An Introduction To Shamanism

David Trammel's picture

("Clan of the Cave Bear" © 1986 Warner Brother's)

Since humans first sat around a fire in a cave or looked up at the nighttime sky, they wondered about their World and their place in it. "There must be some big Beings up there who made all this", they might say, and they would think that to be in the good graces of those Beings would be an important thing.

Not just the Beings in the Sky but the Spirits of the animals around them, especially powerful animals like the cave bear or saber tooth lion. Things hunted us then. Nature wasn't something that meekly bowed down to our dominance.

But how ask these powerful forces to be our friends and allies?

Among those first tribes of the Neolithic would have been people with the gift and calling of looking deeper into the shadows and the lights of that World. To see the rhythm and rhyme of the plants, animals and natural World. Which herbs healed and which poisoned, which animals to be hunted and which would hunt you, where it was safe to rest and where it wasn't.

Slowly those seekers would also discover the ways to contact the spirits around them, to learn the ways to ask for their help and their knowledge. Having such a person among your group would bring a great advantage and those people would have been respected (and sometimes feared).

We call those people now, "Shamans".

What is a Shaman?

Priest, Medicine Man (or Woman), Healer, Witch, Magician, Wizard, Shaman.

People tend to use these names interchangeably, when each of those names refers to a more specific skill set. A Healer might be a Shaman, but not all Shamans are Healers. A Witch might be a Medicine Woman but not all Medicine Women are Witches.

Greer would say define your terms first so that there is no confusion later.

The name "shaman" actual comes from the Tungusic language of Siberia. It was picked up by archaeologists and scientists to describe the broad type of person in a tribal setting which used a mystical method to assist the tribe. Not all of those people were what I define as shamans.

Laypeople and the Media began using this term, especially in the 1980's here in the United States when the popular attention on North American Indian culture and spiritually hit, think the movie "Dances With Wolves" or the film "Clan of the Cave Bear".

Its use though to describe all mystical roles in tribal culture would be wrong.

For this series of articles, I will define a "shaman" as someone who specifically communicates with the Spirits. Who learns what the Spirits want from us, learns how the Spirits wish to interact with us and learns how to placate these Spirits and seek their help.

Greer has mentioned many times that he believe there are non-human and non-corporal beings who inhabit our World along side us. I from my own experiences I believe this too. Call them spirits, ghosts, avatars, angels or demons, perhaps even Gods, these beings interact with humans in many ways, from the mundane to the sacred, sometimes completely ignoring us to other times completely possessing our lives. They can be as simple as a guardian spirit of a home to deities worshiped by millions.

Our ancestors knew that these beings existed, they knew that these spirits could bring benefit and could bring harm. They came to depend on the specialized knowledge and skills of shamans to help smooth the interaction between them and these beings. Its only in the last few hundred years that Science has managed to convince people that this isn't true.

Science is mistaken.

So too is Religion mistaken, in that modern religions dismiss non-corporal beings mostly out of hand as not existing, or only recognizes their existence within the frame work of that religion's hierarchy. Spirits worshiped by Pagan religions became Saints. Yuletide and the celebration of the Winter Solstice became Santa Claus and Christmas.

When Science rose during the Renaissance, it made a marriage of convenience with Religion to stamp out Magic. They divided up Reality and agreed not to step into the other's sphere of influence. Science, Religion and Magic is like the sides of a coin. Religion and Science are the faces, yet Magic is the edge which binds them. To not recognize the importance of all three is to deny a fundamental part of everything.

Just because you claim something doesn't exist, doesn't always mean it goes away.

I do think though that many of those same non-corporal beings have learned to adapt themselves to the predominate religions which humans practice at any given time. So a fertility god might morph into a Patron Saint of Marriage, co-opting the attention and the worship of new followers. Why? That's a good question. Personally I think such non-corporal beings feed on our attention and our worship but I don't honestly know.

Its lonely when no one recognizes you. Must be even lonelier when you were once a god.

Though that might be simplistic too. I share my home with several cats, and I can say without a doubt that my role to them is not just putting food and water out for them. They derive pleasure it seems in being with me as I do with them. So our interaction is much more than just sustenance. Maybe its the same with Spirits? With Spirits though, its hard to tell which of us is owner and which of us is the pet.

It doesn't really matter, does it? What matters is how beneficial the relationship is. I may be a asshole sometimes with you BUT if I have your back in emergencies then the relationship benefits you.

Working with Spirits is complicated...

Some Further Definitions

For purposes of further discussion, let me define some other roles. You may disagree with my definitions but for the purposes of the next few posts, this is mine.

"Priest" is someone who mediates between a dominate God or Goddess and their worshipers. This can be for minor spirits or ones that command the worship of millions. Usually once someone takes the mantle of "Priest" the interaction between the spirit and its worshipers becomes in some way formalized, with recognized rites and rituals.

Personally at this point, I think its hard for the normal person to attract their God's attention and actually have an interaction with them. You can still invoke their power but in a much more subdued way, with a corresponding drop in power. To get any amount of reciprocal benefit, you may have to seek other gods to worship. Or you can choose to worship their opposition. Satanism as an example. Standing out in a huge crowd is difficult but how many of us need their Deity to recognize them personally?.

And yet like the spirits Moon and Sun, large spirits of power can often and do single out individual worshipers for their attention.

"Witch" or its male counterpart "Warlock" is a priest of the Heathen or Pagan religion. Worship and veneration of the "Goddess". In many ways they are the same as Priests though Christian priests have forgotten their active mystical power. Maybe that is why we all take tales of Exorcists of such interest. Witches are often Healers and Shamans too.

In reference to dominance of a religious discussion, "Magician" refers to a spiritual worker who uses a dominate religion's template in their rituals. Like 18th century magicians using wards and pentagrams to bind and constrain Christian demons with a controlling relationship. Magicians are ceremonial and often put the human in the equation at the apex of the power relationship. Is this shamanism? I don't think it is, yet it is one viable mystical practice which can involve spirits.

This name can also refer to mystical practitioners who diminish the role of non-corporal beings into artifices of the Will or the archetype energy forms of human creation. Do you have to believe in the existence of non-corporal beings to use mystical means to affect your reality? No you don't but I believe you cut yourself off from a powerful ally when you do.

"Healer" or "Medicine Man (or Woman)" are usually community based wellness practitioners focused on close relationships and individual outcomes. They use their knowledge of herbs, plant based medicines and change of lifestyle actions to cure sickness and promote good health. Unfortunately they are often the first persons to be targeted when a major religion feels threatened because they don't have a power base to push back from.

"Wizard" to me is someone less worried about how they access power and where it comes from as "does it work". They are kind of the garage mechanics of spiritual work. Roll up your sleeves and get some grease on your face. They are the closest to my idea of Green Wizardry. People focused on results not spiritual political correctness. They can be as powerful as Shamans, yet often lack a grounded relationship with their power that comes from recognizing that your power comes from a distinct living entity. You can write about love when you don't have a lover but without the true depth that such a relationship brings.

Now while I will define a Shaman as one who works with Spirits, that doesn't mean I think people who pursue training as a Shaman should stop there. A good Shaman learns many other skills, not the least of them Healing and Herbalism.

Are these definition set in stone, of course not. You may disagree with my definitions and still learn something from this series of articles. I'm simply telling you what I mean when I say the things I say.

We will explore what I've learned as a shaman in further posts...

David Trammel's picture

(Author's note: I'm not really satisfied this post works. I'm making modifications and revisions.)

Now that I've established that for me, when I speak of Shamans and what they do, involves working with the non corporeal beings, "Spirits" for a lack of a better name, who also inhabit our World, I wanted to take a moment and touch on an important issue where that interaction is involved.

A few people are picked out of the Herd by Spirits and receive special consideration. Most of us who follow the shaman path aren't. Special isn't always good though. There are always consequences when you are singled out.

These damned few I call "Shamans".

Those who aren't I tend to call "Shamanistic Practitioners". They work with Spirits on a regular basis, make Allies with some, but they are not called to a higher purpose like true shamans. We will discuss the further difference between us and those chosen, at the end of this post.

Now anyone can learn the techniques that shamans use with practice, dedication and a willingness to accept that the physical World is so much broader than we have been taught. Those skills are helpful in any ordinary time but they will become very important as the physical and social World collapses going into the Long Descent.

The World is about to become Harsh!

Knowing that the world is broader and wider than crappy education and strait laced society tells us will be an advantage. Learning how to make those "Who Hide Behind The Veil" an Ally and Friend, seems to me to be something that might help us survive in such a Future.

Green Wizards take note. Your World is about to get much larger.


Begin with a bit of homework and read this Ecosophia post of 8/30/17, A Few Notes on Reincarnation. This will familiarize the concepts of reincarnation and how humans are NOT the only souls being created in the Universe.


Greer has written how there is a place which all Life originates from, which spits out tiny bits of bright shiny "stuff" which are the beginnings of individuals. He calls it the "Cauldron of Annwn" (Annwn is pronounced AN-oon).

He goes on:

"Each of us, according to the teaching, started out in incarnation as “the least possible thing that was capable of life”—in modern terms, our first body was the simplest sort of single-celled organism, with rudimentary mental and vital bodies, all surrounding a tiny point of awareness. Each of us went through countless brief lives in such forms, and each such life added a layer of potential to the point of awareness, a set of possible actions and reactions. Life after life after life, passing through countless living forms, we picked up the potentials for will and representation that made us able to take on more complex forms, explore more varied behaviors, take in a richer range of experiences, and proceed further.

The Druid teachings don’t romanticize the conditions under which this process unfolds; “my condition was severe and grievous,” says the dialogue, and with good reason. People who fantasize about being wolves, say, have rarely thought through what that actually means: a life spent sprinting through the wild in a desperate effort to fill the gnawing ache of hunger for a little while by tearing some other living creature to gobbets with your teeth, with death from starvation a constant threat on one side and death from injury, infection, or human gunfire an ever-present possibility on the other. The old Druid Revival writings get this. To pass through Abred, they say, it is necessary for each of us to be all things, to know all things, and to suffer all things."

What comes out of the "Cauldron of Annwn" at first manifests itself as the tiny living things around us, bugs and moss and bacteria. This Essence of Life is born, lives and dies. Over and over again. Each time growing a bit more knowledge and bit more experience in what is to be alive. This is the Realm of Abred.

Its my recognition that those tiny sparks will someday be much more is why I refrain from killing bugs and take spiders found at my workplace outside. Though Grandmother spider is a personal totem of mine. I always watch out for her children.

When you realize that you, yourself was once such a tiny spark, for me it makes me respect the struggle they are going through.

Much of what those sparks of life does in Abred is just learning patterns of instinct. Over life after life though, those sparks begin to learn to see past that limited view of the World.

At a certain point those bits of life reach a critical mass and find consciousness.

Greer describes it as going from the primitive "Individuality", where life force has a center, to a higher state of "Personality". At that point, those sparks of life begin to have a conscious manifestation. They realize in some small way there is a World that they live in, and that other creatures around them are also conscious and not just random things.

Over many lives, animal spirits go from this realization of "otherness" of just their mate and offspring, but to a wider group of associated animals. I've worked with feral cat colonies and while the members recognize the otherness of different cats, they are a solitary animal. Wolves and Chimpanzees take this otherness to a higher level. There is a recognition of otherness but more than that, there is a recognition that those Others, matter to you. That you have a place within something greater than just a collection of individuals. Elephants grieve for their dead.

At its highest level, these sparks begin to inhabit human lives. They begin to see the fullness of "Personality" over "Individuality".

Over multitudes of lives, being born, living, and dieing to be reborn they keep seeing the many facets and potentialities of Life. This is when our own spark is fully in the human experience. We are born, live, die and then comeback. Over and over again. At some point we have learned all they can and at that point we pass from what Greer calls the Realm of Abred to the Realm of Gwynfydd.

Gwynfydd (that’s pronounced GWUN-vuth) means “the luminous life.’ It’s not heaven, not if by this you mean a static end point where the inmates bliss out for eternity. It’s not the end of a journey, but the beginning of the journey’s second half. In Abred, the Individuality is drowned in instinct, enclosed in mental, vital, and material forms, forgetful of its nature; in Gwynfydd the Individuality is awake and aware of itself, with full access to its memories from its previous lives, and its mental, vital, and material forms are freely chosen. One way of putting it is to say that in Abred, the spirit is wrapped up in matter, while in Gwynfydd, matter is caught up into spirit. Physical incarnation, in the sense of landing in another freshly born body, ends when Gwynfydd begins; material manifestation is still available, but it’s in other-than-human forms.

Having attained Gwynfydd, the Individuality now has an immensity of further development ahead of it. The traditional lore is emphatic that there are beings in Gwynfydd who are as far beyond human beings as human beings are beyond bacteria. Druids who prefer the old polytheist language refer to these higher beings as gods and goddesses; Druids who prefer Christian terms—yes, there are a lot of Christian Druids—refer to them in terms of the nine hierarchies of angels. Those beings were once where we are now. We have the capacity to get to where they are now—and by the time we get there, they’ll be something even further beyond our imaginations. (Human beings are never going to be top dog in the Druid cosmos. Deal.)

These higher souls I believe come back to the "Real World" in their early time in Gwynfydd (and I use that term "Real World" with quite a bit of humor) and set up shop in a new environment. They become hedge spirits and house spirits at their beginnings and establish a "Place" to dwell at. When you work with Spirits you can often taste a afterglow of their experiences as human and as spirits interacting with humans. They also seem to be able to communicate among themselves so be careful of the impression you give when meeting one. Your reputation will proceed you and you may find new spirits know much more about you than you think.

While Time passes much slower for these Spirits, they do age and they can be killed.

Raven Kaldera writes in the book "Neolithic Shamanisn" of a waterfall in a nearby park of her youth which she found had a guardian spirit. She interacted with it many times as she grew up until on day, she found that developers had destroyed the waterfall to build on the land. She says she never could find that waterfall's spirit again. It is interesting to note, that she had also meet the spirit of the forest in that park. After the waterfalls destruction, the park took a turn. Where once it was a place children played, it became a place where criminals lurked and good people feared to venture in. Perhaps the spirit of the forest was getting back at humans for its friend's death.


More home work, read these two posts

Not all of the tiny bits of life that are spit out by the Cauldron of Annwn end up in human. Spirits of Plants take an alternative route.

Okay, let’s fill in a few details. First, plants belong to a different current of spiritual evolution than we do, and have their own roughly parallel pattern, with which we interact only at a distance. There are other kinds of beings, too, many of which don’t happen to have the same sort of material bodies we do. The world of traditional occultism is a crowded place, full of lives and minds on many different levels, and human beings have been remarkably clueless toward most of the other beings out there. Will we be getting a bill for that in due time? You bet.

But plant based spiritual evolution is just the tip of the iceberg.

Greer again:

The terror of finding out that we don’t own the planet is one of the things that has to be faced if we’re going to talk about nature spirits. As far as I know, every one of the traditions of thought that take nature spirits seriously also rejects the claim that human beings are the masters of the planet. Not only that, most of these traditions of thought assign human beings a relatively modest place in the overall scheme of things, usually somewhere toward the middle of that spectrum of being that extends from pond scum at one end to gods at the other. For a species with a sense of entitlement as impressively overblown as the one we’ve cultivated, that’s a real shock.

See we aren't the only game in town. There is a whole Tree of Diversity coming out of the Cauldron of Annwn. Just as we here on the Green Wizard website champions "desensus" aka strength through different view points, Life champions a desensus of pathways to Enlightenment.

As a shaman, your World grows large and expanse. Where once you were the pinnacle of evolution, you are now just one of a crowd of others who are seeking their own path to further knowledge. Those other beings sometimes are more powerful than you. Those other beings sometimes can be interested in assisting you on your path, as you will help them. Sometimes they will require great sacrifice to help you. Sometimes they are our natural friend and wish to help you out as mentor.

Sometimes they hate humans and are dangerous.

Most people go through life with spiritual head phones on. They never hear the conversations that go on in the Unseen World. A smart Green Wizard can learn to take off those dulling headphones and listen.


Full Circle

I said in my original comments that there are two types of Shamans.

And this recognizes that the non-corporeal beings, the Spirits I speak of don't view Time like we do.

The older ones have journeyed on this side of the Cauldron of Annwn for more time than we do, often for tens of thousands of years. They interact with humans, gain followers and end up worshiped as Gods. Their followers may diminish and they may end up in the shadows, still they watch our Race and sometimes pick out individuals who have potential.

When they do it can be both a gift and a curse.

Spirits that think of themselves as gods are a harsh master and will test their chosen in many ways.

Be aware that if you seek to explore the more spiritual side of shamanism, you could be chosen too.

That would make you a true "Shaman".

Now for most of us, we will escape this dread fate. We can learn the ways of Fire, of Water, of Earth and of Air. We can learn to communicate with the Spirits, and make them our Allies. We can be like a handy man who shows up at your door holding not one tool box but two.

Those of us who are not so cursed, I call "shamanistic practitioners".

And we, as I have not been chosen by a Spirit either, can often be almost as powerful as a true shaman.

More in my next post...

David Trammel's picture

I've decided to move my discussion about the art of shamanism to a different site, one more personal. I don't want the large majority of people seeking help and knowledge about how to survive in the Collapsing World of the Long Descent, to feel that we are being overly "alternative religiony". Talking seriously about the challenges and perils we face is edgy enough.

And I expect my personal journey into a deeper role of shamanism and interactions with spirits is going to be rather out there in the topics I cover and only a little bit relevant to Green Wizardry.

Its not really set up yet, but I will continue this subject on A Green Shaman - Explorations in Shamanism

Justin Patrick Moore's picture

For what's worth, I read your post and liked the taxonomy/ breakdown you had of different roles people have in magic, etc. I felt it was useful.

While I don't think we should shy away from discussing religion, magic, meditation, etc., it might be a good idea to keep that somewhere else online. You can always post a link to your blog in the cafe if you feel a certain post there might be good for folks here, then the people who hang out here can either take it or leave it.

I'm pretty eclectic in my own path... but then, it's my own path! Our relationships with others and with spirits will always be personal.

David Trammel's picture

One of the reasons I decided to take my journey into shamanism to an alternative site was that its looking more and more like it will be an intensely personal and emotional journey. One which I may wrestle with a variety of sensitive and controversial topics and experiences. I don't want to muddy up the water so to speak here on Green Wizards.

As an example, Raven Kaldera and Galina Krasskova in their book "Neolithic Shamanism" which I am reading right now, mention religious conversions and say that in the past when a person decided to leave their original religion for another, they would often pray to their old god to let them go. make offerings or commitments of specific payments so that their old gods wouldn't cause them trouble in their life.

Too many people have lost that fear in divine retribution, haven't we? Seems like people jump from spiritual path to spiritual path without thinking their commitment to it, committed them to anything. Why should a god answer prays, when you don't plan on sticking around?

I am of firm belief that learning to communicate and interact with the natural spirits that inhabit our world and who we have treated so badly over the last couple of centuries is going to be very important. Nature is about to go seriously out of wack. It will affect them as much if not more than we humans. I don't think I can still hold Jehovah, who is the god of Jews and Christians as a patron. Jehovah has never really been in my life. I've always been sort of a lapsed Christian, but I do recognize a greater spirit of nature. Something that watches over us with a gentle, loving eye.

I'm just not sure that Christianity is all that gentle and loving anymore. I don't know when it all went off the rails but there are too many out there glued to their Sunday church seats who leave and do evil. If not personally but by acceptance of others actions. "Pussy Grabber In Chief" is going to nominate Supreme Court Justices that over turn Roe vs Wade, isn't that wonderful? We will just ignore his sexist actions in the past...(Honey, keep out 16 year old daughter at home next Trump rally).

(or completely hypocritical?)

I decided last night that after I retire on the 11th of next month and have some down time to decompress and get my head together, I may visit a large historic church here in St Louis on its off hours and ask Jehovah to release me of the commitments of my past ancestors so that I might find a better path to spiritual peace.

That should prove emotional, lol.

Funny thing, at the point I came to that decision, while working last night, REM's "Losing My Religion" started to play on the communal radio.

The gods do have a sense of whimsy, don't they?

Justin Patrick Moore's picture

Hmmm. That's really interesting David.

I am only slightly familiar with Raven Kaldera's work from the pagan blogosphere. I know Raven is into some of the Nordic end of things. I remember looking at Raven's book: The Urban Primitive: Paganism in the Concrete Jungle and liking the humor of it and the illustrations.

I get what you are saying about people failing to take spiritual matters seriously or commit to a path. I think that might be part of the general wishy-washy-ness of society in these times. I think has to do with when something starts to take some work, like when you are in the middle of writing a story, and all the ideas you had about it when it first conceived are now seen as a bit more flat, and the words take work, and it's not bright and shiny anymore people get bored and move on to something else. That's definitely true of magic, meditation, shamanism and the like.

I know a lot of people into Shamanism and Paganism want to get back in touch with their ancestors. Yet a lot of our ancestral contacts on the inner planes might happen to be Christian: especially for those of us who are Anglo/ of European descent. So for me I never felt a need to sever ties with the tradition I was raised in. (Except when I was a rebellious teen and went to the other end of the spectrum and embraced Thelema [and that itself has threads of Gnostic Christianity woven into it]) Yet I feel most at "home" in the mystical end of the Western Mystery Tradition and their is plenty of stuff of Christian origin in their. And plenty else as well.

For me Christ gets along well with other deities and spirits I work with. Yet it's going to be different for everybody.

I think there is hope for Christianity: for those who want to save it. For those who do I think they will have to go back to pre-Enlightenment religious practices when there was a more cohesive mystical unity to be found in Christianity. That's where they will also find the meditation, various prayer practices, sacraments & rituals that could breathe some new life back into it, whatever remains of it.

Yet many are going to leave it all behind because they weren't ever raised in it and so don't have a deep connection from birth. Or they find all the crap & baggage & poison that comes along with it too much to deal with and they are the ones who are going to be reviving / building a New American Paganism / Polytheism. I'm excited about that too.

Other flavors will also emerge from America's rich immigrant stew. Ones that connect back to the African diaspora and all of those traditions. Native American traditions... and whatever else that might spring up and grow from our own soil.

A healthy spiritual ecology will have lots of options to suit various individuals. It is of course all very personal. Looking forward to seeing what all you write about on that site.

David Trammel's picture

Thank you Justin for your comments.

Formally leaving Christianity isn't a decision I take lightly, its something that feels just right at this moment of my Life. Its not a faith that has had much influence in my Life except as something my Family occasionally did when I was a child. Or something expected at funerals or weddings. At my father's funeral, years back, having a priest he never meet, speak before a room of his friends and family, speaking all the phrases and platitudes you expect at a funeral, seems more like theater than a celebration of his Life. I think he would have been more pleased with a big backyard barbecue in his honor, with people sharing stories about him. Instead we get the theater.

I know this, when I pass on, you all better throw a party lol. And a big one too.

And I agree, about many of my ancestors of the last half a dozen centuries are no doubt Christian, some probably devote. I've read from Raven, that Northern Traditional Shamanism contains a large portion of ancestor respect. Unfortunately my immediate family wasn't that friendly with the rest of the family, so I know very little about my ancestors. That is going to be a big job, reconnecting with my past.

But I have been getting the tingly raised back of the neck hairs feeling I normally get hours before a big storm comes rolling into St Louis lately. Like something is brewing off over the horizon. With me being a few weeks from leaving my job, I'm getting the feeling its time for me to stop procrastinating and get real with the lifestyle changes I need to live in collapse.

More and more it seems like the Big Religions are headed towards conflict. Christians fighting other Christians, Jews fighting Muslims, Hindus and Muslims fighting, even the Buddhists seem to be getting over their supposed pacifism. It just seems to me that their Gods aren't going to have time for those of us who don't want to join in their fight.

And that doesn't include the Gods of the current techno age, like the God of Progress, of Media, of Money. I expect them to be up to their metaphysical necks in the fighting as well. Sometimes I feel like we're auditioning for an episode of "American Gods", lol.

Maybe its time for smaller Allies like animalist spirits and half forgotten pagan gods?

Maybe a partnership of shared respect and obligations, much like we suggest here between neighbors and among your local community is what we need. Maybe having a guardian spirit to watch over your home will be just as valuable as having Ring on your front door. Maybe getting to know the spirits of the plants you depend on to feed you in your garden is better than just buying a bag of chemical fertilizer. Maybe learning to work with the Elemental spirits of Fire, Earth, Water and Air is just as important as insulating your home and installing solar.

If you accept a wider world view where humans are not the pinnacle of evolution and master of all, that you accept that there are others here just as advanced or more so, then the messed up world we are all about to collapse into means we all share in the dangers and challenges. The Spirit of Bees won't have much to do, if we humans kill off all the pollinators will it? Will there be a Spirit of the Oceans when we turn it into a huge mass of jellyfish? Maybe there will be but I'm not sure it will like us much.

Makes sense to see if I can enlist their help. Asking for that help while still retaining an allegiance to Jehovah seems to much like your comment about being wishy-washie. Sort of hedging my bets, if the smaller spirits don't respond then I can always go back to God. If I'm asking for their help, I should at least not have dual loyalties.

Perhaps my decision to renounce my Christianity is a way to open the door to such a alliance?

I realize that being an "outsider" may be dangerous in a world of big religions fighting, but being a Green Wizard entails risk. Risk of being the mediator and bridge between rival and at times at odds groups. Of being able to bring a neo-nazi and a antifa activist to a common table to share a bottle of home brewed beer and work out their differences through talk not violence. Having allies who can influence both to be more peaceful seems to be an advantage.

Much to think of.

David Trammel's picture

This topic and the announcement of the new green shaman site is the subject of this week's main page blog post.