5 Shamanic Healing Tools

Shamanic healing tools are the practical instruments of one of the oldest healing traditions on earth: the practices through which a practitioner enters an altered state of awareness, connects with spirit guides and nature allies, and works to restore balance across the physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of a being’s life. These tools have been used across cultures and centuries, and they remain as potent today as they have ever been, for humans and for the animals we live with.

— Indrani Das (Idee), Artemis Animal Healing

I was introduced to shamanic healing tools through the most direct teacher I have ever had: my cat Amadeus, who was diagnosed with a terminal illness. While Amadeus’ time in his physical body was clearly coming to an end, regular sessions with shamanic healing tools helped him live in genuine comfort. His vet had given him two months. He went on to live for eight more, and it was only in his final week that real pain set in. I have seen many others benefit in similar ways since then, cats and dogs with terminal diagnoses who went on to live longer, more comfortable, more joyful lives than anyone expected.

Shamanic healing is also the practice that has most deeply shaped how I work. It is the one I reach for when the wound is old and deep, when the trauma has been held beneath survival patterns for so long it has become invisible, when the animal needs something that reaches beyond the present lifetime into whatever came before.

The Origins of Shamanic Healing

Shamanic healing is one of the most ancient forms of energy practice on earth. Evidence of its use has been traced back to the Paleolithic hunting cultures of Siberia. The word shaman itself has its roots there, used to define someone who is a master of trance and altered states of consciousness.

Shamanic healing tools have been used for thousands of years by indigenous cultures across the world. In many of these traditions, shamans were spiritual leaders and healers who could communicate with the spirit world and work with its inhabitants to bring healing to the living. The specific tools and techniques evolved differently across cultures: Indigenous Americans performed soul flights and vision quests. Inuit shamans believed in undersea spirit journeys to track food sources. Central and South American traditions often used plant medicines to alter consciousness and journey to other realms. Central Asian shamanic practice used drumming and chanting for soul retrieval. The forms differ. The underlying understanding is the same.

Today, shamanic healing tools continue to be used by practitioners worldwide who work across the full spectrum of healing, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, in recognition that the soul must be restored for any other level of healing to be complete.

How Shamanic Healing Tools Work

Shamanic healing is grounded in the understanding that illness and distress are often caused by spiritual disharmony or a disconnection from the natural world. Using the tools below, a shamanic practitioner accesses the spiritual realm, works with spirit guides and nature allies, and restores balance at the root level of whatever is presenting at the surface.

This is a holistic approach in the truest sense of the word: it addresses the whole being rather than isolated symptoms, and it works across dimensions that conventional approaches cannot reach. For a deeper understanding of how shamanic healing works specifically with our animal companions, that post covers the full picture.

The 5 Shamanic Healing Tools

These are the five tools I work with. With training and practice, they can also deepen your own connection with the natural world and with the animals in your life. All of them involve working with allies, the natural world, the spirit world, and the energetic field of the being you are with. This is sacred work, and the most important thing to hold throughout is a genuine respect for the allies who make it possible.

Tool #1: Smudging

Smudging is one of the most accessible entry points into shamanic practice, and one of the most immediately effective. It involves burning herbs such as sage or palo santo to cleanse and purify the energy in a space or around a being, human or animal.

Sage is traditionally used to clear stagnant or heavy energy. Palo santo is used to invite sacred, clean energy into the space that has been cleared. Light the herb, allow it to catch and then settle into a slow, steady smoke, and move it deliberately through the space or around the being you are working with, using a feather or your hand to direct the smoke with intention.

Smudging before any energy healing session clears the energetic field and creates the conditions for the work that follows. It is a simple act of invitation: come in clean, leave what does not belong.

Tool #2: Journeying with a Drum or Rattle

Journeying is the heart of shamanic practice, the deliberate entry into an altered state of consciousness for the purpose of connecting with spirit guides, retrieving information, or facilitating healing. The drum and the rattle are the traditional vehicles for this altered state, and their effectiveness is both ancient and remarkably consistent.

The steady, repetitive beat of the drum, typically around 4 to 7 beats per second, shifts the brain into a theta state, the same state associated with deep meditation, vivid dreaming, and heightened intuitive reception. The rattle serves a similar function through its rhythmic shaking.

Find a place where you can sit or lie comfortably, close your eyes, set a clear intention for the journey, and let the sound carry you. Do not try to direct what arises. Simply follow where the sound leads and observe what you encounter with genuine openness.

Tool #3: Creating an Altar and Sacred Space

An altar is a physical anchor for your shamanic practice, a dedicated space that holds your intention and signals to the spirit world and your own unconscious that this is a place of practice and prayer.

An altar can be as simple or as elaborate as feels right. What matters is that it is a genuine reflection of your connection to spirit, not a decoration. Choose a location, indoors or outdoors, gather items that carry meaning for you: stones, feathers, local plants, earth, water, objects that have arrived through synchronicity or gift. Arrange them in a way that feels balanced and alive.

Use your altar as a place to sit, to set intentions before sessions, to acknowledge the allies you work with, and to complete your practice. The altar is not where the magic lives. It is where you remember that you do.

Tool #4: Working with Animal Spirit Guides

Animal spirit guides are one of the most alive and present aspects of shamanic practice. These are not metaphors. They are real presences, from the spirit world, who offer wisdom, protection, and specific guidance on the practitioner’s path and on behalf of those they are working with.

To connect with your animal spirit guide, set a clear intention to meet them. This can be done through meditation, through shamanic journeying with a drum, or through sustained, open attention to the natural world. Once contact is established, pay attention to what is offered: symbols, felt impressions, direct communication, or repeated physical appearances of the animal in your outer life.

Honor your guides and thank them consistently. The relationship deepens through respect and reciprocity, not through demand.

Tool #5: Working with Nature Allies

At the heart of shamanism is the recognition that we are in relationship with all of creation: the trees, the plants, the stones, the rivers, the mountains, the elements, the directions. These are not backgrounds or resources. They are beings, holders of ancient wisdom, and active participants in the healing work when invited.

Working with nature allies means stepping out of the human-centric view of the world entirely and entering into genuine communion with what is around you. The oak tree at the edge of the forest. The stone that arrived in your path unexpectedly. The river that runs below the town. Each carries a specific quality of energy and wisdom that a practitioner can work with directly.

This is the oldest form of partnership in human experience, and in my practice, the nature allies I work with are as present and as influential in a session as any technique I have trained in.

Walking the Shaman’s Path

If you feel drawn toward a deeper exploration of shamanic healing, the first step is to cultivate a genuine sense of oneness with all of creation. Not as a concept, but as a lived experience. Go outside. Sit with a tree. Listen to water. Notice what arrives when you stop treating the natural world as scenery.

Find a teacher. Most shamanic healing practices are considered sacred transmissions, passed from teacher to student through a bond that is itself part of the healing. The relationship between teacher and student in this tradition often feels as though it has been meeting for more than one lifetime. Finding the right teacher matters as much as finding the right practice.

And once you are on the path, you will understand what I mean when I say:

“Shamanism is a sacred path that can fill your life with the wonder of the ancient way of living. On this path, you will meet your spirit guides and helping nature allies. You will start honouring the trees, the plants, the stones, the fire, the water, the air, Mother Earth and all of creation. You will find life changing with powerful transformations once you start walking down this way.”

Written by Indrani Das (Idee), founder of Artemis Animal Healing, animal intuitive, communicator, energy healing practitioner and teacher.