Shamanic Therianthropy

From Greek mythology to Celtic story telling, from western Cameroon to medieval Europe the imagery may change but the subliminal language speaks of the same primeval concepts, that of transformation, be it into mouse, cat, deer, wolf or any other animal. But could these age old transformation stories hold a deeper spiritual meaning?

For instance there are many traces left of an earlier, more benevolent meaning, hidden within the artistic symbolism of today’s modern highly stereotyped wolfman figure. Could this be due to some unconscious expression of the original nature, separate from the medical cases of lycanthropic insanity? Carl Jung’s explanation for the spirituality of alchemy expresses many similarities to the animal transformation in its own transformation metaphor that of base metal into gold.

Carlo Ginzburg has pieced together concepts of a post-shamanic origin for these tails of animal transformation during the years of witch crazed Europe.

Within the realms of documented werewolf cases are several interesting cases of lycanthropy. These cases point significantly to shamanic beliefs and practices. Such as in a case reported in Livonia in 1692. An eighty year old man called Theiss claimed to be one of a group of Livonian werewolves who not only did not eat humans, but could not. He said that on three nights of the year they would change shape into that of a wolf travelling to hell to fight for the fertility of their communities’ fields. His human body would remain behind while his transformed spirit would travel to this other reality, he claimed that this was the were-wolfs job. This was also said to be true for both the Russian and German werewolves of this time although each group would travel down “to their own particular hell” to fight for their fertility rites.

It has been recognised that the visual structure of the shamans inner “spirit world” is highly effected by social expectations, although still holding the same universal messages and interpretations, much like the function of Carl Jung’s archetypes. Many shamanic orientated cultures hold similar beliefs to this fertility ritual described by Theiss, and this would help explain why the Russian and German werewolves went down to there own particular hell.

There were also some fifty cases based on specially marked out people who were called “benandanti”. These people were usually chosen at birth by a special mark, often being a “Caul” a amniotic membrane still attached to the heads of newly borns, or by some other physical defect. This is also how the shamans and medicine men of pre-religious cultures were usually chosen if not inherited.