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www.shamansociety.org 5 Shamanic States of Consciousnessis more than just a label that describes the changing states of consciousness the shaman experiences as he travels on his journey to through and from the Spirit World. It is also the consciousness that resides within the shaman at all times and is part of the greater con- sciousness to which we are all connected at all times. One of the great and beautiful mysteries of life is that we all share the same consciousness and at the same time each of us manifests it differ- ently. The shamans path is but one way to come closer and closer to that consciousness. Preparing for The Journey The shamanic sance has three basic phases the preparation the journey and the return. Already from the rst steps of the preparation the shamans state of consciousness starts to change as awareness of the intimacy of the spirits expands. I use the word expand because for me that is what it feels like as if there is more in my chest in my body than there is room for and yet at the same time there is room enough. It is in this deepening consciousness that the would-be journeyer to the spirits formu- lates precisely why he is going to the Other World. What is the errand the mission What is the reason for contacting the Spirits Although my ordinary reality consciousness has only started to change this change is enough for me to clear away much of the everyday busyness that could otherwise clutter my vision and re- duce my ability to concentrate on the mission at hand. Lighting the sacred re setting up the altar and washing the sacred objects in smoke are all a part of the preparation. But what is also going on is that I am becoming increasingly aware of the spirits and as their nearness becomes more and more tangible so does my mission whether I am asking for help for others or for myself. It is my experience that I should be as clear as possible in my intentions without clarity of intention one can easily return from a journey knowing that something has happened but not knowing what it was as Alice experienced with her adventures in Wonderland.This is also what can happen when the goal is simply to experience the ecstasy of the shaman. The ecstasy is only the doorway to the world of the Spirits while the intention is the key to understanding what may at rst seem to be the mysteries of the journey. However there are some interesting and seemingly paradoxi- cal aspects to this. For example sometimes when I nd my spirit helpers and tell them why I have come the mission which comes out of my mouth is not necessarily the same as the one that I so carefully formulated before I left my body. I feel that the reasons for this are mainly that when I rst formulate a mission even though my consciousness has already begun to change I am still in fairly close contact with and inuenced by my own personal desires concerning my life my hopes my fears or if I am working for someone else the life circumstances of that person who has come to me for help. However when I cross the threshold into the spirit world there is a shift and for each threshold I cross after that there are further shifts. The deeper I get away from my ordinary reality the further I leave my self behind. The result is that when I nally get to my teachers and helpers in the spirit world to ask my question my original and mundane view of the situation has changed into a more universal perspective and I am shown what I need to see instead of what I thought I wanted to know. It often happens that the mission I start with is very appropri- ate but even so the response of the spirits can be very surprising as I once experienced in a healing sance in England. Illness can happen when what seems to be separation or blockage interrupts the ow. The shaman works together with his spirits to remove these blockages. In this particular case I was working with a wom- an who had been suffering from colitis for two years bleeding every day. Doing the diagnostic work I could see that there was a huge python coiled in her lower intestine. Python told me that it was the womans spirit-helper and that it had been unsuccessfully trying to get her attention for some time. My spirit healing-teach- er told me to remove the python and put it into a special stone I had. I should then give the stone to the woman. After I did so the woman not only became aware of the Python and its benevolent intentions but she could also communicate directly with it by holding the stone in her hand. While removing the python from her intestine it told me that it wanted the woman to seek and come into contact with her own spiritual path. I delivered this message to her. At the time of the work I had no personal knowledge of her. After the healing she told me that her parents were from India. She had been raised a Hindu but did not have a serious religious or spiritual practice E S S A Y Shamanic States of Consciousness by Jonathan Horwitz MA __________________________________________________ Opposite Reticulated python by TimVickers