How does one shapeshift

Finally shapeshifting allows you to take on animal form while on shamanic journeys or while you visit the astral plane. To learn to shapeshift you should be in a place where you can meditate, but where there is enough room to move around. You should be dressed comfortably or undressed comfortably, if that is your preference so that you may move freely.

Relax, close your eyes, call and greet the animal spirit you wish to shapeshift to. Let yourself become that animal in posture, stance, movement and sound. How does this animal see, hear, taste, touch, smell? What is it experiencing? Move as it would move. Become it with all the abandon of a small child.

Examples abound of the shape shifting of plants, animals, humans, and gods. Shape shifting can be caused either by the object changed or by an external force; it can occur for good or for ill and for reasons simple or profound. Shape shifting is found in essentially every religion and mythological tradition.

By no means is it a phenomenon restricted to unsophisticated cultures remote in history and geography from the dominant civilisations. An enduring fascination with shape shifting is easily detected in modern popular culture as well as in the major religions: Comic-book and cartoon characters such as Superman and Spiderman are typical shape-shifters, says the Encylopedia.

It is perhaps because of this mystique that shape shifting has always been a popular topic in the print and electronic media, in films, for people in all age groups. From werewolves and vampires to sorcerers and wizards, fiction is packed with characters who have the fascinating power to take on another form it was pointed out. But while Dracula is well-known for turning into a bat, he could also shape shift into fog and a wolf.

She is the central character of the novel Mother of Kings by Poul Anderson, which considerably elaborates on her shapeshifting abilities. In Armenian mythology, shapeshifters include the Nhang , a serpentine river monster than can transform itself into a woman or seal, and will drown humans and then drink their blood; or the beneficial Shahapet , a guardian spirit that can appear either as a man or a snake. Scriptures describe shapeshifting Rakshasa demons assuming animal forms to deceive humans.

The Ramayana also includes the Vanara, a group of apelike humanoids who possessed supernatural powers and could change their shapes. In the Indian fable, The Dog Bride from Folklore of the Santal Parganas by Cecil Henry Bompas, a buffalo herder falls in love with a dog that has the power to turn into a woman when she bathes. Philippine mythology includes the Aswang, a vampiric monster capable of transforming into a bat, a large black dog, a black cat, a black boar or some other form in order to stalk humans at night.

The folklore also mentions other beings such as the Kapre, the Tikbalang and the Engkanto, which change their appearances to woo beautiful maidens. Also, talismans called " anting-anting " or " birtud " in the local dialect , can give their owners the ability to shapeshift.

In one tale, Chonguita the Monkey Wife , a woman is turned into a monkey, only becoming human again if she can marry a handsome man. Tatar folklore includes Yuxa, a hundred-year-old snake that can transform itself into a beautiful young woman, and seeks to marry men in order to have children.

Chinese mythology contains many tales of animal shapeshifters, capable of taking on human form. The most common such shapeshifter is the huli jing, a fox spirit which usually appears as a beautiful young woman; most are dangerous, but some feature as the heroines of love stories.

Madame White Snake is one such legend; a snake falls in love with a man, and the story recounts the trials that she and her husband faced. The fox, or kitsune is among the most commonly known, but other such creatures include the bakeneko, the mujina and the tanuki.

Korean mythology also contains a fox with the ability to shapeshift. Unlike its Chinese and Japanese counterparts, the kumiho is always malevolent. Usually its form is of a beautiful young woman; one tale recounts a man, a would-be seducer, revealed as a kumiho.

The kumiho has nine tails and as she desires to be a full human, she uses her beauty to seduce men and eat their hearts or in some cases livers where the belief is that livers would turn her into a real human. In Somali mythology Qori ismaris "One who rubs himself with a stick" was a man who could transform himself into a "Hyena-man" by rubbing himself with a magic stick at nightfall and by repeating this process could return to his human state before dawn.

The Ligahoo or loup-garou is the shapeshifter of Trinidad and Tobago's folklore. This unique ability is believed to be handed down in some old creole families, and is usually associated with witch-doctors and practitioners of African magic.

There is, however, more to the word "Nahuel" - it can also signify "a man who by sorcery has been transformed into a puma" or jaguar. Shapeshifting may be used as a plot device, such as when Puss in Boots in the fairy tales tricks the ogre into becoming a mouse to be eaten. Shapeshifting may also include symbolic significance, like the Beast's transformation in Beauty and the Beast indicates Belle's ability to accept him despite his appearance. When a form is taken on involuntarily, the thematic effect can be one of confinement and restraint; the person is bound to the new form.

In extreme cases, such as petrifaction, the character is entirely disabled. On the other hand, voluntary shapeshifting can be a means of escape and liberation.

Even when the form is not undertaken to resemble a literal escape, the abilities specific to the form allow the character to act in a manner that was previously impossible. Examples of this are in fairy tales. A prince who is forced into a bear's shape as in East of the Sun and West of the Moon is a prisoner, but a princess who takes on a bear's shape voluntarily to flee a situation as in The She-Bear escapes with her new shape.

In the Earthsea books, Ursula K. Le Guin depicts an animal form as slowly transforming the wizard's mind, so that the dolphin, bear or other creature forgets it was human, making it impossible to change back. This makes an example for a voluntary shapeshifting becoming an imprisoning metamorphosis. Beyond this, the uses of shapeshifting, transformation, and metamorphosis in fiction are as protean as the forms the characters take on.

Some are rare, such as Italo Calvino's "The Canary Prince" is a Rapunzel variant in which shapeshifting is used to gain access to the tower.

In many cases, imposed forms are punitive in nature. This may be a just punishment, the nature of the transformation matching the crime for which it occurs; in other cases, the form is unjustly imposed by an angry and powerful person. In fairy tales, such transformations are usually temporary, but they commonly appear as the resolution of myths as in many of the Metamorphoses or produce origin myths.

In many fairy tales and ballads, as in Child Ballad 44, The Twa Magicians or Farmer Weathersky , a magical chase occurs where the pursued endlessly takes on forms in an effort to shake off the pursuer, and the pursuer answers with shapeshifting, as, a dove is answered with a hawk, and a hare with a greyhound. The pursued may finally succeed in escape or the pursuer in capturing.

The Grimm Brothers fairy tale Foundling-Bird contains this as the bulk of the plot. In the Italian Campania Fables collection of Pentamerone by Gianbattista Basile, tells of a Neapolitan princess who, to escape from her father who had imprisoned her, becomes a huge she-bear. The magic happens due to a potion given to her by an old witch.

The girl, once gone, can regain her human aspect. In other variants, the pursued may transform various objects into obstacles, as in the fairy tale "The Master Maid", where the Master Maid transforms a wooden comb into a forest, a lump of salt into a mountain, and a flask of water into a sea.

In these tales, the pursued normally escapes after overcoming three obstacles. This obstacle chase is literally found worldwide, in many variants in every region.

In a similar effect, a captive may shapeshift in order to break a hold on him. Proteus and Nereus's shapeshifting was to prevent heroes such as Menelaus and Heracles from forcing information from them. Tam Lin, once seized by Janet, was transformed by the fairies to keep Janet from taking him, but as he had advised her, she did not let go, and so freed him. The motif of capturing a person by holding him through many transformations is found in folktales throughout Europe, and Patricia A.

McKillip references it in her Riddle-Master trilogy : a shapeshifting Earthmaster finally wins its freedom by startling the man holding it. One motif is a shape change in order to obtain abilities in the new form. Berserkers were held to change into wolves and bears in order to fight more effectively. In many cultures, evil magicians could transform into animal shapes and thus skulk about.

In many fairy tales, the hero's talking animal helper proves to be a shapeshifted human being, able to help him in its animal form. In one variation, featured in The Three Enchanted Princes and The Death of Koschei the Deathless , the hero's three sisters have been married to animals. These prove to be shapeshifted men, who aid their brother-in-law in a variant of tale types.

In an early Mayan text, the Shapeshifter, or Mestaclocan, has the ability to change his appearance and to manipulate the minds of animals.

In one tale, the Mestaclocan finds a dying eagle. Changing into the form of an eagle, he convinces the dying bird that it is, in fact, not dying. As the story goes they both soar into the heavens, and lived together for eternity. Beauty and the Beast has been interpreted as a young woman's coming-of-age, in which she changes from being repulsed by sexual activity and regarding a husband therefore bestial, to a mature woman who can marry.

Some shapeshifters are able to change form only if they have some item, usually an article of clothing.