Shamanism and Chod

The stories of Chodpas are legendary. They can bring the rain, heal disease, stop pestilence, change the course of natural disasters. There is one text in the famous Precious Rosary of Offerings (Rinchen Tsogley Trengwa) that is specifically for preventing hail. Chod practitioners are regularly called upon to officiate over the death rituals, and to banish negative forces, wild spirits and unruly demons that inflict harm on people and their possessions. With all these extraordinary powers, are not Chod masters essentially Shamans? And is not the practice itself, as one internet posting calls it, “an advanced form of Shamanism?” At a casual glance it may seem so, but a deeper, more precise investigation may give us an altogether different story.

Purpose and Intention: Chod and Shamanism