Lying on the ground, blindfolded, thirty people breathe in unison. They inflate their chests and then exhale forcefully, carried by intense melodies, punctuated by tribal rhythms. The atmosphere is charged with incense and emotion. Some hands clench, legs jump, bodies tremble. Tears and sobs mix with laughter. Screams echo through the room, including a heart-pounding one: ” I love you ! “
This exercise of Shamanic breathing took place in the spring, in the suburbs of Lyon, in a large industrial loft, often rented as a dance hall or reception room. “By modulating breathing to the point of hyperventilation, the brain goes into sleep mode, unless we are awake”, explains Charlotte Hoefman. With a serene smile and brown hair, the 32-year-old leads retreats that combine yoga, mantra chanting and shamanic techniques such as breathing and drumming.
“Tools” discovered in her twenties, after the sudden death of her father. Charlotte Hoefman, a recent graduate of Sciences Po Lyon, was thrown into a state of wonder. For six months she was bedridden. Then she ended up buying a one-way ticket to Nepal and travelling for two years. She climbed peaks over 5,000 metres, discovered yoga in India and shamanism in Mongolia, where she entered into a trance, carried by the sound of the drum. “My jaws closed, my eyelids rolled back, and I was frightened. Only later did I learn that certain sounds put us into an altered state of consciousness, a subject that is the subject of scientific research. It calmed me down and excited me.”
“Awakening of consciousness”
However, both in her practices and on social media, where she has more than one hundred thousand subscribers, Charlotte Hoefman avoids making references to shamanism and prefers to talk about “awakening of consciousness”. “ I practice shamanism without saying it. To pronounce this term is to provoke a lot of projections. Some people hope to enter a trance, others to see their totem animal and others to take psychotropic drugs. Shamanism is abused. »
Drum circles, festivals, saunas – a kind of Native American sauna that allows communication with spirits – shamanism unfolds in France under many faces. “Shaman apprentices come from a variety of backgrounds.says independent anthropologist Laetitia Merli. They choose the tradition that suits them best, they play with their own spirituality. »
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