Circle of Shaman: Healing Through Ecstasy, Rhythm, and Myth [Paperback]

Karen Berggren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1998

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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 )

From the Back Cover

In 1989, while working in the field of mediumship and spiritual healing, Karen Berggren unexpectedly found herself summoned into the world of the shaman by spirit teachers who hailed from a group called the Circle of Shaman. She began receiving teachings from the group through a series of visionary encounteres, all the while struggling through a strange psychological turbulence which she later recognized as an initiation crisis. This book tells her story, showing how contemporary individuals can reclaim the role shamans have held for millenia, while at the same time exploring the shamanic use of ecstasy, an ancient way of healing through the transforming power of the drum, the dance, and the rhythmical nature of creation.

Shamans seek to maintain their community's connection between the ordinary world and the realm of the sacred, and by healing themselves provide a model for the greater community to heal and transform itself. Distilling this wisdom and integrating the ecstatic experience into modern culture is crucial to humanity's continued survival and our unfolding destiny as partners with the Earth.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Destiny Books (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892816228
• ISBN-13: 978-0892816224
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,465,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Circle of Shaman is an invitation to the ecstatic dance., June 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Circle of Shaman: Healing Through Ecstasy, Rhythm, and Myth (Paperback)

Oh so pleasant! Circle of Shaman is like mead wine for the spirit. It drenches the minds eye with sweet images of the mystical experiences found in everyday life. If we only will open to them. Karen Berggren's story is an intoxicating adventure in the borderlands where the mundane and mythic worlds embrace.

Books on shamanism run the gamut from one's steeped in academic objectivity to those engulfed in spiritual narcissism and personal grandiosity. Circle of Shaman differentiates itself from these by being a heartfelt personal encounter that connects its knowledge with respected psychological and anthropological treatises. One is not required to accept that these events happened in some distant land the reader will likely never see, nor that the experiences are the result of some special quality possessed by the author. The occurrences remain plausible yet filled with wonder.

Berggren has noticed that in a universe whose existence is vibration, new states of being can be accessed by allowing ourselves to resonate with it in non-habitual ways. Knowledge specific to various states of being can thus be captured through entraining (resonating) to new rhythms. Entrainment provides a way to communicate across the thresholds separating the worlds of body, emotion, mind, and spirit. Our language is filled with metaphors for this experience like, "two hearts beating as one," or the Beach Boys "picking up good vibrations." We all know its there.

Circle of Shaman is a comfort to anyone struggling through their own "shamanic initiation," or any of the crises related to a spiritual emergence. Besides authenticating the experiences for those who have had them, Circle of Shaman is a delicious invitation for everyone to simply join in the dance.

Carlisle Bergquist

Vantage Quest

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars inspiring, motivating, encouraging, life affirming, April 26, 1999

By 

jack([e-mail] (north yorkshire, england) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Circle of Shaman: Healing Through Ecstasy, Rhythm, and Myth (Paperback)

blessings, thank you for your inspiration gifted to others through your work, journeys and ecstatic love. Your book jumped off a shelf and into my life, having read half of it i embarked on my own shamanic journey and experienced the ecstacy for myself. It had me in tears on many occasions and has helped me to come to terms with my life experiences which i know look upon as lessons. from which i've learnt the skill of healing and now walk between the worlds. karen, may your journeys always be fulfilling and may the goddess always smile upon you. blessed be.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and insightful journey into shamanic healing, April 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Circle of Shaman: Healing Through Ecstasy, Rhythm, and Myth (Paperback)

The author takes you on an intimate and compelling personal journey into the subtle dimensions of spirit and shamanic experience without sacrificing intellectual content. Her theory of the world crisis we find ourselves in acting as a collective shamanic intiation crisis was a major ah ha! for me. The second half of the book focusing on healing through drumming, dance, and ecstasy gave words to some of the ineffable and anomolous experiences I've had at drumming circles. I knew I was experiencing something positive and profound, but could never quite put my finger on what it was. I can now and I'm relieved to know I'm not just crazy. I've been able to use Ms. Berggren's suggestions to cultivate and deepen these experiences in a healing way. I highly recommend this engaging story to anyone interested in shamanism, spirit work, drumming, trance dance, or alternative healing.