Shamanic initiation is the process by which a person crosses from being someone who is interested in shamanism to someone who carries it — a sequence of calling, dismantling, teaching, ordeal, return and service that traditional cultures have recognised for millennia. It is not a certificate, and it is not a single ceremony. It is a series of thresholds, and most people who walk this path recognise themselves somewhere along the way.
I want to say clearly at the start: naming seven stages is a map, not a law. Traditions across Siberia, the Amazon, the Andes and Mongolia describe this crossing in their own languages and their own order. What follows is the shape I have seen again and again — in the ethnographic record, in my teachers’ stories, and in my own students. Use it to locate yourself, not to grade yourself.
What are the 7 stages of shamanic initiation?
The seven stages are: the call, the resistance, the dismantling, the meeting with helping spirits, the training, the ordeal or death-and-rebirth, and the return into service. They rarely happen neatly in order, and people often circle back through earlier stages for years.
| Stage | What it feels like | What is actually happening |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The Call | Restlessness, dreams, illness, a pull you cannot argue with | The path makes itself known |
| 2. The Resistance | “Not me. I am not qualified. This is not real.” | The ordinary self defends itself |
| 3. The Dismantling | A life falls apart — work, health, relationship, identity | Old structures make room |
| 4. The Meeting | First real contact with a power animal or teacher | You stop practising alone |
| 5. The Training | Repetition, discipline, unglamorous daily practice | Skill replaces intensity |
| 6. The Ordeal | A death-and-rebirth experience, inner or outer | The old self is undone and reassembled |
| 7. The Return | Quietness, capacity, the ability to hold others | Initiation becomes service |
Stage 1: The call — when something starts pulling
The call is the first unmistakable pull toward the shamanic path, and it usually arrives uninvited. In traditional societies it announced itself through dreams, lightning strikes, prolonged illness, or an elder simply recognising a child. In modern life it is quieter and stranger: a book that will not leave you alone, a drum you hear in your sleep, an animal that keeps appearing.
What all forms share is that the call is not a decision. You do not choose it the way you choose a hobby. You notice it, and then you notice you cannot un-notice it.
Stage 2: The resistance — the part of you that says no
Almost every account of shamanic initiation includes refusal. In Siberian records, the chosen one often becomes gravely ill precisely because they refused the calling. In modern terms, the resistance sounds like: I am too ordinary. My family will think I have lost it. I have read three books, who am I to do this?
Resistance is not a sign that you are wrong about the path. It is a sign that something in you understands the path will cost you the version of yourself you currently are.
Stage 3: The dismantling — when the old life comes apart
The dismantling is the stage in which the structures of the previous life stop holding: a job ends, a marriage ends, health collapses, or an identity you had built carefully simply stops fitting. Traditional cultures called this the initiatory sickness. It is the least romantic part of the path and the one nobody advertises.
A word of care here, because it matters: not every crisis is an initiation, and initiation is never a reason to skip medical or psychological help. If you are unwell, get treated. Shamanic work sits alongside good care, never instead of it.
Stage 4: The meeting — first real contact
The meeting is the first unmistakable encounter with a helping spirit — a power animal, a teacher in human form, an ancestor — experienced directly rather than imagined. This is usually where a person stops reading about shamanism and starts practising it.
I remember my own first clear meeting less for the drama and more for the ordinariness of it. There was no thunderclap. There was an animal, entirely uninterested in impressing me, waiting as though it had been waiting a long time. I cried the whole way back up. If you would like to try this yourself, the free guided drum journey is the gentlest doorway I know.
Stage 5: The training — the unglamorous years
Training is the long stretch in which initiation becomes craft: repeated journeys, ritual hygiene, learning to tell projection from message, learning when not to work. Traditionally this took years under an elder. Today it happens through structured practice, mentorship and honest feedback.
- Daily practice — short and consistent beats long and occasional.
- A journal — so you can see your own patterns over months, not moods.
- Someone more experienced — who is allowed to tell you when you are off.
- Ordinary life — bills paid, sleep taken, relationships tended. Groundedness is technique.
If you want a structured place to build this rhythm, 30 Days of Shamanism gives you one ritual a day for a month — small, daily, and enough to show you whether this path is really yours.
Stage 6: The ordeal — death and rebirth
The ordeal is the classic initiatory death: in vision, the candidate is dismembered, boiled, stripped to bone and put back together. Ethnographers recorded this across cultures that had no contact with one another, which is part of why it is taken seriously rather than dismissed as metaphor.
What it does, practically, is remove the practitioner’s sense of being the source of the work. After the ordeal, most people become noticeably less impressive and considerably more useful.
Stage 7: The return — initiation becomes service
The return is the stage at which the path stops being about your own transformation and becomes something you carry for others. In traditional communities, initiation was never private; you were initiated by the community and for the community.
This is also the quietest stage. There is no announcement. People simply start finding their way to you, and you find that you can stay steady while they fall apart. For the wider context of how initiation is understood across traditions, see What Is Shamanic Initiation? A Grounded Guide and Can Anyone Learn Shamanism?
Frequently asked questions
Do all seven stages happen in order?
No. Most people move back and forth, and many revisit resistance or dismantling several times across a lifetime. The sequence is a map of recognisable thresholds, not a timetable.
How long does shamanic initiation take?
Traditionally, years — often between three and ten under an elder’s guidance. Modern paths vary widely, but anyone promising initiation in a weekend is selling something other than initiation.
Can you initiate yourself?
You can begin alone, and many people do. But initiation is confirmed by two things you cannot give yourself: the spirits and a community. Working without either tends to produce confidence without accuracy.
Is the initiatory crisis the same as a mental health crisis?
No, and the two must not be conflated. They can look similar from the outside, which is exactly why medical and psychological support comes first. A genuine initiatory process leaves a person more able to function over time, not less.
What if I feel the call but nothing else has happened?
Then you are exactly where almost everyone starts. Begin with regular practice and one real meeting with a helping spirit. The path opens under the feet of people who walk it, not those who wait for certainty.
Does initiation make you a shaman?
In most traditional cultures the title is given by the community, not claimed by the individual. Many trained Western practitioners deliberately use “shamanic practitioner” instead, out of respect for that distinction.
If you recognised yourself in one of these stages, I would love to know which one. Tell me in the comments — and if you are somewhere in the middle of the dismantling, know that you are not the first, and you are not doing it wrong.
