A few hundred years ago, in the wilds and deserts and rocky hill places of America, indigenous people would go into the wilderness in search of visions and direction in their lives and to understand their spiritual selves. Nowadays, you are as likely to meet a group of senior business executives around the campfire on a wilderness quest to touch their creativity, build stronger relationships, and seek insights into the vision, philosophy, and future direction of the company they work for. This is the "new shamanism" of the corporate office, and its popularity is growing as a result of the spectacular results that programs like this can achieve. Sports and leisure giant Nike, for example, now sponsors trips deep into the Amazon rainforest for their people to work with shamans who will show them how to "shapeshift" their future and create a new focus for their organization. Even scientists, who would have laughed at such an idea until recently, are now using shamanic techniques in their own businesses and to aid the creative process behind research and development. Dr. Eve Bruce is a respected plastic and reconstructive surgeon and medical professional working in Baltimore. Three years ago, while vacationing in Ecuador, Dr. Bruce found herself plagued by a fever. Her group leader took her to an Andean shaman, who healed her using smoke, chanting, and prayer. The next day, she was not only out of bed but up for a hike in the rainforest. "The experience was beyond the box of my reality," says Dr. Bruce, who felt stunned and intrigued by her instant recovery. After studying the art of shamanism during a number of visits to South America, she went on to become the first non-Quechua woman to be initiated into the Circle of Yachaks, the bird-people shamans of the high Andes. She now uses shapeshifting and other shamanic techniques with her patients in order to help them find that part of themselves they are unhappy with and to change their vision of it before trying to remove it or cover it up with surgery. "Often when people seek a physical change, they want more," she says. "I help facilitate change on an emotional and spiritual level...I've seen people healed of migraines, chronic pain, and depression. I don't think there is any condition shamanism can't treat." Last year, Healthy Living magazine named Dr. Bruce one of its 19 Healers for the Millennium. Experiences such as Dr. Bruce’s emphasize the healing aspects of shamanic work, but it is just as practical to use shamanism to "heal" a corporation or organization and to help empower employees to find a better, more effective future for themselves and for their company. This is, in essence, what Nike is practicing when it takes its executives into the rainforests to help them find a vision of corporate responsibility and new strategic direction. In the United Kingdom, shamanic practitioners such as Vera Waters are now working with social services departments to facilitate bureaucratic shapeshifts and to support the healing of their clients by taking "families with difficulties" off on open-access weeks where shamanic techniques are a major part of the program. In the space of 18 months, her approach has been so successful that the Family Holiday Association has adopted it as the guiding force behind its own program of healing holidays, and her work is even being quoted in the British parliament as a new model for the caring professions. What is going on? What is this shamanism, and how can it help in training and in business? Shamanism is one of the oldest psychospiritual practices known to humanity, with archaeological evidence from Africa suggesting a history of anywhere up to 400,000 years. Other artifacts, such as the cave paintings at Lascaux in France, which clearly depict shamanic activity, have been accurately dated at up to 35,000 years old. Most archaeologists split the difference (a big difference though it is), and point to an established shamanic culture that was certainly flourishing 50,000-100,000 years ago. Yet its practices are still current in most societies in the world, and the techniques it uses very valid and useful for business right now. Take the shamanic practice of "journeying." To the steady beat of a drum, shamans will their spirits to leave their bodies and to journey to meet with helpers and advisors in the spiritual "otherworlds," bringing back information, healing, and gifts of divination and prophecy for the tribal people they serve. Sounds far-fetched and useless for the modern office environment, right? Think again. Science has now demonstrated that the rhythm of the drum is conducive to a deep and subtle shift in consciousness that overcomes the limitations of the rational brain and gives access to more intuitive, holistic, and visionary information. This is exactly the shift required for creative brainstorming activities used in new product development or the generation of advertising campaigns, for envisioning a new strategic direction for an organization, or for policy formulation to adapt to social, cultural, and environmental change. It is the sort of "Eureka!" breakthrough experience that James Watson described as leading to the discovery of the double-helix pattern of DNA through the arrival one day of a "non-trivial idea" while his rational mind was otherwise engaged as he daydreamed and sketched idly on a notepad. Just one more non-trivial idea like that, rightly applied and patented, could make you a business success overnight! Journeying works since all things begin with an idea, whether it is a new building, a new product, or a new marketing campaign. Before any of them are made concrete, you must first have the creative insight into how the new entity will look. This is the domain of the non-rational brain. Only after this process can the design begin to take physical shape. This is the way that all human beings create futures and the way in which all companies and all employees develop. "Imagination," said Einstein, "is more important than knowledge." "The world," say the Shuar shamans of the Amazon, "is as you dream it." We can, of course, dream any possible future for ourselves, our company, our society, or for the world as a whole (in fact, when any single one of us changes, the world must also change as a consequence); all it takes is the liberation of creativity to facilitate the vision. But sometimes this liberation is hard to come by, partly as a result of the systems that we put in place in modern business, or the need to make profits or appease shareholders. We can all get locked into systems that stultify our creativity. The once-great company that cannot, will not, or does not want to adapt to the changing times is a case in point. No matter what its past glories, if it cannot change, it will fail. And now, more than ever before, is the time to change. John Perkins, a self-made millionaire and CEO and advisor to corporations for over thirty years, became smitten with shamanism while working in the Amazon rainforests for American economic development groups more than three decades ago. On returning to America, he abandoned his career and set up the Dream Change Coalition, a nonprofit organization that teaches shapeshifting to executives, medical doctors, government agencies, educators, and lawyer's associations. "This is a time of incredible change, of cultural and global transition," says John. "No longer is the yardstick of profitability sufficient by itself. The corporation must respond to challenges never before faced. Satisfying market demands means empowering the individual employee while building a cohesive, creative, flexible team. It requires extreme sensitivity to environmental and social concerns. Shapeshifting offers this possibility." A shapeshift may be achieved on three levels: cellular (transforming the physical), personal (changing perceptions, attitudes, and personality traits), and institutional (altering goals and structures). The integrated system includes techniques for separating "dreams" from "fantasies" and turning the resulting objectives into reality, using visualization for managing stress and resolving conflicts, diagnosing critical situations through energy analysis, motivating community action and cohesion by applying transformational therapies, and utilizing shamanic techniques to achieve team goals. Through doing so, the objectives of this developmental process are to: • Inspire individuals to maximize their creativity, • Empower people to utilize their subconscious as well as conscious capabilities, • Integrate individuals into teams that focus the collective powers of their members on specific goals, and • Explore new ways your corporation can contribute more to social and environmental balance while enhancing profitability. It is a win-win situation for the company and its executives, since a clear direction and a shared vision are essential prerequisites to the development of any successful future, whether personal, corporate, or global. Ross Heaven is a shamanic practitioner, businessman, and the author of The Journey to You and Spirit in the City, both published by Bantam. He is also the UK representative of the Dream Change Coalition, a nonprofit grassroots movement of people from many continents and cultures who are dedicated to creating new values and ways of living. |