Interfaith Group

is loosely definable as the sensory perception of spiritual beings and in some cases the reception of knowledge not available by ordinary sensory means. (Which is nothing official, just my attempt to get it into orthodox Western categories, and my academic knee jerking.)

Every NA nation has one or more ceremonies for seeking a vision, and those do occur within a religious context. Two of the most common are the vision quest and the shaking-lodge ceremony.

The vision quest is a rite of passage for young people. Its purpose is to open communication between the seeker and the spiritual being who will become her/his patron and helper, usually for the rest of his/her life. This spiritual being may be in human or other animal form, or may appear as something Western culture doesn't recognize as sentient--a tree, for instance, or a stone. The vision quest may also be used in to seek a solution to a specific problem.

The shaking-lodge ceremony is less common and more intense. It can be used for healing and for finding lost persons or objects. (In the case of a plane crash, for instance.) In this ceremony, the shaman undergoes sensory deprivation by being wrapped and tied into a covering, now usually a star quilt. There are prayers and drumming by the group attending for the intention of the ceremony. A fairly universal feature of this ceremony is the entry of the spirits manifested as blue or green sparks and sometimes the sound of the spirit animal who is the shaman's patron or who has been explicitly invoked for the purpose of the ceremony. At this time, the lodge and rattles placed on the lodge floor will shake. All this takes place in darkness. When the shaman has received the answer that is being sought, the spirits depart and the shaman is untied.

Hallucinatory plants are not used in these ceremonies.

Visions also occur spontaneously, sometimes in the course of another ceremony, sometimes completely out of ceremonial context. Those tend to be prophetic or what is usually regarded as clairvoyant--the person sees or hears an event happening at a distance or in the future or past.

Off to the ceramics studio to throw things now but please feel free to ask other questions.