(9) The Shaman

"St. Benedict considered as "shaman" may appear as a new and
seemingly strange way to look at the man...Let me briefly explain
what a shaman is. Historians of religion have identified various
categories of religious personalities: the priest, the prophet, the
yogi, the sage...The shaman is another type of religious personality:
the religious guide of primitive peoples...

[However there] are three reasons why shamanism is emerging as
an important phenomenon for religious insights in our day. One
is because of interest in altered states of consciousness...The
second reason is the interest in healing in our day, and the third is
the interest in Native American spirituality."
[An article, "Contemporary Forms of Spirituality and Monastic Life"
by Donald Corcoran, O.S.B., in THE CONTINUING QUEST FOR GOD:
MONASTIC SPIRITUALITY IN TRADITION AND TRANSITION,
William Skudlarek, O.S.B. (General Editor), the Liturgical Press,
1982, p. 248.]

Comment: The above by Sr. Donald, really struck my eye--considering
St. Benedict as a shaman. At the time I was starting to study Native
American spirituality, so I was really drawn to this idea about the
founder of the Benedictine Tradition.

Thinking about it, having an avocational interest in Classical and
Medieval History, I had to admit that most of the monks who
joined Benedict's monastery were actually illiterate. These were
folk on the cusp of the Dark Ages, during the final collapse of the
Roman Empire. The infrastructure of civilization was pretty much
annihilated--and ignorance began its long march through Europe.

As for St. Benedict, himself, he was a Roman aristocrat--and that
meant he more than likely was classically educated. Though I
suspect he much preferred remaining a hermit, he was coaxed
into establishing a community of monks. His first experiment failed,
but his work in Subiaco and later at Monte Cassino took hold. And
I have to wonder whether this prayerful man may have displayed
"altered states of consciousness." Miracles were assigned to
St. Benedict, and oft illiterate folk are attracted to what they perceive
as magical--albeit such oft is clothed in religious perspectives.
Healing, also, would be a major vehicle as far as attracting the
illiterate.

But these ideas are all guesses on my part, though reasonable.
However, my main attraction to Sr. Donald's article pertained to
the Benedictine foray into Native American spirituality. For example,
she makes mention an article by a "monk of Blue Cloud Abbey in
the 'American Benedictine Review' [that] deals with the vision quest
of the Native American Plains Indians and compares it to monastic
life."

Sr. Donald moves into the initiatory process. Following a vision that
calls a person forth to be a shaman, there's the shamanic spiritual
journey of "taking up of a spiritual discipline, asceticism, fasting,
prayer, and ordeals." And following this, there is a period of testing,
encountering the Dark Power(s), which if successful, the shaman
moves through this passage unto a "death-rebirth" experience.

And, finally, there is the "powerful contact with the Divine, the Sacred,
the Numinous. And as Sr. Donald continues, she puts it that
"obviously this stage is very clear in Benedict's experience of the
whole world being gathered in one ray of life."

I have to wonder how many of us moderns, within the Benedictine
Tradition, have gone through this powerful "shamanic" journey?
Wtih that question, I'll leave it at that.