Basically the difference between a Shaman and a Druid of the Flame is that Shamans convince or force the elements to help them, which is an external powersource their using their bodies to control, while druids of the flame are imbued with fire magic.
You know how highly powerful druids will have their body mutate do to the life energies in them? The latter is a follower of elements and a bridge to the spirit world, the former is a corrupted Druid who has become an agent of the Old Gods. A druid of the flame controls the magic of the natural world, as it appears in the Firelands.
Firelands plants, Firelands animals, Firelands weather, Firelands sky… that all happen to be a lot more fiery than Azerothian versions of those things for obvious reasons. Whereas a shaman just controls fire as a concept, along with wind water and earth as concepts.
And some other stuff as concepts. Druids have power. Thus a healer is not usually a warrior, etc. It is also the most conservative and well established form of human spirituality, as we were hunter gatherers for literally thousands and thousands of years, far longer than the subsequent span of our collective history. Contemporary thinkers like ecologist Paul Shephard and anthropologist Calvin Martin maintain that we are still, essentially, hunter-gatherers who have never left the Pleistocene era.
The Celts were, nonetheless, advanced beyond the paleolithic, hunter-gatherer stage long before they became distinguishable from their Indo European cousins and arose as a separate cultural entity.
However, given the notable conservatism of Celtic society, it is very likely that they preserved archaic elements and institutions long beyond other Northern and Western European peoples.
And this seems to be the main element upon which the argument for a Celtic shamanism hinges. Also, the Irish Celts, at least, did preserve within their society nominal hunter-warrior bands, as the existence of the fennidi clearly demonstrates.
The awenyddion of Wales, first written of in the Twelfth century by Geraldus Cambrensis, are cited by some writers as evidence of a native tradition of Celtic shamanism. The awenyddion were prophets and soothsayers who , when asked a question by those seeking divinatory guidance, would fall into a deep trance and give strange, sibyl-like prophecies and oracular utterances.
The trance of the awenyddion was so deep that it appeared to be a kind of possession, from which they had to be violently roused to awaken. Some have claimed that, like shamans the world over, the awwenyddion communed with their tutelary or helping spirits while in this state. Others have claimed that the phenomenon of the awenyddion does not resemble shamanism, but rather the trance possession of Vodun and other Afro-Caribbean religions. Based upon this idea, and in reaction against the popularity of Mathews, et.
As one who was both initiated into an indigenous shamanic tradition and served an eleven year apprenticeship with a master shaman of Salish and Nuu-Chah-Nulth descent, I have found that the distinction between trance possession and possessing a guardian spirit, while it sounds quite plausible on paper, often does not exist in actual practice. And personally, I have always found it quite inconceivable that the ancient Celts were practicing anything remotely resembling contemporary Vodun.
It would appear from ethnographic literature that what we might refer to as the full shamanic complex is found primarily in primal hunter gatherer cultures. A nomadic or semi-nomadic life and close proximity to wilderness and wild animals is concomitant to this complex.
Nonetheless, there are plenty of examples, throughout Asia, Northern Europe and the Americas of this shamanic complex surviving relatively unaltered even in urban environments. The non-urban, even anti-urban quality of ancient Celtic societies is very well attested to by Roman historians, who were keenly aware of the, to them, essentially alien nature of Celtic lifeways to their own urban, bureaucratic civilization.
And of course, Finn MacCumhal, the Celtic shamanic figure par excellence, spent most of his life with his fennidi band in the wilderness among wild animals. For these reasons it is not too much of a stretch to conceive that some form of shamanic complex may have survived among the agricultural and pastoral Celts.
The main consideration here is whether shamanism proper was a feature of Celtic culture. Some anthropological purists insist that shamanism proper is found only among Siberian and North and Central Asian societies. The fact that very pure forms of the shamanic complex are found among North, Central and South American, as well as Australian Aboriginal tribal groups seems to argue against this limited interpretation.
Again, drawing from personal experience, academic definitions of shamanism and of what, precisely, a shaman is often differ considerably from the definitions of indigenous practitioners of the art.
So the probelm arises: do we give more credence to academic definitions, often formed in an entirely artificial environment, with little or no actual field experience, or do we pay more attention to the indigenous practitioners, however lacking they may be in Western academic credentials?
My grandfather was a shaman that dealt with mainly people who were dying, cases of near death experiences, and my grandmother was a midwife and a shaman that dealt mainly with children and counseling…They would also bring me around to other people who were also shamans; not necessarily my relatives.
We went to other tribes and they would leave me with teachers who were shamans, for instance Twakwaddle and Towuk Bay. I was left with this one man at the age of eleven for two months to learn about spirit travelling, a shamanic practice that our people do…There are some shamans that just have the power to communicate with people well.
There are some shamans that heal through art. What are you here for? The shaman will be a good listener, and through time of however long it takes for that person to explain themselves, it could be half an hour, three or four hours, sometimes all night. Then after that the shaman will go into shushutsulus, the spirit world. The designs that he would start painting would have many different meanings. The painting might tell another shaman about the sickness, problem, that this person has.
Another shaman might have the power to read paintings. He can look at the painting and tell the client what his sickness or problem is just by the painting. The shamans are always working together. When you become a shaman you have to work for the people, not just for yourself. You have to share. Steven Wolf, a Sundancer and shamanic practitioner of Northern Cheyenne and Irish ancestry, who has practiced within the Northern Plains spiritual traditions for over twenty five years, has this to say:.
The academics hold to a strict, rigid definition, feeling they have proprietary rights to the term and smirking at everyone else.
On the other hand, New Agers have a definition so broad as to be meaningless. Both sides miss the profound depth and breadth of this particular spiritual way, which is much more than mere technique. Shamanism may possibly be the oldest spiritual path, and consequently has far more profound implications for contemporary humans than its academic interpreters realize. A sensuous experience that must be known in a primary and primal way.
The mental wheel-spinning of academics or the shallow genuflecting of New Age entrepeneurs will never truly comprehend it until they stop interpreting and start experiencing it, internally and externally, with mind, emotion, body and spirit.
It should be noted here that it has become fashionable of late in some quarters to attack Michael Harner, thus calling all he has written anent shamanism into question.
I have also attended two of the workshops presented by his Institute For Shamanic Studies independently of my indigenous training and find his presentation of basic shamanic techniques and knowledge to be accurate, honest and effective.
Celtic tales abound with examples of heroes who travel into one or more Otherworlds in quest of magical prizes, knowledge or power, with which to bring healing to the land, skill to craftsman, warrior or hunter.
Immramma usually refers to a voyage by sea, that is, into that portion of the triadic Celtic cosmos land, sea and sky equated with the watery element. True to form, King Arthur journeys into Annwn aboard his magical ship Prydwen. The bard Taliesin, in many respects the classic shaman figure within Welsh tradition, accompanies Arthur on this perilous Otherworldly voyage.
Like the Irish poet and outlaw Finn, who frequently pays a price of personal humiliation or wounding in obtaining Otherworldly gifts, Arthur does not emerge unscathed from this adventure.
This idea of reciprocity between the worlds, that a price must be paid for Otherworldly knowledge and gifts, runs though world shamanic tradition. Shamans typically undergo exceptional ordeals in their quest for healing power, magical knowledge, etc. Early in life Finn undergoes the training to become a fennid, being raised in exile in the wilderness by two mysterious foster mothers, one known as a druid, who train him in the arts of hunting and fighting. Their leader is the rifennid, usually one known for his exceptional prowess.
These fennidi functioned as mercenaries and upholders of the law in ancient Ireland, even though they themselves were often seen as outlaws. Finn becomes adept in the arts of fennidecht, the hunting and martial arts of the fennidi, and in time becomes rifennid of his own fian.
Like numerous other characters in traditional Celtic stories Finn passes quite easily between the worlds. If not, where do they differ Quote from: Spinachcat; Psychman Jr. Member P Posts: Quote from: talysman; Clearly, "what I like" is awesome, and a well-considered, educated opinion. While "what other people like" is stupid, and just a bunch of made up gobbledygoook.
Omega Hero Member O Posts: Depends on which version of Shaman and Druid you are refferencing. Dont have the book handy. A Druid might be all about blood magic. A Shaman might be all about animalistic totems. A Druid might be focused only on plants, or only on animals, or only on elements, same for the Shaman.
Same goes for Witch. Could be a hedge wizard, a diabolist, a nature mage, an alchemist, etc. JRR Sr. Member J Posts: I always picture shamans coming from a more primitive culture, and having a bit more emphasis on elemental and metaphysical magics.
I don't really know enough about anicent Celtic religion and magic to say whether druids were animistic practitioners in the same sense as Siberian shamans, Lakota medicine men, Inuit angakkuq or Zulu sangoma , but there you go. Blacky the Blackball Full Member Posts:
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