Shamanism is one of the oldest religious traditions of the mankind, which preceded other world religions. Shamanism, as such, is considered to be primarily Siberian and Central Asian religion. Central and Northern Asia is regarded as shamans’ homeland, and the sacred place for them is Olkhon Island on Lake Baikal. In the 12-13th centuries in times of Chingiskhan’s khanate it sheltered Mongolian and later Buryat shamans from buddhistic lamas persecution. The sacred status of the Olkhon Island is officially admitted by the shamans of the Buryat Republic at the close of the 20th century. The Buryats confessed shamanism indigenously even though they have preserved it only on the western shore of Baikal. Under the influence of Mongolians the people of the eastern shore converted to Buddhism.

The term “shamanism” was originated from the Evenk word “saman”, which means “excited, frantic person”. It was borrowed by the Russians in the 17th century, whereupon became generally accepted term in the world literature. The equivalents to it in other languages of the Central and Northern Asia are: the Yakut “oyun”, the Altaian “kam”, and the Buryat “boo”.

The shamanism is the basis of traditional religions of not only Siberia but also of Far-East, South-East Asia, Africa and other regions. Most researchers of the shamanism concur that the ancient shaman techniques are known all over the world and coincide in many principals. These ancient spiritual practices almost haven’t changed in the course of mankind history and has preserved to our time.

Archaeologists have come to a conclusion that shaman ceremonials concerned with worship to spirits, ancestry, spirits of the Heaven and the Earth were practiced in Siberia as far back as the late Stone Age and the Bronze Age. It’s considered that shamanism was formed at a certain stage of the reflection of the world when the image of the Universe had become so significant in people’s mind that only very gifted people could gain the understanding of it. The requirement in a mediator between the society and the mythical world arose. Shaman has become this mediator.

According to the shaman mythology the shamanism appeared with the world creation, the first shaman was the Son of Celestial who came down the Earth in the image of eagle. That is he who is thought to have created the shaman. One of the versions holds that the eagle was flying between the sky and the earth and was allotted with shaman gift by the Heaven. But the shaman gift was hard to carry and he gave it to an Evenk woman. She passed the gift to her Buryat husband. By this reason the cult of the sacred eagle is widespread among the shamans all over the Siberia. Eagle feathers, for instance for the Tuvinian shamans, was an essential part of a head-dress. The shaman’s head-attire numbered up to several dozens of eagle feathers.

Shamanism is based mostly on the individual experience of the shaman which is barely preserved in books or cannons. Many long years the shaman knowledge was given from mouth to mouth. The first shamans’ chronicles appeared only in the 18th century after the Buddhism expansion of Siberia and Mongolia.

Shaman praying doesn’t require special buildings or temples, shaman ceremonials can pass anywhere and anytime. It is explained by the idea that the nature, according to the shaman traditions, is a single Divine Temple which needs to be treated with care in order not to do harm to it. The places where spirits had shown themselves were considered to be sacred. Traditionally in such areas people built “obo” ((Buryat) обо – [o׳bo] – an ancient sanctuary, abode of spirits – the hosts of the area), set pillars, and tied ribbons to branches of trees. Most often obo could be seen in the form of a pyramid of stones. In time obo grows as every passing-by traveller puts his sacrificial stone. In areas which lack of stones one can come across a high heap of new twigs. In Pribaikalye, Transbaikalia and Mongolia there is a great number of patrimonial sacred places. On the Olkhon Island such place is the Shaman Rock where one of the 13 Celestials leaves, and sacred Zhima mountain on which dwells White head Eagle, the shaman tsar of the northern world.

Shaman is unable to control fully the spirit which installs into him. He serves as a mediator in contact with spirits and sometimes obeys the will of the spirits. In ecstasy shaman can turn into wild beast and even pounce on other shamans. In order to raise a ghost and to talk with it the shamanistic rituals are used. It means shaman’s getting into trance or transpersonal state accompanied by rambling mumble and conjuration of ghosts. Preparing to the ecstatic travel to other worlds: worlds of the spirits of heaven, the next world, Erebus, shaman puts on a ritual costume and beats the tambourine, performs certain dances and pronounces incantations. Tambourine is one of the main attribute of the shaman cult. There is a belief that it must be kept upright in order the spirit not to leave it. Usually shamans do not use others’ tambourines but if it happens it is purified with smoke of burning juniper or silver fir bark. Every shaman has his own special dancing movements, his own rhythm in which is encoded the information for the transition to spirit world. Shamans in their practice often use entheogenes such as tobacco, mushrooms, LSD, cactus-peyote (in the South America). Incantation of spirits must be pronounced from memory, and the spirits must be addressed to with respect from the inferior to the supreme. Conjuration mustn’t be read from a book, it is necessary that shaman pronounce it by heart in the ghosts’ mother language. Costume with iron pendants with images of animals and birds is traditional for shamans. However an experienced shaman could get into trance, or “ongo” (“онго”) as it sounds in Buryat, without any tambourine and costume. Modern Buryat shamans, for example, lead their ceremonials wearing national clothes.

Belief in many gods and spirits is characteristic for shamanists. In all phenomenon of life they see presence of the ghosts of Heaven, Earth, hills, water, ancestry.  The supreme deity is thought to be Eternal Blue Sky, and the Earth presents the middle world inspired and inhabited by various invisible for most people ghosts. For shamanists it is a big sin to do harm to the nature, because all the nature around they regard as single Divine Temple.

In the shamanism (especially in Siberian) is widely spread an idea of three worlds: upper (celestial), middle (terrestrial), and lower (subterranean). According to this belief shaman is the person who, owing to celestial choice, can get into trance (altered state of consciousness) and transfers between these worlds in order to attain the practical aims: to meet celestial god face to face and bring the gifts from his commune, to find the soul of a sick which has gone astray faraway from the body or has been stolen by demons, to get a dead soul to its new shelter, to find the cause of an ailment and heal the sick, to foretell and prophesy, to raise certain natural phenomenon. It is possible to go without shaman only if the happening doesn’t concerns directly the destiny of soul, its ailment or loss, death, misfortune or a sublime sacrifice requiring some mystical transference to the Heaven or Hell. Shaman above all helps those people who do believe in power of shamanism.

Desirable changes, for the sake of which the ceremony has been led, can occur only if the magic power was applied correctly by a born shaman, if the used attributes are really endowed with magic energy, in carefully purified space and with accurate wording of spells.
If we try to find the difference between the shaman and the other “magi” and witch-doctors of primeval communities, the definition of the phenomenon of the shamanism in one region or another acquires significant meaning at once.

Magic and magicians can be met practically all over the world while the shamanism represents a special magic "profession". Though the shaman is, to a certain extent, a magician, not every magician might be called a shaman. Each sorcerer is the healer, but only the shaman uses his special unique methods. Shaman knows almost everything about the human soul. He is the only one to “see” it because he knows its “form” and destination.

The main way of finding shaman's power or choosing of shamans are hereditary handing down of the shaman knowledge or natural calling (“appeal” or “choice”). There are also cases when shamans become of one's own free will or of will of the family. The latter though are regarded inferior than those who has taken over this profession or has followed the “calling” of gods and spirits. However the choice made by the clan depends on the ecstatic experience of the candidate: if the pretender nominated to the position in advance doesn’t have such experience he is excluded of the list of candidates.

In the case of "choice of gods» or natural calling, the person which is supposed to become the shaman, falls into fury, then suddenly loses mind, escapes to the forest, eats a bark of trees, rushes to the water and fire, wounds himself with knifes. Then the family asks for the help from the old shaman who starts teaching the confused young man, telling to him about various kinds of spirits, ways of raising them and mastering them. It is just the beginning of the real initiation including variety of ceremonies.

In most cases, the potential shaman often differs from other people from the very youth. It becomes frequently nervous and sometimes even is exposed to epileptic seizures which are regarded as contacts with gods. In some communities where shamanism is hereditary, after death of the father the son makes the wooden figure of his hand, and through this symbol the handing down of the magic power is realized. But just being the shaman’s son is not enough. The future shaman should be accepted and confirmed by spirits. Also the choice of the future shaman in his birthday is possible. For example, born "in a shirt" children should become shamans by all means (those who is born "in a hat" only on the head, will become inferior shamans). There are cases when gods choose the future shaman, striking him with lightning or showing him their will by the stones falling from the sky. The lightning is often drown on shaman's dress. A childless shaman hands it down to his friend or apprentice. Shaman's calling is obligatory and is impossible to evade.

In the maturing period the future shaman sees omens he sings in his sleep or likes to wander in loneliness. After that he asks the old shaman to teach him. Sometimes father himself chooses the successor among sons. In this case not the age, but the talent of the young man is taken into consideration. Then the traditional secret knowledge is given to him. The preparatory period includes a variety of the ecstatic ceremonials which is also initiation. The young man continues his studying from the old men and the shamans at the same time. It studies genealogy and traditions of the clan, mythology and shaman lexicon. The master is called "Father-shaman". Being in ecstasy the candidate sings shaman hymns. It is the sign, that he has already got in contact with the next world.

Regardless of a method of choice, the candidate is admitted by the shaman only after the double admonition: ecstatic (dreams, trances) and traditional (shaman techniques, mythology of the clan, names and functions of spirits, secret language). This double admonition given by the spirits and old master shamans is equated to initiation. Sometimes initiation is public and represents a ritual itself. But the absence of such ceremony does not mean the absence of initiation which can be carried out in a dream or in ecstatic experience.

Shamans calling is frequently realized in hysterical crisis which is followed by the training period. Initiation is lead by the recognized old shaman. Usually these crises occurs at mature age, but still it is possible to become a shaman only in some years after the first experience, only after a recognition by the whole community and only after passing certain trials without which none shaman cannot execute his functions. Many refuse this mission if the commune does not recognize them deserving of being shamans. For the shaman the world of spirits has indissoluble connection with the world of dreams. Impressing dreams with complicated images of various types of experience, images of deads, memorizing their words after awakening is an integral part of the «shaman travels». Dreams are often perceived as the omens and are signs for carrying out shaman ritual to cajole spirits of deads.

There is such concept as «shaman state» or «shaman travel» - being simultaneously in two different realities. «Shaman travel» is similar to a bright dream, which is also called «conscious dream». Being in such state shaman undergoes changes in the mental processes, transformation of the world images, unification to other people, animals, the nature and the God. In this state of consciousness the shaman visits beautiful unearthly places full of divine harmony which does not happen in usual life. The shaman cannot stay in these places for a long time, but he can return there again in dreams.

As a rule, the shaman differs with lively intelligence, flexible body, and his energy seems never-ending. Preparing for work the future shaman tries to strengthen the body and to improve mental abilities. Some shamans, despite the old age, during a session surpass the young in height of jumps and energy of gestures. A good shaman should be judicious and tactful person, should be able to convince other people. His inner power, might should be felt.

Buryat shamans are the main keepers of oral epic works. And though shamans perform an ecstatic dance in a yurta with great number of spectators, in the limited space, wearing dresses containing over 15 kg of iron in the form of pendants and different other things, they never hit people sitting around. During the trance the shaman sometimes rushes here and there with closed eyes, however he always finds the subjects he needs. This amazing ability of controlling even ecstatic movements proves the excellent nervous constitution of these people.