Why do we need titles?

Milfoil said:

Perhaps because you are so comfortable with your beliefs and who you are, the title or description you seek is to aid others in their understanding of what you do? That seems to be the other side of the blade. Mind you, if people sought out healing simply based on recommendation then the method or description wouldn't be necessary.

We are, however, surrounded by so many scammers and charlatans that nobody knows who to trust or what anything means any more. So people go with what they know and believe in - that means they need a title or description to base their beliefs on I guess.

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Yes, you're right I think. It's about letting others know. Most of the time there's no need to let anyone know my beliefs, and if I happened to be in conversation with, say, a vicar who happened to ask, then there'd be time to take a few sentences to elaborate rather than fitting the complicated thing into a nutshell.

Actually that's it, not only communicating, but communicating in a soundbite.

well

coming from a native north american none shaman point of view we don't really called our medicine men.

instead we describe he is a lodge keeper (for sweat lodge,or moon lodge ) shaking tent worker ), to cancer worker.
and that is just the titles I heard over here in my area of north western Ontario havent' gone to see how the cree, or Sioux or other tribes call their traditional healers.

from the titles you mention..
if i was to describe the person they would have to tell me they were a witch or i would use the more gentle wiccian title.

there is a bit of difference between trance medium as someone who goes full on into a trance, and a medium who for me wouldn't go into a trance but be more of a john Edwards type. to psychic medium which for me would be doing more of a clairvoyant type of readings with medium messages given as well.

for me when it comes to shaman.
a shaman would be a person who full on experience and lives the walk,, while a shamanic praticoner means to me they practiced , but they aren't full on a shaman. perhaps using other techiques.

there is a difference between a tradional ojibwe healer and a shaman for the traditional healer got their teachings from another teacher orally and adhere to the teachings they were given aka that is where the traditional title comes from. I havent' seen an journeying to get power animals, or soul retrievals here in traditional ceremonies, instead they might get names or have sickness sucked out with an eagle fan.
and a lot of time it is to call upon the spirits for blessings for the person.
here the title would be important to the traditional healer community compared to a shamanic community.
I personally remember sharing my studies with a traditional healer i was working on , and he said that i sounded like a Satanist to him.
and i was surpised by that.
I think that was old school mentality even of traditional healers at tarot and such possibly steaming from the residential school mentality.

(i can't speak for the wiccan community as i haven't studied it, so have to keep my understanding of titles to what i know. )

as for the rest,, I have no basis for them so i would have to ask what they were before hand.

HOLMES said:

as for the rest,, I have no basis for them so i would have to ask what they were before hand.

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Isn't that the point? - no one has a clear idea of the meanings of very many of these terms.

More of a problem is when someone doesn't ask, but thinks they already know. If a new acquaintance told me they were a witch, for example, I'd have a pretty good idea what that meant and would probably ask if Wicca was their religion. But to many, the word 'witch' means a cackling woman pointy black hat, warts on hair nose and green hair. Who casts spells, mainly to do harm, and can't possibly exists. To others it means someone who practises black magic and perhaps dances naked with others who share her (always "her") anti-Christian beliefs.

Maybe those whose mental image is the pointy hat etc would have to ask what, if not that! but those who have heard about magic and stuff being taken seriously won't necessarily know they need to ask, because they already "know".

This is the danger when we get knowledgeable about anything (not only this woowoo stuff ): we forget what we didn't know, when we didn't know enough about it to know how much we didn't know. We forget that's the perspective that most people are coming from.

MandMaud said:

Isn't that the point? - no one has a clear idea of the meanings of very many of these terms.
.

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actually the point I was making is we use many titles to describe a person by their interests, and talents.. especially since a person may be gifted in the lodge, but not in the shaking tent for many reasons , perhaps just simple interest as so we don't use simple broad title for everything.

but in this case where it comes to the traditional healing part, and I describe to another local,, they usually know if they went to lodges before,, or had some sort of traditional teachings what I am talking about.

so we have both sides of the point,,
for those who know what we are talking about ,, it is easy to use desciptions but for someone totally new,, how they would know what a lodge keeper, or a person gifted in shaking tent..
so titles that effectively describe something or someone has a lot of meaning.

As humans we love to categorise ourselves! As much as we all say "just take someone as they come", we like to group ourselves by our interests and parts of ourselves. There is people on AT who post all the time that they read tarot and try to reading intuitively and then wonder are they psychic? are they channelling? are we all psychic? what happens if they tried a little spell in their homes, are they then a witch? The titles limit us in life because it's hard to move between them. What happens if you think you are psychic and a witch? but I think psychologically it's comforting to us, we meet other people who use that title and can relate, it helps us define ourselves. But pretty much everyone on AT, crosses the "boundaries" of their titles all the time.

As a real beginner and studying in the world of paganism / wicca / witchcraft, whatever title to use, I have no idea what I am!

HOLMES said:

so we have both sides of the point,,

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Yes!

And Daniel, yes, in a way it's like a style of clothing that allows like-minded to recognise each other. We are social animals, we need a group identity.

But it is also jargon, and the nature of jargon is that people who aren't "in the know" don't understand it. We need to stay aware of this.

I am a cisgender bisexual woman who practices solitary, hoodoo-based witchcraft. When asked about my religious or spiritual affiliation, I usually respond that I am a pagan and a Goddess-worshipper.

Titles don't bother me; the titles that a person chooses for him or herself tells me a lot about how that person sees the world, and how that person sees him/herself in it.

Daniel, I agree -- it's human nature to categorize ourselves .

Seeing this thread yesterday, I had to laugh!
See, I was just officially hired by the city of Bracebridge and its education and recreation department – as a shaman.
I did not ask for this, they came and asked me, several times, iffff I was not going to come and teach in town, “for everyone” instead in my own home for a few......
AND I would get paid by them!
I was not interested.
See, they just want “in“ on what I do since over 20 years and what they usually pay me for as an “independent consultant”and workshop provider in this department – and THAT did cost them more money, as when they would hire me.
But, in the end they chewed me down and I agreed – at least for this winter – to see, how it goes.......

They first wanted to write "Shaman/ Medicine Woman” onto my contract of employment and on the fliers for the string of different workshops I agreed to provide. But I told them, the word Medicine Woman was controversial, as it is understood – by the Native American (First Nations) - to mean “one of THEIR Medicine People" – like a Lodge Leader, Faith Keeper (Sachem) or Shaking Tent man or Pipe Carrier........
The word shaman is not as widely known among the general population here in Ontario and often I get asked, what exactly that is. When I explain, that it is a Siberian term for a “Medicine Person, that gains information and help from the Spirit World during theta trance journeys brought on by drumming ”
they say Ooh, like a Medicine Man! – Or ah, you are a Witch Doctor!

NO, I am not!
I am not a witch and I am not a doctor, although I do have a current RN licence and am trained as a Jungian analyst from a Western university.
My father's people call a person that does the things I do a "Kham", leading Khamlanies = healing and other rituals.
Udega is another similar word but it rather describes a person working with herbs and potions.
Someone who uses drums and chants , who has one or more Spirit Guides, mostly in Animal form that he or she contacts while drumming in order to find out what is wrong with a client is called a Kham. The word this culture uses is Shaman, also a Siberian word, Tunguse to be precise, it is descriptive of someone entering ecstatic trance in order to help, advise, divine, heal, and otherwise aid the community.
Living here in the West I claim this word as a befitting description for me because it points not only towards what I do but also to my Siberian heritage and distances me from the also often used term "Medicine Woman" that implies Native American heritage and incidentally would be analogues to the word Udega among Siberian people.
Shaman however is not what I do, it is what I am. It permeates every aspect of my daily life, my art, the way I teach at elementary and university level, the way I engage the Spirits in order to facilitate healing, the way I mentor my students, and how I conduct public multicultural gatherings and rituals.

But generally the ordinary folk here in Muskoka do not care so much about what I am called; they are waaaay more interested in what I do and what I teach THEM to do.
One lady, that signed up for the upcoming drum workshop and was advised by one of the town clerks taking in her application, that no, I was not going to do any healing right there.... She reportedly replied: ”I do not care if Mi-Shell teaches knitting this fall, my sisters and me and a few friends will be there and we will learn something that will be important to us – and besides, something awesome always happens anyway.....”
Well, we will see.....

thanks for sharing Mi-Shell and hope the "shaman healer" classes go well in town

So essentially, what I am reading from everyone is that there is a need for others to know what we do; a disambiguation which helps people understand what to expect or how to perceive. However, the misunderstandings seem to be caused by the sheer proliferation of titles and the cultural crossover which we see in much of the world today. Gone are the times when one people understood one language and culture in their area so there was only one or two words required to describe the job they did. Now we have so many cultures living alongside one another, so many languages and differing perceptions that a lot of confusion is getting stirred up in the mix.

But all that comes down to what others call us and we can educate about that. Aspiring to a title which seems exotic, rather than having a heritage which uses that description is another kettle of fish entirely. This mix of cultures and languages, along with a lot of confusion arising from enforced religious dictates over hundreds of years which has stripped away the older traditions and beliefs leaves many bereft of a peg on which to hang their hat. It's all too easy to adopt the currently glamorous and adapt it to fit by adding an extra bit or changing it to suit, then we end up with this plethora of niche titles and lots of people justifiably confused over the pick-and-mix beliefs they hold.