THE EXTRAORDINARY ANDEAN SHAMAN.

The extraordinary category of people  who have come to be known as an Andean shaman is a person chosen by the spirits to mediate between the human and the spiritual realms. It is the most ancient spiritual practice of all in the Andean world, because it entails no natural dogma, it is about experiencing and knowing. It is a path of the heart that opens and enfolds all that exist in the natural world. A spiritual journey of beauty and balance.
The Andean shaman, typically through a trance state during a ritual, gain access to altered states of consciousness in order to perceive, interact with and influence in, the benevolent or malevolent spirits in the spirit world and channel these transcendental energies into the world of the living, in order to achieve healing or negotiate life and death of the individual or a community.
The Andean shaman is considered a man of high degree; that is, men who have taken a spiritual degree in the secret life beyond the material world, a step which implies discipline, mental training, courage and perseverance. He is a man of respected and often standing personality and is of immense social significance. The psychological health of the group largely depends on faith in his trained power. Many of these powers have specialized in the working of the human mind, and in the influence of mind on the body and mind on mind.
The more attuned the shaman is to the ways of old ancient practices, far greater power he is entitled to wield, because he is in closer touch with the spirits.
A shaman's ability to achieve a proper lasting healing, be in the physical or psychological, depends primarily on his personal motivation or intention to heal. He must be alert and focused, persistent, caring or loving, courageous and flexible. He has to asses the patient's cognitive skills, that is the ability to think subjectively and objectively, as well as the understanding of the emotional responses to the experience on both sides. He assesses the patient's spirit and the ability to recognize and understand the symbolic messages received from the spiritual realms that are trying to guide the patient along the spiritual path.
The energy forces of the spirit world are understood as similar to the 4 cardinal points. The shaman of the North would check to see that all is well with his Southern relatives, and make sure the relatives of the South are full filling their part of the time-honored cosmic deal of holding up the universal energy forces by living according to law.
The Andean shaman avoid to live inside a world of continual and unrelenting distraction, separated from the natural world, and ever changing life-styles in which the minds are never still. For people that live inside this type of life-style, a shaman is a primitive tribal doctor who sing and dance around a patient doing all sorts of weird things. The life-style of an Andean shaman is far from being primitive and therefore useless in our modern world, instead it is immersed in a time-tested meditative journey in order to listen and experience important spiritual lessons and truths. A shaman needs to be familiar with the powers that are most influencing his own life as birth totems. But as well as totems, which are characteristics of the soul and from the universal forces that come at the time of birth, he can, by studying the characteristics or powers of other beings, gain understanding and use of other powers which are often referred to as spirit guides, spirit helpers or angels. The knowledge that comes through this journey is not limited and superficial, because shamanism itself does come from a very ancient and old school of knowledge in which a selective progress is mandatory, regardless culture, race, or ethnicity.
We, as human beings, are part of nature. We need to learn again to reconnect ourselves with it and be aware of the symbolic messages that we receive from the spirit world and then discern what the message is trying to say. There are many symbols that are common, and therefore a good shaman who is very alert to his own human spirit can be of great help in translating these cryptic messages.
We are made up of all the same elements that plants, birds, animals, and minerals are made of in this planet. The characteristics or powers of all bird, plant, herb, animals and mineral beings must be clearly known to all of us. It is experienced differently for different individuals and the understanding behind all of these would fill a complete spiritual encyclopedia. This understanding has a lot to do with the understanding of Andean Mythology, it's functions and physics.