beliefs & practices
Shamanic Church is organized under IRS code 508(c)(1)(a), for religious purposes. Our practices are legally protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Shamanic Church believes we are divine spiritual beings having a human experience, that all is one on a spiritual plane, and that all is connected on spiritual and physical planes. We believe a large part of our human journey is to re-member our true selves and re-connect to our Higher Selves, the Divine, Source. We believe we can do this through shamanic practices and through direct experience. We believe that spiritual and physical realms of existence are inextricably linked, with the physical realm being a manifestation of the spiritual realm.
We use shamanic practices to address and integrate the spiritual and physical (mental, emotional, bodily, communal, social, etc.) realms of existence and allow Source to flow through us. This results in wholeness and complete, healthy, vital, ascending beings, communities, and societies.
Shamanic Church's mission is to help people directly access, through shamanic practices and related activities, Source/Spirit/All That Is. We help people access their true nature as spiritual beings, aspects of Source that are inextricably linked as interdependent parts of Spirit and the unified field of consciousness. We help people integrate their knowing of themselves as spiritual beings into their daily lives, leading to more holistic, complete, regenerative, healthy, fulfilling lives in service to their Higher Selves, Source, and all of life and creation.
In knowing who we truly are as spiritual beings, we can begin to answer existential questions that humans have asked for as long as we have been in existence: Who am I? Where do I come from? What happens after my body dies? What is “I”? What is not “I”? Is “I” eternal? How does “I” relate to other “I”’s? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is life all about? What is the purpose and meaning of life? Is the purpose and meaning of all life the same? How do I act in right relationships to all life and existence, to Earth, to others? Am “I” separate from “other,” or are we the same? How should I treat “self” and “other”? Is there other conscious, intelligent life? If so, what is my relationships to that life?
Shamanic Church’s core religious practices include divinely inspired, intentionally crafted, validated shamanic practices that our ancestors have implemented for many thousands of years to connect to Spirit and Source, beyond this physical existence. Indigenous and ancient traditions as well as modern science tell us that shamanic practices enable us to open the gates of perception and access dimensions beyond the physical realm—the spiritual realm.
We believe that shamanic practices help us know who we are and why we are here beyond what we see in our everyday physical reality. They enable us to access our spiritual, Divine Selves and Source. We also believe that Source is constantly communicating new, evolving shamanic practices that resonate with contemporary cultures and societies. Therefore, we hold space for Source to flow through our ministers and members and inform new shamanic practices and rituals that we co-create with Source and each other. We also adopt new shamanic practices that we believe will serve people in connecting more deeply to Source.
We believe that all shamanic practices hold in common the ability to facilitate spiritual experiences that connect us to Source directly, and that each individual’s experience is just that—individual. Therefore, we provide guidance for individuals to connect to and directly commune with Source in a group environment as well as on their own, stepping into their unique spiritual relationship to their Higher Selves and Source. Through ceremonies and rituals that accompany shamanic practices, we empower people to have spiritual experiences and connect to Source and their Higher Selves whenever and wherever they chose. When practices continue, connection to Source will grow until it is constantly felt and lived.
We use shamanic practices primarily for spiritual expansion, and we recognize that shamanic practices also have beneficial impacts on our bodies, minds, and emotions. Through shamanic practices, people experience improvements and healing of many health issues that have ultimate causation in spiritual realms.
Shamanic Church’s ceremonial and ritual practices to connect to Spirit and Source include rhythmic drumming and dancing, singing, sweat lodges, vision quests, nature-based and other rituals, meditations, the use of earth elements and sacred plant teachers, and sacraments in the form of sacred and entheogenic Earth Medicines and Plant Teachers, as well as some of their derivatives. Many of these practices date back to the beginning of humanity and have been key to connecting humans to the Divine and developing our spirituality. More recently-developed practices build on ancient shamanic practices.
We honor our ancestors, their knowledge and wisdom, and our sacred Earth and its Medicine and Sacred Teachers by bringing shamanic practices to people now, in a time when they are so desperately needed by so many who are looking to reconnect to their True Selves, the Divine, Source.
Entheogens are plants, fungi, and substances provided by animal teachers that people have used for many thousands of years to induce spiritual experiences and directly connect to Source. More recently, some entheogenic derivatives have been found to facilitate spiritual connections. The definition of entheogen is “god within; containing deity; god or spirit facilitating.”
We believe entheogens are an important and primary way for people to fully and directly experience their nature as Divine Beings, as aspects of Source and All That Is. Shamanic wisdom and modern science support this belief.
Entheogens that Shamanic Church uses as sacrament to induce direct spiritual experience with the Divine, with Source, include but are not limited to psilocybin, cannabis, salvia, ayahuasca, hapé, iboga, peyote, mescaline, Bufo alvarius, kambo, DMT, LSD, MDMA, and ketamine.
Because connecting to our Divine Selves and Source through shamanic practices is best done in connection to place and nature, Shamanic Church is mobile—we go where people can connect and need to connect to Source. This may be in sacred spots in nature, in people’s homes, in sacred community gathering spaces, and more. Shamanic Church also provides space in sacred locations where people can attend ceremonies to have spiritual, shamanic experiences and retreats away from the demands and distractions of daily life.