by Jarred James Breaux

Created on: March 05, 2008   Last Updated: March 06, 2008

In a time when men and the church ruled over Europe, there was one woman who was able to rise above all others and saved her country from the English. She was Joan of Arc. Not only did she fight in battle alongside men, she also claimed that she spoke to St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and St. Michael and they all told her to defend her country and showed her how. The Catholic Church viewed this as a heresy and she was tried and convicted by an ecclesiastical court. She was burned at the stake, like many other "witches" in that day.

Joan of Arc possesses many shamanistic qualities that may not be apparent at first glance. First, and probably most importantly, she was connected to the spiritual world. She was able to transverse the axis mundi and speak to the angels of God directly. From an early age she began to experience visions of the saints. The claimed she was visited by St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and St. Michael. Anne Llewellyn Barstow describes Joan of Arc as "one, that is, who crossed the barrier between this world and the realm of the spirits to become the source of healing strength and saving knowledge, a magical leader in her people's dark hour." While she was not a healer in the traditional sense, she definitely raised patriotism in France. She also cross-dressed in the field and in prison, not only because she took on the role of a man as a warrior but also because it supposedly preserved her chastity. Joan of Arc is also reported to have had psychic abilities, since she knew of the fall of the French at the Battle of the Herrings immediately after the event occurred and long before news traveled to her area.

Joan of Arc when through an initiation process very similar to that of a shaman. Often what we see with a shaman is an act of being chosen, either by sickness, heredity, or by some divine power around the age of puberty. At the age of thirteen, Joan began receiving messages from the saints. Another defining characteristic of a shaman is the adaptation of his or her identity to fit the role of the shaman. A shaman may exile himself or herself from the community and go on some type of journey to undergo this change. We see this same behavior Joan when she decides to leave home. At the age of seventeen, Joan had convinced Durand Laxart, her cousin, to take her with him to Vaucouleurs. She used a lie that she told her father to convince him to let her go. Then, she convinced Robert de Baudricourt and Jean de Nouillonpont, high ranking military men

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