Keeney - Shamanic Christianity: the direct experience of mystical communion

SHAMANIC

CHRISTIANITY

THE DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF MYSTICAL COMMUNION

Bradford Keeney

Destiny Books

Rochester, Vermont

Dedicated to my grandparents,
Rev. W. L. Keeney and Virginia Keeney

CONTENTS

PREFACE

I grew up with a grandfather and father who were country preachers, playing the piano in their revival services. Much of my lifes work has been devoted to learning from spiritual elders throughout the African diasporafrom South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the African American churchwhose mystical, shamanic practice of Christianity struck me as the most joyous and liberated form of worship. As this book goes to press, I am in the mountains of the Caribbean island of St. Vincent studying a blend of African spirituality and Christianity known as shakerism. It emphasizes ecstatic spiritual expression as well as ceremonies devoted to fasting for visionary experiences and shamanic learning. Here I learned some of the great mysteries of being a Christian shaman. Now I am deeply honored to be regarded by my teachers here as a captain of the spiritual ships that move through the spirit lands.

The stories and directives that are included in this book were written while I was in an altered state of consciousness inspired by the ecstatic practice of shamanic Christianity. Writing non-stop for several days in a shamanic literary experiment, I wrote the book largely as a continuous stream of prose. The first part of the book, The Lost Teachings, aims to bring forth the ancestral voices of Christianity. Years ago one of the great spiritual healers of our time, Mama Mona from Soweto, South Africa, performed a ceremony announcing the installation of her spirit guides into me. Her primary guide, Sister Elize, subsequently became my guiding source of inspiration for the lost teachings of shamanic Christianity.

The second part of the book, The Lost Directives, addresses the least practiced and least understood aspect of many shamanic and spiritual traditions. Here I present the trickster side of being a Christian shaman. In alignment with cultural theologian Harvey Coxs classic work Feast of Fools, the role of fool for Christ is here recast in terms of eccentric action and participation with unorthodox wisdom in everyday life. Whereas the lost teachings are inseparable from altered states, the lost directives encourage altered traits of living, to borrow Huston Smiths expression.

Many teachers have inspired my work, and I have honored them in previous books I have written and edited. But here I must mention George Hay, my dear friend from New Orleans. A former pastor who became a counselor and college professor, his life is a testimony to the power of deep faith and prayer. Our ongoing conversations have imbued this work.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge my spiritual father, Archbishop Cosmore Pompey of the St. Vincent Shakers. He is a pure Christian shaman and mystic, whose spiritual life has been as amazing as that of anyone I have ever known or read about. His influence on my development as a Christian shaman has been monumental. Love and prayers to his spiritual family in the Caribbean and to all my shamanic sisters and brothers!

INTRODUCTION

The Calling Forth of Christian Shamanism

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

JOEL 2:2829

All spiritual traditions, including Christianity, have shamanic roots. When the roots are fed, they sink deeper into the sacred ground. The practices and stories in this book are a calling forth to those who believe they are connected to the teachings and spiritual presence of Jesus. You are invited to feed and water the roots of your spirituality. In this nurturing of your soul, shamanic experience will blossom. This is the way it has always been and shall always be.

Being a Christian shaman involves a radically different way of participating in everyday life. It means that you will sacrifice rarely questioned cultural habits and understandings in favor of honoring innumerable unspoken mysteries. Through the stories and practices of this book you will find a way to undo normality and replace it with the uncommon presence of mystical realization and playful engagement, the two sides of Christian shamanism.

Christian shamans dream sacred visions and feel the ecstatic currents of spirit flowing through their bodies. They get there like the mystics of oldthrough loving God and praying without end. Mystics and shamans are the same in their devotion to God and in their encounters with the sacred gifts of the Holy Spirit. Christian shamans go further and encourage themselves to reenter the everyday with a transformed posture, that of the Christian trickster, the spiritual contrary who knows that the deepest visions are facilitated by the merriest practices of play.

By following the shamanic exercises spelled out here, you will be able to face the modern dilemmas of our time with a childlike sense of play and wonder. Though you may first feel self-conscious, apprehensive, confused, or baffled by the suggestions that are made, please be mindful that you are being asked to step outside the boundaries that presently define your habitual ways of behaving and constitute what others regard as consensual reality. Shamanic Christianity asks you to go beyond those constraints and assumptions, making it possible for you to enter a new kingdom of experience. Here the challenges and suffering of life become transformed into lessons of daily enchantment, transcendent ascension, and sacred comedy.

The first part of this book, The Lost Teachings, aims to help you enter into the high mysteries and visions of shamanic Christianity. Through its lessons, you will be well prepared to bring forth sacred dreams and join the grand mystical traditions. The second part of the book, The Lost Directives, introduces exercises involving contrary, or trickster, actions that help bring you into the uncommon practices of shamanic conduct. Here you find a new way of being in the world and a way of escaping the over-seriousness associated with conventional ways of living. The Christian shaman enters the everyday with the spirit of radical experimentalism. No challenge or difficulty is big enough to not be teased inside and out. In the shamanic world, everything is turned around, reversed, deliberately misperceived, tinkered with, and thrown to the elves of merry play.

Shamanic Christianity provides a beacon of affirmation for contemporary pilgrims seeking direct communion with spirit. The light begins with one of the greatest shamans in human history, Jesus of Nazareth. But within the temple of Christian light reside other living presences of spiritual guidance. The meditations and stories presented in Part I will reintroduce you to Mary and the historically renowned saints, making them living spiritual teachers for your shamanic life. They will inspire you to seek vision, pray wildly, talk to the animals, receive the holy fire, recognize the sacred light, honor soul-making music, and resurrect your vital participation in life.