Week 2 - Eunice Valencia

Eunice Valencia
Week 2
ASA 189B

I didn’t know anything about Shamanism until today’s guest speaker, Houa L. Her from the United Hmong Shaman Organization and Pa Lor’s “Journey between Two Worlds.” Houa and Pa Lor both have a gift of being called and chosen by the Shaman spirits. It is interesting because Pa Lor and Houa felt as if they were dying, but to find out it was the Shaman spirits. As I learned, a Shaman cannot just practice but they are chosen. It takes a while and lots of practice. Shamanism for the Hmong people, and many others, is spiritual healing.

Houa mentions how the physical and spiritual world are connected. There is also a difference between the soul and the spirit. The soul is affiliated with the physical, living body, while the spirit is the deceased. There are also different kinds of spirits, such as reincarnation and ancestral. Pa Lor mentions something interesting which is that spirits only can be seen when they want to be. The soul can also wonder and has a possibility of being lost, but the spirits within the house must be strong enough to protect it. As I asked before, something that really intrigues me is what happens to the physical body after the soul has left? Does it come back? Or does someone else reincarnate in that physical body?