Learning Shamanism

 It's been a while since I have added anything to this little blog but life has been gifting me with new directions and old reflections concerning my spiritual path. In June this year of 2026 as I reached my 74th birthday I decided to rejoin The Way of The Buzzard Mystery School as I felt a need to belong to a "Tribe" - not having anything in common with the many thousands of "normies" that surround me in my mundane world. While getting back into the Buzzard teachings and talking to other Buzzards, I found that the teachings were not only based on Core Shamanism (as seemed the case back in 2020) but were also heavily influenced by Celtic Shamanism - with striking similarities to Druidry! I also discovered that some of the other Buzzards were also Druids. This led me to do more research on the various Druid organisations in the UK. I had previously dismissed Druidry as a bunch of nutters who liked to dress up in white robes and dance around stone circles - but i...

After experiencing a recent NDE, I have come to realise that it really doesn't matter which "spiritual" path you decide to take - or even if you have zero interest in so called "spirituality". The only thing that matters is that we try to develop unconditional compassion (which includes respect and unemotional "love") - firstly for ourselves , for our fellow humans (I often struggle with this one), the animals, birds, reptiles and insects. For the beautiful planet we live on - the forests, rivers, streams, wild plants, mountains and meadows. This is our only job, may we do it to the best of our ability. If you want my opinion (and advice) on the ways of the world or if you don't, fine, here it is anyway. First, never believe any politician, no matter who or what he or she claims to represent. They are all, without exception, professional LIARS. We don't need a "government". No matter who you vote for in any so called "democracy...

 Here's the thing - "Shamanism" is just one word but it can mean all kinds of different things to different people. I have just started doing the First Steps course with Paul Francis and the Three Ravens College of Therapeutic Shamanism - more as a refresher for myself than an attempt to learn something new. (I have read all Pauls' books, so I am very familiar with his take on Core Shamanism).  Paul is a great teacher but there is one thing he is very dogmatic about (an unshamanic trait) and that is his insistence that the "Lower World" is a pristine environment as would have been experienced by hunter gatherer humans living in what we call the "Stone Age".  I am not saying he is wrong but this is not a universal belief among shamanic people. There most likely was a "Blueprint" for planet Earth that was pure, natural, beautiful and unpolluted by modern human greed, ignorance and mental illness - but is this our Prime Reality or not? Whet...

In my last post I implied that talking to yourself is a form of madness and that a state of "no mind" is a goal to aim at. Well, I still stand by that, but I will acknowledge that words do have a certain "power" and there can be a place for talking to yourself. Many shamanic teachers refer to "words of power" because sorcerers and witches rely heavily on the psychological impact of a word or series of words to gain influence and power over other people. The same techniques can work when trying to influence or gain power over one's own mind. In mantra yoga, words, or more correctly, sounds, are used to control and master the mind. Some mantras are claimed to have "magical" properties such as enabling levitation or telepathy. I practice a form of mantra meditation myself; the so hum (soham) meditation technique mentioned in my last post. Soham actually has a meaning - I am that - but it is the sound that is important. It is the sound of the bre...

When I was a boy I used to hear this phrase a lot - "Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness". Probably not PC or "woke" to say that in these strange times that we are living in but I believe it is a statement worthy of consideration. Those who know me personally will be thinking to themselves "Well he should know" - not because they respect my knowledge or because I spent many years working for a Community Mental Health Service - but because most folk seem to think that I am a bit mad. Maybe they are right, it's not for me to say. Obviously, most of us have witnessed the blatantly crazy person talking loudly on the street and having an animated conversation with him or her self (by the way, it is usually a male). But in these days of mobile phones and "bluetooth" technology it is no longer considered strange to see somebody walking down the street apparently talking to themselves. In fact, it has become the norm. But, technology apa...

 Here is a story that some may find amusing. The Ram in the title is not the Hindu god of that name but a particularly stroppy little git of the sheep variety. Here's how the day went.... As I have decided to start journeying again, I decided to visit my "Axis Mundi" - the place where I begin my journeys to the other worlds. It had been a year since I had visited this place physically and I was more than a little disappointed when I got there. It was completely overgrown with nettles and somehow the magic of the place had gone.... Then I heard a strange grunting noise coming from under a bush. At first I couldn't discern where it was coming from and then I thought it might be an animal in trouble, caught up somewhere. Suddenly from the bushes came a rather handsome jet black ram and he was walking slowly towards me. Now, I pride myself on being able to communicate with most non human people (not so much with humans lol), so I crouched down on my haunches and beckoned ...

 It has been a while since I have delved into the wonderful world of Shamanism. I have been following a yogic path, which while it is satisfying in a lot of ways, just doesn't have the same buzz as a shamanic journey. So I am back on the broomstick, so to speak. I will be adding more content over the next few months as I relearn old lessons and discover new ones. The picture may give a clue as to which direction I will be taking......or does it? Next post - Ram Versus Man

It has a been a while since my last post (October 2021) and the reason for this is that I have been experimenting with a new (to me) form of Shamanic practice known as The Lyceum (previously known as The Way of The Bee). This is very different to "Core Shamanism". I discovered a wonderful teacher who is English but based in France called Sarita Cameron - she is known online as Sarita Sol. Sarita was trained in the gynacentric shamanic practises of The Lyceum while with The Sacred Trust in Devon UK. She has her own website - SolHenge Sarita also teaches what she calls Quantum Meditation which takes you deep into the true nature of Your Self. I have been using these meditations which are freely available on YouTube and can absolutely recommend them. (Google and YouTube regularly delete Saritas' work because she exposes their nefarious AI agenda). She can also be found on Patreon .  In my last post I said I would say how I got on with my Samhain journey into the Otherworl...

 I thought I would do a post to celebrate Samhain (pronounced Sow-ein) as I am now committed to studying Celtic Shamanism. As a novice in this work I will give you some wisdom from one far more knowledgeable than myself - Glennie Kindred . The following information on Samhain is drawn from her books - The Earths Cycle of Celebration and The Sacred Tree. The references to Halloween are from various sources. Samhain has no truly fixed date, unlike the modern (Christian) festival of Halloween or All Hallows Eve, Samhain is celebrated on the second new moon after the Autumn equinox. This is both the ending and the beginning of the Celtic year and it falls around the end of October and the beginning of November. (In 2021 it falls on November 4th). Samhain is a festival that celebrates the affirming of rebirth in the midst of death and darkness. Samhain is a magical time when the veil between the seen world of matter and the unseen world of Spirit becomes thin, especially at dawn and dus...

I have been part of The Buzzard Tribe for a while now and am really learning a lot. I have revisited Journeying through one of the Foundation Courses and am learning from other peoples experiences on the Coaching Calls and the Facebook Group - As I am journeying with more regularity now I thought I would share a recent one - this is a journey I shared on the Buzzard Tribe Facebook group last week. "I would like to share a recent journey - it is quite long though. It involves my first experience of "shape shifting". I have been visiting the lower world for over 2 years now and I know some of the characters in this journey fairly well. They are Rabbit, my Power Animal, a wolf family, male, female and their 2 one year old cubs and a human family - Mog the hunter, his partner Mag and their 2 year old son, Rog. I have been feeling very under the weather with flu like symptoms for a couple of days so decided to journey and ask for some healing. I started with Rabbit at my Axis...

  This will probably be my last blog post for a while as I am focusing on developing my practise and moving deeper into the realm of Spirit. I will be adding useful links and book reviews from time to time but the actual spiritual transformation I am embarking on is a very personal journey which may not mean much to the casual reader. My journeys into the Otherworld will stay personal unless I decide there may be some benefit in sharing them. My last three posts have all concerned my search for the "right" teacher or teachers. Well, I believe I have found my spiritual home and my "sat gurus" - Jason and Nicola Smalley and The Way of The Buzzard Mystery School. For many years I have tried hard to convince myself that I could achieve what Carlos Castaneda achieved in his long apprenticeship with don Juan and I have come to realise that that will never be the case. Having spent hours and months working with the techniques of don Carlos and Victor Sanchez, I now accep...

 In my previous two posts you will have seen that I was in a dilemma about which path to take and which teacher to follow. As I write today, I believe Spirit has guided me to the right path for me at this time - I will go into how this came about and what this path is in my next blog post. Today I would like to clarify my journey and my gratitude to the various teachers who have helped me to understand the Shamanic Path and in doing so, have helped me to understand myself. I have approached Shamanism from many different directions - which is probably why I managed to confuse myself. My main teachers (in book form and from the internet) have either come from North America or from the UK. When I was younger I believed Shamanism to be the sole property of the First Nation peoples of the North American continent - USA, Mexico and Canada. I have since learned that Shamanism has been practised all over Mother Earth for hundreds of thousands of years - only ending with the advent of organ...

  In my last post I was having a wobble about the direction I should take on my shamanic learning journey. I was in a dilemma because I had found a book by Victor Sanchez which promised to make the teachings of don Carlos Castaneda more easily understandable to the layman. It was while studying these writings that I realised that at my stage of life (I am 69 years old), I probably don't have the energy or the time left alive to fully study and master the Toltec Way of The Warrior in the way I was hoping I would. So, the dilemma remained but it had changed. I still feel that I have reached a place of stagnation on my path and feel the need to connect with a human Teacher. With reference to the title of this post - Finding The Right Teacher - we should remember that our main shamanic teacher is Spirit. And Spirit can manifest in any number of guises - animal, birds, insects, trees, plants, rocks and humans. So, I guess I was asking Spirit to guide me to a human teacher. If you have v...

 I am having a little wobble in my practise. Right from the beginning of my journey into Shamanism I have been aware of it's flexibility and it's absence of dogma. As I have stated before - Shamanism is NOT a religion . But, the weird thing is, following some sort of dogma is very attractive to the human psyche - which is why religions have been so successful over the centuries.  For some bizarre reason most of us humans actually like being told what to do. I suppose we are a bit like dogs - we seem to function better when we have been "trained". And the "education" system that has been set up in the modern, industrialised world is designed to do just that - to train us how to behave. But you should stop and ask yourself - just who benefits from this training? The children who grow up into obedient, conforming members of "society"? Or the elite one percent who own the corporations that depend on obedient wage slaves in order to maintain their wealt...

  Silence is one of, if not the most, important aspects of becoming aware of your true nature. It is also one of the most difficult and most controversial topics for all those who choose to explore a spiritual path. I am not talking about silence in the physical sense - where there is no sound being recorded by your ears and transmitted to your brain. I am talking about "inner silence". Inner silence is what don Juan calls "stopping the inner dialogue" and what the 20th century mystic Osho used to call "No Mind" and what is known in Core Shamanism as "Hollowing Out". Some spiritual teachers claim that it is impossible to stop thoughts and experience total inner silence - they are wrong, it is just that they have not succeeded in achieving this blissful state. It is not a "state of mind" , it is a state of "no mind". Because a lot of teachers and gurus have no knowledge of this state they try to convince people that they can ac...

 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 ...

 Hello fellow humans. It has been nearly a year since I last opened up my laptop to write something in this little blog. And what a year! In January 2020 the biggest and most heinous scam ever perpetrated on humanity began in China and quickly enveloped the entire globe. Now at the end of June 2021 all the world's politicians are still holding their citizens prisoner with a blatant psy ops campaign designed to scare people into accepting (with great relish) a particularly nasty experimental gene "therapy" that is the beginning of Trans-humanism and The Great Reset. So, in just 18 months, the Tech and Pharma cartel that control all the world's politicians have created a totalitarian dystopia - where proclaiming to be a "natural" human with a healthy immune system is frowned upon and actively discouraged by all mainstream media outlets and the big tech social media platforms - especially Facebook and You Tube. Animism and the Shamanic view of reality is totall...