The Volkhvy: Slavic Shamans, Seers, and the Path of the Magical Practitioner

Before the priests of the new religion came, there were the Volkhvy.

They were the seers, the shamans, the magical practitioners of the pre-Christian Slavic world — the people who could move between the worlds, who could speak with the spirits, who could heal what ordinary medicine could not touch, who could see what was hidden and know what was coming. They were the specialists of the sacred, the intermediaries between the human community and the forces that governed its life.

The Church worked hard to eliminate them. The chronicles record their persecution, their exile, their execution. And yet the knowledge they carried did not disappear. It went underground, as it always does — into the folk tradition, into the practice of the znakharka, into the stories told about Baba Yaga and the Leshy and the spirits of the dead. And now, in the twenty-first century, it is returning.

Who the Volkhvy Were

The word volkhv (plural volkhvy) is one of the oldest words in the Slavic languages for a magical practitioner. Its etymology is uncertain — it may be related to words meaning wolf, or to words meaning to speak or to prophesy. The Volkhvy were the wolf-people, the speakers, the prophets — or all three simultaneously.

They were not a single type. The Slavic magical tradition recognized several distinct roles within the broader category of the Volkhvy:

The vedun (masculine) or vedma (feminine) — the knowing one, the one who has knowledge of the hidden world. The root ved means to know, and it connects to the Sanskrit veda (sacred knowledge) and to the English wit and wisdom. The vedun/vedma was the practitioner of magical knowledge in its broadest sense.

The znakhar/znakharka — the healer, the one who knows the plants and the charms. As discussed in the previous article, the znakharka was the village specialist in healing and protective magic.

The koldun — the sorcerer, the one who works with the forces of transformation. The koldun's practice was more explicitly magical than the znakharka's — more concerned with the direct manipulation of spiritual forces and less with the healing of specific conditions.

The vorozhei — the diviner, the one who reads signs and omens. The vorozhei specialized in the various forms of Slavic divination discussed in the previous article.

These roles overlapped in practice. A single practitioner might be znakharka, vorozhei, and vedma simultaneously. The distinctions are analytical rather than absolute.

The Shamanic Dimension

The Volkhvy tradition has a shamanic dimension that distinguishes it from the folk magic tradition of the znakharka. Where the znakharka works primarily within the ordinary world — using plants, charms, and protective objects to address conditions in the living world — the Volkhvy in their shamanic aspect work by moving between the worlds: by entering altered states of consciousness, traveling to Nav or Prav, communicating directly with the spirits, and returning with knowledge or power that cannot be obtained in the ordinary world.

This shamanic practice has parallels with the shamanic traditions of Siberia and Central Asia — not surprisingly, given the historical connections between the Slavic peoples and the nomadic cultures of the Eurasian steppe. The techniques are similar: the use of rhythmic drumming or other sound to induce altered states, the concept of the soul journey to other worlds, the role of spirit helpers and guides, the return with knowledge or healing power.

The Slavic shamanic tradition uses specific techniques for world-traveling. The drum is one — the rhythmic beat that carries the practitioner between the worlds. The banya (steam bath) is another — the heat and steam creating the physiological conditions for altered states. Specific plants — mugwort, fly agaric in some traditions — are used to facilitate the journey. And the specific postures and movements of the shamanic dance are used to embody the spirits and to move between the worlds.

Spirit Helpers and Allies

The Volkhvy do not work alone. They work with spirit helpers — beings from the other worlds who assist the practitioner in their work, who provide information, protection, and power that the practitioner cannot access alone.

The most important spirit helpers in the Slavic tradition are the ancestors. The Volkhvy maintain a particularly close relationship with the ancestral spirits — not just their own family ancestors, but the ancestors of the tradition itself: the practitioners who came before, whose knowledge and power are available to those who know how to ask for them.

Animal spirits are also important helpers. The wolf is the most significant — the animal most closely associated with the Volkhvy tradition, the animal of the boundary between the human world and the wild, the animal of the pack and the hunt and the night. The bear is another important helper — the animal of the forest's power, of hibernation and resurrection, of the deep wisdom that comes from the earth. The raven is the messenger between the worlds, the bird of Veles, the carrier of hidden knowledge.

The relationship with spirit helpers is developed over time through practice, through offering, and through the willingness to be changed by the relationship. The spirit helper is not a tool to be used. It is a being to be in relationship with — a relationship that requires the same qualities of respect, reciprocity, and attention that all relationships in the Slavic tradition require.

The Calling and the Training

In the traditional understanding, the Volkhvy are called rather than chosen. The calling comes through specific experiences: a near-death experience, a serious illness that is survived against expectation, a period of madness or extreme psychological crisis, a dream or vision that cannot be ignored. These experiences are understood as the spirits' way of selecting the practitioner — of breaking down the ordinary personality enough to create the opening through which the shamanic capacity can develop.

This is not a comfortable process. The traditional Slavic understanding is that the Volkhvy pays a price for their capacity — that the ability to move between the worlds comes at the cost of a certain distance from the ordinary world, a certain difficulty in the relationships and structures that most people take for granted. The practitioner who has been to the edge and returned is not quite the same as the person who has never left the center.

The training that follows the calling is long and demanding. It involves the development of the specific skills of the tradition: the ability to enter and navigate altered states, the knowledge of the plants and their uses, the mastery of the zagovory (verbal charms), the development of relationships with the spirit helpers, and the cultivation of the qualities — courage, discernment, compassion, and the willingness to be of service — that the work requires.

The Volkhvy Today

The Volkhvy tradition is experiencing a genuine revival in the contemporary Slavic world. In Russia, Ukraine, and other Slavic countries, practitioners are reconstructing the tradition from the fragments that survived — from the folk magic tradition, from the ethnographic records, from the comparative study of related shamanic traditions, and from direct practice and the knowledge that comes from working with the spirits themselves.

This revival is not uniform. It ranges from serious, rigorous practitioners who approach the tradition with scholarly depth and genuine spiritual commitment, to more casual practitioners who use Slavic elements as aesthetic or cultural markers without deep engagement with the tradition's demands. As with any living tradition, the quality of the practice varies enormously.

What the best contemporary Volkhvy share is a commitment to the core principles of the tradition: the maintenance of right relationship with the spirits, the ancestors, and the natural world; the willingness to be of service to the community; the ongoing development of the skills and qualities that the work requires; and the humility to know that the tradition is larger than any individual practitioner, and that the work of learning never ends.

Next and final in this series: How to begin a Slavic practice today — a practical guide for those who feel the call of the old ways.