沙門 

ㄕㄚ ㄇㄣˊ

Sand Door

Experientially there is only one religion, and it is shamanism and shamanic ecstasy.

Terence McKenna

From Proto-Tungusic *samān (šaman, meaning "one who knows" “shaman”), Nanai сама̄н and Manchu ᠰᠠᠮᠠᠨ (samanᠰᠠᠮᠠᠨ) from Evenki шама̄н (şamān), сама̄н (samān). The Evenki word is possibly derived from the root ша- ("to know"); or else a loanword from Tocharian B ṣamāne (“monk”) or Chinese 沙門 (shāmén, “Buddhist monk”), from Pali samaṇa from Sanskrit श्रमण (śramaṇa, “ascetic, monk, devotee” "one who labours, toils, or exerts themselves [for some higher or religious purpose]"), from श्रम (śrama, “weariness, exhaustion; labour, toil; etc.”), which would make this a doublet of Sramana श्रमण (śramaṇa, “ascetic, monk, Sramana”) or Pali samaṇa, likely via Middle Chinese 沙門 (shāmén).

There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were.

حضرت عنایت رحمت خان پٹھان‎ Inayat Rehmat Khan Pathan

Mama Rosa, a shaman from the Shipibo Tribe, an indigenous people along the Ucayali River in the Amazon rainforest in Peru.

In a visionary state, a shaman experiences the spirit of a plant coming to him and telling him how a particular plant can be used to treat some ailment. In the shamanic context, the shaman takes this experience at face value as a communication between two beings. However, this is not what is happening. The shaman is God and is therefore the plant, the shaman, the patient, and the disease.

Martin W. Ball

I believe that used responsibly and in a mature way, the entheogens mediate access to the numinous dimensions of existence, have a great healing and transformative potential, and represent a very important tool for spiritual development.

Stanislav Grof