The Changing Face of Shamanism

Shamanism is the first spiritual practice born from encounters with nature as a living organism. In the earliest stages of our body-self development, proto-human, we were embedded in nature and nature, animals, plants, rivers and trees spoke through us, we could not differentiate reality and had no absolute sense of individual self. At some point in this development we ingested entheogenic plant substances and this was probably the first major factor in awakening a more lucid awareness of environment and self.

Shamanism then developed through necessity, through the connection to dead relatives, through the need to find shelter, safety and food and other types of guidance and of course healing.

As tribal cultures developed, shamanism was the essential method of connection, healing and meaning.

Throughout human development shamanism has been coloured to some extent by cultural development, but still retains a core purpose of reclaiming primal connectivity.

The human soul has gradually been more and more immersed in the physical world and the separation between us and nature simultaneously increased.

The soul’s descension and the accompanying veiling of our soul’s non corporeal origins is also accessed via shamanic methodology.

The evolution of human consciousness involves increasing sophistication in the material realm we call it progress and an imperative to reclaim and re-thread our memories backwards to reconnect to our source and to know our spiritual journey through the millennia and back before time.

Progress as any fool can see has its cost, that is okay, it is the process of development. Now, in order to move forward we need to retrace our consciousness, recapitulate, retrieve lost power, repair and remember our past, in order to free ourselves from the limiting story we call history.  

In our present era, the opportunity, nay necessity is being presented to integrate the forward and backward trajectory of the human psyche, in effect to expand beyond linear time.

Blade Runner by LjL

The intent of cutting edge Shamanism has radically changed and is now presenting us with the creative ground of finding ways to utilize traditional methods and tools with the contemporary and science fiction vision we get with technology. Shamanism once freed from its indigenous shackles is naturally suited to the science fiction-esque scenarios of cosmic reality. At the same time respect and adherence to some of the indigenous methods, gratitude and respect for the spirits and indigenous people is required, so that we truly integrate our modern psyches with the body, nature and the grand story of the human adventure.

Shamanism is the essential method for integral connection, it makes us feel alive and it produces a wild, often funny, always creative adventure that has relevance to our unique self and to culture.

Through altering our position in reality ie breaking free from a fixed assemblage point and the perceptional framework of an anchored contextual experience, we engage with a profound relationship with all aspects of existence.

Existence is bubbling with life, energy, creativity and consciousness, most vividly experienced with mushrooms and Ayahuasca etc.

The ingestion of these natural substances catapults the psychonaut into some of the extraordinary realms of existence.

The challenge of shamanism is then how to create the psychological pathways to this extraordinary realm and to safely and incrementally integrate the vastness with the self.

My approach, apart from teaching basic journeying is to help people connect through the body and nature and then unlock the doors that are in easily accessible energy bodies.

The process encourages individual creativity and self reliance.