Learning Shamanism

  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 ...