Learning Shamanism

 All my adult life I have studied the esoteric spiritual arts and doctrines of the East - especially India,Tibet, China and Japan. I started with Zen (Chan) Buddhism then Tibetan Buddhism then Hatha Yoga then Nichiren Buddhism then Qigong then Raja Yoga then Taoism. All the way through these studies I had the memories and awareness of Castaneda's enigmatic teacher don Juan Matus and his "Separate Reality". Remember - Gautama the "Buddha" said that the reality ordinary people perceived was an illusion, he said people needed to "awaken" in order to perceive reality as it is (whatever that may be). don Juan and his fellow sorcerers could perform acts that normal, rational people would consider impossible, they might refer to them as magic or miracles - but when one studies the folklore of Yoga and Qigong, one will find very similar stories of yogis performing "impossible" feats. We in the "Christian" Western industrialised world have b...

 I am re reading The Eagle's Gift by Carlos Castaneda at the moment and I have just come across a very pertinent paragraph that applies to all of us who dare to tread a path towards expanded consciousness. In this passage Florinda is teaching Carlos "The Rule of Stalking" . I will quote the paragraph from page 250. "Warriors don't have the world to cushion them, so they must have the rule. Yet the rule of stalkers  applies to everyone. The first precept of the rule is that everything that surrounds us is an unfathomable mystery. The second precept of the rule is that we must try to unravel these mysteries, but without ever hoping to accomplish this. The third, that a warrior, aware of his duty to try to unravel it, takes his rightful place among mysteries and regards himself as one. Consequently, for a warrior there is no end to the mystery of being, whether being means being a pebble, or an ant, or oneself. That is the warrior's humbleness. One is equal to e...

 Continuing from my last post - I will examine how the phenomenon of "Astral Travelling" and the Out of Body Experience relates to what is known as the Shamanic Journey in Core Shamanism and in the Toltec vernacular of Carlos Castaneda and don Juan Matus - "dreaming", "the second attention" and a "separate reality". From my own experience there is a fine line between all of these altered states of consciousness but there does appear to be a genuine difference. The Shamanic Journey as currently perceived in "modern" Core Shamanism relies heavily on the imagination and a semi trance state induced by rhythmic, monotonous drumming or use of a rattle. You can find free shamanic drumming tracks by searching on the Insight Timer meditation app.  The person must "hollow out" (empty the mind) and form a powerful "intent" before beginning the Journey. Then one uses the imagination to visualise being in a special place in the ...

 Re my last post where I was comparing the various disciplines of Yoga, Qigong and Astral Travelling - the question must arise - "What is a Shamanic Journey"? Well, maybe we have to delve into the realms of Quantum Physics to approach a coherent answer. According to Quantum Physics there is no "reality" as we perceive it. Scientists say the perceived Universe is actually just wave forms in an unknown base they have called dark matter. We humans are not "real" and nor is anything else that we have been led to believe is a solid, undeniable "fact". Yet we as humans are aware of our bodies as solid biological units that are born, decay and die. We are aware that our brain is an organ that defines how we perceive the world and our place in it. Quantum Physicists will tell us that our brains are decoders that take wave forms from the Universal Field of energy and turn them into the world we have come to know as reality. So they are really saying that ...