A Political Animal Turns Shaman : Campaign: Jerry Brown fits the Native American image of the ‘shape-shifter’ healer.

The lifestyle and campaign message of Jerry Brown bear a startling resemblance to the teachings of those ancient soul travelers and healers, the shamans.

Religious scholars generally define the shaman as a medicine man, priest and visionary. Shamans stay busy healing the sick and directing ceremonies, but they periodically leave the community to prepare for their most important task, rescuing lost souls.

Shamans live solitary lives and are known for their asceticism. Their training is tedious and severe, and only the best candidates can master “shape shifting,” the skill used to guide the lost souls.

Contrary to popular Hollywood portrayals, shape-shifting is more than the ability to change from human form to animal. To change shape, the shaman has to virtually change the way people perceive him.

Even a cursory anthropological examination of the Brown phenomenon must at once conclude that he is a shaman.

Consider: The training of Native American shamans includes familiarizing the initiate with myriad religious ideas. Jerry Brown’s studies have included Catholicism, Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto and a smattering of other spiritual philosophies.

Healing is an important task of the shaman, and good ones travel far to minister to the sick and dying. Health care is a major issue of the Brown campaign, and there was that trip to India to work in Mother Teresa’s hospice.

Shamans are, of course, expected to be visionaries, and many are well-known historical figures. Sitting Bull and his powerful medicine at the Little Big Horn turned aside the forces of Gen. Custer, a shamanic figure in his own right.

There is absolutely no evidence that Jerry Brown has experienced the kind of visions commonly attributed to native American shamans. On the other hand, he speaks at length of the visions he has for the future. He also describes his effort not as a campaign, but a “movement,” a “revolution.” And he’s admitted publicly to have “seen the light” in his conversion to campaign financing and tax reform.

Many shamans acquire their abilities through inheritance. Wovoka, the Paiute messiah and originator of the Ghost Dance, inherited the vision of the Ghost Dance from his father, Tavibo. Jerry Brown comes from a political family and, like Wovoka, has inherited at least some of his father’s vision for leadership.

The crucial test of a shaman’s power is in his ability to be a shape-shifter so that he can rescue lost souls.

Rescuing souls is a dangerous enterprise for the shaman. Many are known to have gotten lost in the land of the dead. Careful preparations must be taken by the shaman to ensure the journey’s success.

Shape-shifting is required of the shaman to fool the forces holding the lost souls. The popular conception is that the shaman changes his looks, but that is his power becoming manifest. The shaman does not change; he simply changes the way he is perceived by the forces holding the souls. It is only the lost souls who can see him as he really is--their rescuer.