading alongside Eliade’s Shamanism. Evans-Wentz’s subsequent,
exhaustive studies and translations of Tibetan practice and lore are a direct outgrowth of
his earlier studies of the Fairy-faith.
Song does more than open the doorway into another reality for the shaman. Song
is also the pathway, the lifeline of travel through the liminal realms and the means of
returning. A Tungus shaman will “ride the drum” into the underworld or into the heavens
and use its rhythms to call a soul to him. Tom Cowan writes:
At the moment when consciousness separates from the body, the dying hear
enticing sounds, often described as clicking, clacking or rushing noises,
sometimes followed by harmonious ringing or wondrous music. These acoustical
conditions, which are functionally similar to the sonic driving produced by the
shaman’s drums, rattles and click sticks, signal to the soul that separation from the
body is now possible. The sound mesmerizes and freezes the ego-consciousness
and in some way or other releases the soul, or that part of consciousness that
survives the physical death. There may be some need on the part of consciousness
to have this particular type of acoustical experience in order to depart the body
and the ego-constraints that characterize its ordinary state.
li
Vajrayana, or Tibetan Buddhism, blends the teachings of the Buddha with the
indigenous, shamanistic Bon religion of the Tibetan plateau. The employment of drums,
19
gongs and rattles along with chanting to assist the soul in its departure from the body into
the liminal realm of the Bardo was extensively studied by Evans-Wentz.
lii
Structures deep within the cerebellum and the medulla have been shown to “map”
various types of acoustical stimuli, responding to rhythm or pitch by vibrating at exactly
the same frequency.
liii
In 1999, 2001 and 2003, psychologist and sociologist Suster
Strubelt and pediatrician and musician Uwe Maas undertook an extensive study of the
Iboga healing ceremony as practiced by the Mitsogo people of Gabon, in Central Africa.
Iboga is a naturally occurring psychoactive compound found principally in a number of
plants in the dogbane family. Ibogaine, the active ingredient, is an indole alkaloid that
appears to have anti-addictive properties. In the early 1960s, it was accidentally
discovered to cause sudden and complete interruption of heroin addiction without
withdrawal in a matter of hours. It has been placed on the strictest drug prohibition
schedules in the United States due to its “hallucinogenic” properties.
According to Strubelt and Maas:
The Iboga healing ceremony induces a near-death experience and is performed to
cure serious mental or psychosomatic diseases, but people also undergo initiation
rites for reasons of spiritual or personal development. After an analysis of the
compositions and their function in the ceremonies we come to the conclusion that
neither the musical structures nor the choice of instruments should be seen as
cultural and incidental qualities: there are indications of direct somatic influences
apart from the psychological ones. Not only the absolutely consistent basic metre
and the incessant use of polyrhythms, but also the harmonic organization and the
choice of instruments in all probability serve to activate the cerebellum and
generate theta-frequencies in the EEG. These methods seem to be used
consciously to induce particular reactions, e.g. possessional trances and visions.
We suppose that the music increases the effect of the drug Ibogaine which is used
during the initiation ritual so that patients may need smaller amounts only of this
potentially harmful drug.
Theta-waves are found in mammals in either REM sleep or in states of still
alertness. For a time, it was thought that primates did not produce theta-waves, because
20
early EEG devices only measured wave activity from the cerebral cortex through sensors
placed on the scalp. More sensitive equipment has been able to record activity in deeper
and older brain structures. Laboratory research has demonstrated that flashing lights as
well as rhythmic drumming at theta-frequency (4-7/sec) generate EEG-waves of the same
frequency, visions and out-of-body experiences. Binaural beat-stimulation (slightly
different in each ear) has been shown to augment theta activity, and is used in the
culmination of the visionary phase of the Mitsogo ceremony. The report continues:
The musical theta rhythm is maintained for days in the Bwiti ceremonies. It
corresponds to a spontaneous trembling of the left hand of men and the right hand
of women (italics mine – JE). This tremor is probably caused by Ibogaine effects
either on the cerebellum or on the dopamine metabolism.
To the Mitsogo, continuous musical support from musicians playing the
mouth bow and the harp, accompanying percussions and singing is essential for
the initiation process. Music is the ‘life-line’ that reaches from this life to the
hereafter and serves as a means of locomotion in visionary space. And that is
exactly our own experience; the renewed onset of musical accompaniment, after
short interruptions, reactivates the faltering visions, facilitates spiritual
communication and improves mental and physical well-being considerably. Our
own experiences show that the perception of inner-wave movements (with a
frequency of 6 hertz) continues even when the music stops. Time is no longer felt
as a line but a circle. The inner metrum is felt for days and continues even at
night, underlined by the music, which is often also played while the person to be
initiated is sleeping.
Strubelt and Maas are led to several conclusions regarding the role of the
cerebellum in shamanic experience:
Music activates the cerebellum like Ibogaine; complex and unknown music is
especially stimulating. We think that the activation of the cerebellum by music
and movements enhance the effects of Ibogaine. We assume that the cerebellum is
also responsible for changed time perception experienced under Ibogaine
influence and by near-death experiencers. Cerebellar structures, the inner clocks,
may play an essential role in the acceleration of brain processes. The cerebellum
was perhaps much more important for mankind in epochs when men were hunters
and threatened by wild animals and quick reactions were essential for survival.
liv
21
I’ve quoted at length because so many elements under examination in this paper
are tied together in this one account. This is a contemporary report on an extremely
sophisticated indigenous science that uses a combination of conditions and disciplines
quite matter-of-factly to produce results that are quite profound to the initiates.
In the ancient Yoruba kingdom of West Africa the king, in death, must traverse a
difficult path through an abyss of liminality to the realm of the gods and ancestors to
plead on behalf of the next generation. He is aided in this by his horseman, who has
preceded him in life and will now precede him on this dangerous path. The horseman, a
chief in his own right, oversees the 30-day funereal rites for the king, at the culmination
of which the king’s dog and horse are dispatched to join their master.
The horseman then undertakes a ritual to “commit death” – not to die by ritual
sacrifice or suicide, but to have his spirit leap from his body and set foot upon the path to
join the king. Crucial to this ritual is the talking drum, in the hands of a master drummer.
The talking drum is an extremely versatile and expressive instrument, capable of a wide
range of tonality achieved by skilled manipulation of tension cords attached to the
drumhead. The horseman undertakes a slow, ritual dance while a female chorus weaves
complex harmonies, which are echoed by the drum. Intervallic leaps call to the spirit of
the horseman, drawing it out of his body to begin the journey to the Otherworld.
lv
Another type of shamanic tool that is widespread is referred to in core shamanism
as the world-tree, or axis mundi. Whether literal or figurative, the world-tree connects the
deep earth to the heavens from its roots to its branches, and the shaman may use it to
descend into the underworld to commune with the chthonic powers or climb into the
heavens on his spirit-journey. In some cultures it is described as a spiral ladder that has
22
an interesting similarity to the DNA molecule. Comparison to the Otz Chaim, or Tree of
Life in the Kabbalah, through which one ascends on various paths through successive
realms of manifestation, is entirely appropriate. The staff of the magus may also
symbolize the Tree. The Greek god Hermes is also known as Hermes Psychopompos, the
conductor of souls into the afterlife. The caduceus, his serpent-twined staff, symbolizes
the transition between life and death as the serpents travel freely to and from the
underworld. Hermes traded a lyre to the god Apollo for the caduceus. The demigods
Aesclepius and Orpheus had as their essential tools the caduceus and the lyre,
respectively. Aesclepius brought the healing arts to mankind, including music, and
Orpheus was able to traverse into the land of the dead with his music. Thus are the
elements of shamanic practice intertwined in Classical antiquity. In Norse mythology,
Odin hangs from the world-tree Yggdrasil to achieve the gift of poetic inspiration and
prophecy. The Cross of Calvary is often referred to as the tree from which Jesus hung,
before his journey to the otherworld to redeem the dead, followed by his return and
rebirth.
Therese Schroeder-Sheker has written of the uniquely symbolic role of the harp
that, in her mind, renders it the ideal instrument for the liminal space. The hollow of its
soundbox, enclosing a dark void, symbolizes the deep inner recesses of the earth, while
its pillar soars up into the air from these deep roots to connect with the neck, which
symbolizes the arc of the heavens. The strings, vibrating freely in the air, are like paths of
light that connect one realm to another.
lvi
She further invokes the iconic image of the harp
as transcendent template:
Just as Jesus Christ stretched on the wood of the cross becomes at once the
eucharistic string and the sounding-board for the lament of our suffering
23
humanity, so too does the harp show forth the intimate and essential aspects of the
Eucharist.
The body of the harp – any harp – is a huge empty womb or sepulcher …..the
risen Christ becomes a harp which longs to be played….. the alchemical harp in
which choirs of plant, animal, human and celestial kingdoms join together to
offer praise to their Creator.
lvii
Music-thanatologists carry their world-trees with them wherever they work – and have to
tune them on a regular basis.
Music-thanatologists practice the contemplative arts to enter into a liminal state in
order to hold sacred space for the dying patient. Music is employed prescriptively to
invite the alleviation of suffering and offer the potential for a conscious, blessed death.
Much of the art and science is consistent with shamanic practice from time
immemorial.
lviii
The demographics of the profession are overwhelmingly female,
indicating, among other things, that an active cerebellum is optimal. In the current class
87.5% are female and 37.5% are left-handed. Further demographic research into
Neanderthaloid traits in the profession as a whole would make yet another fascinating
paper. The profession is rife with anecdotal accounts of initiatory crises – physical,
mental, emotional and spiritual – that set the practitioner on this particular initiatory path.
Many music-thanatologists have stood outside the religio-cultural mainstream in
some or many respects for most of their lives. Despite the heavily Catholic component in
thematic material, the individualistic nature of most practitioners is one element that
ensures cultural diversity and vitality, rather than insular function as a lay order of a
particular church.
Music-thanatology is not, however, shamanism. Cultural constraints preclude the
employment of many aspects of shamanic practice. The desire for the profession to be
24
taken seriously by the medical establishment places the music-thanatologist with one foot
firmly in the world of modern science and one in the world of arts more arcane than is
commonly admitted. As science evolves in the coming years and the nature of life, death
and perceived reality is explored, it will be interesting to see how the profession evolves
along with it.
What would a shaman do that a music-thanatologist doesn’t? A music-
thanatologist holds sacred space on a threshold that the shaman crosses. A shaman would
take responsibility for his actions in the liminal state. The concept of anonymous
presence would be an unusual one, to say the least. Of course, the concept of anonymous
presence also functions in allowing the practitioner to maintain a normal life in modern
society. The domestic life of a shaman can be problematic. “Offering” music to “invite” a
prescriptive result can be as much a psychological buffer for the individual practitioner as
an avoidance of a cause-and-effect mindset. The anonymous presence could be a
mechanism that allows the rational, ego-based cerebral consciousness to step out of the
way of the music. It could be a manifestation of the awakening deep structures of the
cerebellum, or cerebellar awareness of Otherworld forces in play. None of these
possibilities is mutually exclusive. Everything is a process, after all. Everything is in
relation.
A shaman would also undergo some sort of ritual cleansing to prevent the souls of
the departed from fixating on him instead of moving on. Some music-thanatologists have
experienced phenomena indicative of this problem, and some employ cleansing rituals of
their own, but there is a circumspect silence on the topic in the curriculum. Perhaps the
25
anonymous presence could serve as a psychic shielding mechanism if it were understood
to pertain to that function. It’s a subject for further exploration and discussion.
While certitude can be an impediment to keeping one’s bones hollow, professing
ignorance as to the effects of what one is doing is disingenuous. Obviously there must be
a middle ground to occupy as we continue to learn and grow in the field.
If this paper demonstrates anything, I hope it’s that we’ve just barely begun to
scratch the surface of knowledge and material that can aid us in our service to the dying.
There are lifetimes of research waiting to be done and a vast wealth of music to learn.
The sheer volume is daunting, but it is essential that we see beyond the cultural blinders
that currently inhibit us if we are to be able to serve all of humanity – not just a
convenient demographic. We must be willing to turn ourselves into instruments through
which plays a music of infinite depth and stunning simplicity, much greater than our
conscious minds can comprehend. In this, we are all initiates, taking the first few steps on
the path between the worlds.
Notes
26
i
Eliade, Mircea Shamanism – Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, translated from the French
by William R. Trask. Bollingen Series LXXVI, Princeton University Press 1964
ii
Castaneda, Carlos The Teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge
copyright
1968 by the Regents of the University of California, published by the University of
California Press, 1969
iii
Turner, Victor The Ritual Process – Structure and Anti-Structure
Aldine Publishing
Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1969, pp. 111-113
iv
Cowan, Tom Fire in the Head – Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit
HarperSanFrancisco,
a division of Harper – Collins publishers, 1993, pp. 2-3
v
Frecska, Ede, M.D. The Shaman’s Journey, Supernatural or Natural? A Neuro-Ontological Interpretation of Spiritual Experiences reprinted in Inner Paths to Outer
Space, Park Street Press, Rochester Vermont, 2008, pp.162 – 206
vi
Ibid., p.251
vii
Matthew, 18/3
viii
Levitin, Daniel J., This is Your Brain on Music – The Science of a Human Obsession
a Plume book, published by Penguin Group, 2006, pp.127-128
ix
Pearce, Joseph Chilton, Magical Child – Rediscovering Nature’s Plan for our Children Penguin Group, 1977, pp.54-59
x
Peat, David F., Blackfoot Physics Red Wheel/Weiser Books, 2005, pp. 52-54
xi
Nelson, Kevin R., M.D., Michelle Mattingly, PhD, Sherman A Lee, PhD and Frederick
A. Schmitt, PhD Does the Arousal System Contribute to Near-Death Experience?
Published in Neurology, April 2006; vol.66, pp. 1003-1009
xii
Gooch, Stan, The Neanderthal Legacy – Reawakening Our Genetic and Cultural
Origins Inner Traditions, 2008, pp.80-95
xiii
Mithen,Steven, The Singing Neanderthals – The Origins of Music, Language, Mind
and Body
Harvard University Press, 2006, pp. 221-278
xiv
Caldwell, Duncan – Are Neanderthal Portraits Wrong? Neanderthal Adaptations to Cold and Their Impact on Paleolithic Populations Rock Art Research, Vol. 25, No.1, pp.
101-116
xv
Hall, Stephen S., Last of the Neanderthals
National Geographic Magazine, October,
2008, pp.34-59
xvi
Gooch, Stan, The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals – Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom Inner Traditions, 1979
xvii
Nelson, et al, pp.1007-1008
xviii
Mithen, Steven – The Singing Neanderthals – The Origins of Music, Language, Mind
and Body Harvard University Press, 2006, pp.271-273
xix
Wilson, Colin, Atlantis and the Kingdom of the Neanderthals – 100,000 Years of Lost
History Bear and Company, 2006, pp.243-269
xx
Turner, Robert F., David Lukoff, Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse and Francis G. Lu Religious
or Spiritual Problem? A Culturally Sensitive Diagnostic Category in the DSM-IV
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 1995, vol. 183, no. 7, pp. 435-444
xxi
Nelson, et al, pp. 1005-1007
27
xxii
Fadiman, Anne, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down – A Hmong Child, Her
American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures The Noonday Press, 1997, p.29
xxiii
Campbell, pp. 252-253
xxiv
Eliade, Mircea, The Forge and the Crucible – The Origins and Structures of Alchemy
University of Chicago Press, 1956, pp. 84-85
xxv
Neihardt, John G., Black Elk Speaks, Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux University of Nebraska Press, 1961, pp. 20 – 47
xxvi
Turner – pp. 94 – 111
xxvii
Wilson – pp.149 – 161
xxviii
Peat – p. 120, 131-133, 254, 263, 288, 292
xxix
Cowan – pp. 181-205
xxx
Fadiman – pp. 278 – 288
xxxi
Peat – p.272
xxxii
Gooch – The Neanderthal Legacy pp. 80-84
xxxiii
Domhoff, G. William – Senoi Dream Theory: Myth, Scientific Method, and the
Dreamwork Movement dreamresearch.net, March, 2003, Ch. 2
xxxiv
Evans –Wentz, W.Y., – The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries Colin Smythe
Humanities Press, 1977, pp. 253 – 260
xxxv
Graves, Robert – The White Goddess
The Noonday Press, 1976, pp. 430 – 433
xxxvi
Cowan, pp.77-79
xxxvii
Ibid. pp. 72-73
xxxviii
Gooch – The Neanderthal Legacy pp. 2-75
xxxix
Gooch, Stan, – Cities of Dreams – When Women Ruled the Earth Aulis Books,
1995, pp. 102 – 129
xl
Gooch – Cities of Dreams
p. 270
xli
Sagan, Carl, – The Dragons of Eden – Speculations on the Origins of Human
Intelligence Ballantine Books, 1977, pp. 40 – 42
xlii
Gooch – Cities of Dreams, pp. 8 – 18
xliii
Ibid. pp. 196 – 208
xliv
Gooch – The Dream-Culture of the Neanderthals pp. 144 – 157
xlv
Wasson, R. Gordon, Carl A.P. Ruck, Albert Hoffman – The Road to Eleusis –
Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc. 1978
xlvi
Castaneda, Carlos, – Tales of Power Simon and Schuster, 1974, pp. 3-4
xlvii
DeSpelder, Lynn Ann, Albert Lee Strickland – The Last Dance – Encountering
Death and Dying Seventh edition, McGraw Hill, 2005, p. 525
xlviii
Rees, Alwin and Brinley – Celtic Heritage – Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales
Thames and Hudson, 1961, pp. 11-25
xlix
Cowan, p.29
l
Allister, Betsy and Boeheme, Margaret – The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor
Monday, May 25, 2009 publicradio.org
li
Ibid. p.183
lii
Evans-Wentz – The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Oxford University Press, 1971, pp. 18-
20, 89 – 101
liii
Levitin, pp. 29, 87
28
liv
Maas, Uwe and Suster Strubelt – Music in the Iboga Initiation Ceremony in Gabon:
Polyrhythms Supporting a Pharmacotherapy (selections) Music Therapy Today, vol. IV,
(3), June, 2003
lv
Soyinka, Wole, Death and the King’s Horseman
(1975) performed by the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, Oregon, 2009. Adebisi Adeleke, Master Drummer
lvi
Schroeder-Sheker, Therese, – Chalice of Repose
notes accompanying the video
produced by Mind and Media, Paul Kaufman Inc. and The Fetzer Institute, 1997
lvii
Schroeder-Sheker, Therese, – The Alchemical Harp of Mechthild of Hackeborn, anthologized in On Pilgrimage: the Best of Vox Benedictina, 1984 – 1993, A Journal of
Feminine and Monastic Spirituality, Vol. II Hignell Printing, Ltd. Winnipeg, 1994, pp.
203-204
lviii
Peat – pp. 288, 292, 315
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