Circle of Shaman: Healing Through Ecstasy, Rhythm, and Myth

Excerpts & Samples

By Karen Berggren

Publisher : Inner Traditions/Bear & Company

ABOUT Karen Berggren

Karen Berggren
Karen Berggren is a writer, musician, and performer who has been involved in spirit work and mediumship since 1975. In 1989 she was unexpectedly initiated into the path of shamanism. She gives lectures and workshops on shamanism and the healing power of drumming, dance, and rhythm. She is  More...

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Description

A unique look at the healing and transformational powers that are at the heart of the shamanic ecstatic experience.

Circle of Shaman focuses on the shamanic flight of ecstasy-- the core experience that distinguishes shamanism from other spiritual and healing practices--and how it enables the psyche to heal itself of dysfunctional patterns, allowing the Self to evolve. Based on her own experiences, Karen Berggren explores the development of rhythmic empathy to engage the ecstatic experience. Through this power the shaman seeks to maintain the community's connection between the ordinary world and the realm of the sacred. By healing themselves of dysfunctional, outworn, or egocentric patterns and beliefs shamans provide the model for the greater community to heal and transform itself. Integration of the ecstatic experience into modern culture is crucial to humanity's continued survival and unfolding destiny as partner with the earth.

"Karen Berggren's Circle of Shaman is a wonderful gift that will be adored by everyone interested in shamanic experience . . . her exciting text, which weaves inspiring prose, narrative, and academic research, brings a much needed healing to the too-sober scene in contemporary shamanism."
Brad Keeny, author of Shaking Out the Spirits