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approaches, both practices are reaching for growth and want more understanding of the mind and how it

functions and heals.

CARL JUNG

In a shamanic culture, the way of the mind is parallel with the spirit world.

Stephanie Marohn tells of a time that she spent working and living with an

African Shaman in her book “The Natural Medicine Guide to Schizophrenia”

who went on a visit with her to a mental hospital. There, the shaman was

shocked. Marohn says that this shaman describes mental disorders as “spiritual

emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer

in being born” (178). After witnessing patients in the hospital Marohn says,

“What struck Dr. Somé was that the attention given to such symptoms was

based on pathology, on the idea that the condition is something that needs to stop. This was in complete

opposition to the way his culture views such a situation” (178).

Schizophrenia is an interesting mental illness to look at through a shamanic lens because many times it can be

seen as something good, such as a personal interaction with spirits. An American professor, Joseph Campbell

coined the quote, “The schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.”

This idea opens the doors to the way that the psychology and mysticism of mental illness collide. This is a

viewpoint that runs among many shamanic cultures. It is very common to see the illness as an interaction with

the spirit world.

Odette Nightsky talks about a personal experience with the healing of schizophrenia by a shaman in the article

Walking the Shamans Path: Not Schizophrenia, But Acute Sensitive. Nightsky explains that the process that

she went through was unique and beneficial. She says that, “the healing itself made little impact, but the

essence of the writings still live in my memory to this day”. Although her own experience with this healing

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