Personal Experiences
Mircea Eliade (1) found that a psychotic episode has served as the initiatory crisis marking, for some shamans, a call to the healing profession. For example, the Siberian shaman Kyzalov entered a state of "madness" lasting for seven years which resulted in his initiation as a shaman. He reported that during those years he had been beaten up several times, taken to many strange places including the top of a sacred mountain, chopped into pieces and boiled in a kettle, met the spirits of sickness, and acquired the drum and garment of a dead shaman. Being "tormented" by spirits, babbling confused words, displaying curious eating habits, singing continuously, and dancing wildly are other common elements in initiatory crises; in our society today these experiences would be considered evidence of a psychotic disorder and could possibly result in hospitalization. Yet when Kyzalov recuperated, he reported that, "the shamans declared, 'You are the sort of man who may become a shaman; you should become a shaman. You must begin to shamanize (2).'
All mental and physical illnesses, accidents, and other ordeals, by creating psychospiritual crises, open the door to the shamanic world of spirits and nonordinary reality. In contemporary society, psychotic states of consciousness retain their power to awaken shamanic tendencies and talents. It proved to be so in my case, and for others whom I have met, worked with as a therapist and written about. My psychotic episode took place in a non-shamanic cultural and psychological context, but it bears a distinct relationship to a shaman's initiation: 1) it contained thematic and imagistic parallels to the initiatory crises of professional shaman; 2) it served as my calling to the mental health profession just as the shaman's crisis calls him/her to the role of healer; 3) it was integrated with the aid of traditional shamans and their practices.
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