The Primary Objective of Life

Normally everyone is born, lives, grows old and dies and very few ever think seriously about the reason for their existence. If we ever do arrive at thinking about this it does not last long for in one form or another something happens, people, circumstances, different thoughts that separate us from this very transcendental and important question about our life.
The majority of people simply exist and if at times they feel uneasy about their existence they end up accepting as a finality those material things and concerns that sustain the passing of this life. There exists a veil of ignorance between the spiritual and the material and this should be eliminated with the wisdom and awakening of consciousness, in order to really know why and for what we are here.
The material understanding we receive here on earth serves in order to maintain our bodies. We are taught to serve the material life, but we are taught nothing about our spirit in a practical way because in order to know about the spiritual we need to look for the knowledge of the spirit. In the depths of ourselves we all desire happiness and eternal life, this feeling is stronger in some than others but this feeling always arises at some point in the course of our existence. The child begins its existence expressing all the energy and beauty of the spirit because it is pure and innocent.
When the child begins to learn to think and to use its body like a tool given by God in order to know itself, expressing many feelings and ideas that come from its interior being, these ideas and thoughts enter into the memory and constitute what is called the level of knowing.
Normally the level of being should develop simultaneously with the level of knowing but it does not happen in this way. The bad example of society and the family, the insensitivity and lack of understanding, the absence of love, the preoccupation with the illusory, the attachment to the material and the body and the material teachings and explanations that the child receives in response to the questions expressed by its interior being damage little by little the natural equilibrium that there should be in the education of the child in this existence, in order that it understands the true objective of life.

We are taught that religion is responsible for satisfying the spiritual necessities of man, it shows us material statues and figures or books made of paper that they say should be adored as if they were the spirit. However, all the elements that we find in religion are material, they were all made by the hands of men. God did not create any material religion. Christ did not come to inaugurate religions or churches of any denomination; He said that his Kingdom is not of this world, that the dwelling of God is in the heavens.
Christ said to His disciples that they must be detached from the material and the sin that results from it. Christ never said that the objective of life is to be rich and He never recommended capitalism, he opposed imperialism. All the religions were created for man.
Although they have the spiritual objective in principle, with the course of time they have separated from the great reality. Man became a slave to his own creation because the religions have degenerated and become institutionalised organisations with rigid moral codes of social conduct that lack the touch of life and the true spiritual and human sentiments. We have arrived at the actual moment where religion has practically changed into a new commercial enterprise with capitalist interests and little religiosity. Religion is a form of exploiting people and is used to justify war and invasions. When it is opposed, religion is mixed with politics, government representatives, corruption and dark concerns that repress human rights. Religions have committed the worst crimes and have arrived at great sadism against humanity.
Religions in the majority of their facets have de-naturalised and separated themselves very much from the creator they say they serve. Now humanity has arrived at playing with the beast, when we decide to exterminate plants, animals, countryside and populations, pollute the air and the earth with terrible poisons invented by the same demonic capitalism, with its excuses in order to destroy more and more the creation of God.
The bishops, the military, the police, the politicians, the pseudo-scientists and presidents say that there exist negative plants in order to justify their demonic and barbaric destruction yet in the book of Genesis its says VERY CLEARLY that God created the heaven and the earth, the water, the air, the plants and the animals and God saw it was good, it also explains in Genesis of the holy Bible that God gave his blessing to the creation he had made. So there do not exist negative or evil plants. God did not contradict Himself and His words are eternal as Jesus Christ said. The evil ones are those who have cursed creation and have committed crimes against life and the balance of nature.
Goethe wrote with good reason;

“All theories are grey except the golden fruit of the tree of life”

There exists a knowledge that is above all knowledge of the earth and it is the threshold to the knowledge of God, it is called ‘knowledge of ourselves.’ It is easy to speak of the knowledge of oneself, but it is very difficult to know ourselves. In order to reach this we need to free ourselves from the slavery of dogma, the emptiness of morals, the pride of intellectualism, the zealousness of religion and many other similar things that serve only as psychological prisons of the soul. Religious zealousness and fanaticism are defects that obscure our spiritual vision and dirty our souls, because when we shut ourselves in the dogmas and the mire of belief, we leave behind the perception that God is in all and is all.

To speak is very easy as it is to read and accumulate theories. If only some people would seriously reflect about this and all it signifies in a practical way in spiritual life before they continue in the error that is found in the trap of knowledge received through books, theories, by listening or speaking because the mind makes us believe that with all this we can understand everything. Many people after reading a book believe that they have grasped the complete understanding. There are many deceivers that speak very beautifully but their hearts are in the material world, and their words are full of lies and contain poison. Meanwhile the knowledge of the spirit is not influenced by the knowledge of the beast. The spiritual man knows to look inside of himself to find wisdom, for this reason he lives a calm and peaceful life and has no interest in acquiring the false honours of the world and of the beast.

The Gnostic Shamanism of the Light places great emphasis on understanding that this is the major error and great obstacle to us understanding that which is unfolding in our spiritual evolution. For example, there exist three kinds of relationship in the world and life.

1. The first relationship is with our physical body, to know deeply its possibilities and limitations, how much it can endure, how we can make it better, educate it etc.
2. The second relationship is with all that surrounds us, learning to relate to people and nature, if we fail to learn this we create many problems in our lives. We need to respect others, their ideas and their beliefs etc.
3. The third is the relationship of man with himself, not only at the physical level but also the psychological and spiritual, we relate with the different parts of our interior being, our interior universe that is described as orbiting our inner star (God).

Only with the knowledge of ourselves is it possible to arrive at knowledge of God, it is not possible to have knowledge of God without knowledge of ourselves first because God is great and if we do not have the capacity to know ourselves and the sins of this world first how are we supposed to know God who is the supreme of supremes. The knowledge of ourselves is necessary in order to comprehend our defects; this comprehension is necessary to be able to eliminate them. This is named in esoteric Christianity as the ‘psychological death’, “Deny yourself”, as the Master Jesus said.

For this reason we should begin to comprehend the objective of our lives or do you think we are born, grow and die for nothing? Do we believe that life is as terrible as the demonic forces have made it? We work to buy food to eat, we must pay to live and live to work and work to eat, we are told that life is to become wealthy, serve the military and the authorities that are enemies of the people etc. As it is everything is converted into a vicious circle, which leads nowhere, and from which we are not allowed to escape.
Repetition and repetition leads the masses to be mechanical and the unconscious individuals cannot be of any help in service of the light. The very rich people will say that they have time for their hobbies because they have money and luxurious pleasures but what do these diversions and pleasures consist of? All of this ends with the physical body and exhausts it and creates illness. It does not matter how we adorn the body in this life, death is the same for all.
Money and material possessions cannot be kept and we can take nothing beyond the grave.
All that we have carefully gained with so much sacrifice in this life ends with death, at death all that remains are the spiritual values that are discovered and cultivated with painful suffering and sacrifice, this is totally independent of whether we are rich or poor.

How many rich people with all their money are not able to replenish their empty hearts? How is it that there are poor that curse their poverty without understanding that the poor youth is never miserable because they always find a way through?
All these variable conditions of the material world are constantly changing, sometimes the rich become poor and those that are poor become rich but these are external appearances that in no way affect the majesty of the interior spirit, which is far beyond all these superficialities.
The value of that which we present to the great reality at the hour of our death is not the state of our bank balance but the state of our soul.
Whoever grows old poor of spirit, whether poor in material wealth or not, is in reality miserable because this is the truth of human misery, for this spiritual poverty and misery define those that are far from the understanding of daily life.

The knowledge of oneself is the way of the balanced man, the man that wants to live every instant and every moment of his life. Whether rich or poor, of one religion or another etc, is something secondary, to learn to live and understand why we are alive is important.

Everyone is free to choose in accordance with their aspiration and the environment around them, there are still those capable of changing their environment and situation whilst still conserving the essential transcendental impulse intact.

In all this there are levels of comprehension.

The fact that an individual decides to make a total U-turn in their life can seem strange to the general public, but for an authentic seeker of the truth it would be the most natural and logical thing to do.

To want to look, to know and to learn about the objective of life is not a question of philosophical theories or religious dogmas, it is something that is born and springs forth from the most profound depths of ourselves and that opens slowly with the experience of life in this material world.

Those who do not have this inclination in their hearts will never be able to embody it with theories, written words or spoken words because it is something that arrives from inside, deep inside.

A Message From The Heart Of The World

The documentary film made by Alan Ereira called "From the Heart of the World: The Elder Brothers' Warning - Kogi Message to Humanity" is a very interesting and valuable statement made in 1992 by the Kogi Indigenous peoples of Colombia. This message inspired us back in the nineties and was part of the process that led us to South America and to study of Gnostic Shamanism of Light.

Those that have spent the past twenty years studying shamanism, gnosis and natural medicine, having arrived in Colombia from Europe did not make these philosophies up or construe the information according to our own beliefs of according to the so called "New Age" movement.
This documentary (link below) expresses many important aspects and fundamentals about Indigenous wisdom and the "Shamanic" worldview. It's message has deep and far reaching implications.

For us the essence of that message given by the Kogi in 1992 is an expression of the wisdom of the Masters of the Indigenous Ray and this message is a calling to which people have responded, not by heading to search for the Kogi but by taking them at their word and listening to their message about the need for us, for humanity as a whole, to learn to listen once more to the Earth and to comprehend that the Earth is alive and that all of life is part of a Cosmic Intelligence which has both Masculine and Feminine aspects.
The Indigenous peoples of Abya Yala (Indigenous name for the American continent) have stayed close to nature and have not erected, in the main, huge urban centres. Their spiritual philosophies are fundamentally rooted in nature and in a direct communication with the natural intelligences or Nature Spirits as we might call them.
Culturally their voice is perhaps the voice that has been least heard around the world, a world in which the spiritual, religious and philosophical dialogue has been dominated by the Middle Eastern and Eastern traditions and the Monotheism of the Abrahamic Religions.
We would not say that those traditions do not have valid things to say, or that they do not have value. All the religions have a value and a voice that we can learn much from and we would consider that it is important to respect all the traditions. Those traditions that come from The Americas, however, have not been given the full coverage and validity that they deserve and they are often denigrated for being "animistic" i.e. for seeing spirit in all things and for saying that the rocks, plants, rivers, forests, animals etc are literally alive and intelligent.
Modern man has qualified this as being "primitive" and "childlike" because, we believe, science has shown that there are no spirits and that all such things are of the imagination. We have failed to consider that these peoples have conserved themselves in a natural way of living and thus have faculties of perception developed to a degree which we have lost.
Over twenty five years after this documentary was made we are seeing with our own eyes that weather patterns are becoming more and more chaotic and there is an ever increasing intensity of climatic change.

In light of this we can also see that the Message of The Kogi and other Indigenous peoples, far from being primitive, shows a remarkable capacity and understanding of the underlying workings of Mother Nature that we would, in fact, do well to listen to if only we could put aside our pride and arrogance.



Here is the link to this highly recommended documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRgTtrQOiR0

The following is the intro given on You Tube.

We have reproduced it here because it says some important things...

This documentary was the world's primary introduction to the Kogi and their crucial message about the serious negative consequences of modern Man's way of existing on this Earth. It was originally released in 1992, and is not currently available online (except on Youtube).

If you watch this video and feel inspired by the Kogi and their message, please know that they have NO interest in people coming to visit them and their sacred lands. This includes visiting La Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City), which for the Kogi was never "lost". Rather, it was purposefully hidden, because it is an incredibly sacred site that even many Kogi are not sanctioned to visit... and certainly not tourists. The Kogi have gone to GREAT lengths, for the past 500+ years to keep their sacred lands free from the energy and unconscious spiritual issues of outsiders. This is something the average "Westerner" might have a hard time understanding. But all we need to understand is that the Kogi DON'T want people visiting their lands, and whether we understand the spiritual reasons for this, or not, is unimportant. Being in their territories uninvited is like walking into a complete stranger's house, uninvited, and walking through the rooms of that house as if it were your own. It is rude and inappropriate. Please take this to HEART and KNOW what it means to violate their wish to NOT have outsiders in their sacred lands.

If you feel—and KNOW within your heart—that you have a genuine calling (not just idle curiosity) to support the Kogi in some way, my only recommendation is that you take a serious and sincere interest in recovering your attention from the great many distractions—most especially "spiritual" distractions—and doing what it takes to come into greater consciousness of who you are as Spirit, where you are from as Spirit, and precisely why you are here, as Spirit. This is hard and, at times, painstaking work.

Most importantly, know that the message of the Kogi is a practical one. That we day-by-day apply ourselves to the deep work of resolving our issues, misconceptions, projections, negative tendencies, etc. And that we do EVERYTHING within our power to stop living a lie (the Modern world) which is quite obviously destructive and out of alignment with LIFE. In simple terms, they are making it clear that the Western world must drastically change its ways, less we go through drastic changes. If you’re reading this, that likely includes you. The Kogi are not simply something interesting for our entertainment or idle curiosity. They do NOT wish to be idolised, for that only marginalises the deep importance of their message, which is, in reality, the Mother's message.

To see the most recent documentary on and by the Kogi, please look online for Aluna The Movie. It can be streamed for a nominal price, and is worth watching. It was released in late 2014.


The media material presented in this production is protected by the FAIR USE ACT of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, which allows for the rebroadcast of copyrighted materials for the purposes of commentary, criticism, and education. No copyright infringement intended.

We provide this information, for the betterment, upliftment, and elevation of human-unity!

UnifyEvolution.info

SHAMANISM, SAWAIN AND THE ANCESTORS.

The article that follows is inspired in this time of year in the Northern hemisphere and the days of Sawain that we have just lived.

A note for the semantic purists…
Please note that here we refer to the Celtic Cultures but we know very well that the so called Celtic cultures were in reality many different tribes and that they did not call themselves Celts, just as the peoples of Abya Yala (The Americas) did not call themselves Indians, however, there are some broad similarities in cosmovision and practices between all those tribes that ended up being called Celts and so we use this general term for convenience. We apologise in advance if this offends anyones sensibilities or conceptual frameworks.

SHAMANISM, SAWAIN AND THE ANCESTORS.

Recently we have passed through the long night of Sawain (or Samhain), the Festival that marks the entry of the earth into the dark winter time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
This festival of Sawain was, in older times, a very sacred day and for the Northern European tribes especially those that we now call Celts, for it was the end of the year, the last day of a yearly cycle in which the land enters into a necessary time of hibernation and withdrawal where new life is gestated.

The gestation of the new life and the renewal of the forces of nature takes 3 months and it is at the Festival of Imbolc at the beginning of February that the plants begin to emerge again from under the soil. From Sawain until Imbolc therefore it is a time of quiet and of reflection for the human beings huddled around the hearth telling the stories, repairing their tools, making their indoor work of winter time. Sawain, thus, has a mystical and shamanic aspect and also a more earthly aspect related to the agricultural year.

Sawain has now become known as Halloween or All Hallows Eve, the long night that precedes All Saints Day and as such it has become associated with ghosts, ghouls, dark and scary spectres of the dead, or perhaps, rather, the “undead”, those spirits that are suspended between this living world and the otherworld of the Afterlife.
As we know now this is something that has been taken over by the materialist society and is “celebrated” with fancy dress parties in which people dress up as monsters, phantoms, witches, warlocks and so on with a decidedly dark and sinister undertone albeit laced with ironic humour. Whatever the case in this shape and form it is anything but a Sacred Day and has lost it’s more ancient meaning. As such it can be hard for us, as modern people, to know really how this day was seen and felt in older times…

The practice of shamanism and sacred rituals on such a day can give us, however, a reconnection and some insights into this most sacred of days. In many ways we can even say that Sawain was and still is the most sacred day for the ancient Celtic peoples for Sawain is the day of the Ancestors, it is the day on which the humans living in the Middle World or ABRED, as it is known in the Druidic cosmovision, can get in touch with the ancestral spirits of their people and also pray for the help of the spirits for friends and family that have departed from this world.

The ancestral spirits are the ones which are the guardians of the Sacred Otherworld… The land beyond the sea known by different names, one of which is TIR NA NOG, the land of the forever young. The British Celts call this sacred isle Avalon located at Glastonbury which was once an island located in the middle of a sea marsh on the South West coast of Britain. Avalon is often depicted shrouded in mists and such mists were known to be magical. It is known that the Isle of Avalon was a sacred burial site for the local group of tribes known as the “Durotriges.”
The Irish Celts also spoke of a place called Tech Duinn which means the House of Donn, Donn being the God of the Dead and an ancestor of the Gaelic peoples. Tech Duinn is also to the west across the sea and is a place for the dead souls that are unable to reach Tir Na Nog and instead await a new reincarnation.

The journey to these otherworldly realms is one that is dangerous for the soul and thus the peoples used the day of Sawain to pray for and plead protection for the souls that have departed.
The danger on this journey is that the soul may get trapped or waylaid, even overpowered by negative spirits and condemned to wander in a the nether world as a shade, lost and filled with sadness. This is what explains the cases of ghosts in cemeteries and other haunted places where the souls have become trapped. Such souls where also potential prey for dark witches and warlocks that would use them to carry out their evil bidding!!

We find these understandings echoed in many traditions and the Gnostic Master, Samuel Aun Weor states that upon death many souls are unable to let go of this material realm and become trapped, most often staying near to the decomposing physical body that they once inhabited. The heavier that the soul is with the egos, the more likely this is to happen.

The ancestor spirits that conserve themselves alive and well in the sacred otherworld, however, are those beings that have transcended the mortal life and that reached awakened states of consciousness through their deeds in this world. They are the beings that gain access to that Sacred Land where life is eternal and from there they watch and help us mortals in our quest to awaken our consciousness. For them there is no longer a need to return to this world but for the less transcended souls, the hope is to travel to the ancestral spirit world and rest a while before returning again to this world.

Those ancestral spirits that in their lifetime made conscious sacrifice and made their own internal work taking on the “heroes quest” and dying in themselves for the benefit of their tribe and people are those that become revered and remembered for all eternity and whose names are kept alive in the folk tales and the folk memory. These are the true ancestral spirits and wisdom keepers of any people, nation or tribe.

Apart from those elevated beings whose deeds have been recorded in the racial memory, there have been many millions of souls that have lived in each race and tribe and not all are well remembered by everyone except for their closest friends and relatives.
Many of them will have had to return again to physical bodies, perhaps in different races or in different epochs and as such are not so generally remembered due to the fact that they did not awaken or did not make much spiritual advancement in the lifetime when they had a body in such and such race or tribe…
Thus in olden times, before the era of electric lights, motor cars, and all the home comforts of this modern age, the people collectively invoked the ancestors, lighting candles also for the spirits of the recently departed that they may find their way to those sacred realms to rest a while before returning to this mortal coil and so this is the time to say a prayer for all our departed and beloved friends, that they may be cared for by our ancestral heroes and the Gods and Goddesses that watch over us.

A day outside of Time...

This day of Sawain, as day of the ancestors was considered by the Druids of the Celtic tribes to be, not only the day of the dead but also a day outside of time.

As we know the year has 365 days and if we make the division we can see that the 52 weeks of the year take up 364 days leaving one left over. This day left over was considered to be a day out of time, the day in which the normal time is suspended and the veil between this world where time rules and the next world, the world of spirit, is thinnest, thus giving us access not only to the departed spirits but also giving us access to the very motions of the universe and the possibility to see and divine the future, or to remember the past, in order to better understand and comprehend our history. Thus it was a doubly Sacred Day, a day apt for reflecting on the past and preparing for the future, a day for concentrating in the world beyond the earthly one of time in which we find ourselves. For this reason it was the day of endings and beginnings, of coming full cycle and taking a moment to step back and to observe ones life and to reflect on the essence and the mystery of life and death.

The Celts were not the only peoples to have such a day and we know that the peoples of Mexico such as the Aztecs and the Maya also have their day out of time and their day of the dead, although in their case these are different days, for the Mayan day out of time is that which corresponds to Summer Solstice. The Aztec/Mayan/Mexican day of the dead, however, is also 31st October and this tradition is an ancient one on which they remember their ancestors and the spirits of loved ones that have departed. For the Aztec people this day is sacred to the Goddess Mictecacihuatl, the Queen of Mictlan, the Underworld or realm of the dead.

In the case of the Mapuche of Chile they also make special rituals for invocation of the ancestors, these rituals are called Nguillatun and in this celebration they congregate around the Totem Tree of their Nation which is the Canelo (Drymis winteri) and make a series of rituals, prayers, invocations and dances in order to connect with the departed ancestral spirits. The Mapuche shamans, (MACHIS) of the coastal zones of the Mapuche territory also speak of a land across the western ocean that they call Ngülchenmaywe, the island of the dead.

Just as we have explained above, according to the Mapuche, the ancestral spirits that remain as guardians and reach heaven or the Upper world (which they call Wenumapu) to watch over the tribe are the ones that have accumulated the inner knowledge and the vital energy necessary to transcend. For them it is easy to get past all the immediate obstacles of the afterlife and not be swallowed up as ghosts or spectres in a kind of netherworld in between this world and the sanctuary or island of the departed spirits. The Mapuche say that there are dark sorcerers called Kalkus that prey upon the souls of the dead and try to trap them and use them for their negative magic. The ability to get past the Kalkus to do this depends upon the consciousness of the soul and this is directly related to the actions of the soul in life and the vital energy that the soul has which will enable it to resist the sorcerers that want to trap it.

They say that when the 'Am' (or soul) leaves the corpse, it remains around the body, and the places in the material world where it had lived. This was the opportunity for the ‘kalkus' to hook the ‘Am’. If they manage this then the soul becomes a 'huichal-alhué', a soul enslaved by those sorcerers that will use it to harm their enemies.

If it escapes this trance the 'Am' becomes a 'Pulli' (a spirit) and leaves the places it frequented in its lifetime, arriving at a land beyond the ocean, where the sun sets. This is what the Mapuche cultures of the Pacific coast and the Isle of Chiloe affirm. These Mapuches of the coastal zones are called LAFKENCHE.

Some Mapuche have commented on the similarity between their customs and the celtic customs regarding the dead and they have also investigated about ‘Halloween’ because the Spanish introduced them to Halloween and All Saints Day and through that they investigated and came to the same conclusions that we share here, i.e. that Halloween is a corruption of a more ancient ‘Celtic” festival which works around the same understandings that they have about what happens when the soul leaves the body, so nowadays there are Mapuches that observe Sawain and use Sawain also as a day of the dead. This is quite a remarkable thing and shows the tremendous resilience of the Mapuche because, even though the Spanish tried to hypnotise them with the whole Halloween story which IGNORES the positive aspects of such a day, the intelligent Mapuche think for themselves and discovered the truth and then incorporated and made their own version of the Celtic Sawain even though they live on the other side of the world…

In the case of the Mapuche the soul or “Am” has to avoid the different traps and obstacles in order to travel across the western ocean to arrive at Ngülchenmaywe, the land of the dead. We can liken this to Tech Duinn of the Gaelic people, for this is the place where the soul can rest.

In Ngülchenmaywe, those souls that have made great advances and qualify to become ancestor guardian spirits convert themselves into Pillan or Wangulen (different kinds of ancestral spirits) and carry on to Wenumapu. The others can rest in Ngülchenmaywe until their time to return to the physical world comes. Likewise, the souls of the Celts can rest at Tech Duinn, the isle of the dead, whilst the ones that have earnt the right to become ancestral guardians can continue to Tir Na Nog or Tír Tairngire (the land of promise) as it is otherwise known.

For sure we can say that in both cases of Mapuche and Celtic peoples, the success or otherwise of this afterlife journey depends on the consciousness and deeds of the soul in this life. Indeed, the Celts also refer to many such things in their myths and stories. For example, in the Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh tales, the hero Pwyll is safely guided to Annwn, the otherworld, at his death by Arawn the King of Annwn himself. In this case Pwyll was thus blessed with safe passage because during his lifetime he had personally helped the King of Annwn and so gained the merit of a safe passage to the elemental paradise of Annwn. Other souls would perhaps not be so blessed but in all cases the shamanic rituals and rites of Sawain were at once to aid and help the departed spirits of the dead and also to ask the help of the ancestors for those that still live in this world.

In Modern Times….

It is very much a reflection of the loss of culture and understanding about life and death that the modern day conception of Sawain is one which focuses only on the spectres and the ghosts and monsters of the world of shades and yet we do not recognise the sacred value of such a day, we do not practice the rites of our ancestors anymore and in general we do not use such a day to ask for the help of the ancestors. We have become cut off from our roots and we are now scared of death and of spirits, having only a negative attitude, or else an ironic one in which we effectively make fun and ridicule such a day with mundane and alcoholic fancy dress parties.

In such a way we no longer pray for our departed loved ones, we no longer recognise the souls journey and we no longer have knowledge about what happens after death. Perhaps because of this the realms beyond the veil, the netherworld between the worlds, is filled with ghosts and lost souls because there is no longer a strong connection with the ancestors or even a recognition of their existence and therefore they cannot help us so easily. It is strange that the church and the clergy taught us to reject our ancestors and cast upon their rituals a kind of a hex, saying that it was all dark and devils stuff and negating the sacred value of such a day, thus making many people afraid or sceptical of such things. There are reasons for this of course and it has all been part of a wider plan of the “Kalkus” on a world scale, that seek to trap the human souls and turn them into ZOMBIES that work for the ends of the negative sorcerers, for they know that if the cut us from our roots then they can harvest our souls and CONTROL THEM.

Nowadays we have even filled our minds with films such as “Halloween” which are just horror stories that make commerce and ridicule that which was once sacred.
This is symbolic because in our sub conscious minds we have placed a barrier between ourselves and the otherworldly heroes, faeries, Gods and Goddesses. The barrier is made up of negative images and induces in us fear and so cuts us off. Perhaps we should consider that this is ultimately detrimental because it means that our souls have become cut off from the ancestors and from the wisdom of the soul and in so doing have we not condemned our souls to get lost in such a netherworld once we depart?

It is time to drop the fear and reclaim our ancestral customs, worship once more the wonderful gifts of Mother Nature and understand that all these ancient customs are the legacy of our ancestral roots, the roots that connect our souls to all life and that are echoed across cultures, for they are found, in one way or another, in many tribes and nations.
Here we have mentioned the Aztecs, the Mapuche and the Celts but we know that there are many more examples that demonstrate the shamanic origin of spirituality and that are based in a practical knowledge of the land of the soul and of the spirit.

The ancient cultures knew and demonstrated through their tales, traditions and rituals a knowledge of there being certain days and times in the cycle of the seasons and the earth’s journey through the cosmos, in which the veil becomes thin and the presence of the other dimensions is more easily felt… They are cultures that recognised and knew of such dimensions and cycles long before we did and yet the modern rationalists say that they are primitive, however, this is part of the trap which is designed to cut us off from these truths.
Those ancient Shamanic cultures developed their ways, in accord with the laws of nature, to approach these entrances to the other dimensions and to know in what moments and in which places this was favourable and beneficial for their learning and for the development of the soul and of their spirituality. Many of the wisdom tales of the Celts, such as the Mabinogion, are all about the relationship between the human beings and the spirits of the different Otherworld regions and as such they were a way of instructing and guiding the people in sustaining a balanced relationship with the land and with the faery or elemental realms as well as with, God (Father and Mother), the ancestors, the spirits of the departed and many more things that have become lost to us now.

All is not lost however and we can access this wisdom by returning to a Shamanic understanding of the Universe for this is the ancient Spiritual Science of all of our ancestors and, although the practice of rituals and shamanism from other cultures can vary slightly from that of our own, there are essential teachings and shamanic techniques for attaining our own GNOSIS that can help us to recuperate the ancestral practices and ways of our ancestors. The thing is to be open and to have a sincere heart in this quest for wisdom and understanding….

Final note…

Strangely and precisely on the day of Sawain this year there were a series of news items announcing the sudden appearance in the sub-atomic experimental chambers of CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, of a “new particle” which they are calling the “GHOST PARTICLE.” This particle, they say, “could change the very nature of reality.”

Somehow it would seem rather unlikely that a new kind of particle has just “popped into existence” (to use the words that the CERN scientists have done in their announcements…) but this is what they would want to have us believe. We can, however, surmise from this information that the sub-atomic experiments of CERN are an attempt to penetrate beyond the veil that separates this physical world from the other dimensions, the dimensions beyond time, although given the rather power hungry nature of the people behind these projects we can also understand that they are not doing this for sacred reasons and so, much as they think they know, they actually do not really know at all what they are playing with.
Our ancestors knew that you cannot penetrate beyond the veil without preparation and without permission and that these things are sacred. Intention is everything and before making a sacred ritual one must clarify ones intentions. This is done through meditation and through DEVOTION because the universe and the mysteries of the universe are sacred and not something to just play with, for when one makes any kind of magical act (and whatever they say, these scientists, what they are doing is magical) then one must be aware that all you do and all that you send out will come back on you. We think, however, that not everyone at CERN is just a material scientist that does not know anything about magic… far from it. If anyone takes the time to analyse the opening ceremony for the particle accelerator at CERN they will see a magical ritual taking place but this magical ritual is absolutely and most certainly not the magical ritual of some folk that have devotion and respect for the wisdom of God and of Mother Nature. At this juncture we will not say more, each one can take their own conclusions as to what is going on with all of that…..

The ancients, however, understood that CONSCIOUSNESS pervades everything….. and the esoteric teachings given by Samael Aun Weor confirm that every atom is a trio of matter, energy and consciousness.
The particles, therefore, are not inert pieces of physical matter and energy, for all is directed by CONSCIOUSNESS… i.e. GOD IS OMNIPRESENT AND OMNIPOTENT and therefore nothing that we do is without consequence within the cosmic mind and creation. For this reason the teachings of the Ancient Masters of the Light recommend that we learn to harmonise ourselves as human beings with the Cosmic Creation, and to do this we need to cultivate humility and the attitude of wonder and devotion for we are but tiny elements of this creation and there is no way that any one of us can claim to be able to control creation.

We say, therefore, that it is best to study and to contemplate these matters and learn to cultivate a serene mind and to learn to meditate and to reflect.

May all beings be happy, May all beings be Joyful, May all beings be in PEACE

AIDS & HIV.... A Shamanic Journey. (Revised Version.)

UPDATE with respect to the article AIDS & HIV.... A Shamanic Journey.

The following article (see below) has been subject of some negative comments from elsewhere and we have been accused of many things for publishing this kind of message about the potential of plant medicine and plants such as Ayahuasca to help in processes of curing major diseases.

As of 7th Nov 2018 this article has been revised. It is largely the same but there are some additional clarifications at the end which can be seen in italics.

This is the most read article on this blog and some people arrive here from links posted on websites that have a very critical view of what we have written. They have accused us of writing these things in order to get publicity so that we can make profit from this. We have also been accused of many more additional things by one website in particular but the owners and moderators of that website have never published any concrete evidence of anything they say.
They are happy to put up random and unsubstantiated comments from "anonymous" people and have even published names and addresses, id numbers, photos and emails of various members of our community and slandered us with some very serious accusations.
When we or friends of ours have responded to such postings by revealing the identity of one person who we know to be giving them information we were banned from defending ourselves and we were told that posting personal information about people was a instance of bullying and stalking which, apparently on that website they do not tolerate.
However when it comes to us it is a different matter. Apparently we are fair game, we don't count and that to name us, put photos up, give emails and id numbers in our case is not intimidation and stalking. In that case they define it as "criticism." Perhaps they think that people will not notice the contradiction ? It seems that for them it is OK to publish personal details about us because, according to them, we are just an evil cult and so our human rights in that case do not count.

If you come here from that website then please take into account these things.

This has been going on since 2011 and in the most part we have not responded much because we are too busy to do so. We are working people and we have much to do to grow our food, to learn about plant medicine, shamanism and community living so we don't have time to spend hours on the internet getting involved in long arguments as all costs time and money and we have not made loads of money out of what we do, contrary to what these people say about us.
This blog is just a small blog, it is about all we have published in English and it is far from being a complete set of information about Shamanism but we are a little surprised that it has attracted the attention that it has attracted and that some people feel very disturbed and shocked by the idea that illnesses such as AIDS could be cured. It is a matter that we have, of course reflected upon and why that should get such a negative reaction, almost hysterical, from some people.

In due course, perhaps, we shall publish some reflections on all of this.

In the meantime we have more practical work to do.



Meanwhile please read the article and judge as you feel fit, take your own conclusions and if you come here from the website forum where we have been slandered and accused of being fraudulent in what we do then just remember that there are two sides to every story and if you are the type of person that judges from only hearing one side then we will leave you to your judgements and if you are prepared to believe what those forums say then you are free to do so. Everyone is free to think what they like but we think it says more about the people on that website, the way that they put people on trial, condemn them and label them, opening them up to all sorts of attacks from other sources without any hint of considering that someone is innocent until proven guilty. In their eyes we have been guilty from the outset and they have encouraged us to be harassed, stalked, bullied etc. Like we say, IT SAYS MORE ABOUT THEM than it does about us, but we will let them be and say as they wish.

It is similar to how many folk in the middle ages that practiced plant medicine, or that challenged the Catholic Orthodoxy were burnt at the stake by the Inquisition. They were labelled as heretics just because they stated opinions and gave air to ideas that were outside of the accepted ones of the time…. Nowadays people are not literally burnt at the stake but they are most certainly marginalized and vilified publicly without recourse to any kind of intelligent dialogue or attempts from the moralists to comprehend what they are saying, but anyway, so much for these modern day kangaroo courts...

There is a saying given by SAMAEL AUN WEOR (which was also said by Victor Hugo) that is quite appropriate ——

“HE THAT JUDGES THAT WHICH HE DOES NOT KNOW IS WELL ON THE WAY TO BECOMING AN IDIOT.”



Thank you for your attention and taking the time to read this pre-amble.

WARNING

The article that follows is a direct account made by a witness of this healing process and includes some personal reflections on AIDS and the Shamanic healing process. We would advise anyone reading that if you have HIV or AIDS or know someone that does that in no way do we counsel you to take actions or decisions as a result of reading such an article. This is an anecdotal account which in no way pretends to give a complete description of such a healing process and anyone with such an illness that is looking for alternatives to the official treatments and drug programmes should do thorough research and take their own responsibility for decisions they make. This is, of course, COMMON SENSE but common sense nowadays would seem to be in short supply. For this reason we stress here these things, for the original intention of this article always was TO INFORM and to give some explanations or indications as to the nature and factors involved in shamanic healing, the values, human qualities and psychological effort required on the part of both patient and shamanic practitioner not to mention the need for a wide knowledge of plants and the conditions needed for their preparation. Success is never guaranteed in such an endeavour. It should also be noted that the Shaman and students of Shamanism that were involved in this case did not seek out this person and do not ever advertise for or seek patients. We only attend to that which presents itself spontaneously. For that reason here we give no names and addresses, no contacts.


AIDS & HIV… A Shamanic Journey

Just over two years ago we were visited at our Uk Shamanism of Light Centre by a lady that had been diagnosed as HIV Positive. It was the first time that we, as students of shamanism, had come into contact with someone that had been diagnosed (or better put, labelled) as having HIV and on their way to full blown AIDS. At that time I knew very little about the subject other than what most of us have been told by the mass communications network and had never really investigated or approached the subject.

The lady, S, came to participate in a Shamanic ritual with the sacred plant Yaje (or Ayahuasca) after having met us and spoken with us or her wish to drink Yaje. We accepted and so she arrived. At that time she certainly did not look to be in the best of health, she was drawn and thin in her face with a look in-between nervous and haunted.

In that first ceremony as the experience began to get strong I could feel the presence of something in our small Temple-Yurt and as we began to shamanise with our chants to the elemental spirit of Yaje we could feel the spirits begin to arrive.
In a shamanic ceremony the objective is to call positive spirits to come and help the humans to get rid of negative energies they are carrying and help them to have spiritual insight, healing and so on. It is also common that negative spirits will arrive and attack the people. The job of the people such as ourselves who have been trained in the Shamanic techniques, is to be alert to the different energies that arrive into the sacred space and we use our concentration, meditation and sacred chants in order to call the positive forces so that the negative energies will be cleaned. When we do this work well one can feel a force field around the sacred space that repels the bad spirits but in the case that there is a person present carrying a bad spirit then this work requires more concentration.

In this case as we began to chant and chant the Yaje began to show more clearly this strange presence and there was no doubt that it was an entity and that it was intelligent because it had strategies of its own and did not want to leave. It also became clear that this negative entity was in the aura of our friend S and she moved uncomfortably in her experience as if it was annoying her and causing her difficulty. The battle was long and difficult and required an unwavering concentration as we moved into territory that was also a test of our learning as shamanic students but such was the force and unity of our chants that the Yaje heard us and little by little the negative entity was subdued and at the same time S became calmer in her experience. When we finished that chant a sense of relief permeated the atmosphere and the good energies began to flow through the ceremony.
Such was the effect of this that S received an experience in which the Yaje gave her some initial instruction in the psychological and spiritual changes that were necessary to begin a process of healing and thereafter she became a regular visitor to the temple that was hidden amist three tall fir trees. (The elemental of the different species of Fir tree gives far sight and vision).
Very soon the Yaje instructed her to give up taking the drugs prescribed by her consultants and to enter fully into a process of natural medicinal healing. We gave her depurativo, a medicinal tonic for the blood, the digestive system and the immune system. She also began to take Uña De Gato (Cats Claw), a jungle vine with small claw shaped thorns, hence its name, this plant is especially good for the immune system. Over various ceremonies it soon became clear that a big part of her healing process would involve a cleaning of the negative side effects of the cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs that had contaminated her body and penetrated into her bone marrow. She had some particularly strong experiences in which she vomited and vomited whilst the Yaje showed her that it was cleaning the toxins from her bone marrow.
When she gave up taking the drugs, the consultants, of course, told her that she was mad and that within a year she would be dead but thankfully this courageous lady had a lot of fight in her and refused to become psychologically traumatised by the pessimistic prophecies of these modern witch doctors. Indeed, in her case, being a rebel soul, she was determined to proove them wrong and now, after more than two years she has certainly prooved them wrong.

After a few months it was time for me to return to my home in Colombia but S continued to participate in ceremonies with other students from our community and a year and a half later she felt strong enough to make the journey to our community and receive healings from the Shaman who is our teacher and spiritual guide.

When she arrived at our farm I have to say that I barely recognised her such was the change in her face, her energy and her posture. Gone was the haunted look although she was still somewhat weak and, certainly, our Shaman was a little concerned that in this new environment with many bacterias and virus unknown to her body that she would be exposed to a risk of becoming ill.
Very quickly he gave us a long list of treatments with different plants that was to be carried out along with many dietary recommendations and a lot of attention to hygiene. Furthermore the Shaman explained to us that when the Indigenous Taitas make a treatment for an ill person then that person should be segregated from many of the normal activities of the other people, that the person should receive food and drinks, medicines etc using plates, spoons, bowls that were kept apart and used for no-one else. To the modern mind this appears extreme but a shaman is aware that all is energetic and that much care must be taken in this respect so that the person being treated is not adversely affected by other peoples energies and also that other people should not be affected by the energies of their illness. To this effect certain people were given the responsibility to make the medicines and to oversee their administration as well as monitoring the psychological state of the patient since a large element of the healing is completely psychological.

For the initial month or so S struggled to adjust to being a patient, to being attended to but not being permitted to cook food or make medicines. She went through bouts of home sickness, of doubt and other psychological difficulties especially as, through the use of Yaje she was also being shown the roots of many states and events that had led her into the situations in which she came to be diagnosed as HIV Positive but it was easy to see that this lady was nothing if not a spiritual warrior and she stuck with it through thick and thin until one day after some 6 weeks it was decided that she could go on an outing to see some of the local sights. (The area in which we live is a centre for a huge number of megalithic sites left by an ancient and wise Indigenous culture unknown to the archeologists that have studied the the stones)
She was taken on a 5 hour tour on horseback and when she returned she was glowing with happiness and that evening she explained that two years previously when she was gravely ill and seemed to be entering into full blown AIDS a friend had taken her horse riding. She had mounted on the horse for only half an hour and at the end she was so exhausted that she needed to be lifted down from the horse lest she collapse in a heap. The source of her happiness was that after five hours on horseback she had dismounted like a teenager and felt no ill effects. with this experience she was suddenly able to comprehend the depth of the treatment she was having, which, in addition to the medicinal plants, had also involved a series of shamanic healings with the famed Ortega plant.

Thereafter she went from strength to strength and during her three month stay with us not only did we witness a marked improvement in her physical and psychological strength, along with a further improvement in her complexion and her aura, but also she contracted no illness from any strange bacteria or virus of the locality, a feat that many apparently healthy visitors have not managed when coming to Colombia.
When she said goodbye to the Shaman of our community he said to her in his broken English "I think you are better now" and gave her a big hug.

Equally she continues to take the plant medicines prescribed and we have advised her not to let up.

The moral of the story is that there is no illness or condition that cannot potentially be cured by elemental therapy, as natural Shamanic Medicine is called by the Gnostic Master Samael Aun Weor. What we can understand from this experience is that true healing is not simply a case of treating a set of symptoms with loads of drugs. Modern medicine is nothing short of a business arrangement through which certain multi-national companies make a lot of money whilst tricking people in multiple ways. At certain points S said to us that the whole situation smelt of "black magic" and that it was the drugs that were making her ill rather than some virus, that upon investigation, is shown to be more like a fabrication of some depraved imagination rather than something in itself that leads to the so called AIDS syndrome.

True healing is something that occurs and needs to be attended to on many levels; spiritual, psychological, energetic and physical. A person cannot be healed unless, as a first requirement, the person understands the spiritual-psychological factor. Illness is something that is showing us a need to change our lives and the most important factor is FAITH for it is the spirits of the plants that cure us and they will only work for us if we have faith in them as vehicles through which God moves and teaches us to change our way of thinking and feeling. The healing action requires also that we understand that all illnesses are a consequence of certain circumstances that we ourselves have created through ignorance and unconsciousness of the right way to live and also the purpose of existence itself.

The AIDS con.

As a result of this experience, towards the end of her stay with us, we came across certain documents and films that have been produced on the subject of HIV and AIDS… information that only served to confirm our suspicions that the issue of AIDS is a gigantic con trick on humanity.
Taking into account the huge campaign of international propaganda around the so called AIDS epidemic, it is not hard to imagine the terrible and devastating effect of being diagnosed HIV Positive. Personally I remember as a young 20 something taking the test myself and the sense that the rest of my life was to be determined by the results of that test. In my case the HIV test lottery came out negative but little did I know that the tests are not much more than the throw of a dice since none has been shown to be 100% accurate. In fact, scientifically speaking, the so called HIV Virus has never been properly isolated in a manner that is satisfactory to all the scientists that have investigated the theme. Perhaps we could say that the only ones that have been satisfied with the methods used to determine if a person is HIV Positive or not are those such as Robert Gallo, one of the "Doctors" that "discovered" the virus and who receives royalties every time the test is made because he patented that test.
Indeed, even more disconcerting is that fact that among the scientific community there is no overall consensus as to the definition of what AIDS is and the top laboratories are not able to agree upon what constitutes a positive or negative reading of the test because, as we just mentioned, the virus has not been isolated properly and the test is not able to show the presence of HIV itself but rather the anti bodies that combat the virus. Without doubt we can affirm that this is an authentic example of the pseudo science of the Anti Christ.
In some places, such as South Africa, quick tests are done. This involves three distinct test methodologies, the first of which, the nurses that conduct them freely admit, are far from conclusive and very inaccurate. If out of these two you get two positive readings then you are diagnosed HIV positive, if it comes out 1-1 then a third test is taken that they say is marginally more accurate and upon this will depend the outcome. Frankly, you may as well just go to your local casino and play dice or go and toss a coin three times. It is astounding how peoples lives are played with in such a casual way.

In the rest of Africa people are not even tested for AIDS. If a person is ill and sent to hospital whether they have TB, Malaria or whatever if their condition looks deteriorated enough they are simply diagnosed as having full blown AIDS and the person is put on the AIDS drugs from which they inevitably die since the drugs themselves are what kill the people. The sinister plan behind this stinks of downright evil. Why do they not simply treat the person for the illness they have? The answer is that the UNAIDS agency will donate money to the hospitals and doctors that come up with numbers, for this is no more than a numbers game that enables them to receive money and line their pockets, whilst the pharmaceutical companies also rake in billions for killing people. This is the silent genocide of millions around the world and who pays? This is worth investigating for it would be interesting to know where UNAIDS get their money from but there is no doubt that one way or another it is all a convenient form for each country to run up more debt as UN receives its contributions from its member countries and from the "innocent do-gooders" that donate money to these criminal charities.

It is also worthwhile asking the question why is it that there is a UNAIDS agency but not a UN agency for other illnesses or causes of death? Why the big campaign, what is behind it all? Does all this have anything to do with the plan to reduce the world population? It does not seem to be a coincidence that behind the big pharmaceutical companies that deal in death by drugs are the usual culprits. AZT, the first "anti AIDS drug" is a drug that simply kills your cells. In the first years that it was used everyone that used it died. This company (Wellcome organization) is owned by the Rockefeller family and they, surprise surprise, are among those that want to reduce the world population.

HIV - A Quantum Virus?

Some folk that have refused to accept the HIV Positive death sentence have taken many tests and have found that in one it comes out positive, in the next negative and so on. Our friend S told us that once diagnosed HIV one is given periodic blood tests in order to take your CD4 count and the viral load count. Her nurse told her that she had noticed that the test results were clearly affected by the emotional state of the person, their psychological state, their stress level and so on.
In other words, "HIV" behaves like a quantum particle…. one minute its there, the next its not.. so where does it go? This fits with our shamanic experience that has shown us that HIV is more like some kind of malignant entity…
S told us that she has witnessed many cases of African women that get shipped over to Britain to receive treatment on the condition that they sign up to be guinea pigs for the pharmaceutical companies for testing out new drugs to be used later on their more privileged patients from the "first world" such as the gay community since the "pink pound" is one of the major sources of money when it comes to donations to the scientific laboratories that research new drugs and homosexuals are among those most willing to pay through the nose in order to prolong their agony.

Those African ladies, many of them fanatical evangelical Christians, are understandably totally destroyed internally when they get diagnosed with HIV as their religion coupled with the propaganda tells them that it is because they are terrible sinners. In such cases total psychological collapse is very quick and death follows swiftly. The words of S were that it was literally as if those women had been cursed by a witches spell and she may not be far from the truth. This evasive virus thats there then its not, that appears like an entity seems to act like some kind of entity that has been created by some terrible act of black magic. It is an illusion created by some very sick minds.

Indeed, this is very much backed up by the research of more enlightened Doctors such as Roberto Giraldo, a Colombian Doctor who has studied the human immune system for nigh on 40 years. He says he has cured many cases of HIV-AIDS and his investigations have shown that the single most important factor in maintaining a healthy immune system is our psychological state. Apart from this diet and lifestyle also have a big effect but seeing as the negative traits that we develop such as drug abuse, sexual degeneration, bad diet etc stem ultimately from a lack of self respect, a lack of love, a lack of meaning in our lives we can comprehend easily what Dr Giraldo is saying.

If we analyse things well then it all fits. Many people in the world today have a low self esteem, they are stressed, they do not have a quality life, they consume many types of chemical drugs, be they prescribed or recreational, they do not respect their bodies, doing things with them that go against natures design as in the case of the homosexuals. In the case of many of the poorer countries the lack of healthy lifestyle is also due to poverty, malnutrition, lack of education, loss of their Indigenous cultures etc etc etc. so we can say without a doubt that once a person is diagnosed HIV Positive the propaganda that serves to further affect a sense of the value of their lives, practically condemning them to die and into the bargain cutting them off from a normal family life since their intimate relations with others will never be the same again. This coupled with the regime of drugs that they are pressured into taking becomes a self fulfilling prophecy… which is, in effect, a CURSE on their lives. S tells us that within the HIV community one can tell who will survive the diagnosis for a long time by their reaction to the results. Those that have a warrior inside and refuse to accept their sentence will resist the psychological attack for longer whilst others are psychologically destroyed by the sentence.
In the case of S, being a natural rebel, she had fought for many years and finally she has been rewarded for her efforts and her refusal to lie down and die spontaneously coming across the sacred teachings of Yaje, the wisdom of shamanism and the benefits of natural medicine.

It should be noted that we are not saying here per se that Yaje (Ayahuasca) cures HIV/AIDS and this is not ever what we were saying although this seems to have been some people's interpretation... In light of that we wish to clarify that;

In Amazonian Shamanism, whilst Yaje has many medicinal properties which, along with the techniques of shamanism, can help in cases like this, the main use and role of the Yaje in a process such as this is for the wisdom and insight that SUPPORTS THE HEALING PROCESS.
Traditionally Yaje is used as a DIAGNOSTICAL tool and in order to see the problem at a deep psychological or soul level. Following from this the shaman will advise on the different actions that need to be taken on the levels of psychology, lifestyle and medicinally with the use of plants. In such a case the shaman also draws upon his or her knowledge and experience of other cases and any factors observed that may be unique to the particular case being treated. According to the shamanic understanding of illness each case is unique and there is no uniform formula, it depends on the person and the particular conditions of their lives. We should also clarify that whilst this case has shown us that the phenomena of HIV and AIDS is not what it seems, that does not mean that we deny the existence of a problem with the human immune system because there are clearly many people that suffer from immune related problems, however, the reasons for this may not be quite so cut and dried as would appear. The state of a persons psychological, spiritual and physical health can and does fluctuate and it has become clearer even to many more open minded scientists that mind and matter are not separate. In our experience, not only in this case, the psychological attitude and the power of human will and faith are absolutely VITAL in any healing process. It is not for nothing that Christ said that if you have Faith the size of a grain of mustard you can move mountains. The insights and efforts made for someone to achieve the radical turnaround that we were able to witness in the case of the lady mentioned here, however, are not changes that should be made just for the period of healing and recuperation of an illness for, in a spiritual sense, illness is a MESSAGE from the world of spirit of a need for a deep and lasting change, perhaps a change in the whole feeling and direction of life itself and this is the true purpose of any illness or crisis.
In that respect the real message here is that ultimately it is up to each one of us, for the solution to our problems are inside us and once we connect with our own inner spark of light and spirit we can walk toward the solutions and create the conditions for a solution around us. This may not happen immediately for we also need to develop patience and persistence. The key is to learn that we do not need to be victims to our circumstances and even if there is some kind of dark and sinister agenda working behind the scenes with regard to the AIDS phenomena and other issues, that does not mean that we have to be a victim to that.

So we are not saying here that Yaje/Ayahuasca will miraculously cure you of AIDS or anything else... and nor do we pretend that for anything there is some kind of quick fix formula, not at all. Shamanism, if studied seriously is an ANCIENT SCIENCE, albeit, a science that recognises and works with energies, forces and intelligences that are not visible to the physical senses... but nevertheless it is a science in which many factors are at work and influence the outcome of any situation. In this case, outlined in a very resumed way here, we can cite the psychological factor of the patient, we can cite the careful scrutiny of the Shaman with regard to the preparation and administration of medicines, something which was done according to a daily timetable, taking into account the way that different plants work and how they work in combination with each other, whether they are cooling, heating, astringent, relaxing, fortifying etc. etc. Some of them must be taken on an empty stomach, some at more regular intervals, some after meals etc. The attention to hygiene and also the surroundings of the patient were also very important and the use of Yaje in the key part of this process when S visited our community was made with the utmost discretion and not in an ad hoc way. Over exposure to this potent jungle brew would have been counter productive because she needed to build up the body strength required. In this phase the Yaje was, as we said earlier, a support and was used in key moments as a compliment to the other medicines and in order to make the energetic/spiritual aspect of the healing process through shamanic healings using Ortiga.
All of this requires and extensive practical knowledge and experience which usually takes many years to acquire. Thus we stress, so as to be quite clear, that we do not claim here to be giving any kind of formula... We are offering, by means of relating these things, information and explanations about how shamanic healing works and this is not just some kind of "up in the air" "new agey" thing.. it is something very practical that involves a lot of attention to detail.


We believe that stories like this deserve to be told and hopefully they will give some valuable and interesting information that will inspire others to fight the good fight against those evil forces that wish to suck humanity into the abyss.... For let us be clear; This world is a world of duality in which there are forces of Good and forces of Evil. Shamanism recognises that ultimately life is a journey in which we attain learning and knowledge of those forces and how they work inside and outside ourselves. Life is a journey of the soul in which the soul is presented with a series of choices and there are forces that actively work to confuse and disorientate the soul for this is a world in which all is not as it seems on the surface...

So we say ---- Don't believe the hype, don't take the drugs in an unquestioning way, don't believe all you are told about HIV-AIDS for this condition is not by any means incurable. We also add that you should not just believe without question what we have written here. Decide for yourself, investigate for yourself, use your capacity to think, to feel, use your intelligence... you were given it for a reason and each is free to believe or not believe. Whatever the case to believe is not the same as to know for yourself.

For us, however, as the years have gone by since this article was originally written we are ever more convinced and ever more firm in our vision and our experience and we say and will continue to say that the keys to humanities health lie in us returning to the bosom of our Mother Earth. The Divine Mother Pachamama is the best doctor that exists and the plants that come from Mother Nature possess living and intelligent spirits and through the contact with these spirits, THROUGH THE LOVE THAT WE GIVE TO THEM, and through the wise and humble use of all that they offer we humans can find solace and healing for our ills, whether those ills are physical, psychological or spiritual or a combination of all of these which is what, in reality, they are. Those plants were made for all of humanity, regardless of creed, race, religion, ideology and so on, just as the Sun shines upon all of us without prejudice. As such nobody owns the Shamanic wisdom, this wisdom is for all beings, however, at the same time the vocation for learning this wisdom is not there in all people and such a learning requires dedication, humility and respect for the plants and also for the wisdom of the ancestors and it is before those ancestors we kneel and give our thanks and praises. It is also by those ancestors that we shall be judged.

Upon returning to the UK our friend S went to take the customary blood tests. When her nurse put the needle in her arm it came flying out again with a mysterious force. The nurse tried to put the needle in her other arm and the same thing happened. The nurse was spooked. What ejected the needle? The vital force of Mother Nature, the spiritual energy of the elementals? S's nurse has said that in all her time attending to patients with HIV-AIDS she has never seen such a turn around and recovery. A message from the spirits perhaps ? I think so.

May the marvellous forces of Love ignite our sacred fires.
May the light of Pachamama illuminate our hearts and souls.

Intiananda
Los Arrayanes Shamanism of Light Community, Colombia

FOOTNOTE. The author of this article wishes to thank all those that have continued to learn alongside us and support our community....

"Life is a series of lessons and in life we all make mistakes. Now that time and circumstances have allowed me to revise this article thoroughly and in the light of criticisms made, whilst standing firmly by the principals learnt in the Shamanic Way and especially with regard to the healing properties of the plants and the elemental spirits of the plants, I recognise that this article lacked some clarifications and some deeper insights, so whatever the case and whatever the criticisms that have come as a result I would like also to extend a heartfelt THANK YOU to the critics, for even if their intentions have come across as destructive and judgemental and have led to further wild accusations that have nothing to do with this article, they have still been useful. I also clarify that I am not a shaman, but a student of shamanism and have never claimed to be a shaman or of any pure blood indigenous ethnic group in any way, shape or form. However, as a human being I do claim the right to study, practice and research shamanism, and to make, along with the like minded folk of the community to which I belong, a spiritual/religious practice inspired in the principals and understandings of what is broadly termed as shamanism and I do this in the knowledge that to profess a belief system and to practice it is a fundamental human right regardless of race, colour, gender, nation etc.
Finally, my greatest thanks go to the Shaman that I have studied with and his patience and understanding in the face of many attacks and criticisms received as a result of the original article. The witnessing of this and other Shamanic healing processes before and since have given and continue to give profound understandings of the human condition. This for me is beyond doubt and any errors and lack of clarity in the original article are my own and not those of the people with whom I have studied."

MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY, MAY ALL BEINGS BE JOYFUL, MAY ALL BEINGS BE IN PEACE.

Intiananda

PSYCHEDELICS & SHAMANISM - Revised

This is a revised and slightly re-edited version of the original post.



As many people know the word psychedelic or psychedelia came into popular use during the 60’s and in particular in association with the fashion for taking LSD that grew initially on the west coast of the USA in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

One of the first and most vociferous exponents of the use of this chemical compound, first synthesised by Swiss scientist Albert Hoffman, was the writer Ken Kesey (author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest”) who inaugurated the famous “acid test parties” attended by the fashionable people of his generation and even members of the infamous Hells Angels.

It has also been documented, however, that behind the introduction of LSD to the North American youth were none other than the CIA and other shadowy organisations interested in experimenting with the youth.

LSD was later given secretly to soldiers in Vietnam in a further development of a series of experiments is social engineering that were carried out by various human behaviour research projects.

Various researchers have now revealed that the development of the psychedelic culture was influenced, at the very least, as part of a social experiment carried out through projects such as MKULTRA and people such as Timothy Leary and even Terrence McKenna were all CIA agents. This has been documented and covered extensively so we will not go into all the details here but rather concentrate on the workings of psychedelia and shamanism.

What is psychedelia ?

The word psychedelia comes from Greek. “Psyche” means soul and “delia” means to reveal or to make visible. To quote a South American Shaman that we have studied with…

“In reality this means to reveal the subconscious states that lie in the interior of the soul. Reveal the soul by means of psychedelia means to bring to the surface the things of the subconscious mind.”

If we analyse this point we can see that in these terms there is a clear relationship to shamanism. Obviously the shaman is an expert in entering the subconscious and bringing its contents to the surface.. In order to help him in his work to heal, cure and order the subconscious elements, ultimately helping the patients connect again with their essence the shaman is able to call upon spiritual forces that orientate, protect and guide.

As The Shaman that we spoke with continues to say, “Bringing the contents of the subconscious to the surface would not be dangerous to the soul if there was will, self control and the capacity for observation..”

In the modern world, however, the word psychedelic has taken on other connotations and is used more to refer to a recreational drug use, acid parties and the pseudo-mystical experiments as was the case with another champion of LSD use, the even more famous psychedelic guru Timothy Leary.

Leary went further perhaps than Kesey, who remained surfing the wave of the hedonistic fashion in true Californian style, Leary, meanwhile, tried to be more serious and academic, professor, as he was, of Harvard University on the less wild east coast of the USA.

Whilst Kesey and his Merry Pranksters developed the loud colours, discordant music and distorted art that emerged as a result of LSD use, Leary attempted to find analogies to the LSD experience in the mystical teachings of the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” and others. He tried to map the experience with the intellect and this led to the emergence of a more serious sounding aspect of Western psychedelia and projects such as MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies).

The influence that people like Kesey and Leary and others have had was immense but clearly they were not alone in their use of LSD. Many who would become cultural icons for the and future generations, sampled the ‘delights’ of LSD use.

In popular modern culture there were many that recognised that the artist is very similar to a shaman. Indeed, the line that separates art from magic is very fine and in many respects the appearance of shamanism and an interest in its techniques was inevitable.

Shamanism became fashionable among the hip artists, poets, singers etc and this later led to the search in Mexico and South America for shamans, the success of anthropologists such as Castenada and Wasson and a documentation of the various psychoactive plants that exist and have been used around the world.

Unfortunately most people failed to perceive the difference between the plants and an extracted or synthesised chemical, replacing the mushrooms and the peyote that Wasson and Castaneda talked about, with synthetic chemical drugs. The direction that Castenada’s stories took meant that many began to perceive shamanism as some kind of fantastic exotic world of disembodied experiences, sorcerers, bizarre dreams and so on.

The idea that to really work with shamanism requires discipline, self observation and will was not emphasised much and little by little all sorts of people started to emerge calling themselves Naguals, Shamans, Psychonauts and so on, some looking for fame others for power and others for a quick buck. The Sacred Science of the Indigenous was not understood by the vast majority of people looking for a new thrill and many things were damaged.

Maria Sabina, the Mexican Shaman who had used mushrooms with deep devotion all her life as a source of healing, inspiration and guidance said that after Gordon Wasson, part time anthropologist and publicist who worked for Chase Manhattan Bank, had come to her, many young “gringos” arrived looking for mushrooms in the hills and as a result the mushrooms spirits left and never came back.

For Maria Sabina the mushroom was something tremendously sacred that connected her to paradise realms where she could travel and speak with the Gods.
For many young Americans and Europeans the mushrooms, peyote, ayahuasca etc. are plants that contain a chemical substance that makes you trip out. The difference between a Shamanic Journey and a Trip is more than just a case of semantics.

For the modern people with their materialist inclinations, the mushroom is something to dissect in order to extract an active ingredient that is useful for the high they want. The Indigenous peoples understand that each plant has active and passive elements and that the passive elements are also necessary for a balanced experience and so for them it is not only a case of extracting the active ingredient.

Really it is very difficult for materialist and atheist people to have the same kind of experience as Maria Sabina because, as she said, the spirits went very far where the people cannot damage them and so, logically, the spiritual and healing experience is replaced by another kind of experience.

The Shaman that we spoke with also comments that “In 99% of cases, to enter into psychedelia means to be controlled by the ego… and power is given to the dark sub conscious elements turning the person into a Black Magician or Sorcerer. ”

This was the part that the unsuspecting youth did not know. LSD was introduced gradually into the youth culture. The first users were invited to take part in some scientific experiments being carried out in California and were paid to be human guinea pigs. Indeed, Ken Kesey, first took LSD in such a situation. Later he was given LSD to distribute outside of the laboratory…

Clearly, the uncontrolled use of such a potent chemical substance was going to have many unpredictable effects but that was what the secretive elements behind its introduction wanted.

Effectively, the subconscious elements of the collective psychology of an entire generation and also the ones following were called to the surface but sadly there was little will, control or capacity for observation. We can say that in effect the youth of the sixties and after have been put through a psychedelic initiation and this has unleashed the collective sub-conscious. The difference between this and a genuine shamanic initiation is that the modern western youth has had little preparation for entering into such realms.

Anyone slightly familiar with these themes will be able to recognise that locked up within the human subconscious are tremendous amounts of psychic energy.

To reach a state of psychological and spiritual health it is necessary to bring into consciousness that which is hidden in the subconscious. This is one of the purposes of a shamanic apprenticeship. In order to help others first one needs to organise ones own psychology and transform it.

So what happens when people take LSD ? …Apart from the visuals and the sensations and so on we can clearly say that they unleash the hidden forces of the psyche.

But how is a person with no observation going to adapt to this? In most cases the person simply does what they are trained to do by their ‘education’… They become fascinated and identified.

Some may enjoy a sudden feeling of power or the idea that they have been given the keys to the universe. Perhaps, some will be gratified by a new feeling of themselves, of their sexuality of their artistic potential or perhaps many will merely enjoy the display of colours, strange sounds and take it all as entertainment, much in the way that one would enjoy a good film.

There are many possibilities but, in general, we can say that the experience is very subjective.

Perhaps we could call it an expanded subjectivity; in short, the sub conscious elements or egos arrive in full force and given that in most cases the subject will have little capacity for self observation, it is difficult to know what is truly happening beyond what is being projected onto the screen of the mind. The source of what is being projected, however, is difficult to see unless discernment and observation are developed.
Obviously, the reactions and sensations experienced by people that take LSD are very varied and there is no doubt that the use of LSD has given a lot of material for psychologists and psychoanalysts to study. Literally anything can come to the surface from euphoria to extreme terror and all the range of human emotions and ideas that come between these two extremes and one cannot deny that these psychological elements are real. The difference, however, between chemical psychedelic drug use and shamanism is that the synthesised chemicals don’t have a spirit whilst the sacred plants do and it is this living spirit and the connection made with the spirit by the shaman and the participants in the ritual that helps the people to see more deeply what is happening and what is emerging.

The fact is that shamans have been studying these states for millennia within the context of a sacred and ritual dynamic that allows people to enter such states with a protection and guide in the form of the shaman, the spirits and the accumulated experience of the tribe and its tradition.

THE SHAMAN THAT TRIED LSD.

Some years ago a couple of English LSD users went to stay with a shaman in the Colombian jungle. The shaman had been practicing and learning with the jungle vine Yaje (Banisteriopsis Caapi) for more than twenty years. His use and knowledge of indigenous sacred medicinal plants was extensive but he had never taken a chemical substance like LSD.

One of the English visitors was in the habit of using LSD regularly and had become so accustomed to it that his body was relatively insensitive and in order to feel an affect he had to take 2 or 3 doses. The jungle people who he was visiting did not understand why this man shut himself up in his room all day with headphones on listening to trance and techno music rather than being outside, working and exploring the jungle. Later they discovered that he was taking LSD but they still did not understand as they had never taken this drug.

During his stay the Englishman offered LSD to the shaman, convinced that the shaman would like it. He gave him enough LSD for a double dose for three people and said that it would be best to take 2 doses per person to have a good effect. The shaman received the LSD and guarded it away. He did not have any intention of eating these strange cardboard tabs with the visitors present.

One night, after the visitors had left he decided that he would try it in order to know what the western people found so fascinating. He took it together with two women of the same jungle community but they tried a lower dose than the visitor had recommended. The experience that followed was very strange for them. The shaman explained that when he tried to see in the superior realms using his usual meditation practice he could see nothing, only darkness. He was unable to connect with the spiritual forces that he used in his shamanic practice. When he looked down however into the infra-dimensions, the show began. He said later that as he lay in meditation he began to hear the sound of a lorry or something similar. He thought it was a lorry crossing the bridge near to his home but as he listened and concentrated the sound grew louder and had a kind of hypnotising effect so he began to follow in his concentration until he found himself sitting on top of the lorry and the lorry began to wind its way gradually downwards and downwards in spirals. The shaman quickly realised that he was traveling into the inferior astral dimensions and alongside the road on which the lorry was traveling he saw unfolding different scenes that evoked the sensations and the states of people when they are immersed in the inferior worlds. We could say that there was something akin to a Dante type experience to see the hell realms. The shaman, with his experience and his capacity of self control and observation, knew very clearly what was happening and as the experience continued he became aware that at the bottom of the spiralling road were a group of black magicians and demons waiting for him. He said later that the atmosphere became dense and heavy and it was difficult for him to move. As the lorry descended he realised that if he continued he would soon reach a point of no return so he decided that he would continue no further, this was enough for him to know the secrets of LSD and with an effort of concentration and will he awoke himself from the experience.

Using an interesting analogy, the shaman said that the LSD was like getting into a car as a passenger and finding that the car went but had no driver and there was no way of knowing where it was headed. To use Yaje, however, was like getting into a car but in this case there was a driver, the driver is the spirit of Yaje that guides the person in the interior worlds. With Yaje, one can learn how to control the experience. Yaje teaches the person to have will and objectivity and thus it is possible to shine light on the subconscious realms with the help of a spiritual guide, the elemental spirit of Yaje. This conscious and intelligent spirit is a mediator between man and God (the superior intelligence) and therein lies the difference between LSD and the Sacred Plants.

It is interesting to note that the shamans’ training gave him the capacity to be aware of where the LSD was taking him. In most cases however, the young people that experiment with this substance have no idea where it is taking them. They do not have the preparation of a shaman or the help of an elemental spirit like Yaje. It is also important to note that although the shaman was able to observe and control, up to a point, his experience with the LSD, enough to avoid his coming to any great harm, he was not able to use this substance to call upon spiritual forces and make his work as a shaman.

As he himself said, the experience was useful so that he could understand the interior state of many young people from the west that were beginning to come to him looking for help. He also explained that physically, for him and his friends, the experience was very uncomfortable and they felt the draining effect of the chemical on their bodies and their energies.
It took them several days to recover from the experience with the help of plant medicines. We should understand that for people like them, who study and practice shamanism, the body is very sensitive and feels more effect from the chemical substance. They all said that the most unpleasant aspect of the experience on a physical level was the taste of the chemical in their mouths and its smell in their sweat.

Yaje, on the other hand, is medicinal and leaves one feeling replenished and healthy.

The hypnotic force that was present in their experience, the shaman explained, is an opposite force to that of the Kundalini. This shaman explained that just as there is an energetic current that Hindus call Kundalini (which shamans also know about) which goes up the spine, there is also an inverted version that extends from the base of the spine downwards into the infernal dimensions.

Prolonged use of LSD and also substances such as Ecstacy or Ketamin lead to the development of this serpent like energy that reaches down and draws its power from the inferior dimensions. This is the source of the ego. There are many egos inside each person. They are like entities or parasites that live in the subconscious and trap the human essence, bottling it up and feeding upon its energy in order to survive.
The ego or egos are like knots in the psychology and in reality the use of LSD and other such substances strengthens the ego and develops its complexity. To strengthen the ego is to travel upon the path towards black magic because black magic is the use of magic for selfish ends and conduces us towards the state of being a demon, and so this gives us a clue as to to the secret reasons why LSD was introduced to an unsuspecting youth during the 60’s.

Through the practice of shamanism there are people that have discovered the internal reality in both the positive and negative aspects. The psychedelia now present and influencing all of western culture is a way of disorientating, confusing and distracting young people and as such is a tool of the black magic power that controls the governments, the people and society in general.

In the beginning, LSD use tried to disguise itself as something alternative and revolutionary and many people with good hearts that wanted change and an alternative to the boring materialistic life fell into its labyrinth and never found their way out. Countless talented people have been tricked by the psychedelic illusion into using their gifts for the art, music and literature of the drug using generations but in the end the promise of a new tomorrow has been a mirage on the horizon as we walk through the empty desert of a modern society, devoid of real purpose or spiritual direction.

In truth, the word psychedelia has come to mean more than the meaning defined at the beginning of this article. Its meaning is the sum of the culture that was spawned by the introduction of LSD and all that it helped to develop on the downward path of degeneration. Clearly it is not only LSD that has played a role here, we can also list Heroin, Cocaine, Ketamin, Ecstacy, Amphetamines etc etc.

The direction of the youth drug culture was given nightmare proportions in the dark prophecies of William Burroughs with his surreal prose that called upon the subconscious realms for ‘inspiration’.

His famous ‘cut-up’ style became one of the blue prints of art for the psychedelic generation and this fragmented vision is a mirror to the fragmentation of the psyche that results when the sub-conscious forces are released without any comprehension of the interior and esoteric purpose.

Ken Kesey surfaced again in the late 90’s doing a re-run of his bus tour as he tried to relive the acid drenched days when he toured the US in a brightly painted day-glo bus, performing circus stunts.

When he revived the bus, it was quite clear that he had ended up like some kind of cartoon style Uncle Sam with no real message for the youth other than “have a good time man”.
Leary took psychedelic drugs until the end and finished up believing that the internet was going to save our souls.
Other psychedelic gurus and icons like Jack Kerouac and Jim Morrison ended up as alcoholics and drug addicts and died for their vices. The list goes on.

In reality the early promise of a cultural and spiritual revolution in the 60’s ended up as a collection of youth sub-cultures all designed to suit the different personalities and psychological make-ups; punks, goths, metal, hippies, ravers etc.

In the late 80’s a 60’s revival was staged with the introduction of Ecstacy, an alternative to LSD that was called the ‘love drug’ because of its supposed capacity to put people in a euphoric state but time showed that this was yet another false dawn for the youth and yet another doorway to the infernal realms.

The impulse to want a change and transformation in society is not unusual and many people feel it but the step between feeling it and doing it is a big one. It is strange that every time such an impulse emerges in society different drugs appear to give the answer, but in reality in no way does the use of chemicals such as LSD or Ecstacy conduce people towards any real transformation.

In the end we can see that the psychedelic style has been employed mainly to sell things; fashion, TV, cinema, music, etc all use the psychedelic style. The influence of psychedelic artists has become part of the style and design of modern life where what was the drab and unimaginative style of the post war 50’s has been converted into a glamorised materialism full of the colours, sound effects, visuals and special effects that are employed in the modern forms of entertainment evoking the sensual affects of the drug experience. Advertising in particular is an industry that has profited from using a surreal style full of triggers for the subconscious with the aim of impulsing the desires that everybody carries inside. Some people have even likened the use of many artistic elements taken from the drug experience in cinema etc to a kind of modern shamanism.

Certainly, it is true that there is an element of magic in all of this because the use of drugs opens the Pandora’s Box of the subconscious but what we find in the subconscious is not necessarily useful when it comes to living in a spiritual connection with our fellow humans, with nature and the development of a deep understanding of existence because the sub-conscious is full of a lot of rubbish that needs to be cleaned. This is why the use of Sacred Plants and the practice or shamanism requires discernment and care.

It is not a case of taking psychoactive substances without using the faculty of consciousness.

The subconscious and unconscious exist below the threshold of the conscious. That in us which is conscious is only a small percentage but we must learn to use this small portion of consciousness in order to liberate the soul essence that is trapped in the subconscious. We need to shine the light of the consciousness into the subconscious so that we can rescue the essence that is trapped within the unconscious patterns that we play out in our lives.
The psychedelic people, however, say that you should go with whatever comes up, surrender to the subconscious forces without question.

The people that study shamanism of light say that we should observe what comes up and learn about ourselves. In this case we need to develop the capacity for meditation and a connection with the spirit and with our Internal Being.

Use of the sacred plants such as Yaje, Peyote, San Pedro, Mushrooms, Coca etc are are a help for this because through the shamanic ritual we cultivate a connection to the plant spirit and through this to God in both the Male and Female aspects.

In truth, we can say that in order to meditate, to observe oneself and to be close to God we do not have to use these plants but they exist and were put here on this planet by God as a help for those that need their help.

On the contrary, LSD, Ecstacy, Ketamin, etc are not a help for connecting to the spirit because they make the subconscious more active but without the spiritual element that helps to make us more objective. When using these substances meditation is more difficult than normal because the nerves, the mind and the body become more agitated.

The sacred plants also affect the central nervous system but as the plant is something living, with a spirit, it is possible to use prayers, chants and concentration in order to control the substance in the body and harmonise with the elemental spirit of the plant so that you are calm and the energy is directed towards the spiritual realms, towards introspection, contemplation etc. This is why the shamans use their shamanic chants because through the chant and the plant elemental in your body responds and you can journey with it.

With LSD, the substance does not respond as a living spirit would so in this respect you are on your own, at the mercy of the subconscious elements that emerge.

We know that some people will say and do say that they have the ability to control the LSD and in reality everybody is free to believe what they want but we have known more than one person that was very sure of his guru status with LSD until he received an electrical nervous shock that he could not control and through this ended up losing all of the capacities he thought he had gained by using LSD.

Before embarking on the long path of shamanic study it is necessary to have at least a little bit of humility.

SHAMANISM AS AN ANTIDOTE TO THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF DRUG ABUSE.

Drug abuse causes damage to mind, body and soul, this is clear. The many side effects of drug abuse are well documented and many people have tasted for themselves the results in terms of damage to their health, their relationships, their minds and ultimately their hearts. When people become lost in cynicism about life it is because their hearts have become damaged and the person has lost his or her faith in life.

If we seek the help of shamanism and natural medicine in order to heal our bodies, our minds and our souls of drug abuse and in general of the pain suffered by our souls in this world so lost in materialism, greed and avarice, then first of all it is necessary to have at least a little bit of faith in God, in the plants and in Mother Nature, or Pachamama as she is known by the indigenous people of South America.

Another thing that we need to develop in order to be healed is the will to change because true healing implies a change in us. In this respect the plants can initially help us by showing us the change we need to make but it is up to us whether we make it or not.

If the modern generations that have interest in these themes were to develop a little more humility they would discover that they are like small children beginning in school whereas the indigenous Masters of ancient times that now live in the superior dimensions are the real teachers.

It is only a little more than 40 years since the interest in shamanism and the use of plants became more widely known in western culture. It is extremely arrogant to think that in that short space of time we can claim some kind of expertise in these matters when in reality 40 years is about enough for one person in continuous work to become a shaman and to do that he needs to draw upon the wisdom of previous generations, stretching back into ancient times.

Many anthropologists that claim to be experts in these matters after a few years study have not even got this back up of tribal experience as a source of wisdom.

We should take great heed of the work, effort and discipline required to become a shaman, for a shaman is a person with an immense knowledge, or better put, Gnosis of the interior realms, not to mention the fact that being a shaman does not only imply a use of shamanic techniques but also a complete way of life, a practical knowledge of plant medicine, cultivation of the earth, community and integration with Mother Nature.

The psychedelic world view has, in general, tried to add a pseudo-shamanic vision onto the modern lifestyle rather than seeking a transformation of lifestyle, hence the tendency towards the use of drugs and the idea of ‘urban shamanism’, a contradiction of terms if ever there was one.

If psychedelic drug-use is a kind of mutation of art and culture that leads to a greater immersion in the material and sensual illusion then Shamanism of Light is the antidote that leads us towards an authentic, archaic revival, a recuperation of the timeless values we find enshrined in the shamanic myths of many cultures.

It cannot be denied that the impulse itself that leads many young people to experiment with drugs is something that relates to an innate human impulse to want to change his everyday state of consciousness.

The fact that this impulse, in the present day, gets focused on chemical, psychedelic drugs is a reflection of the fact that a more positive alternative is not generally available and it is also a reflection of the materialist attitude of our society.

Many people are looking for something to fill the spiritual void that exists in modern day society and as such drug use is an outlet for this that unfortunately becomes an escape rather than a means of truly filling that void. Ultimately that impulse becomes diverted into a fascination with sense gratification which is why psychedelic art tends to be very sense orientated with forms and colours that reflect the tainted light of the infernal dimensions.

That ‘dark and seductive light’ gives the appearance of filling void but the accumulative affects of psychedelia produce a reduction in the body’s natural ability to produce hormonal substances important for our natural well being and the harmonious development of the chakras and the subtle bodies.

It has been documented that in ecstacy users the capacity of the brain to secrete the hormone serotonin, a substance related to the dream state and to feelings of joy and euphoria is destroyed, leaving the person dependent on ecstacy as an artificial replacement. In this sense it is like to try and force that euphoric state.

In the philosophy of shamanic peoples, however, it is not merely that a particular hormone produces, in a mechanical way, such a state but rather that the more subtle spiritual connection impulses the production of that hormone.

In the human body and brain there are many receptors that have the capacity to receive the hormones that stimulate the different states of consciousness but as humans have become more materialistic, the capacity to produce the corresponding hormone becomes atrophied. If we wish to reactivate the states of natural sensitivity, enjoyed by our ancestors, we would be better off recuperating the timeless values and ways of living in harmony with the living intelligence of life that are the solid basis for such states of being.

The planet is alive and conscious and has brought forth plants that can give us food for the soul and reveal it in a positive and intelligent way, leading us towards a conscious transformation of all that is hidden in the subconscious.

Yaje or Ayahuasca actually stimulates the brains capacity to produce hormones such as serotonin. It helps in the regeneration of our atrophied faculties, if that is, we are ready to follow the promptings and teachings offered to us by this marvellous plant, with all the respect that it is due.

Many Indigenous shamans today are aware of the esoteric terms that have become widely used and I have heard them say that Yaje is Kundalini in plant form. Kundalini is the Divine Mother inside us, a subtle energy that lies coiled at the base of the spine. When this force is awakened in us it hails a complete transformation of the human being. This process is a long one and if we wish to follow such a path the shamanic wisdom is necessary.

Yaje is a medicine that balances the central nervous system, repairs the nerves damaged by the abuse of chemical drugs and the radiation so present through the many electronic devices that have become an everyday part of modern life.

Yaje helps cellular regeneration and in this respect it is also useful in the treatment of illnesses such as cancer and AIDS. It is not for nothing that some people have noted a connection between Yaje in form and vision with the DNA itself, because it is precisely on this level that it works and can give healing at a genetic level, if we have the heart and intelligence to be open and accepting of all that the elemental spirit of Yaje asks of us for in nature all is an exchange and if you work for the mission of Yaje, Yaje will work for you.

This civilization says that it represents progress, evolution, achievement in science and technology and the ability to use and adapt natural resources in order to give us humans a better life.
That is the propaganda of our modern civilization that has traditionally ignored and repressed its other side. This was true through the 18th and early 19th centuries and since then there has been a gradual release of inhibitions and taboos about sex, liberty, consciousness and so on, leading to the opposite extreme, i.e. philosophies, that counsel complete freedom of exploration without discernment. In reality there are two columns in life, that of severity and that of mercy. To be too severe and rigid is one mistake and to be too libertine is another.

In the 60’s, this reaction to the rigid religious values exploded.

The reaction had been growing for a while. People, such as Byron, Shelley, Crowley, Oscar Wilde etc had begun to breech the walls of repression, making visible the other side of the coin. When ecstatic states are prohibited they take a form that is reactionary. The natural impulses become distorted and exaggerated even turning into anger, hatred, abuse etc. but in all this one can detect the yearning for freedom, confused as it may be.

This is the unfolding and release of all those repressed sub-conscious forces, magically one could say, into the society at large. It is an endless conflict that goes round and round in circles. Our consciousness has become conditioned, trapped in between two extremes and without self knowledge, thus we lurch from repression to uncontrolled debauchery.

First with religious dogma and fanaticism we repressed and imprisoned ourselves and began to invent all manner of technology and ways of distancing ourselves from the natural. We became ashamed of our natural state….And then those natural forces locked inside and repressed began to explode and we burst out with all that pent up energy ready to try anything without knowledge of ourselves and so we try what is ‘forbidden’ and we try it without control or balance, desperate, and thus we came to the culture ‘Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll’ in a world where mans abuse of religion has turned him first into a fanatic and then into an atheist.

If we have the capacity, however, to learn from all this we can return to the natural way with the experience of the cycle under our belts and recover the wisdom of the ancients before it disappears completely.

Shamanism in its true sense gives us the opportunity to break this conditioning because it returns us to the original, unconditioned consciousness. It takes us to the archaic revival of the indigenous state. At the root of it all there is an indigenous person inside all of us, for the indigenous state is natural innocence, freedom from concepts, observation of things as they are, simplicity.

At this point in the human process we have the opportunity to return to the beginning but our returning requires that we learn the lesson of having lost the original innocence of our soul. We need to make a retrieval of our souls from the trap of being imprisoned inside a set of conditions, locked inside the subconscious. In the ultimate sense, shamanic healing is retrieval of the original seed, it is to take possession of your soul and this is a work of great patience.

Above all to return to Our Mother and Our Father is an adventure that gives life meaning again.
The natural impulse in itself is not good or bad, it is what we do with it that defines us.
If we want to seek sensual enjoyment we can and if we want to discover the wonders of the spirit we can. The choice is ours.

Intiananda, Shamanism of Light