Shamanism

Michael S Barth

Master of Shamanism Final Essay

       This course was great.  When I started this course, I was fearful of taking it.  I was fearful because of my lack of knowledge about Shamanism.  Over the years, people I know had used Shaman and Shamanism in a derogatory way.  Also, I am not aware of knowing anyone who has practiced Shamanism so I had no prior knowledge or experience with Shamanism.  The only knowledge that I had was Shamanism was practiced by Native Americans and other native peoples in other countries.

            This course was presented the information well and was easy to follow for me.  Each of the lessons was full of information about Shamanism.  After taking this course, I was relieved because I no longer have that fear about Shamanism and realize that there is nothing wrong or evil about practicing Shamanism.  Going through this course helped me realize how Shamanism got started and why it is still practiced today.  I also liked how the instructor did not solely just stick to discussing Native Americans but also included native peoples from around the globe.

            All of the information in this course was new to me.  There is a lot of information that I could discuss in this final essay.  The history of Shamanism was really fascinating to me.  I did not realized that Shamans used to be primarily females up until about 600 years ago here in the United States.  I found the explanation about the difference between a medicine man/woman and a Shaman very beneficial.  If it were not for this explanation, I probably would have ended up thinking that a medicine man/woman and a Shaman as the same thing.

            I also loved learning about how Shamanism could be practiced and how it could be practiced in a lot of different ways.  I also learned that Shamanism is a primitive form of religion.  I have never before had considered Shamanism to be a religion.  This course also explained the altered states of consciousness that the Shamans obtain. 

            I could go on and on about what I learned in this course.  There was a lot of new terminology about Shamanism that I learned and so much more.  This course really opened my eyes to what Shamanism is all about.  This course was great and I now feel that I am a more well-rounded person and minister for taking this class.  I feel that this class was very worthwhile and recommend it to other ULC ministers to take.  There is a lot of information in this course and a lot practices of Shamanism that could be used.  The information in this course gave me a general background in Shamanism and I now feel comfortable talking about Shamanism with other people.

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