Читать книгу The Shaman's Way of Healing - August Thalhamer - Страница 9

“How did you arrive at shamanism?”

“While eating,” I replied.

I was sitting in a restaurant with a colleague and even before the soup arrived, Monika Haslhofer enthusiastically reported that she had taken part in a shamanic seminar. One week later I was already in attendance at the introductory course. Soon afterwards, I was at a seminar on “extraction.”

I was fascinated by the fact that I had known and had been practicing many of these healing techniques (though not in their identical forms) for many years under different names.

The further my training at the Foundation for Shamanic Studies progressed, the more certain I was that I had not only found a significant and valuable extension to my healing methodology – building on my previous training and experience – but also a new home.

However, since I also feel at home in Christianity and I practice psychotherapy with all my heart, I had to test these three – at first glance seemingly very different – traditions for their compatibility, if only to avoid internal conflicts.

Are there – secret – connections between all three? How much do they overlap each other? In the end, are they just three different languages talking about the same thing, describing the same experiences? This is how I began researching, writing and lecturing on them. Some essays can be found on our homepage:

www.thalhamer-haase.at

Encouraged by Karl M. Fischer, in this book, I have summarized how all of this could fit together. My aim is to fortify the knowledgeable person by helping them rediscover their own experiences and perhaps appreciate them in a new light. At the same time, I wanted to give shamanic ‘greenhorns’ the kind of an introduction that might help them establish connections with their familiar world view. On the one hand, I wanted this book to be personable and easily understandable. On the other hand, it had to meet certain scientific criteria as well.

For those who may be bored by theoretical considerations, but find this book in their hands anyway, I have also included many stories and vivid accounts for you. Coming from my own personal experience and others, they are printed in italics, so that you can hop from story to story as you please.

In contrast to Catholic priests, a vocation that is restricted to men by the Church, the vocation of shamans and psychotherapists is distributed more or less equally between men and women. Therefore, (T/N): I use the 3rd person, except when referring to individuals or when, e.g., he is specifically used in a quotation.

I would like to thank all my clients who have made this possible, and my friends who have accompanied the creation of this book critically.

Since I’m a history buff, I couldn’t help but add the year of each author’s death after their name. When an author’s name is written in capital letters, you will find a listing for them in the bibliography and the date is the year their work was published.

So, this is how I report about my shamanic experiences (the names have been changed) and show how they can be explained from a psychological and Christian point of view.

This is an invitation to listen, to trust and to follow your inspiration – regardless of whether you call them messages from the spirits, the wisdom of the unconscious or as divine.

August Thalhamer

Theologian, psychologist and urban shaman

Linz an der Donau, February 2007