The transformation is the resurrection.

We become a new creation, a transformation of what was to what is.

Hans Kung speaks to this in Eternal Life:
Is it then a bodily resurrection, a raising up of man with his body? yes and no. No, if we understand "body" in physiological terms as this actual body, the "corpse, " the remains." Yes, if "body" is understood in the New Testament sense as "soma," not so much physiologically as personally: as the identical personal reality, the same self with its entire history, which is mistakenly neglected in the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation, even though the latter stresses the new (admittedly earthly) corporality. When we talk of the resurrection of the body, we mean then as the Catholic theologian Franz Josef Nocke expresses it, "that not only man's naked self is saved through death, when all earthly history is left behind, all relationships with other human beings become meaningless; bodily resurrection means that a person's life history and all the relationships established in the course of this history enter together into the consummation and finally belong to the risen person." (Eternal Life, Doubleday, 1984, p. 111).

Mandaza Speaks

The Myth of the Eternal Return

Eliade started to write The Myth of the Eternal Return in 1945, in the aftermath of World War II, when Europe was in ruins, and Communism was conquering Eastern European countries. The essay dealt with mankind's experience of history and time, especially the conceptions of being and reality. According to Eliade, in modern times people have lost their contact with natural cycles, known in traditional societies. Eliade saw that for human beings their inner, unhistorical world, and its meanings, were crucial. Behind historical processes are archaic symbols. Belief in a linear progress of history is typical for the Christian world view, which counters the tyranny of history with the idea of God, but in the archaic world of archetypes and repetition the tyranny of history is accepted. Stoics created from the concept of the eternal cycle a theory which embraced the whole universe. Eliade contrasts the Western linear view of time with the Eastern cyclical world view. In the 19th century Nietzsche's criticism of Christian dogmas brought back the idea of the eternal cycle to Western discussion. These ideas were further developed by Oswald Spengler in his study The Decline of the West (1918-1922).

Reference link:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/eliade.htm

Shamanism (Definition)

Shamanism refers to a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. A practitioner of shamanism is known as a shaman. There are many variations of shamanism throughout the world; following are beliefs shared by all forms of shamanism:[1]
Spirits exist and they play important roles both in individual lives and in human society.
The shaman can communicate with the spirit world.
Spirits can be good or evil.
The shaman can treat sickness caused by evil spirits.
The shaman can employ trance inducing techniques to incite visionary ecstacy.
The shaman's spirit can leave the body to enter the supernatural world to search for answers.
The shaman evokes animal images as spirit guides, omens, and message-bearers.
Shamanism is based on the premise that the visible world is pervaded by invisible forces or spirits which affect the lives of the living. In contrast to organized religions like animism or animatism which are lead by priests and which all members of a society practice, shamanism requires individualized knowledge and special abilities. Shaman operate outside established religions, and, traditionally, they operate alone. Shaman can gather into associations, as Indian tantric practitioners have done.

Reference link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism

Welcome to The Last Shaman

This blog is a place to record shaman stories.

The shaman is the one who is able to see beyond this world and into the world of the future.
In this time of the great turning, from anthropocentric to eco-logical, we all become shamans.