When Dr. Malidoma Patrice Somé, a West African shaman, first came to the United States, he was deeply disturbed by how Western medicine treated mental illness. What psychiatrists labeled as depression, psychosis, or schizophrenia looked to him like something entirely different — the beginning of a spiritual awakening.
In his Dagara tribe, such experiences are not considered pathological but sacred. They call them “the birth of healers.” According to Dr. Somé, when a person begins hearing voices or seeing visions, it is often a sign that they are being called to serve as a bridge between the physical and the spiritual worlds. Rather than suppressing these experiences with drugs, his people guide them through ritual and connection.
“Mental illness,” he explained, “occurs when two powerful but incompatible energies occupy the same auric field. If a person doesn’t know how to integrate the energy from the spirit world, chaos arises.” What Western doctors view as disorder, the Dagara see as initiation — an awakening of the soul.
When Dr. Somé visited American psychiatric wards, he recognized the same symptoms he had seen in future healers at home. The difference was that these Western patients were sedated and isolated instead of guided and supported. “It’s a great loss,” he said. “People who have been given special gifts from the spirit world are being wasted.”
In his homeland, the entire community helps a person undergoing a spiritual transformation. Shamans use a cleansing ritual called sweeping to remove foreign energies from the aura, allowing the person to stabilize and integrate new vibrations. If the incoming energy is positive, the shaman nurtures it to awaken healing power. If it’s negative, they remove it through ritual purification.
To test whether this approach could help in the West, Dr. Somé worked with an 18-year-old boy diagnosed with schizophrenia. After four years in hospitals and heavy medication, his family sent him to Africa. Eight months into shamanic treatment and ritual, the boy’s condition improved dramatically. He stayed with the Dagara tribe for four years, returned to the U.S., and later graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology.
Dr. Somé believed that such healings happen because the root of mental illness often lies in a spiritual disconnection — not only from the self, but also from ancestors. In Dagara tradition, when an ancestor’s energy remains unresolved, it seeks reconciliation through the living. If the descendant ignores that call, turmoil follows. Rituals are performed to heal both the living and the dead, restoring harmony across worlds.
He taught that treating mental illness through ritual and understanding opens new doors for humanity. When we suppress spiritual awakening, we lose the opportunity for growth. When we nurture it, we give birth to wisdom, empathy, and new forms of healing.
“What the West calls a breakdown,” Dr. Somé often said, “we call a breakthrough.”
Perhaps the truth lies not in choosing between science and spirit, but in bringing them together. For those experiencing a spiritual awakening, compassion and understanding may be the very medicine that modern psychiatry has overlooked.