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www.shamansociety.org 21 How do I know Im not just making it up This question has certainly been asked by every beginner on the sha- manic path. Its importantsomeones life may be on the line. Wrong diagnoses for example could delay needed treatments or at least waste clients time and money and soon patience and eventually their condence in the shamanic practitioner and pos- sibly the craft itself. In fact you can get some idea about whether or not you are making it up. The following indicators are based on my own shamanic practice lessons learned from teaching university stu- dents conversations with shamans for- mal teachings by many shamans from around the world and the vast body of high-quality scientic research on the paranormal over the past century. Getting Real When we journey shamanically is the experience real or imaginex Put another way how do we separate the nonordinary reality NOR signal from the ordinary reality OR noise First lets clarify reality and imagination. For shamans if some- thing involves energy its real. Therefore since images are energy of a type they are real regardless of whether were intentionally journeying or not. So in fact the shamanic question is Which realityOR or NORare these images reecting Second lets think of imagination as having two sides one fac- ing us a mirror and one facing the spirits a window. The rst side gives us a ight of fancy the second a ight of fact. Heres how. The mirror-side of imagination is an active one producing images that are more or less directly willed and controlled by the mind and so are rightly called fantasizing daydreaming and wishful thinking. We produce these images to explore new possibilities check out consequences of potential acts fulll tasks and release repressed desires. For example newspaper cartoonists actively evoke indeed plan their images. They make them up. To them it feels they are making something happen. The images are personal to the imaginerlets call them imaginary. Think of this side of imagination as a clean mirror reecting your own images. You are projecting them anchored in OR in a nonaltered state of consciousness NSC. The window-side of imagination on the other hand is a passive one spontaneously receiving images that are not directly willed or controlled by the mind and so are rightly called rev- elation. For example journeying sha- mans are passively gifted with images. They dont make them up. To them it feels like something is happening to them. The images are archetypal to the imaginerlets call them imaginal. Think of this side of imagination as a window letting through divine images. You are surrendering to them having entered NOR in an altered state of consciousness ASC. So when you are journeying and shift from a NSC to an ASC moving from OR to NOR then the imaginary mirror so to speak morphs into the imaginal window such that uploading from the self switches to downloading from the spirits. Modern people nd it hard to make this shift at least consis- tently. My experience has been that this is just a phase. In any case dont worry. Making your own images is far better than mak- ing none namely letting the Hollywood moguls TV executives corporate advertisers and political propagandists dominate your imagery for their own purposes. As I heard one experienced sha- manic teacher Tom Brown Jr. say to struggling beginners com- pletely without cynicism At this point Im happy with making it up.1 In short take charge of your imaging then practice sur- rendering to the spirits. S H A M A N I C P R A C T I C E Real or Imaginex Truth and Fantasy in Shamanic Journeys David Kowalewski PhD Professor Emeritus Alfred University Allpower tothe imagination Slogan heard on the streets of Paris during the revolutionary events of 1968. __________________________________________________ Opposite Mary Pickford as Alice Through the Looking Glass ca. 1920.