Table of Contents

Abstract...................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction............................................................................................................ 8

Section One - Consciousness.................................................................... 19

Introduction to Section One........................................... 19

Ordinary State of Consciousness

- Chapter One................................................................... 23

Rationality – The Primary Value.................................................................................. 23

“It feels good.” A Secondary Value............................................................................ 26

Subpersonalities –Many “Little I’s”............................................................................... 29

Comparing Subpersonalities with “Multiple Personality”.......................................... 32

“Runaway Bee Head” - A personal example............................................................ 33

Subpersonalities – Separate Identities? Ordinary or Altered

State of Consciousness?................................................................................................ 35

Exploring Aspects of the Self........................................................................................ 36

Expanding Boundaries of the Self................................................................................ 37

Complexities of Modeling Consciousness................................................................... 39

Baseline State of Consciousness................................................................................... 42

Subsystems of Consciousness...................................................................................... 44

Transitioning into Alternative States of Consciousness

- Chapter Two................................................................. 47

Developing an Altered State of Consciousness – A Five Step Process.................. 50

1. Disruption of the Existing State of Consciousness.............................................. 51

2. Patterning.................................................................................................................. 52

3. Transition................................................................................................................... 53

4. Achievement of the Altered State.......................................................................... 54

5. Return to Ordinary State of Consciousness.......................................................... 54

Categories of ASC Induction........................................................................................ 55

A. Attentional absorption............................................................................................ 55

B. Rhythmic and repetitive movements..................................................................... 56

C. Balancing and harmonizing the muscles.............................................................. 56

E. Intensive temperature conditions.......................................................................... 56

F. Physical or sensory deprivation.............................................................................. 56

G. Exhaustion................................................................................................................ 57

I. Hallucinogens and the use of sacred plants.......................................................... 57

Sacred Plant Medicine and Hallucinogens................................................................... 58

Extreme Techniques....................................................................................................... 59

The Essential Transitioning Factor............................................................................... 60

Alternative States of Consciousness

- Chapter Three.............................................................. 65

Principles and Characteristics of Alternative States of Consciousness................... 65

1. A Naturally Occurring Human Experience............................................................ 65

2. Beyond the “Laws of Nature”.................................................................................. 66

3. Unity Consciousness and Wholistic Thinking....................................................... 67

4. Self-referential Processing....................................................................................... 67

5. Synchronicity............................................................................................................. 69

6. Occurs in Various Situations................................................................................... 71

7. Important Human Condition.................................................................................. 73

8. Deepens and Expands Individual Identity............................................................ 74

9. Value Neutral............................................................................................................. 75

10. Omnipresence of Alternative State of Consciousness Abilities........................ 76

11. Relative Importance of Technique, Mind Set, and Environment..................... 77

The Phenomenological Experience of Alternative

States of Consciousness.......................................................................................... 77

1. Attentional Absorption........................................................................................... 78

2. Effortless Expression............................................................................................... 79

3. Experiencing Rather Than Thinking..................................................................... 79

4. Greater Willingness to Explore and Experiment................................................. 79

5. Time Distortion........................................................................................................ 80

6. Flexibility in Time and Space Orientation............................................................ 80

7. Altered Sensory Perception and Involvement.................................................... 81

8. Fluctuation in ASC Involvement........................................................................... 83

9. Inhibition and/or Constancy of verbal and Motor Functioning........................ 85

10. Alternative Logic..................................................................................................... 85

11. Literal Interpretation while Entranced................................................................. 86

12. Described Metaphorically During and After the Trance................................... 87

12. Metaphorical Interpretation of ASC Experience after De-Induction............... 88

Individual Experience in Alternative States of Consciousness

- Chapter Four.................................................................. 89

Differential Experience in ASCs.................................................................................... 90

Individual Differences.................................................................................................... 93

Reference State............................................................................................................... 94

Mental and Consciousness Abilities............................................................................. 96

Projecting Mental and Consciousness Abilities on Others..................................... 100

Characteristics for Evaluating and Comparing Altered States

and Transitioning Techniques................................................................................... 102

Models of Consciousness

- Chapter Five................................................................ 105

Eight Models of Consciousness.................................................................................. 105

1. Shamanism—Lower, Middle, and Upper Worlds............................................... 105

2. Erickson—Conscious and Unconscious............................................................... 106

3. Sarbin—Role Playing............................................................................................. 106

4. Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis.................................................................................. 106

5. Buddhist Path of Concentration........................................................................... 107

6. Buddhist Path of Insight........................................................................................ 108

7. Wilber’s Spectrum of Consciousness................................................................... 108

8. Bailey’s Constitution of Man.................................................................................. 109

Section Two -

Shamanism, Imaginal Therapy, Hypnotherapy,

and Meditation............................................................................................. 111

Shamanism

- Chapter One.................................................................. 113

Six Defining Principles of Shamanism...................................................................... 114

1. Ecstatic Experience................................................................................................. 118

2. Memory of Events in the Ecstasy......................................................................... 126

3. Mastery of the Ecstatic Experience....................................................................... 128

4. Highly Regarded and Utilized by Their Community......................................... 130

5. Natural, Instinctual Unity Consciousness........................................................... 131

6. Illness, Dismemberment, and Death in Training and Initiation..................... 133

Selection, Training, and Initiation............................................................................. 135

Lioness in my Study - A personal experience....................................................... 137

Two Shamanic Initiation Self Reports....................................................................... 146

A Brief History of Imaginal Therapy in the West

- Chapter Two................................................................. 153

Asclepian Dream Temples in Greece........................................................................ 154

Jesus Christ and His Followers................................................................................... 160

Wise Women Healers (a.k.a. Witches)...................................................................... 162

Imaginative Healing Techniques in the Church....................................................... 165

The Use of Imagination by Other Healers............................................................... 166

Newton, Descartes, and a New World View............................................................. 169

Hypnosis: An Attempt to Integrate Science and Imagination............................. 172

Contemporary Theories of Hypnosis and Hypnotic Phenomenon....................... 177

Imaginal Therapy in Modern Western Society

- Chapter Three.............................................................. 183

Comparing Modern Imaginal Techniques................................................................ 184

Technical Variations in the Psychotherapeutic Uses of Imagery.......................... 185

Introducing the Imaginal Therapies of Jung, Assagioli, and Holmquist............. 191

Imaginal Therapy and Shamanism Compared

- Chapter Four................................................................ 197

A Summary................................................................................................................... 197

Whose Consciousness is “Altered”? Healer or Client............................................ 199

Magical Flight in Modern Psychotherapy.................................................................. 201

Identification with Spirit Allies................................................................................... 205

The Setting of the Imaginal Experience................................................................... 208

Induction Methods and the Perception and Evaluation of Imaginal Content..... 209

Goals of Treatment...................................................................................................... 212

Integration of Waking Life and Imaginal Experiences............................................ 213

Conceptualization and Utilization of Duality and Opposition................................ 215

Hypnotherapy

- Chapter Five................................................................. 219

Defining Hypnosis........................................................................................................ 221

Notable Contributions by Contemporary Theories of Trance............................... 227

A Typical, Traditional Hypnotic Induction............................................................... 229

Characteristics Associated with the Hypnotic Trance............................................. 232

Ericksonian Conceptualization and Utilization of Trance....................................... 234

Huxley and Erickson Explore Alternative States of Consciousness...................... 235

Hypnotherapy and Shamanism Compared

- Chapter Six................................................................... 243

A Summary................................................................................................................... 243

Suggestibility................................................................................................................. 244

Trance Experience: Real or Hallucinatory................................................................ 248

Experience In, and Depth of, Trance........................................................................ 249

Purpose and Goals....................................................................................................... 253

Value of Theory and Analysis.................................................................................... 256

Meditation

- Chapter Seven.............................................................. 257

Formulations and Techniques.................................................................................... 262

Concentrative Meditation............................................................................................. 263

Opening-Up Meditation............................................................................................... 265

Reflective Meditation.................................................................................................... 266

Receptive Meditation.................................................................................................... 266

Creative Meditation...................................................................................................... 267

Healing Meditation....................................................................................................... 267

Walking Meditation....................................................................................................... 267

Invocation...................................................................................................................... 268

Esoteric Meditation – A Synthesis.............................................................................. 269

Powers of Mind and Alternative Consciousness...................................................... 273

Working with Personal Problems............................................................................... 275

Purpose and Goals....................................................................................................... 277

Meditation and Shamanism Compared

- Chapter Eight.............................................................. 279

A Summary................................................................................................................... 279

Shared Experience of a Unity That Underlies All Forms and Appearances........ 281

Relationship with Duality............................................................................................ 283

Masculine and Feminine.............................................................................................. 283

Good and Evil............................................................................................................... 285

Human and Animal Consciousness........................................................................... 286

Synthesis of Instinct, Intellect, and Consciousness Unity...................................... 289

Dismemberment Imagery and Experience............................................................... 290

Spirit Possession and Overshadowing...................................................................... 292

Chakras, Planes, and Subplanes................................................................................ 293

Activity Level and Imaginal Content......................................................................... 295

Relationship to Imaginal Content: Real or Not....................................................... 296

Symptom Change, Exploration, and/or Expansion................................................. 299

Goals and Connection to the Everyday World......................................................... 300

Complementarity.......................................................................................................... 301

Section Three

- The Therapeutic State of Consciousness (TSC)....................... 305

Are Two or More Discrete Concurrent Awarenesses Possible?

Is This Dual Consciousness?............................................................................. 305

The Witness................................................................................................................... 306

Differential Awareness of the Psychotherapist........................................................ 307

Alternative States of Consciousness.......................................................................... 310

Applicable Intellectual Knowledge............................................................................. 311

Thoughts, Feelings, and Physical Sensations.......................................................... 312

Appropriate Registration and Possible Sharing of Therapist Images.................. 314

Wise Verbal Communication with Client.................................................................. 315

Summary....................................................................................................................... 315

Necessary Fluidity in Consciousness Theory, Modeling, Research,

and Experience....................................................................................................... 319

Epilogue................................................................................................................... 320

Future Exploration and Research............................................................................... 321

A Blessing......................................................................... 328

Bibliography........................................................................................................ 329

Introduction

A paper comparing experiential and technical aspects of various states of consciousness and four healing and transformative practices that use non-ordinary consciousness could be a dry and mundane affair. But this group of four modalities starts with shamanism. Take yourself back in time a few hundred or thousand years, picturing a grass-hutted clearing in Africa, a yurt lined village in Siberia, or adobe cliff dwellings in North America with dozens of traditionally clad tribespeople gathered around their beloved and awe-inspiring spiritual leader and healer. Drumming, rattling and chanting electrify the clean, fresh air. We can smell the natural, primal energy of the moment. Nature’s beautiful overcoat unfolds in front of us as mountain, tundra, plateau, lake or desert. Anticipation fills the air. Transported in time to an age still present in our deepest soul, our DNA, we feel curious, a little out of place and, yes, maybe even fearful. We know the stage is set for something. But what? Unfolding before our eyes is an enduring high drama

…of the shamanic séance. We refer not only to the sometimes highly elaborate ‘staging’ that obviously exercises a beneficial influence on the patient. But every genuinely shamanic séance ends as a spectacle unequaled in the world of daily experience. The fire tricks, the ‘miracles’ of the rope-trick or mango-trick type, the exhibition of magical feats, reveal another world- the fabulous world of the gods and magicians, the world in which everything seems possible, where the dead return to life and the living die only to live again, where one can disappear and reappear instantaneously, where the ‘laws of nature’ are abolished, and a certain superhuman ‘freedom’ is exemplified and made dazzlingly present. It is difficult for us, modern men as we are, to imagine the repercussions of such a spectacle in a ‘primitive’ community. The shamanic ‘miracles’ not only confirm and reinforce the patterns of the traditional religion, they also stimulate and free the imagination, demolish the barriers between dream and present reality, open windows upon worlds inhabited by the gods, the dead, and the spirits” (Eliade, 1970, p. 511).

What is really going on in the shamanic ritual? What is real, what is unreal? What meaning can it possibly have for health, healing, and transformation in the modern, western world? Is there anything around today that carries the essence and power of the ancient traditions? How can strange old ways be helpful in the world of scientific miracles, cell phones, and cyberspace?

With the beat of a drum and the howl of the healer still ringing in our ears, we know that our journey will be anything but dry and mundane. We venture into a world that is unknown and frightening to most westerners and may seem far removed from a thoughtful discussion of consciousness. To the surprise of some, we will see that the typical modern person has a limited range of consciousness and mental abilities and that these boundaries exclude many of our most vibrant, healing and transformative possibilities.

The attraction of shamanism …appears to be connected for us in the West with the possibility of healing at both the individual and societal levels. It has become quite obvious that personal, social, and environmental disturbances pose a threat not only to the fabric of our culture but also to the existence of all sentient beings, plant and creature. The initiatory and visionary experiences of the shaman, as well as the practical methods used to achieve them, are thought by many to offer a possible key to psychophysical reintegration, while the shamanic world view appears to provide a possible basis for reharmonizing our now out-of-balance relationship with nature and the Earth (Halifax, 1987, p. 215).

More than any person that I have met and spent a day with, Malidoma Patrice Some’ knows both the ways of the shaman, and, of western society. He offers a bridge into the tribal world of the ancient healers and their lives in a compelling account of his life in Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman. Born of the Dagara tribe in the mid 1950’s in Upper Volta, now named Burkina Faso, in West Africa, Malidoma was spirited away from his family and village at age four. Raised and educated by Jesuits, self-proclaimed saviors from a so-called civilized society, Malidoma escaped and returned to his people at age 20, only to find he

“…did not fit into the tribal community. I risked my life to undergo the Dagara initiation and thereby return to my people. During that month-long ritual, I was integrated back into my own reality as well as I could be. But I never lost my Western education. So I am a man of two worlds, trying to be at home in both of them—a difficult task at best” (Some`, 1994, pp. 2-3).

Malidoma, whose name means roughly “Be friends with the stranger/enemy,” gives westerners a view of shamanism that is easier to understand and assimilate than that of the shaman who is not western educated. The Dagara often call their children by their perceived destiny and Malidoma is living his name as a teacher of his tribe’s ways to North Americans and Europeans. Whether it is in our personal and spiritual growth or our professional abilities to help our therapy clients, are not we often called to befriend inner and outer strangers and enemies?

Malidoma tells a story of the relationship between Dagara grandfathers and grandsons. It begins before birth at the “hearing.” At this momentous gathering

…the pregnant mother, her brothers, the grandfather and the officiating priest are (present)…. During the ritual, the incoming soul takes the voice of the mother (some say the soul takes the whole body of the mother, which is why the mother falls into trance and does not remember anything afterward) and answers every question the priest asks. The living must know who is being reborn, where the soul is from, why it chose to come here, and what gender it has chosen…. Some souls ask that specific things be made ready before their arrival---talismanic power objects, medicine bags, metal objects in the form of rings for the ankle or wrist. They do not want to forget who they are and what they have come here to do. It is hard not to forget, because life in this world is filled with many alluring distractions” (Some`, 1994, p. 20).

For the Dagara there is important communication between the conscious, listening unborn child and the shaman, the family, and particularly the grandfather.

Not long after hearing these words, the universe and my daughter Kristen and son-in-law Stefano, announced the conception of their first child, my first grandchild. Dagara grandfather/grandson tradition flashed to mind and the enriching possibilities it offered for this new relationship touched me deeply. How could I take the wisdom and richness in the Dagara “hearing” and grandfather/grandson traditions and make them mine?…make them his?…make them ours? I began by co-hosting a gathering to honor the new mom, dad and gestating grandchild, at which family and friends came together, to share wisdom, love, and life experience. For my part I spent many hours writing a poem to our grandchild as my first communication, and read it directly to him through Kristen’s tummy that glorious evening.

The Dagara traditions hold that “A child’s first few years are crucial. The grandfather must tell the grandson what the child said while still a fetus in his mother’s womb (Some`, 1994, p. 21). Their conversations are communication between “brothers of the same knowledge group. To know is to be old. In that, the grandson is as old as the grandfather” (Some`, 1994, p. 21).

“What the grandfather and the grandson share…is their proximity to the cosmos” (Some`, 1994, p. 20). The elder will soon retrace his steps back to the very place the grandson just left, and therefore the grandson has much to remind and teach his grandfather. The elder must also transmit the ways of the earthly life “using the protocol secret to grandfathers and grandsons” (Some`, 1994, p. 20).

As Malidoma remembers, the “grandfather will do anything to make the grandson communicate the news of the ancestors before the child forgets, as inevitably happens. My grandfather obtained this news through hypnosis, putting me to sleep in order to question me” (Some`, 1994, p. 19).

In the exploration of healing and transformation that this paper proposes to be, this paper starts with the ancient use of what Malidoma labeled hypnosis and westerners would devalue as child’s play and fantasy. Wise elders, craving reconnection with their spiritual roots, create an altered state of consciousness in the child to help him remember and relate the truths of the other world. The esteemed elders of the community turn to the children and use hypnosis to do it. So much for the notion that hypnosis is a modern European invention. In fact, hypnosis as an art is as old as humanity itself.

Ancient peoples communicated their knowledge and wisdom orally. Personal, familial, tribal, and spiritual histories were bound in volumes of stories not paper. Children were taught values, appropriate roles, and the ways of the tribe with metaphor. Over the millennia poetry, myth, and fairy tale have continued to be great communication devices. The great 20^th century psychiatrist Milton Erickson is renowned for his story telling,[1] as training for professionals as well as hypnotic work with patients. Many psychotherapists use story, fable, metaphor and other nonrational, indirect forms of communication as integral aspects of their therapy. Shamans were, and are master storytellers and the foundation upon which present day nonlinear communication is based.

Malidoma’s grandfather was a great storyteller. Malidoma tells us that

Each time I sat in his lap, he took it as a request for a story, and he would always begin by asking a question.

“Brother Malidoma, do you know why the bat sits upside down?”

“No, Why?”

“Long. Long time ago, and I mean long when I say long because that was when animal used to speak to men and men to animals and both to God.”

“Then why don’t animals speak to men anymore?”

“They still do, only we have forgotten how to comprehend them.”

“What happened?”

“Never mind. We’re talking about bats, and why they all sit upside down.”

“Yes. I want to know why they do that.”

“Well, see, there was a time when Brother Bat died and no one knew who he was. The town crier took his body to the crocodile, saying, ‘The jaws of this damn thing look like they were borrowed from a crocodile. I thought he might be your relative or something.’”

“The crocodile said, ‘It’s true that this guy’s got a mouth like mine, but I ain’t got no brother with fur, let alone with wings.’”

“So, next the town crier took the dead bat to the head of the birds tribe.’”

“And who’s that?”

“It’s Mother Sila, you know, the bird that flies high and shoots herself down like an arrow when she goes to catch her dinner. Mother Sila said, ‘This animal looks like it’s got good wings and reasonable claws, but I never saw anyone in my family with so few feathers.’”

“And so, finally the town crier gave up and threw the bat into a ditch. But when Papa Bat found out about this, he was very angry. He rebelled against God and ordered the whole tribe never to look up to God again. Since then bats never turn their faces upward.”

“Grandfather, this is too sad. Tell me another one.”

What winged, soaring, nocturnal aspect of ourselves whose instinctual radar accurately and effortlessly navigates the darkest, deepest, scariest of intrapsychic caverns have we thrown into the ditch because it does not fit neatly into any mental chamber of our fast paced, intellectually based western life style? What value could these bat-abilities have for modern humans? What gods must we rebel against? Is it necessary to carry the rebellion so far as to never look up to, never relate to these gods again? One major tenet of this paper is that a highly skilled 21^st century therapist must expand his understanding and experience beyond the highly rational ordinary state of consciousness that characterizes individuals in modern western society. Throwing away rationality or scientific thinking will not be required or suggested, but an adventuresome spirit and a willingness to openly contemplate some of the untouched heights and depths of possible consciousness is necessary. The purpose is an exploration of consciousness, ordinary and alternative, in the service of personal, spiritual, and professional growth to provide a balance for overly rational thinking and limited way of being. This new consciousness can also bring us a step closer to understanding, relating to, and treating the whole person: body, emotions, mind, and spirit. This paper will introduce and develop modalities that offer this promise of balance and wholeness. While these possibilities do not require “never turning our faces” toward the highly valued and rarely questioned scientific, rational, linear way of thinking, they do require expanding beyond and even rebellion against this cherished “god” of western society. Becoming a highly skilled and successful therapist of the 21^st century requires it.

To whom can we turn if we choose to rise beyond and sink beneath the rational ordinary state of consciousness and reconnect with long lost supra-rational abilities? And how would this reclamation project begin?

Joan Halifax, medical anthropologist and Harvard faculty member, has personally and professionally built a bridge from the modern western world to the ancient tribal one in her attempt to explore and understand the wisdom and techniques of the shamanic way. A veteran of the battle to become aware of, overcome and let go of our limiting mind sets and prejudices that make useful and accurate impressions of shamanism so difficult, Halifax proffers good advice for the student of non-ordinary realities.

After many years of questioning, with the need to “verify” my observations, I abandoned this approach at the suggestion of friend Hyemoyohsts Storm. One day he said to me, “Do not verify, only clarify!” I took these words to heart (Halifax, 1987, p. 215).

Halifax’s advice would also serve the reader well. Letting go of a need to determine accuracy or rational truth will aid the reader in understanding the metaphorical truth in the following pages. “Do not verify, only clarify!” And how about adopting young Malidoma’s reaction to sad story? “Grandfather…tell me another one.” When the reader finds the story incredible, disheartening, frustrating, or impractical, how about enthusiastically wanting more? A mind set of curiosity, openness, and receptivity will allow informed and wise choice about the applicability and usefulness of the concepts in this paper for your personal and professional lives. Consider seeing with soft, unfocused eyes; listening with soft, receptive ears; and perceiving with an open, receptive, expansive mind. Consider focusing on images, feelings, perceptions, and experiences more than thoughts, ideas, or opinions. Consider allowing images and feelings to speak for themselves; taking them in whole without chewing them to bits before trying them on. Above all enjoy an opportunity to look at and experience new, exciting, and promising ways of thinking and being.

Ordinary State of Consciousness - Chapter One

Why level downward to our dullest perception always and praise that as common sense?

Henry David Thoreau[5]

Any analysis of altered states of consciousness (ASC) must begin with some understanding of an ordinary consciousness. In other words, what is it that is being altered? Is it a constant, clearly defined state that is agreed upon by academics, practitioners, and most of the world’s six billion people? Does every human have the same baseline consciousness? Does it change over time for individuals? Or is it one of those things in which we are so immersed that we do not think much about it and therefore have difficulty defining? Do we believe that the baseline consciousness defines us as humans, or is it something that we have control over and choose? Is it so amorphous that we define it by what it is not rather than what it is?

Rationality – The Primary Value

The ordinary, everyday state of consciousness (OSC) for the western person of median intelligence and a high school education or higher is based on the importance, even supremacy, of rationality. While most people do not think of it consciously or would have difficulty expressing it verbally, rationality is implicit in the way we live our lives. It is conveyed to each of us as a major part of the societal value system in the enculturation process, without need for a parent or teacher to say explicitly: “Complete rationality is our goal and anything less than that is an inferior, abnormal, lower state of consciousness.” Rather it is passed on with admonitions like: “Why, Allen, that doesn’t make sense!” or “Don’t be silly” or “Don’t be irrational!” or “Come back and talk to me after you have thought this through!” or “You’ll understand what I’m talking about after you get a hold of your emotions!” or “…when you grow up!” or…”I’ll talk to you when you get a hold of yourself.” This analytically based consciousness demands adherence to the logical style and intellectual values the western cultures hold in high esteem and believe are true and right. Remember Descartes’ dictum, “I think therefore I am.” Even though historically this way of organizing time, space, experience, and thought is new for humans, in just a few centuries rationality has taken a firm, if unconscious, grip on our consciousness. And as with any new ability, commitment, or understanding, rationality and its champions have become very self confident, “full of themselves,” and even self-righteous. This position, and its proponents, are often unreceptive and intolerant to other ways of arranging and conceptualizing life that they find threatening to their world view and current supremacy.

To their credit, adherents and proponents of rationality (from laypersons to cognitive-behavioral psychologists) do realize that their rational ordinary state is occasionally neurotic, i.e. rationality is often replaced by a distorted reality created by coping mechanisms that are rooted in unconscious drives and emotions. If only we could be cured of these occasional neurotic flaws, they reason, humans could be completely rational. Adherents to the rational OSC do not like it when complete rationality is equated with being robot or computer-like. They do want to be seen as feeling beings, but with rationality as their preeminent and dominant characteristic. Imaginal and other alternative therapies are usually seen as one solution for the troubled or sick but are irrelevant to the adjusted, average, or exceptional person. Dreaming is a lower state because there are many logical flaws in it and the dreamer is out of touch with consensus reality. Psychotic conditions are even more out of touch with reality, sicker than the neurotic is, and of course, “it could not happen in our family.” Many of us deal with the deficiencies of an overly analytical world by making room for religious beliefs and practices, but we keep these ideas compartmentalized. We rarely let them degrade the supremacy of rational, intellectual thought as foundation for the way we run our daily individual and collective lives. Meditation, while misunderstood and sometimes seen as threatening, is tolerated and occasionally even valued as relaxation. Its usefulness is based on enhancement of the daily rationally based lifestyle and has nothing to do with exploring and adopting an alternative consciousness. Shamanic practices are tolerable for “primitives” as long as keep they their superstition and magic to them. Some ambivalent recognition is given to the value of creative states, but like religion they have much less influence and impact on the individual and society that rationality. Most intellectuals consider such creative states the province of artists or fringe intellectuals, not themselves, and, since these states are associated with emotionality, they are viewed cautiously and ambivalently. Marijuana use and psychedelic-drug-induced changes in consciousness are considered dangerous, counterproductive and usually resorted to by people who are incapable of functioning in the real world.

“It feels good.” A Secondary Value.

There is a second set of values that comprises the basis for another implicit modern western world type of OSC. It can be seen as a reaction to the rational value system and also an attempt at forming a balancing polarity to over rationality. It could be called the “shadow”[6] of rationality. Emotions and feelings are valued above all else and all behavior, attitudes, and many beliefs are thus based. It is communicated in sentences like the following. “I did it because I felt like it.” “It just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.” “I deserve it!” “I feel like I just have to do something good for myself for a change.” “I need to pamper myself!” It is an obvious and perhaps even valiant attempt at balance, but there is a problem. Potentially this focus on emotions and feelings could provide a gentler, wiser, and more cooperative flavor to the overly cool, rational social discourse. However, in societies like the United States, where materialism and consumption are high values and the average individual’s consciousness is primarily self centered, emotions and feelings dominated OSC is often as narrow, short-sighted, confrontational, and counterproductive in dealing with the important issues of our time as the rational, intellectual consciousness.

It is important to be clear that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with either of these organizing modalities. They are helpful, useful, appropriate human characteristics. Certainly rationality was a much-needed human development when it was proposed and championed by Descartes and others four centuries ago. It is very important at the beginning of the 21^st century as well. And emotions are a crucial connection to our instinctual past and the wisdom of the body and our feelings. However, these organizing systems are problematic for two reasons. First, they are so unconscious, persistent, and pervasive that other equally important value systems, psychological arrangements, and states of consciousness are unexplored and ignored. Second, the two of them are so much at odds with, judgmental of, and uncooperative with each other that a wide, seemingly irreconcilable psychological and social chasm is created within many western individuals and society in general.

Both the primary value system of rationality and the secondary one of emotions and feelings are generally held, esteemed, and expressed implicitly. A considerable part of their power lies in their invisibility to our thinking and in our daily lives. This unconsciousness is a barrier to clarity, understanding, and creativity. When a value system or a set of assumptions is implicit by definition, we do not know we have it, so we do not question its value, and we do not realize the hold it has on our thinking. We automatically perceive and think within its well-guarded boundaries. We are not in control of our thinking, our feeling, our behaving, and our life.

While it is tidy and convenient to see the OSC as simply an uncomfortable, unconscious alignment between the two value systems just discussed, it is simply not that simple. Nothing human ever seems to be! Individual, familial, sub-cultural, and cultural variations within the OSC are legion. One way to begin to understand the complexity of human life that is embraced in the idea of human consciousness is to consider another conceptualization that falls somewhere between the polarities of a person’s usual waking consciousness and some deep, extreme (ASC). This is the notion of subpersonalities or identity states, which form a major part of Psychosynthesis theory and practice.

Subpersonalities –Many “Little I’s”

Subpersonalities are distinctions within the overall psychological organizing pattern of the OSC that have also been labeled identity or ego states. A subpersonality is an aspect of the overall personality that takes on characteristics of it’s own that are distinct from other subpersonalities and may be very different than the persona that the individual generally portrays in public. They are attempts to account for, understand, and provide a basis for changing parts of ourselves that we may find to be limiting and self-defeating.

My own self-observation and much scattered psychological data, particularly data gathered in the course of psychoanalytic investigations, indicate that as different situations impinge on a person and activate different emotional drives, distinct changes in the organization of his ego can take place. Certain drives become inhibited or activated, and the whole constellation of psychological functioning alters its configuration around them. (Tart, 1975, p. 163)

One of the most cogent and fascinating descriptions of the evidence for subpersonalities is found in the comprehensive picture that 20^th century Armenian philosopher and spiritual teacher, George Gurdjieff paints in the following account of psychological life. The following selection relating Gurdjieff's early lectures (Ouspensky, 1949, pp. 59-60) expresses his idea that we have many "I's," many little egos:

One of man's important mistakes,” he said, “one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I…. Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says “I.” And in each case it seems to be taken for granted that this I belongs to the Whole, to the whole man, and that a thought, a desire, or an aversion is expressed by this Whole. In actual fact there is no foundation whatever for this assumption. Man's every thought and desire appears and lives quite separately and independently of the Whole. And the Whole never expresses itself, for the simple reason that it exists, as such, only physically as a thing, and in the abstract as a concept. Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small Is, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking “I.” And each time his I is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion. [Gurdjieff adds ominously,]…People’s whole lives often consist in paying off the promissory notes of small accidental I’s.

Subpersonality work is an attempt to organize these hundreds of separate small “I’s” into small grouping of understandable and manageable parts of the whole individual personality.

Gurdjieff’s last sentence portends the fate of the person who has no real “I” or any organizing self. Psychosynthesis postulates the existence of a personal self that has the qualities of witnessing and intention (or will) and thereby potentially monitors and directs the various subpersonalities and other physical and psychological functions. One important personal ability, which is often a goal in psychotherapy and human growth, is the discovery and development of this “center of pure self consciousness and of will” (Assagioli, 1999, p. 211-217).[7] This self, or ego, can act as an organizing principle of the many “I’s”, much as a conductor organizes and directs the various instruments within an orchestra. The development of a healthy and strong ego is the goal of many psychotherapies and transformational systems.

By definition a subpersonality has its own nearly autonomous sense of self as well as separate appearance, needs, desires, abilities, limitations, goals, and communication styles. While many characteristics are shared with other subpersonalities, each does have an identity, or personality, of its own.

How many subpersonalities does a person have? As many as they choose to identify. Gurdjieff suggests thousands, a frightening possibility. In terms of coherent, discrete, useful subpersonalities, the number is much smaller. However, since the purpose is to identify significant parts of our self that have acted unconsciously and semi-autonomously in a way that we believe is dysfunctional, it is best that identify as many as would be most helpful and can comfortably manage. I have seven or eight subpersonalities and while most people I am familiar with do not have many more than ten, some have come to know and use an even larger group. Identifying and integrating just one can be very helpful. Integrating them under the direction of the self, with all their potentially useful and enjoyable characteristics available for the entire personality to employ, is the goal.

Comparing Subpersonalities with “Multiple Personality”

Subpersonalities are not the same as the various totally autonomous and discrete selves that are found in the multiple personality, although the latter is probably an extreme, pathological, dissociated example of an organizing pattern most humans possess. The difference between the subpersonalities that we all have and the person with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which was labeled multiple personality disorder until the latest psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV), are a matter of degree and not kind. The criteria for diagnosing DID are 1) presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states; 2) recurrent taking control by at least two of the states; 3) inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness; and 4) the disturbance is not due to direct physiological effects of substance or general medical condition (Frances, 1994, pp. 484-487). All these criteria apply in some degree to you and me and our subpersonalities. The primary difference is that the individual with DID has little or no organizing self around which to organize her discrete identities and her various “alters,” as the distinct personality states are often labeled in clinical circles. The alters of a person with DID are usually extremely autonomous and totally amnesic one to the other. No one I have worked with has been to that extreme although a few have been afraid of falling into this or other psychotic chasms and subpersonality work was slowed or halted.

“Runaway Bee Head” - A personal example

Subpersonalities can take on any form that the human imagination can conjure. I will describe one of mine to give a flavor of the possibilities and what can happen over time. One of my very useful and frustrating characteristics is a highly one-pointed mind when I am working on a project in which I am very interested. In the past, this could easily turn to an obsessive, wasteful, debilitating waste of energy as I would be “thinking” about the same things over and over, getting nowhere. Identifying this as a problem, it came to me that these thoughts were like bees swarming in my head and the image of a man with a man-made, wooden, rectangular bee hive as a head became my “Runaway Bee Head” subpersonality. I took a few weeks to get to know him as a “person,” how he thinks, feels, values, desires, and needs. I became quite sure there was some other head or being under there somewhere. I also began noticing how the beehive was not only man made but was in a very unnatural location, and I began imagining it in a spherical, bee-made shape hanging from a tree branch.

In a subsequent imaginal therapy session the beehive lifted off the shoulders of Runaway Bee Head, hung from a branch, and revealed My Bee Keeper, a voluptuous, sensual brunette woman that has been with me ever since. Airing out my obsessive thinking in a natural setting and letting it hang out where it belongs, not only gave me more control over it but also uncovered a most loving, spontaneous, stress reducing, vital, fresh, and healing hitherto buried part of myself. Her name has evolved from My Bee Keeper to My Bee Keep to My Be Keep to My Be Key to My Biki. The names extol her various qualities: minder of the beehive, my guide toward and of beingness, a key to my being, and the last is my mother-in-law’s Mexican pronunciation of the loving diminutive of my wife’s name, Virginia. And yes, I did marry her (years before meeting My Biki) partly to externally draw into my life the qualities I have now partly internalized with the discovery of and developing relationship with My Biki.

My Be Key has added a great deal to my life: sense of aliveness and connection to the moment; another pathway toward being rather than doing; a way of dealing with over-thinking; a balance to my masculine, willful, analytical style; a balance to my other subpersonalities, all of whom are masculine, with the possible exception of Imaybe, who you will meet later in this section; and a beautiful, enlightening, harmonizing way of developing the woman in me, including imagining the sensations of having a female body. Among many other benefits, these changes have deepened my understanding of females and my marriage relationship.

From an intellectual point of view, what began as counterproductive over-thinking evolved into a more useful and fulfilling intellectual mind which is usually, though not always, under my direction and control. I have turned this part of myself loose on this paper, and I am enjoying the newly discovered feminine me that has enhanced my life with all the qualities listed above.

Subpersonalities – Separate Identities? Ordinary or Altered State of Consciousness?

Are these subpersonalities, or Gurdjieff’s constantly alternating “I’s,” each a different consciousness, a different identity? Recall the second definition of consciousness first presented above, “A sense of one's personal or collective identity, especially the complex of attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or a group.” Runaway Bee Head certainly had different attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities than my other subpersonalities, such as Young Monk and Knight/Warrior. Runaway Bee Head also has a very different sense of identity, even gender, from what he evolved into. These subpersonalities sound a great deal like a totally different consciousness’. While in the grip of certain strong subpersonalities, a person could be considered in an altered state of consciousness, not part of the OSC. Except, what is this OSC then? Gurdjieff might say there is none. Psychosynthesis and other psychological formulations, even though they believe in various subpersonalities or ego states, does not go so far as to say that each subpersonality forms a separate “consciousness”, and therefore they lump each individual’s subpersonality into one state of consciousness, the OSC. But how do we reconcile each subpersonalities’ semi autonomous sense of self?

We are led deeper into the complexities of human consciousness. If we see every subpersonality as a separate state of consciousness we dilute the notion of the ordinary state of consciousness so much that it becomes meaningless. Yet to ignore subpersonalities’ fundamental differences, and their basic lack of communication and relationship with each other, would be to oversimplify and distort the average human condition that Gurdjieff expounded. One answer to the dilemma is seeing each individual’s sense of identity, or consciousness, as a separate, unique, explorable, expandable, and near infinite sphere of potential awareness and experience.

Exploring Aspects of the Self

The notion of explorable is based on the belief that we all have many realms within our being with which we have little or no contact. And yet with perceived need, opportunity, time, intention, focus, persistence, and perhaps coaching, we can develop awareness and connection with these unknown parts. As an athlete I depended on, exercised, strengthened, nourished, desperately needed, and generally took care of my body, and yet I had a narrow relationship with him. He and I worked elegantly to organize intricate movements coordinated perfectly to the millisecond with both teammates and opponents. There were many unexplored aspects of my physical being however. Coaching help from both my yoga and Tai Chi teachers has stimulated knowledge, awareness, connection, and relationship with these unknowns and brought me a deeper, richer, healthier body consciousness. But human potential in this physical realm goes far beyond anything I have accomplished. Shamans, yogi, and Himalayan monks, for example, have such highly developed relationships with and control of their bodies that they can, among many miraculous feats, slow their pulse to a rate that it is indiscernible even to sensitive medical instruments. This is but one example focusing on one of many human characteristics, the physical body. There are thousands of possibilities. Along with our physical nature, there are the equally complex emotional, mental, psychological, psychic, spiritual, transpersonal, social, familial, ecological, and other partly conscious, partly unconscious realms that could be explored and developed.

Expanding Boundaries of the Self

On the other hand, at any one time there are limits to our potential awareness, our sense of identity, or our sphere of consciousness. They form the outer perimeter of the self, the presently possible, but not yet realized, self. By nature, humans are discovery, progress, growth, expansion oriented. We want to, can, and even must expand our sphere of awareness, connection, relationship, and control. This accounts for the expansion element that can help explain and define human consciousness. By using methodologies like the shamanism, imaginal therapy, hypnotherapy, and meditation, it is possible to extend the semi-permanent boundaries of what used to be the limits of our potential consciousness. With the growth possibilities inherent in exploring and expansion techniques, the limits of possible awareness are infinite.

Complexities of Modeling Consciousness

A model of consciousness must include the millions of already possible awarenesses and abilities within our existing sphere of consciousness as well as the infinite possibilities that we could extend into as we expand that existing sphere. It becomes apparent that our OSC and potential ASCs are partly determined by our development in the areas suggested by these two windows on consciousness, exploration and expansion. For example, tension in my neck and shoulders was unconscious to me 30 years ago, although it might have been available in an ASC that focused on body awareness. Today I can monitor this tension in the midst of my daily life. My OSC has expanded through the dual process of exploring my physical sphere along with use and development of altered states (in Tai Chi, yoga, and meditation) that aided that physical exploration. The development of ASCs and the integration of some qualities found there into my daily life have also expanded my OSC. In a synergy of events constellating around just this one small area of my life, it could say that through introspection, meditation, yoga, and Tai Chi my consciousness deepened (exploration) into my already existing physical realm and rose (exploration) through meditation into heights of ASCs that had been possible but were unknown. Eventually the overall boundary of my consciousness widened (expansion), opening new areas to be explored.

On a multi-societal level, the photograph of the earth from the moon showed Her as an incredibly beautiful sphere expanded the consciousness of most people who saw the photographic image. While it may not be felt or experienced on a daily basis, the possibility of living one’s life and making decisions based on a view of our planetary home as a relatively small, glorious, delicate entity in a much bigger picture was now in our range of possible thoughts and feelings. Before the picture, only certain scientists, advanced thinkers, and meditators had this worldview, or more accurately, solar systemic view. Another collective expansive event was watching the personal, on-the-ground, in-your-face horror of the Vietnam War on television during the dinner hour. Those images forever changed the face of war for many people of my generation. The Gulf War brought the spectacle of war from the “enemies” capital city into our living rooms at the exact moment it was being bombed by our boys, using our tax dollars. Live, in the trenches, television coverage of refugee crises makes it more difficult for comfortable, well to do nations to comfortably and justifiably stand by idly.

In 1983 I was involved in what was then labeled 2^nd Track Diplomacy with the Soviet Union whereby non-governmental organizations and individual citizens were creating dialogue and relationship between the USA and the so-called “evil empire.” One of the most effective techniques was interactive, real-time discussion between citizens of the two countries via interactive video satellite hookups. Communicating live, seeing your question answered, no matter how restricted the Soviet involvement may have been, from a mysterious, frightening, closed country began to change perceptions, build hope, and stimulate creativity. In the 21^st century, people with access to the internet easily have real-time conversations whenever they chose, learning from and about each other and participating in a technology that offers a type of planetary consciousness to everyone.

These technological advances, and thousands of others like them, demonstrate one facet of 21^st century humanities potentials for expanding our perception of who we are, what is importance, what we have responsibility for, what we have influence over, who is part of our extended family, and what brings meaning to our lives. In other words, expanding our consciousness. The facets that we are most concerned with in this paper have more to do with the individual’s intentional expansion of consciousness through the self application of shamanistic principles and practice, meditation and hypnosis, and choosing to be professionally guided by transpersonal shamanism, hypnotherapy, and imaginal therapy.

In summary, one way to conceptualize the theory, techniques, and phenomenology of consciousness is to use the categories of exploration and expansion. Exploration refers to the individual and an effort to fully explore his or her consciousness as it exists now. Expansion implies the intention to extend beyond the present boundaries of self. While there is no easy, clean distinction between the two and many situations involve both, one’s intention, and therefore the psychological balance, is usually weighed in one direction or the other.

Confounding even the best model builders, a category to which I claim no membership, is another set of infinite possibilities. Namely the unique characteristics and abilities that each human brings to their particular consciousness mix. While there are many similarities and common tendencies among us, often the variety and uniqueness of human experience and expression impresses a student of consciousness most. Examples of rare and talented people such as Nickola Tesla (see page 98) and Theodore Barber (see page 99) and the theoretical challenges they offer the student of human consciousness will be examined later in this section. This heterogeneity, added to the exploration and expansion possibilities already mentioned, demands a rich and flexible model for the embracing of human consciousness.

Baseline State of Consciousness

Practically and scientifically, there must be a baseline from which to begin any theoretical or academic venture. In order to investigate where we are going we must understand where we are beginning. In consciousness research this is called a baseline state of consciousness, usually the (OSC). The baseline state of consciousness is an active, stable, overall patterning of psychological functions which, via multiple stabilization relationships among its various parts, maintains its identity in spite of environmental changes. Tart (1975, pp. 63-69) identifies four crucial stabilization functions; loading, positive feedback, negative feedback, and limiting (these four functions are described below). Without their equilibrium-maintaining work, our daily life would be awash in a turbulent sea of ever-changing perceptions and experiences, unable to focus our minds on any one task or idea. Tart writes:

I emphasize multiple stabilization, for as in any well-engineered complex system, there are many processes maintaining a state of consciousness: it [the present state] would be too vulnerable to unadaptive disruption if there were only a few. (Tart, 1975, p. 70)

The four stabilization functions combine to make it possible to maintain focus within the potential chaos of the human mind and nervous system. Loading keeps the individual’s consciousness busy enough with desirable activities that there is insufficient energy (attention, awareness) to create or allow any disruption of consciousness. Negative feedback operations sense when the rate or quality of the operation of other subsystems of consciousness[8] goes beyond certain preset limits. They then jump into action and begin a correction process (for instance, feeling anxious or otherwise uncomfortable), not letting the mind go too far astray from the existing consciousness. Positive feedback stabilization detects when acceptable OSC activity is taking place and initiates emotional rewards (feeling satisfied, fulfilled, or “good”) or otherwise strengthens the desired activity. Limiting stabilization factors interfere with the ability of one or more subsystems to function in a way that might destabilize the ongoing state of consciousness (tranquilizing drugs for an increasingly anxious person).

Tart (1970, pp. 88-139) presents nine subsystems of consciousness that begin to delineate the intricate psychological workings of the human mind and that combine with the four stabilizing factors to maintain our consciousness in a discrete state.

Subsystems of Consciousness

1. Exteroception – Our five senses: visual, auditory, gustatory, kinesthetic, and olfactory.

2. Interoception – Muscle and limb positions, muscle tension, pressure in our intestines, body temperature. It is a way of sensing our internal world, as the five senses perceive our external environment.

3. Input Processing – A complex interlocking series of totally automatic processes that compares incoming data against previously learned material stored in memory.

4. Memory – Storage of past experience that is slightly altered by present experience on a moment to moment basis.

5. Subconscious or Unconscious – The totality of psychological abilities, limitations, complexes, potentials, and tendencies that are a product of our life experience.

6. Evaluation, Decision-making, Will, and Intention.

7. Space/Time Sense – Socially agreed upon experiential constructs that we use to organize sensory stimuli.

8. Sense of Identity – Sense of self, “this is me quality”, that influences what we are aware of, interested in, and attracted to.

9. Motor output – Muscular and glandular, both consciously and unconsciously controlled.

These nine subsystems of consciousness maintain the OSC or the baseline consciousness and are also what must be altered in content, amplitude, and proportional involvement if we want to move into and maintain an ASC.

Transitioning into Alternative States of Consciousness - Chapter Two

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.

William James, U.S. psychologist and philosopher, 1902.[9]

Prem Das, a practitioner of Raja Yoga and an initiate into the shamanic way by the Huichol shaman Matsuwa gives us a hint about the journey that leaving the ordinary state of consciousness (OSC) can be.

There is a doorway within our minds that usually remains hidden and secret until the time of death. The Huichol word for it is nierika. Nierika is a cosmic portway or interface between so-called ordinary and nonordinary realities. It is a passageway and at the same time a barrier between worlds. (Halifax, 1979, frontispiece)

Shamans call altering your consciousness “journeying.” Travelling to and within the upper world is “flying.” Have you had a flying dream? Where you soared as a bird or sailed on a magic carpet? Clients report these dreams as freeing, joyous, transcendent experiences. It can be one of the best experiences of their lives. They never want it to end and they always want more. I have an inner character, a subpersonality or ego state, which has named himself Imaybe. That’s pronounced “I may` be”, or “I may be`”, or “I maybe” or “I’m a be(ing)”. I had an imaginal therapy session in 1996 in which a white winged horse soars through the heavens at will, circles an athletic field at which I am watching a game from the bleachers and swoops down and around until he is nose to chest with me, breathing into my heart.

The white horse has returned in visions and dreams. He transformed into a black horse months later, as he sliced into the earth to find dark caverns where fire provided the only light. This fire united with underground rivers to blaze in an alchemical miracle. He took on an amorphous black form with penetrating, albeit partially hidden, blue eyes that only hinted at his equine background a year later when he named himself. I have rocketed through an intergalactic time warp astride his back and been delivered to my birthing guide, who I now call my inner shaman, to be ingested. Most of this came before, and became the catalyst to, my introduction into shamanism. In short, he has become a power animal for me, a spirit ally. This begins to describe one American Anglo Saxon Protestant’s introduction into the lower, middle, and upper worlds of the shamanic way and a deepening of my impulse and drive to explore consciousness.

Why is this so important to me and thousands like me? What is the attraction? What do we get out of it? What can we give back while in it? How can it change our lives? How can it change the lives of those around us? Can it make me a better therapist? How might your version of shamanic based journeying or other ASC work change your life? Could it make you a better therapist?

Ralph Metzner, in an article on transformation pens a statement that would be lauded by most meditators and seconded by shamanic practitioners. He says that moving into a non-ordinary state of consciousness is an “Awakening, …our ordinary consciousness is a kind of dream-sleep state, and that a more awakened consciousness, an enhanced objective awareness, is possible (Metzner, 1987, p. 242).”

Jack Zimmerman, a meditator, shamanic teacher, and consciousness researcher asked himself in my recent interview with him, “What is a prerequisite for heightened state of consciousness?” He answered that it involves “leaving the ground of the personality, moving out of judgement, seeing a bigger picture, and in an essential way, bearing witness to the experience (Zimmerman, 1999).”

In describing transitioning and being in the upper world, Zimmerman related many ASC experiences over his lifetime but preferred to talk about his present, less structured style. He said that:

the purest form is without substance, not formal meditation, not thinking about shamanic practices, I simply wake up from a dream at three in the morning. Jacqueline is next to me, we talk about it a little, and the dream is like a shamanic doorway and then I see my personal world, Jacqueline, the community, and the larger world in a very clear way. A simple, expanded state, my personality is not interfering with what I am seeing, just witnessing. I touch this sometimes in meditation, but the approach is not as spontaneous. Starting from dreamtime, I am already there.” (Zimmerman, 1999)

The poetic medium often describes the ineffable more fully than any academic formulation possibly can. “Of Consciousness, her awful Mate The Soul cannot be rid — As easy the secreting her Behind the Eyes of God (Emily Dickinson, 1955[10]).” Could the stakes be as high as deliverance from the relative unconsciousness of the OSC into “an enhanced objective awareness” or even a touch, a glimpse of the Soul? And how is the curtain raised and the odyssey initiated?

Developing an Altered State of Consciousness – A Five Step Process

Encouraging a transition from the OSC into an ASC is a five-step process, according to Tart (1975, pp. 71-87). There are two discrete aspects of this transition. The first aspect pertains to the operations that you or someone else performs with the intention of creating an ASC, which may, secondarily, activate a number of psychological and physiological processes that lead to the ASC.

1. Disruption of the Existing State of Consciousness

The first induction operation is disruption of the stabilized OSC. This is done by interfering with the loading, positive and negative feedback, and the other processes that keep our psychological structures operating within their ordinary range. Because the OSC has a natural integrity that struggles to maintain itself, it often takes a number of disrupted psychological structures to effect the shift. Stabilization processes can be disrupted directly when they can be identified, or indirectly by pushing some psychological functions to and beyond the limits of their functioning or otherwise making a significant enough change that normal operation is halted. There are three general types of disruptions that can take place in one or more of the nine subsystems listed above. First, the particular sub-systems can be disrupted by overloading them with stimuli, depriving them of stimuli, or giving them anomalous stimuli that cannot be processed in habitual ways. Examples include drugs, hyperactivity, monotonous and/or rhythmic sounds and activities. Second, withdrawing attention, awareness, or any other psychological energy from it can disrupt the functioning of a subsystem. This produces a more gentle kind of disruption. Examples include hypoactivity, one-pointed focus, and any good relaxation technique. Third, if the operation of one subsystem is disrupted, it may alter the operation of a second subsystem via feedback paths creating a domino effect, although generally each subsystem works to maintain the present condition.

2. Patterning

The application of patterning forces is the second step in the induction of an ASC. These are stimuli that direct and impel the disrupted psychological functioning toward the new pattern of the desired ASC. This is an important step, especially for our purpose of exploring different ASCs that are used for healing and transformation. As Richard Neves emphasized, “intent is the factor that makes the difference between altered states (Neves, 1999).” Rightly chosen and used, patterning forces applied to a person, by self or other, are carrying out the intention of the individual. The choice of patterning forces is therefore an important one. A therapist wants the client to enter an ASC that is conducive to their work together. Falling asleep, for instance, is usually not beneficial.

Patterning stimuli may also serve to disrupt the ordinary functioning of the OSC if they are incongruent with the particular state of consciousness of the person at the time. The same stimuli may serve as both disruptive and patterning forces, and often do. In actual practice, it may be difficult and unimportant to differentiate between the two. For instance, a person can view a diagram that makes little sense in the baseline state and causes a mild, counterproductive disruption in his or her baseline state. But the same diagram, viewed in the altered state, may make sense or be esthetically pleasing and thus may become a mandala, which can be a patterning force toward the ASC of meditation. Mandalas are used in many indigenous cultures, eastern religions, and meditative practices for creating ASC (Tart, 1975, p. 72). An induction procedure can be carried out without actually producing an ASC. The ASC is the internal experience of the subject. Intentionally transitioning into a particular ASC is like any other skill. It is elusive and difficult at first and becomes easier and more familiar with practice. There are also considerable individual differences in techniques that work and what each person may experience with the same technique. Especially at first, patterning and disrupting may have to persist for a long time or even continue to be present for the duration of the ASC in order for the new state to be stable. The ASC may simply not have enough internal stabilization to hold up against both internal tendencies to return to the OSC and environmental input. Usually the proportion of disrupting to patterning is greatest for the first trials and lessens with more practice, until very little disrupting may be necessary. For example, a person may at first have to be hypnotized in a very quiet, supportive environment in order to make the transition into hypnosis, but after he or she has been hypnotized a few times, the ASC is stable enough to remain even under noisy, chaotic conditions. Likewise, a novice in the shamanic state of consciousness (SSC) might need continuous drumming or singing to maintain that state.

3. Transition

Tart identifies transition as the third distinct phase of ASC production. Having been sufficiently disrupted, the transition period continues the rearrangement of the OSC while patterning remains strong and effective, taking the traveler to their chosen destination. Generally this period also becomes easier and shorter with practice.

4. Achievement of the Altered State

Achievement of the ASC is the fourth step. It is here that another coherent psychological and experiential structure is formed, with some elements of the OSC still present and other elements of what is usually unconscious and unavailable mixed in. It is notable that some aspects of the OSC are present and available in the ASC, while other parts of OSC are unavailable. The ASC may last for just a few seconds[11] or can extend for days.[12] Within the longer ASCs experiences, there is almost certainly considerable variation in the proportional amounts of OSC and ASC, depth of trance, and even type of ASC over time.

5. Return to Ordinary State of Consciousness

A fifth and final step is the de-induction process or the return to everyday consciousness. The reverse procedure begins as disrupting forces are applied to destabilize the altered state and patterning forces set a direction toward the baseline state; a transitional period ensues, and OSC re-forms. Since it is generally much easier to return to the ordinary state than leave it, little attention is paid to the de-induction process, although it is just as complex in principle as the induction. Because we are so much more comfortable with the OSC, its powerful magnetic effect generally makes the journey from ASC to OSC relatively effortless. On the other hand, if an ASC experience has been particularly profound, deep, relieving, or enjoyable the traveler may not feel like returning to feelings, thoughts, and realities of regular life.

The transition into an ASC happens in various intentional and non-intentional ways. Below is a classification of types of ASC producing activities with a few examples. Each of the four healing modalities detailed has their own particular methods, which are discussed throughout this paper and could be reviewed as additional examples of these categories.

Categories of ASC Induction

A. Attentional absorption.

1. Watching television or ocean waves breaking.

2. Driving or riding in a car.

3. Focusing on the monotonous talk of a:

a. Relative.

b. Lecturer.

c. Hypnotist.

d. Relaxation tape.

e. Shaman.

4. Saying mantra aloud or silently.

5. Humming or toning.

6. Concentrative meditation.

7. Reflective meditation.

B. Rhythmic and repetitive movements.

1. Dancing.

2. Rocking.

3. Walking.

4. Running.

5. Hiking.

6. Stairmaster and other gym exercises.

7. Breathing exercises.

C. Balancing and harmonizing the muscles.

1. Sitting still in a comfortable position.

2. Lying comfortably.

3. Walking.

4. Rhythmic movement.

5. Massage.

6. Certain drugs such as alcohol and Valium.

7. Any of large variety of relaxation techniques.

D. Chanting.

1. Meditation.

2. Prayer.

3. Group rituals.

4. Rallies and sporting events.

5. Self talk of either an intentional, positive nature or negative self-defeating nature.

E. Intensive temperature conditions.

1. Unintentional isolation in extreme climatic conditions

2. Sweat lodge.

3. Tibetan yogis are said to be able to produce psychic heat that renders them impervious to temperature extremes, even to long-term exposure to snow while wrapped only in sheets dipped in icy water.

F. Physical or sensory deprivation.

1. Sitting still in a comfortable position.

2. Lying comfortably.

3. Abstinence from sex.

4. Fasting.

5. Isolation.

6. Floating in salt water.

7. Darkness.

8. Pain.

G. Exhaustion.

1. Athletics.

2. Vision quests.

3. Intense, long term physical or mental projects.

4. Illness.

5. Caring for an ill family member.

6. Grief.

H. Communing with Nature.

I. Hallucinogens and the use of sacred plants.

Sacred Plant Medicine and Hallucinogens

Hallucinogens, the oldest, most well known method for creating ASC, have become infamous due to western paranoia about anything so unusual, pervasive fear of being out of control in our culture, and rampant misuse of potentially positive substances. Achterberg notes,

The noted psychotropic effects of the power plants, such as losing the boundaries of self, enhanced awareness of the continuity of all things, and a sense of awe and wonder, gave the shamans the insight and knowledge they craved of the world beyond the senses. Because of these properties, the plants are universally called ‘medicine’ and referred to as being “sacred.” Using them for recreational purposes would be unthinkable. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 72)

The ingestion of chemicals, synthetic or natural, is the fastest way to encounter the supernatural. However, it is important to realize that the plants are not essential to shamanic work. Prem Das, Huichol initiate believes that the plants are an intermediate step only, and says that advanced practitioners no longer have need of them (Halifax, 1979, p. 72).

Zimmerman described his experience with sacred plants by saying that they “have served many people by opening doorways to the imaginal world. For some, however, they lack the subtlety and refinement of entering those states of consciousness in other ways.” Comparing meditation and natural hallucinogens, some people experience an “excessiveness” with sacred plants. “They feel thrust into the upper world with considerable momentum, rather than allowing the altered state to flower on its own” (Zimmerman, 1999).

There is another significant difference between the typical western use of hallucinogens and the shamanic use of sacred plants.

Shamans do not seek the enlightenment for its sake alone, but with the explicit purpose of aiding the community. Their path is circular in that they move up and out into other realms, but then they return again with knowledge and power. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 32)

For this reason the sacred effects must be subtle enough to permit the shaman to function consciously and intentionally in this way. Ritual work can’t be done in a comatose state of oblivion, or when control is relinquished to narcotic effects. The shamans ingest carefully selected amounts of the plants to allow post experience recall and enough ASC awareness for them to be cognizant of the multiple realities they are encountering. “One foot, so to speak, stays in ordinary reality (Achterberg, 1985, p. 32).”

Extreme Techniques

A look at the categories and examples of ASC producing activities above can reveal that shamanic techniques tend to be more extreme than the other types of ASC induction. Achterberg (p. 36) characterizes shamanic technique by stating that shamans

…use a variety of culturally sanctioned means of deprivation to find their way into the SSC. Their methods have the potential to cause significant physical and mental shifts by inducing electrolyte imbalances, hypoglycemia, dehydration, sleeplessness, and loss of sensory input. In short, they seem willing to push their bodies to the physiological limits in order to awaken the mind. What the modern world regards as dangerous threats to health, even to life itself, are viewed by the shaman as routes to knowledge. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 36)

At first glance, participation in physically rigorous and dangerous activity in shamanism appears to be similar to the thrill seeking, extreme sport activities[13] that are increasingly common in western societies as the 20^th century turns. A deeper look, however, reveals a marked contrast in the purpose of the two sets of behaviors. The intention of the shaman is spiritual and service oriented.

The Essential Transitioning Factor

The transitional techniques for leaving the ASC and entering an ASC appear to be dramatically different at first and even second glance. Many of them are apparent opposites of each other. Their common thread is that all tend to decrease the discontinuous, arrhythmic physical movement and the jumpy externalized mind that characterizes the deliberate conscious orientation of the OSC, our usual way of being. This disruption allows the development of a more creative and unified mode of experience that characterizes most ASCs.

Transitioning back to the OSC is usually easier than leaving it and entails bringing some or a lot of the ASC experience along. Moving into and maintaining an ASC usually harmonizes and quiets many of our subsystems that are normally active, fluctuating and unbalanced in the OSC. Our four modalities can produce this comfortable quieting although there is considerable variation by modality, individual differences, and specific experience. Meditation tends to be the most quieting. Upon gradual return to the OSC, the residue experience is determined by what happened in the ASC. Often there is a great "freshening" of perception and a profound feeling of aliveness. The individual may see, hear, feel, smell, and taste with a sensitivity and intensity that we may never have lived before. This may be due to decreased or absent processing or analyzing of sensory input, as we would normally do in the OSC. He or she is simply feeling and/or being.

I often feel a little “spacey” and ungrounded and it may take many minutes or a few hours to completely “reenter” my body and intellectual mind. There is often an easy, serene, comfort with both inner and outer life. I usually feel a profound connection and at-oneness with my environment. In short a person reentering the OSC may carry over many of the characteristics of ASCs detailed below after having exited the technique that helped him or her get there. Or said another way, the ASC continues for awhile after the technique has concluded.

The exception is the “bad trip”, to borrow a term from the 1960’s drug culture. Bad not in the sense of being non-productive, just unpleasant. In the therapeutic work of shamanism, hypnosis and imaginal therapies, we may have very uncomfortable even terrifying experiences with difficult beings, subpersonalities, or energies. For some beginners it can be disquieting or even shattering just to leave the comfortable, familiar world of rational consciousness, let alone have any unpleasant experiences occur once in an ASC. It is important to realize that these experiences are not bad in any negative sense. Quite the contrary is true. They offer the possibility of exploring heretofore unknown and rejected parts of our being. They form the heart of the many personal and spiritual growth modalities. They are a cornerstone of transformation. I must stress, however, that the experience in and aftermath of ASC is pleasant, even exhilarating, for most people much of the time.

Wordsworth described his personal experience of ASC in Ode on Intimations of Immortality. Besides the beauty and accuracy of the description, there are two elements of note. First, the clarity, glory, and magic of many ASC experiences cannot be fully brought back or re-experienced in the OSC. Second, the first five lines of the excerpt are a poetic description of many ASC experiences, and the last four lines can be seen as the OSC by comparison.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream

The earth and every common sight,

To me did seem

Appareled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it had been of yore;

Turn whereso’er I may,

By night of day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

Wordsworth (1952), pp. 321-322

Alternative States of Consciousness - Chapter Three

A sub-clerk in the post-office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness is common to them.

Albert Camus, 1942, French-Algerian philosopher and author.^{^[14]}

Principles and Characteristics of Alternative States of Consciousness

In his excellent book, Therapeutic Trances, Stephan Gilligan (1987, pp. 40-46) has an extensive discussion of what he calls “distinctions of value” concerning hypnotic trance. I have borrowed many of his distinctions, and added more of my own, in developing this chapter.

1. A Naturally Occurring Human Experience

In many varied situations trance just happens without the intention, regulation, control, or other active participation of self-conscious processes. It is a very natural, easy human experience, occurring daily in many routine and unnoticed ways.

Most westerners also have an unfortunate, competing rational bias that believes that ASCs do not exist or are pathological. This bias requires a person choosing to develop ASC abilities to not only learn to expand his or her consciousness but also to fight and work through inbred fears and denials. Although it is true that many people who are diagnosed mentally ill may be lost in an ASC, it does not follow that any ASC is in and of itself pathological. As Ken Wilber has noted, “Orthodox psychiatrists do not discover madness on these levels [ASC], they invent it” (Wilber, 1993, p. 255).

2. Beyond the “Laws of Nature”

Experiences in ASC seem to transcend the “laws of nature” as most modern westerners believe them to be. For example, the experience of gravity, clock time, time in the sense of discrete categories labeled past, present, and future, velocity capped at the speed of light, aging, being in only one place at a time, and inertia are not necessarily active, applicable, or limiting. Ironically, great 20^th century ideas, like Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, have shown that still prevalent beliefs about the “laws of nature” are outdated and inaccurate. Therefore, in this regard, the laws of the worlds of ASC are apparently more “scientifically” accurate than commonly held beliefs about the “laws of nature.”

3. Unity Consciousness and Wholistic Thinking

Unity consciousness and wholistic thinking characterize ASC experiences. When out of the OSC, we usually experience a nonconceptual, nonverbal state of unity within ourselves and with our immediate and distant environment. A paradoxical, both/and logic erases the differences and distinctions normally seen between so-called opposites. It is a more primary, even primal, way of relating and as has been demonstrated as hallmark of shamanism and a much-prized goal of many meditative practices. Gilligan writes:

A person identifies with both sides of a complementary distinction of “this” and “that,” “inside” and “outside,” “subject” and “object.” Thus, in trance I can feel both “here’ and “there,” connected with you and disconnected from you, “a part of” and “apart from” an experience, both a child and an adult. In other words, trance processes tend to unify relations (“this’ and “that”), while conscious processes tend to differentiate relations (“this” vs. “that”). (Gilligan, 1987, pp. 40-41)

4. Self-referential Processing

Gilligan states that “trance subjects have a strong tendency to comprehend and represent communications in self-referential fashion” (Gilligan, 1987, p. 57). Expanding on this statement, it can be said that in an ASC experience, people have a strong tendency to comprehend and represent internal and external perceptions, and any form of communication, in a self-referential fashion. Gilligan adds that this type of processing is “common and naturalistic” (Gilligan, 1987, p. 57). We all have had the experience of telling an important story about our life to a friend only to have them interrupt, telling us about what it reminds them of. This is an example of, and indicative of, how prevalent this tendency is even in the OSC. In an ASC, self-referential processing is internal and subtler, and probably stronger and more pervasive. It suggests that whatever we encounter internally or environmentally while in an ASC will have a big impact on our thinking, feeling, and experience. It is another way in which an ASC makes us very sensitive and flexible.

5. Synchronicity

Synchronicity is a concurrence of internal and/or external events in which the apparent coincidences of occurrences seem to be meaningfully related.[15] The common extremes of explanation for two events happening simultaneously or in rapid sequence are cause and effect or chance. Carl Jung’s (1953b) name is frequently associated with synchronicity. Synchronicity is a way to explain and make psychological and transpersonal use of events that appear simultaneously or in sequence. Under the influence of synchronicity I find events happening outside of me and thoughts coming to me are more likely to be related to and useful in whatever is important in my life at that moment. This may happen while in quiet meditation, shamanic dancing and drumming, in a reflective trance walking in the mountains, taking a shower, driving a car, or even walking in the hectic west side of Los Angeles.

Intention plays a major role in activating synchronicity, as it does in developing and maintaining a type and quality of ASC. I have made several multi-week, limited itinerary, international trips in which I intended to be in a meditative state most of the time and expected that I would have useful, adventurous experiences in line with my interests, spiritual values, and personal goals. In 1980, on a trip to Europe to present a workshop at the First International Psychosynthesis Conference outside of Florence, Italy, one could say that a Protestant young man, who was afraid of the ceremony of the Roman Catholic Church due to negative childhood experiences, just happened to find himself meditating in Catholic Churches each morning during mass, and that he just happened to begin taking communion, and that he just happened to fall in love with the ritual and the energy and the ornate buildings, and that he just happened to overhear a rare English speaking guide in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican after weeks of meditating in churches, and that the guide just happened at that very moment to be telling his group of a public Papal audience later that day, and that I just happened to be there on that particular day, and that I just happened to have a powerful, incredible vision while sitting in St. Peter’s Church, and that this vision just happened to be a 200—300 foot Jesus Christ lying crucified on the cross that is formed by the shape of the St. Peter’s Church building, and that I just happened to feel lead, even compelled, to intentionally imagine His long suffering, still alive body off that cross, and that I just happened to stand at a particular location among eight to ten thousand admirers where I had an unobstructed avenue to the Pope, and that he just happened to shake my hand even though the most he contacted anyone else was a quick touch, and that he just happened to speak a few words to me when he spoke to no other individual, and that I just happened to be able to mutter something back to him, and that it just happened that all this occurred to me when hundreds of millions of Roman Catholics worldwide would give almost anything to have such an experience. One…“COULD”…say that. I prefer to see it all as a set of synchronous events the likes of which are available to all of us through the use of ASCs and intention.

I attempt to explain this series of experiences in Europe through a synthesis of the last three clarifying principles listed above. Unity consciousness had me more open to and connected with all humanity, other sentient beings, spirits, and energies on the planet. Self-referential processing had me looking for how everything is related to the personal and transpersonal me, as well as just what individual and spiritual meaning it all might have for me. And synchronicity had me open to a principle or an energy that tends to meaningfully bring together events and beings that have something to offer one another. It is the nature of the principles of ASCs that they tend to work together synergistically.

6. Occurs in Various Situations

Trance is experienced in many situations. I gave most of my time, energy, and attention to basketball in high school and college and did not realize until later that one of the attractions was “losing myself in the game” which had a surreal and even magical quality. I felt a timelessness, intensity, and unshakable one-pointedness that I now see as a type of ASC. At its best, the game, the ball, and the participants all move in slow motion and I would know when and how the ball would be thrown to me and what the results would be. Many athletes use the terms “letting go” and “getting in the flow” to describe the instinctive feeling that characterizes their best performances. Magic Johnson, one of the best passers in the history of basketball, said he knew where his teammates were on the floor without looking. Athletics at this level is a specialized endeavor but we have all experienced being deeply absorbed in the sound of music, the rhythm of dance, or immersed in reading a book or television show and been oblivious to the verbal requests of those around us. We often lose time and space to the mindless concentration of driving the highways, even finding ourselves miles past a familiar turnoff with no recollection of getting there. And how many times has a boring lecturer induced daydreaming?

Cultural transition rituals are another way in which society induces non-ordinary states of consciousness. I occasionally perform weddings and always find myself in an inclusive, focused, time suspended altered state. The bride and groom often say they have little recollection of the ceremony or even the reception. As a lecturer, I usually lose sense of time and have other altered perceptions. The deeply depressed psychotherapy client can be seen as engulfed by a highly self-devaluing trance that is self-perpetuating.

7. Important Human Condition

Trance and most ASCs are biologically, psychologically, and spiritually helpful and perhaps necessary. F. Scott Fitzgerald may have believed so. His John, in The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, uttered before falling asleep, “His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours.”[16] The same is true for other ways of leaving the OSC, which can be even more refreshing, invigorating, and healing than sleep. Anthropologists find that trance rituals can be found in virtually every culture.

…Historians have noted that such rituals have been around for centuries. This prevalence of trance across cultures and through time suggests that it is a biologically essential phenomenon for human beings” (Gilligan, 1987, p. 42)

Shamanism is 20,000 to 50,000 years old and apparently trance rituals were an integral part of daily life in ancient days. The Q`ero date their rituals back many hundreds or thousands of years. The Hopi celebrate rituals today that date back many centuries in their exact form and reportedly are based on ceremonies that are much older than that. Shaman’s ceremonies last as long as 15 days and much or all of the waking time is spent in an ASC. Gilligan (1987) believes that “trance will occur, like it or not.” As humans we need to relax, let go of striving, doing, trying and immerse ourselves “in a deeper communal context, to surrender to our Deep Self.” In the process of letting go we switch to a different, healing way of being that “de-potentiates the error-correcting regulation of conscious goal achieving and [we can] experience anew an unbiased sense of wholeness” (Gilligan, 1987, p. 42).

8. Deepens and Expands Individual Identity

Paradoxically, trance tends to both preserve and deepen our individual sense of identity and expand our circle of identity. Preservation of our identity can happen in many ways. Gilligan (1987) writes:

A person or group may develop trance to renew a sense of security-for example, through daily meditation, autohypnotic trance, and group chanting. Severe threat to survival may trigger a protective trance involving complete withdrawal from conscious orientation (shock, catalepsy, depression, and imaginal projection). Trance may also provide expression of consciously prohibited roles; for example, Bateson (1958) described how the Iatmul tribe in New Guinea perform ‘nave’, a trance ritual wherein men dress like women and vice versa and then act out certain roles normally associated with the complementary gender.[17] Trance can be used to affirm a deeper experiential connection; for example, American Indian tribes use rain dance rituals to enter a communal state with the natural environment. (Gilligan, 1987, p. 43)

ASC development and trance are an opportunity and method to return to the basic essence of one's identity.

ASCs can also expand a person or community's circle of identity. As mentioned, trance is experienced in many situations. Meaningful rituals of transition such as birth, marriage, passage into adulthood, graduation, death and dying, etc. tend to create an ASC. The use of a healing ASC can aid a client’s attempts to become aware of unwanted attachments, disidentify from his subpersonalities, and let go of unwanted behaviors, relationships, pain, and counterproductive ways of thinking. Additionally, ASCs often facilitate psychological integrations and the unification of disconnected parts. The latter two are obviously significant to psychotherapy and hypnotherapy. ASCs often stimulate useful and creative metaphorical expressions, such as artistic endeavor, problem solving, journal writing, and story telling.

9. Value Neutral

In and of themselves, ASCs are not productive or counterproductive, helpful or unhelpful, positive or negative or, as Gilligan puts it:

…self-valuing or self de-valuing. As with any experience, the value of a trance depends on the context in which it occurs. Self-valuing trances tend to be gentle, rhythmic, and continuous (fluid); self-devaluing trances tend to be violent, arrhythmic, and rigid. Over time, the content of self-valuing trances tends to change, since integrations occur and new gestalts thus form. The content of self-devaluing trances tends to repeat itself, since no integration…occurs. In self-valuing trances, no attempt is made to actively control experience; in self-devaluing trances, efforts are made to control, deny, or otherwise negate experience [of the self or the other]. (Gilligan, 1987, p. 44)

Historic examples of trance states can be seen in the goose step marches and chanting rallies of Nazi Germany, the rituals of the intrinsically peaceful Hopi, Q`ero and Tibetan aboriginal peoples, a contemplating Albert Einstein, a television glued “couch potato,” or a mother in child birth. The result is always a change in the OSC. The result can be neutral, productive, or non-productive: good or evil.

10. Omnipresence of Alternative State of Consciousness Abilities

Fundamental human qualities and abilities in the OSC and the various ASCs are potentially the same. We are not a completely different individual or from a different species while in an ASC. The potentials of the ASC exist in all of us as we walk the planet each day. What is often very different between the OSC and an ASC is the heightened intensity and amplitude in the altered state. In most ASCs there is an ability to be conscious of a wider variety of phenomenological experience within and around us, thereby making trance seem to be spectacular or otherwise unusual. In addition to the quantity or intensity of stimuli within most ASCs, the proportion of various qualities of experience is perceived in slightly to radically different configurations. For instance, while we all have some ability to concentrate, experience time distortions, express ourselves effortlessly, experience rather than analyze, and perhaps even enjoy an occasional taste of oneness with our environment in the rational consciousness, in many ASCs these qualities are very strong to all pervasive.

11. Relative Importance of Technique, Mind Set, and Environment

The set-and-setting hypothesis. This scientific theory suggests that the techniques used to create the ASC are not as significant as the person doing them, how she feels and thinks about the process and her life in general, and the environment in which the activity is taking place. Tart explains:

According to this hypothesis which is widely accepted by consciousness researchers, the actual content of a psychedelic experience is a function of the set (intention, beliefs, expectations, personality) and the setting (physical and social context), with the drug playing the role of trigger, or catalyst. The same principle can be applied in other situations not involving drugs: special breathing, sound, sensory isolation, meditation, stress, and so on…. (Tart, 1975, p. 247)

The content of the ASC experience is determined by our intention and other aspects of our internal life and the physical and social setting in which we find ourselves, both areas that we have considerable, though not total, conscious control over. It may be comforting to know that, consciously or unconsciously, the traveler has considerable control of his or her experience.

The Phenomenological Experience of Alternative States of Consciousness

Awareness of the phenomenology of ASC can be very important for the self-practitioner and psychotherapist alike for two reasons. First, knowing what may go on in the ASC can relieve anxiety, answer questions, increase motivation, forestall fear, aid in intention setting, and add insight during and after the experience. Second, each of these phenomena, or their inverse, can be integrated into methods for creating, maintaining, and returning from the ASC. Invoking, moving into, and having one or more of the following experiences tends to bring on additional trance phenomena and a deeper experience. While considering these characteristics, it is important to remember that the experience of trance should be distinguished from the specific ritual of shamanism, hypnosis, imaginal therapies, meditation, or any other methodology. The methods are simply means to elicit the experiential shift. It is useful to know that in addition to being symptoms of ASC, the following phenomena are also methods for developing an ASC.

1. Attentional Absorption

The entranced person generally experiences more complete or even full attentional absorption. While in an ASC, the person is often not aware of irrelevant stimuli such as environmental noises, lights, or even being touched, and if they do notice them, will usually not be distracted, bothered, or feel a need to attend to or deal with them. This can last for minutes or hours. In the waking state, attention is usually more diffuse, even scattered, and variable as we continually notice and respond to external stimuli. This full attentional focus may be internally or externally oriented.

2. Effortless Expression

Experience “just seems to happen” and “flows quite effortlessly” (Gilligan, 1987, p. 47). The person is very satisfied in the experience of the present and is not trying to make anything different or better.

3. Experiencing Rather Than Thinking

Entranced individuals usually are quite immersed in experiential, rather than conceptual, domains. They are more able to directly experience “things as they are” and generally show little need to logically understand or conceptually analyze whatever is going on. Thought processes typically become less critical, less evaluative, less verbal, and less abstract. At the same time, they grow more descriptive and image-based, or move beyond thinking to the experience of qualities and energies.

4. Greater Willingness to Explore and Experiment

Willingness to explore outside the boundaries of usual comfort or ability level. The person in an ASC will usually be quite willing to experiment with new perspectives. Like a harried businessperson on vacation, the trance subject is temporarily free from domination by the worried, consuming, driving, fixed point of view of his normal conscious processes and is more willing and able to experiment with creative and spontaneous behavior. A person in an ASC is generally less fixated to a psychological position, though still grounded in personal values.

5. Time Distortion

Time is experienced differently in an ASC. It can be slower, faster, or involve a sense of timelessness, all of which reflects a letting go of rational psychological processing. “Time flies when we are having fun” and a boring lecture “drags on forever.” A sense of linear time is a construct of analytical thinking and is therefore transcended as the person leaves the OSC.

6. Flexibility in Time and Space Orientation

A principle characteristic of the OSC is a fixed and particular relationship to time and space. In trance we can relate to time and space in many ways. We can completely dissociate from the present and shift to alternative time/space realities. For example, we might subjectively age regress to the past or age progress into the future. We can time distort, experiencing a minute like an hour (time expansion) or an hour like a minute (time condensation). Gilligan notes,

You can positively hallucinate something that is not really there or negatively hallucinate something that is actually there. Underlying these and other trance phenomena is the ability to relate to time and space as variables to be manipulated rather than constants to be limited by. (Gilligan, 1987, p. 50)

Diverting from time and space for a moment, take note of the limitation of language that is intrinsically bound within the rational mind. Even Gilligan, a transpersonally oriented psychotherapist and hypnotherapist, uses the typical hypnosis term “hallucinate,” a word meaning illusion or delusion, to describe what is seen in an ASC. If it is seen, how can it be an illusion? The only explanation I see is that Gilligan and the rest of us in the western world tend to value one reality over another. The values and assumptions of the rational OSC are difficult to shake.

Back to the space/time issue, it is no illusion that the entranced person is not bound to a particular or usual time and space view, freeing unlimited past, present and future realities. All four modalities (hypnosis, shamanism, imaginal therapies, and meditation) use techniques to experience the past and future, as well as to position oneself in different locations. The space/time continuum is softened, if not disintegrated, in the altered state.

7. Altered Sensory Perception and Involvement

Unusual and altered sensory experiences can range from a complete lack of any sensual activity in meditation to wildly vivid, frightening images in imaginal therapy and shamanism. One or more of the five senses can be involved. Often input from the senses is dramatically heightened. Kinesthetically, feelings of the body being heavy and warm, or immobilized, or lighter, are quite common. Sense of disconnection is also typical. Perceptual distortion of body parts sometimes develops. For example the head, arms, and hands might feel disproportionately large, the hand or arm may seem to be operating independently from the rest of the body (as in arm levitation), the feet may seem very far away, and so on. A pleasant sense of falling or spinning about is not unusual, especially in naïve subjects.

Visual alterations are also normal, and occur with either the eyes open or closed. With eyes open, tunnel vision is common and a shifting of color perception or black and white to color and back again can occur. Colors can become stronger and brighter. Visual distortions (more accurately, variations from the ordinary) are typical. The trance subject with eyes closed will often be immersed in vivid visual imagery. This may involve revivified memories, geometric patterns and designs, or fascinating, fantastic, and potentially useful symbolic imagery.

Alterations in the auditory system may also occur. Not hearing certain extraneous sounds is usual and the source of perceived noises may move closer, farther, fade away, and return. The person may hear sounds or voices that have no external source. Heightened sensitivity to certain subtle external cues can occur, especially relating to the therapist. Gilligan notes:

The subject frequently develops a heightened sensitivity to the hypnotist’s paralinguistic communications, such as tonal emphasis, intonation pattern (especially in relation to his or her own nonverbal “rhythms,” such as breathing), and auditory localization in space. (Gilligan, 1987, p. 52)

Because the subject’s perceptual world is generally limited to her own internal experience and the voice and presence of the therapist, she can be very sensitive to therapist speech and activity. This is a basis of suggestibility and the foundation of hypnotherapy.

These various sensory alterations are usually experienced as quite pleasant and intriguing. They serve to disorient subjects from their normal realities, thereby contributing to the development of ASC. Perceptual alterations are problems or potential solutions, depending on their context, social setting, and the belief system of the affected person.

8. Fluctuation in ASC Involvement

Even with the best subject and most experienced meditator, there is usually a continuum of involvement in the ASC rather than an all on or all off condition. In an imaginal therapy or hypnotherapy session the client in a deep trance must “come up” to a lighter trance in order to hear, process, and perhaps respond to the therapist, and then go deeper again. Even without verbalizations by the participants, the client usually has periods of trance when she is totally unaware of anything around her body in the therapy room and other times when noises or even the afternoon’s activities enter her mind. This is normal. Stasis is an unusual condition of human consciousness. Categorization of the level of involvement in the ASC can be made by quantifying the proportional amount of OSC to ASC characteristics. The more of the latter, the deeper the trance.

9. Inhibition and/or Constancy of verbal and Motor Functioning

Entranced individuals often do not feel like moving or talking. Shamanic work is an obvious exception, where rituals favor dancing, often in a circle or around a central object or person, with chanting, singing, rattling, or other expressive rhythms as disrupting and patterning forces. The key point here is that ASC is induced and maintained by an absence of the irregular, arrhythmic orienting responses and muscle tension that characterize the OSC and that trance can be developed and maintained via inhibition of movement or continual rhythmic movement. The predominance of relatively immobile induction procedures in hypnosis and imaginal therapies may have developed as a necessary balancing complement to the perpetually active, goal-oriented nature of the waking-state style favored by western culture. It may also be a function of the dissociation from the physical self (man dominating Nature, including his or her body) that generally occurs in our culture.

10. Alternative Logic

ASC or trance logic is dramatically and refreshingly different from the ordinary, rationally based logic. Gilligan states:

Entranced individuals tend to relate to their experience with a different logic than that used in waking states. To reiterate, unconscious (primary process) thinking is generally more associational, metaphorical, and concrete (image-oriented) than the rational, linear (sequential), and causal logic favored by the conscious mind. In particular, trance logic (see Orne, 1959) allows "both/and" relations to obtain. For example, entranced subjects find nothing bizarre or discomforting about experiencing themselves in two different places at the same time, or in exploring fantasy worlds whose rules or structures violate real world constraints. Such trance logic is much less restrictive than rational logic, thereby making it better suited for tasks in which a wider range of possibilities is sought. (Gilligan, 1987, p. 55)

Meditative, shamanic, hypnotic, and therapeutic ASC participants are generally seeking a wider range of possibilities and experiences. They often create the dissolution of, and even the answer to, contradictory relationships during the ASC. This is a useful way to create win/win solution that is highly valued and discussed in organizational consulting circles. Many ASCs are the preeminent modality for the facilitation of integration and synthesis.

11. Literal Interpretation while Entranced

Paradoxically, even though the experience of ASC is best described in metaphor, a person’s experience in trance is usually taken quite literally. For example, when the lioness was eviscerating me in my study (see page 137), I experienced it as just that, and not a “cleansing of my personality in preparation for an initiation onto the shamanic path” or any other metaphorical interpretation. Anything said or done to a person in an ASC is also experienced and interpreted literally by the entranced person. So the suggestion of “offering one’s heart to someone” may require taking it out of the chest and handing it to the person. “Flying down the freeway,” “rising above that kind of nonsense,” “leaving that for me to handle,” and “horsing around” all have literal meanings to the entranced person as well. This tendency can be misleading, distracting, frustrating, and potentially highly beneficial in the therapeutic situation, depending on the awareness of the experiencer and the skill level of the guide.

12. Described Metaphorically During and After the Trance

Metaphors, symbols, and analogies are primary and indispensable methods for describing non-ordinary states of consciousness and entry into “other worlds” of reality. Metzger believes this has more to do with the limitations of our language than characteristics of ASCs. He states:

Presumably, this is because our ordinary language has evolved to accommodate ordinary reality and everyday life, not the complexities of these special states and experiences that are inherently rare and non-ordinary. (Metzger, 1987, pp. 242-243)

Shamans have rich, Nature oriented symbolic language to describe and make use of their ASC experiences. Poets have given us beautiful and faithful descriptions of ASCs.[18] The more linear a person thinks and the more prescribed the conceptualization, the more difficult it is to describe alternative experiences.

12. Metaphorical Interpretation of ASC Experience after De-Induction

Upon returning to the OSC, rational interpretation of the ASC experience usually becomes counterproductive. Analyzing what was experienced as literal in the ASC in a literal or linear way misses the meaning and can even demean or abolish the inner value. In fact, metaphorical interpretation of ASC images and experience is the technique of choice. While I may have “literally” (in alternative logic) been flying down the freeway after it was suggested by my therapist, the fact that I so easily followed the suggestion probably does not mean that I should buy a plane and fly low over a highway (or any other possible literal interpretation and application of the ASC experience). It may mean that I would do well to look at new ways of moving through, or over, stagnancy in my emotional and psychological life (metaphorical interpretation of a literal ASC experience).

Individual Experience in Alternative States of Consciousness - Chapter Four

I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it’s a very poor scheme for survival.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., U.S. novelist. (1987).^{^[19]}

While the four modalities studied in this paper share basic principles, characteristics, and experiences, there is difference among the ASCs that are produced by these systems. Within each modality there are different orientations, styles, preferences, goals, purposes, depths, and any number of other variables that can effect the ASC experience. I have personally found that each successive application of a particular modality has been minutely to dramatically different from the others, and professionally noticed that each individual’s experience of a particular type of ASC will be different from another’s. This multi-dimensional layering of variables makes categorizing, comparison and even discussion of ASCs difficult and often misleading.

In addition to the inherent problems in displaying and clarifying this area of comparative ASC experience, there is the additional problem of the overly rational, dissecting, precise, analytical English language. Even deeper and more basic is the various cultural inclinations created by and intrinsically interwoven within language. In shamanic culture, this is very different. In terms of language and perception, there is no such a thing as a symbol, only the thing itself. There is no such thing as the distinction of real or imagined. It matters not if an organ pulled from a dying person is a diseased human liver or a chicken gizzard. It matters not if a projectile pulled from the patient’s gut is real or imaginary or even palmed by the shaman magician, because everything is exactly what the shaman says it is. Whatever is revealed during the shamanic state of consciousness, the SSC, is useful, healing, and fully accepted. The images and descriptive accounts of his journey is the shaman's method of distilling his experience and presenting the imparted information in a way his community can appreciate and of which it can make healthy use. The methods are far from the deception or lies that the rational mind may first notice, but rather a system used to communicate a non-rational, supra-linguistic, little-understood, higher and more useful commonly accepted reality.

Differential Experience in ASCs

Shamanic journeys are one of three types: journeys to the lower world, the middle world, or the upper world. Traveling downward, horizontally, or upward in space are simple, obvious, Nature oriented metaphors chosen for various kinds of altered states; no actual physical travel is of course involved. The physical body is usually lying on the ground, standing, dancing, or sitting. Metzner (1987) writes of shamanic metaphor:

They are appropriately chosen metaphors because they aptly characterize the phenomenology of these states. In “lower world journeys” one feels and perceives one to be falling, sliding, or crawling down, into, or under the earth. In “upper world journeys” one feels and perceives one is rising up, flying or floating through the air or sky, or climbing a mountain or the world tree. In “middle world journeys” one is traveling horizontally through an interior landscape that may be in many ways very different from exterior reality, but is somehow perceived as being on the same level. This metaphor of journey or travel is found equally in the traditional lore of shamanic cultures, and in the reports of modern individuals practicing shamanic methods. (Metzner, 1987, p. 243)

In Psychosynthesis, it is generally accepted that downward movement in imagery takes one into the lower unconscious world of past experiences and counterproductive, limiting aspects of the personality. The middle unconscious is seen as a relatively benign and mundane grouping of memories and characteristics that can be recalled more easily than those of the lower unconscious and are not especially important for insight or growth. The higher unconscious is accessed by upward movement in imagery and is the transpersonal realm of our best qualities and highest potentials. In hypnosis, going down stairs or an elevator is a common induction technique with the reverse bringing us back to the waking state. With the exception of Tantric Yoga and aspects of Tibetan and Korean Buddhism, imagery, intention, and energy is directed upward in most meditative practice.

My extensive involvement with meditation and imaginal therapy and considerable participation in shamanism and hypnosis has provided experiences that seem to correspond to the characterizations just given. The following is a comparative summary of my experiences in what shamans call the lower and upper worlds.

Lower world, lower unconscious, hypnosis.

1. Feeling of moving down and/or in, away from the rational OSC:

a. in consciousness.

b. in the body.

c. in space.

d. into matter.

2. Heavier, thicker, contracting, condensing, deepening, slowing, settling.

3. Deepening into this place.

4. Unearthing, uncovering.

5. Intensified feeling.

6. What I have called “exploration” of consciousness above.

Upper world, higher unconscious, meditation.

1. Sense of moving up or up and in, away from the rational OSC.

a. in consciousness,

b. into the mind,

c. away from the body,

d. out of the body, usually through top of head.

e. in space, up and out and around.

f. great freedom of movement.

g. away from matter and substance.

2. Lighter, finer, rising, lifting, expanding, moving, flying, and transcending.

3. Going to another place.

4. Away from feeling generally, yet when there is feeling it is much more sweet and refined than feelings in the lower world.

5. Voidness, blankness, no-thingness.

6. “Exploration” and/or “expansion” of consciousness.

Individual Differences

As an exploration of consciousness moves from general human experience to the actual experience of any one person, the enormity of the variables and the complexity of the moment to moment integration of these variables into a coherent whole is truly an amazing process. In any one moment, the individual has at least nine subsystems of consciousness[20] (one of which is a lifetime of conscious and unconscious memory) attempting to form cohesive, understandable experience from tens of thousands of bits of data. This data is a huge sea of possibly perceived inputs that changes from moment to moment. Every person is unique in their ability to be aware of and utilize the nine subsystems, especially the amount and types of memory and the amount of awareness, interpretation and integration of psychological factors. It is a wonder that either coherent individual personality or collective consensus reality can take shape.

A further exploration of individual consciousness is aided by the notion of discrete states of consciousness. It has been shown that everyone intentionally or unintentionally varies from his or her OSC with a variety of different alternative awarenesses called ASCs. These discrete states of consciousness are a system that is stabilized in a number of ways so as to maintain its integrity in the face of changing environmental input. Whatever internal reactions and external actions the person may take in response to the environment further stabilizes the ASC. Within either the OSC or an ASC, the mind selects a narrow band of elements to concentrate on and around which to form a dynamic, coherent, relatively stable foundation from which to make sense of and interact with the world (Tart, 1975, p. 70).

Reference State

One crucial variable in describing, defining, and possibly classifying individual consciousness is awareness of the particular discrete state that the individual is experiencing at the given moment. Any notion about previous consciousness and the next moment of consciousness must be based on this reference state. This concept is not foreign to psychotherapy and hypnotherapy which are based on the principle that transformation must always begin “where the client is at” if therapy is going to be successful. A good therapist and an aware client must have an accurate sense of present goals and life experience as well as relevant past experiences, belief systems, and cultural predisposition. This is a two dimensional concept. It refers to this very moment, such as I feel sad, uninvolved, anxious, competent, skillful, ready to work, or blank. It also suggests a more persistent sense of identity that includes “where I’m at” these months or years or lifetime. In my case, being middle aged, white/Anglo-Saxon/Protestant, professional, husband, parent, grandparent, with rich, dynamic and occasionally uncomfortable tensions between the polarities of mind and feeling, rational and supra-rational, masculinity and femininity, professional and vagabond, leader and hermit, and mystic and scientist. As I have intellectually and experientially explored consciousness over the years, the proposition of knowing “where a person is at,” my clients, or myself has only become more elusive, complicated, and fascinating. Tart (1970) coined the term “reference state” to label the former of the two conditions presented just above, “where I’m at right now,” as a baseline from which to compare and understand other states. Tart offers a detailed, almost humorous portrait of this terrain using description of a feeling state that comes out of the 1960’s and is still used by many people as a general descriptor today.

On its simplest level, the statement “I'm high” simply means that I feel better now than I did under some other conditions. If I had a bad toothache a few minutes ago, and now the pain has stopped, I can say that now I'm high. I feel much better than before. If I am neurotic in my ordinary discrete state of consciousness and suffer constant tensions, fears, and anxieties, and I get drunk and feel good, again I can say I'm high by comparison. To reverse this, if I become frightened or feel sick when I am drunk, I can use the phrase “I'm high” to describe my ordinary discrete state of consciousness in which I do not feel frightened or sick. (Tart, 1975, p. 230)

The statement “I'm high” is a relatively useful description of feeling state if the reference state, and the way in which the current state differs from it, are defined. In practice, a person rarely employs the phrase with a clear description of the reference state or the specific way in which the current condition differs from it. Add to this the great individual differences in OSC, and the degree to which the common language of consensus reality glosses over these differences, and it can be seen that “I'm high” is usually an ambiguous phrase indicating only that I feel better than in some other, unknown condition. Perhaps I am in a state of fear and anxiety now and that is better than the terror I experienced a few minutes ago, or perhaps I feel blissfully at one with the whole cosmos.

In order to be clear in our thinking and communication about our momentary experience or conscious awareness, we need to be clear about the reference point from which we are making analogies, comparisons, contrasts, and distinctions.

Mental and Consciousness Abilities

In addition to reference state, another important distinction among people is individual difference in mental and consciousness abilities. Most people can distinguish radically altered states of consciousness like drunkenness, dreaming, marijuana intoxication, and certain meditative states from their OSC. The shift in the patterning and characteristics of their consciousness are “so radical that most people experiencing them are forced to notice” (Tart, 1970, p. 231) that the state of their consciousness is quite different, even if they are not good internal observers. Tart continues:

A person need not have developed an Observer in order to notice such a change in his state of consciousness: so many things are so clearly different that the observation is forced on him. (Tart, 1975, p. 231)

In general, however, most of us do not have abilities or the interest to make more subtle distinctions. For instance, is my inability at this point in time to clearly distinguish a phenomenological difference between most of my hypnotic and imaginal therapeutic experiences because each modality produces similar perceptions or because my observation and differentiation skills are underdeveloped?

One significant ability that varies widely from individual to individual is inner observation. Described by Tart (1970) in the preceding paragraph as the Observer, this internal witness monitors many characteristics of experience, consciousness, thinking, and feeling. Without awareness, there is little chance of significant change. Transformational modalities rely heavily on the witnessing function. While there seems to be great variation in people’s innate ability to hold inner concentration and be an internal Observer, this ability can be and is greatly enhanced with practice. It is one of the first and primary abilities developed in meditation. The shaman trainee must learn to concentrate, not become terrorized, and hold a center of inner peace and strength in the face of frightening beings and situations. Many of the training principles and techniques put forward in Section Three help develop inner observation. The person interested in cultivating the ability to alter his or her consciousness into specific ASCs requires concentration and the subtle awareness of subtle changes is perception.

Another factor in interpersonal variation in mental and consciousness abilities is the height, depth, and breadth of intellect, imagination, and other OSC abilities. Psychologically, each person assumes that his or her mind is an example of a “normal” mind with attainable abilities and perceptions, and then projects his or her own experiences onto other people. Depending on our witnessing abilities, we are usually unaware of how much projecting (inaccurately seeing oneself and one’s characteristics in all other people) we are doing.

For most of us, unstable and vague imagery in our ordinary consciousness is the norm so that trying to visualize a scene or an object very steadily and intensely for more than a few seconds is a considerable challenge. Many individuals report that imagery in an ASC is more intense, controllable, and steady than in their OSC. Yet the inventor Nickola Tesla reportedly had the kind of intense, controllable imagery that some have in an ASC, in his ordinary state of consciousness.

When Tesla designed a machine, he did it in his head, without using physical drawings: nevertheless, he could instruct a dozen different machinists how to make each separate part, to the nearest ten-thousandth of an inch, and the completed machine would fit together perfectly. Tesla is also reported to have tested wear on his machines through imagery. He designed the machine by visualization, put the imaged parts together into a complete machine, started it running in his mind, forgot about it, resurrected the image thousands of hours later, mentally dismantled the machine, and inspected the parts for wear to see what needed reinforcement or redesign. (Tart, 1975, p. 143)

Regardless of how one evaluates the accuracy of such imagery, Tesla’s procedure is a good example of what for most of us is either impossible or exotic imagery associated with ASCs but what was for him the imagery of his OSC. In elaborateness, apparent accuracy of the imagery, and the ability to focus the mind for extended periods of time, Tesla clearly had abilities far beyond those of most of us. A more familiar example can be found in a deaf Ludwig von Beethoven composing his incomparable Ninth Symphony in his OSC, a state incomprehensive to most of us.

Theodore X. Barber,[21] a hypnosis theorist who believes that hypnotic trance is not an altered state. He believes that each of us can create hypnosis with personally controllable characteristics. Not surprisingly, Barber himself can produce most of the classical hypnotic phenomena without doing anything special. He can anesthetize his hand or produce mild hallucinations without experiencing a breakdown of his ordinary consciousness, a transitional period from one discrete state to another, or anything other that the commonplace. According to Barber (1969), the hypnotic “state” is in fact continuous with the ordinary “state,” and is simply a case of certain psychological functions, such as suggestibility and role-playing involvement, being pushed to higher levels of activity than they are under ordinary conditions.

Projecting Mental and Consciousness Abilities on Others

Barber demonstrates two problems that arise from individual differences. First, like Tesla, he has abilities that most of us do not. Second, because of these abilities, he may be assuming that what is easy, normal, and a part of his everyday experience is that way for everyone else and bases his theoretical formulations on that assumption. It is difficult for anyone, a therapist for instance, to make accurate assumptions about another’s state of consciousness or mental abilities because our own abilities and experiences necessarily taint our assumptions. Furthermore, there is wide variability among people. What might be merely an extension of the OSC for a few people can be experienced only in an ASC by a larger group, and is apparently unavailable to others.

In addition to the range differences that exist among people deemed to be in same state of consciousness, a final distinction is the important individual differences among people's abilities to transit from one discrete state to another. Some people seem to be over-stabilized and others under-stabilized. The former find it very difficult to leave their ordinary state, while the latter may transit often and effortlessly into ASCs. To the extent that a person’s stabilization processes are too powerful or too implicit to be altered at will, he or she is stuck in one mode of consciousness. Under-stabilized people may endure breakdown of the OSC and be unable to organize consciousness into a stable, coping formulation, with devastating results. Some types of schizophrenia represent this under-stabilized mode of consciousness and extremely rigid personality types are over-stabilized types. Of course, there is plenty of variability along this stabilization continuum that is healthy and well within normal limits.

With the various factors that combine to create coherent consciousness and the wide range of individual difference in a person’s mental and consciousness abilities in mind, it becomes clear that understanding human consciousness is not an easy task. Considerable progress must be made in gathering information about many individual’s mental and consciousness experience and abilities before we can begin to have much confidence in efforts to generalize attempts, such as mapping of human experience and the use of the concepts such as OSC and ASC. It is probably naïve to coin and use such names as dreaming state, waking state, shamanic state, meditative state, or hypnotic state. To do so assumes a fair degree of commonality among a very large number of individuals. At this point in the development of linguistics and other forms of communication, along with the vast individual differences described above, these labels could be as misleading as they are helpful. Several ASCs may be hidden within common names like waking state, hypnosis, meditation, and dreaming, or conversely, the different terms may be describing the same experience. Rather than taking discouragement from this predicament, it highlights the need for further attempts at formulating hypotheses and theoretical perspectives so that we eventually have more understanding of this crucial area.

Characteristics for Evaluating and Comparing Altered States and Transitioning Techniques

The intricacies and vagueness of consciousness and the relative infancy of scientific knowledge of the OSC and ASCs can make their understanding, communication, utilization, and experience difficult for the student and expert alike. I have collated thirteen continuums and characteristics upon which you can evaluate, categorize, and/or conceptualize a state of consciousness, and the techniques used to gain that state, for yourself or your client. Overlaying these continuums and characteristics on a discrete state or a consciousness altering technique can give you more information for thinking about and discussing consciousness and hopefully deepen your understanding of individual states, the vast possibilities of your consciousness, and the field in general. To use this summary of consciousness characteristics, answer the following questions. Is this particular state of consciousness or consciousness altering technique…?

1. Intentional or incidental

2. self initiated or other initiated

3. light or medium or deep (as described by various theoretical formulations of the unconscious Chapter Five, Models of Consciousness)

4. outer directed or inner directed

5. communicative or non-communicative

6. active or passive

7. emotional and feeling or mental

8. self-related or other-related in purpose

9. solitary or social in setting

10. group participation

11. self-valuing or self-devaluing

12. exploring that which exists and/or…

13. expanding the existing sense of self

Models of Consciousness - Chapter Five

Attempts at describing and categorizing the indescribable.

The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces— in nature, in society, in man himself.

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), Russian revolutionary.^{^[22]}

Eight Models of Consciousness

Not withstanding my own admonition in the previous chapter (page 101) to be wary of attempts to classify human mental and consciousness abilities and experience, it is necessary in a paper such as this to look at current explanations. This is done with the full knowledge that these models of consciousness may seem naïve after a century of what hopefully will be considerable consciousness research.

1. Shamanism—Lower, Middle, and Upper Worlds

Shamanism and its three worlds that have been described and discussed throughout this paper:

a. Lower world of the dead, our ancestors, with great and awesome beings that harm and heal humans.

b. Middle world of everyday life and the spirits that deal with the mundane.

c. Upper world of the One Creator and the Great Spirit sages and guardians of Creation.

2. Erickson—Conscious and Unconscious

Erickson seems to divide human consciousness into the conscious and unconscious. Although loath to talk about theory (Erickson, 1980a, p. 144), in his writings I find the suggestion that he believes the unconscious of the human is her real self and that her unconscious knows more about what is best for her than her rational mind does (Erickson, 1980a, p. 345).[23]

3. Sarbin—Role Playing

Sarbin (1954) charts role playing according to organismic intensity and involvement, distinguishing seven different levels.

a. casual role playing;

b. dramatic role enactment;

c. more involved dramatic role enactment;

d. role of the hypnotized subject;

e. hysterical fugue, the role of the amnesic;

f. ecstatic states and includes mystical experiences, possession and religious conversions;

g. thanatomania, hysterical death.

(Peters and Price-Williams, 1980, p. 401)

In the higher levels of role involvement, self and role are undifferentiated; on the lesser levels, role and self are differentiated. With this broad definition of role taking, it is not a stretch to take this formulation as a partial theory of consciousness.

4. Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis

The following is description of what has affectionately been called Assagioli’s “egg diagram,” or his model of human consciousness.

a. Middle unconscious: relatively available everyday-type memories.

b. Lower unconscious: our entire past and also self-limiting personality traits or complexes.

c. Higher unconscious: the future, our highest individual potentials, and the highest human qualities such as unconditional love, transpersonal will, intuition, and creativity.

d. Personal self, ego, our point of awareness, which is at the center of the diagram.

e. Outside of egg is the collective unconscious or group consciousness.

f. Higher self, or transpersonal self, at the top of the egg, sits on the boundary between the higher unconscious and the collective unconscious and is a part of both the individual’s world and the collective worlds.

g. All the boundaries in this model are porous and permeable.

5. Buddhist Path of Concentration

Buddhist Path of Concentration. Tart (1970) relates two Buddhist descriptions of possible human consciousness that are achievable with two different types of meditation. This first path uses a type of concentrative meditation.

a. ACCESS STATE: Hindering thoughts are overcome, other thoughts remain. Awareness of sensory inputs and body states. Primary object of concentration dominates thought. Feelings of rapture, happiness, equanimity. Initial and sustained thoughts of primary object. Flashes of light or bodily lightness.

b. 1st JHANA: Hindering thoughts, sensory perception and awareness of painful bodily states all cease. Initial and unbroken sustained attention to primary object of concentration. Feelings of rapture, bliss and one-pointedness.

c. 2nd JHANA: Feeling of rapture, bliss one-pointedness. No though of primary object of concentration.

d. 3rd JHANA: Feelings of bliss, one-pointedness and equanimity. Rapture ceases.

e. 4th JHANA: Equanimity and one-pointedness, bliss. All feelings of bodily pleasure cease.

f. 5th JHANA: Consciousness of infinite space. Equanimity and one-pointedness.

g. 6th JHANA: Objectless infinite consciousness. Equanimity and one-pointedness.

h. 7th JHANA: Awareness of non-thing-ness. Equanimity and one-pointedness.

i. 8th JHANA: Neither perception nor non-perception. Equanimity and one-pointedness. (Tart, 1975, p. 236).

6. Buddhist Path of Insight

Buddhist Path of Insight

a. Ability to concentrate and basic ability to notice mental phenomena.

b. Mindfulness.

c. Stage of reflections, with no sense of self.

d. Pseudo-nirvana. Having various phenomena such as brilliant light, rapturous feeling, tranquility, devotion, energy, happiness, strong mindfulness, with attachment to these newly arisen states.

e. Realization of the dreadful, unsatisfactory, and wearisome nature of physical and mental phenomena. Perception of vanishing of mind objects. Perception fast and flawless. Disappearance of light, rapture etc.

f. Effortless Insight. Contemplation is quick, effortless, and indefatigable. Instantaneous knowledge. Cessation of pain. Pervasive equanimity.

g. Nirodh. Total cessation of consciousness. (Tart, 1975, p. 237).

7. Wilber’s Spectrum of Consciousness

Ken Wilber (1993), in his book The Spectrum of Consciousness, organizes consciousness by beginning with the most narrow and limited dimension.

a. At the Shadow level, we approve and identify with only the parts of ourselves that we like and believe are acceptable. We disown unacceptable aspects of our personality and relegate them to the subconscious, or shadow.

b. The Ego Level is split as well, but the two parts are ego and everything else. At this level of consciousness, we identify with the personality but we think of our body and environment as separate. This seems quite natural and obvious to most of us as we hang out here most of the time.

c. At the Existential level the split remains between the organism and the environment but we experience body, emotions, and mind as a unified whole.

d. Unity consciousness. In this rarified, transpersonal, band of the spectrum, we experientially identify with our entire environment: family, community, nation, animals, plants, rocks, and the whole universe. “This does not mean that everything merges into one big undifferentiated mass” (Van De Riet, p. 31, 1996). In expanded consciousness, “boundaries become more like lines of distinction than boundaries of separation. Meister Eckhart referred to this level of consciousness as fusion without confusion” (Van De Riet, p. 31, 1996). Wilber stresses that this consciousness is not as illusive or impossible as it might at first seem. He asserts that it exists as potential within everyone.

8. Bailey’s Constitution of Man

The esoteric philosophy books of Alice A. Bailey (1922, 1944, 1951a, 1951b, 1953, 1955, 1963), a 20^th century version of the Perennial Wisdom Teachings that are described in Aldous Huxley’s (1946) book of that title, posit a complex and yet elegant formulation. The “Seven Planes of Our Solar System” or “The Constitution of Man” comprise the possibilities of human consciousness (Bailey, 1922, frontispiece). Each of these seven dimensions of consciousness, which form a conceptual and energetic foundation for esoteric meditation,[24] is further differentiated into seven aspects, making a total of 49 possible discrete states of consciousness. The seven larger and 49 smaller distinctions are made on the basis of frequency of energy or vibratory rate, analogous to the strings of a piano. Starting from the bottom of the diagram, or more accurately from the point of view of energy, with the lowest or densest vibration, is the:

1. Seventh plane of the Physical, which is made up of the dense physical body and the etheric body.

2. Sixth plane is the Emotional or Astral.

3. Fifth plane is the Mental or Manasic.

The physical, emotional and the lower four subplanes of the mental, (called the lower or analytical mind), comprise the human personality. This is the part of us that we live in most of the day and must learn to quiet in order to approach any higher or finer levels. The higher three subplanes of the mental are named the abstract mind and are where the transpersonal self, soul or Causal Body resides and is the foundation upon which we can travel into the formless worlds of the divine.

4. Fourth plane is named the Buddhic or intuitional plane. It carries the energy of Love-Wisdom and is the reservoir of the highest human intuition.

5. Third plane is called the Atmic or Spiritual level, with the energy of Will and power.

6. Second plane is the Monadic, the home of the Monad or spiritual self of which the soul is a reflection.

7. First dimension is the Adi or the energy or beingness of the One called Logos, the sun itself.

This section is purposefully subtitled “attempts to describe the indescribable” to highlight the embryonic nature of the efforts to categorize the essence of human experience and potential. All of the maps above offer some insight and have useful and provocative points. Only with decades, maybe centuries, of exploration in a friendlier social, political, and scientific environment than we find as the 20^th century turns, will more satisfactory formulations emerge.

Shamanism - Chapter One

[We begin with shamanism and a world] in which everything seems possible, where the dead return to life and the living die only to live again, where one can disappear and reappear instantaneously, where the “laws of nature” are abolished, and a certain superhuman “freedom” is exemplified and made dazzlingly present.

Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, 1970, p. 511)

Shamanism. A world of magic, drama, spirits, and potential that seemed so strange and foreign to me just five years ago is now as comfortable and useful to me as it is intriguing. I am learning to let these ancient ways “stimulate and free the imagination, demolish the barriers between dream and present reality, open windows upon worlds inhabited by the gods, the dead, and the spirits” (Eliade, 1970, p. 511). Consider allowing the knowledge and eventually the experience of this truly fantastic alternative world to touch your life.

In 1999 interview, Dr. Jack Zimmerman called shamanism the “grandmother and grandfather” of everything that was birthed at the “dawn of our awareness.” Zimmerman is elder and former director of The Ojai Foundation, a training and retreat center founded by Joan Halifax. Zimmerman believes shamanism began with an emerging recognition that there must be something beyond the daily chores of gathering and preparing food, hunting, and protecting the family. It is the name for that part of the human that slowly became aware of the spiritual aspects of life. Then and now, the shaman lives on the edge of the village, which provides an apt metaphor for living in both the world of daily reality and the transcendent world of spiritual reality. There is considerable risk in straddling this huge chasm between the concrete, collective reality of shared everyday life and a sphere where the laws of nature as we know them are abolished. Together we will explore the magical realms of the shaman and the personal experiences and characteristics that come together to make him[26] what he is, the past and present master of the imagination as healer.

Six Defining Principles of Shamanism

In this chapter shamanism will be introduced through an exploration of prominent principles of this ancient practice. Selection, training, initiation, purpose, goals, and techniques will be used to differentiate shamanism from other practices that use altered states of consciousness in this and subsequent chapters. Six principles of shamanism are: 1) prominent use of the state of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness, 2) a clear memory of the altered state experience, 3) mastery of the altered state of consciousness journey, 4) the status of the shaman as an integral, respected, visible, highly valued, and accepted part of his community, 5) an everyday instinctual unity consciousness of both the shaman and his community, and 6) the widespread appearance of severe illness, dismemberment, and death in training and practice. The remainder of the chapter will use aspects of selection, training, and initiation as context deeper understanding of shamanism.

Shamans claim to be able to enter at will an unusual state of consciousness, one conducive to special problem-solving abilities. The shamanic rituals – the drums and monotonous chants, the fasting and sleeplessness – allow the shaman to slip into a dream-like state, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, where vivid imagery experiences are part of the natural terrain. Weston La Barre, a distinguished professor of anthropology at Duke University, notes that the shaman is the world’s oldest professional, and the personage from whom both the modern doctor and priest descend. “The shaman was the original artist, dancer, musician, singer, dramatist, intellectual, poet, bard, ambassador, advisor of chiefs and kings, entertainer, actor and clown, curer, stage magician, juggler, jongleur, folksinger, weatherman, artisan, culture hero and trickster-transformer” (LaBarre, 1979, pp. 7-11). Mircea Eliade, an author of classic anthropological and theological works has reviewed the vast literature on shamanism in his seminal work entitled Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. He is considered by many to be the current worldwide expert on the subject. Eliade characterizes the shaman as priest, physician, magician, sorcerer, exorcist, political leader, psychotic and mountebank. Certainly with a vita as diverse as this, he is no one-dimensional character.

In my personal, experiential, and academic exploration of the shamanic way, it has become clear that shamans “are people with the strength to become vulnerable, the will to impose form, and the wit to translate their treasure into an understandable dream (Schmidt, 1987, p.73). As Brooke Medicine Eagle writes,

. . . The seer, man of many faces,

Clown and fool and wise man,

Relates to us in puns,

The spaces between the worlds. (Schmidt, 1987, p. 73)

Shamanism is often defined as and compared with all ancient healing and ritual practice. However, there are important distinctions. The priest is an actor in and protector of ritual, while the shamans’ activities are to create within themselves the direct “experience” of supernatural forces. The shaman is a purveyor of white magic, doing positive, requested good in the community. He[27] is a healer. The sorcerer is more likely to be involved in black or gray magic, which is self-centered and promotes individual power rather than the good of the community. Besides healing, the shaman uses his abilities to aid hunting, agriculture, rainfall, and leadership decisions. The shaman mediates the world of the human and the world of gods.

Eliade (1970) states categorically that ecstasy is the defining element of shamanism. A shaman may well be an expert in herbal lore or trauma medicine, but, in a strict anthropological sense, shamans are those individuals who distinguish themselves through particular practices of ecstasy or altered states of consciousness. In the American Heritage Dictionary (1996) ecstasy, which derives “from [the] Late Latin extasis, terror, [and] from Greek ekstasis, astonishment, distraction, [and] from existanai, to displace, derange [where ex is] out of”^{^[28]} or to stand outside of oneself, is defined as:

1. Intense joy or delight.

2. A state of emotion so intense that one is carried beyond rational thought and self-control: an ecstasy of rage.

3. The trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation.

In the shamanic ecstasy, the limitations of time and space are transcended. Rocks and stones speak. Men turn into animals and animals into men. It is a world filled with archaic symbols and metaphor, in which the shaman journeys to the moon and sun, plums the depths of the underworlds and soars to the ends of the universe for the sacred and practical purpose of aiding her family, friends and community.

The purpose of the shamanic journey is obtaining power and knowledge in order to help the community and create healing and wholeness. Disease, and hence, cure, may be quite unlike what might be recognized as such in conventional medicine.

. . . there is far greater emphasis on disturbances of the spirit than is found in the medicine of industrialized countries. The shaman is well skilled at differential diagnosis of spirit disorders. Sometimes the soul may be diagnosed as having been frightened, other times depressed, and worst of all, it may have exited itself altogether (known as susto or ‘soul loss’, among Spanish speaking cultures)” (Achterberg, 1985 p. 18).

1. Ecstatic Experience

Therefore, we can view shamanism as a healing system involving techniques for entering into and interpreting the landscape of the imagination that is encountered while journeying. Anthropologists have called this journey “magical flight.” While the achievement of a state of ecstasy (or trance, or altered state of consciousness), the first principle of shamanism, is widely agreed upon as a universal aspect of shamanic practice, not every ecstasy can be identified as the highly specific, special category of altered state called shamanic journeying, or the shamanic state of consciousness (SSC).

Shaman, therefore, are men and women who claim to be able to voluntarily alter their consciousness to achieve the ecstasy state, engage in unusual experiences that enable them to help and heal members of their tribe. By plugging into a data bank unavailable in the normal waking consciousness, they obtain special problem-solving abilities. Achterberg states that

In psychological terms, shamans purport to self-regulate their attention so as to obtain information that enables them to ameliorate the condition of members of their social group…In the state of consciousness used in shamanic healing, mental resources are employed that modern persons either no longer have access to or are not interested in using, in view of the current reliance upon coherent, linear thinking and rationality, the shaman turns to inner experiences for solutions, using sensory memories, as well as abstractions and symbolisms. He reviews his subconscious flow of pictures without the use of the critical powers activated by consciousness as well as the grid of causality, time, and space (Achterberg, 1985, p. 125).

There are a variety of techniques employed by shamans to induce trance, ranging from fasting and other deprivations like sleeplessness, exhaustion, and sexual abstinence to dancing, singing and listening to monotonous chants, and the use of percussion instruments like the drum and rattle. The drum, which when beaten at certain rapid rates, may result in trance even without the intention to do so, is the most universally used method and is considered the “method of transportation to the other worlds” by many tribes.

Songs, which are usually accompanied by drum or rattle, are traditional healing or power chants. The original source may be unknown and the shaman in training memorizes the songs. The Navaho use very long, prescribed scripts to heal particular diseases or problems. Other shamans compose their own chants, which come to them during the solitude of the vision quest, or may be gifted to them by a passing bird, or a dream, sleeping or waking. In these cases, the fact of a song and eventually the effectiveness of the song are confirmations to the community that the shaman has been initiated into the power of the shamanic path.

The shaman Awa summons his helping spirit with the following monotonous song (Eliade, 1970, p. 89).

Joy, joy, joy, joy

I see a little shore spirit

A little Awa.

I am also Awa.

The shore spirit namesake.

Joy, joy.

There are also meditative-type trances, like those employed by aboriginal shamans, who sit or lie in quiet contemplative states when communicating with the supernatural and performing magical feats (Peters, 1987, p. 176). Some of the earliest forms of shamanism, dating back to the Paleolithic age, may have involved the ingestion of hallucinogenic substances. The shamanistic use of drugs is still common in Siberia and in parts of North and South America. In my travels in Peru, sacred plant use ranged from the mild euphoria of chewed coca leaves, to the mild hallucinogenic effects of the juice of the San Pedro cactus to the profound and difficult “lower world” experiences brought on by a brew made from the Amazonian Ayawhaska plant, or “death vine.”

Rainbows, rock crystal, meteorites, trees, and poles are also used to travel into the other worlds. Even today, the shamans in many tribes have a pole or tree in their village square or sacred place, apart from the living area, which they climb during the healing ritual. The various branches or levels often signify farther and farther journeying into the “upper world.” Crystals are “implanted” into the forehead of initiates in certain Australian tribes to aid them in contacting spirit allies. Crystals are a significant ritualistic object in many tribes around the world. After taking part in a ritual called the “star transmission,” and receiving healing and blessing from don Manuel Quispe of the Q`ero tribe who live high in the Andes, I was given a meteorite.

There are two primary techniques of ecstasy in shamanism: a) magical flight, journeying, or traveling, and b) spirit possession: the use of power animals and spirit allies.

Magical flight is traveling to the upper world for power, insight and inspiration and to the underworld to get information for healing, to communicate with the dead, and to retrieve lost souls. The upper world consists of the sky, flying, gods and demigods, and things of the soul and the future. The lower world is under the earth and reached through holes in the earth, or down roots. The underworld is home to things of the past, our ancestors and the dead of all the earth’s creatures. The gods of this part of creation have mastery over the world of physical manifestation, and along with the spirits that inhabit their domain, may be cooperative, neutral, obstinate, or combative with the journeying shaman.

For example in the Pavarotsi tribe of North America, the shaman goes into trance to determine the cause of illness of a tribe member, enters an altered state by singing a song and returns by singing a different song. He then reports aloud his entire experience and the images contacted suggest answers, including diagnosis, prognosis, and cure. He then sucks the skin of the patient at the exact location of the problem that was seen in the trance. He sucks until a small object (magical or actual) is extracted, which will cure the disease. He continues singing and pipe smoking until midnight.

Spirit possession, is the intentional use of power animals and spirit allies for healing and knowledge. Anthropologists, 19^th and 20^th century university trained, western raised, Christian oriented men, coined the term “spirit possession” to describe what they saw in the field. The wild and unexplainable actions of the shaman in the altered state just had to be possession or psychosis. Later in the paper, we will look in detail at this technique and western evaluation of it. For now it is sufficient to know that these guardian spirits, also called helping spirits, tutelaries, totems, or fetishes, are the beings from whom power and knowledge is gained by the shaman in his ecstatic states. Not everyone who claims these spirits as allies is a shaman, however. Laypersons without shamanic initiation may have relationships with similar spirits without the shamanic power, or they may be in possession of lesser spirits, or just fewer of them. Having a power animal is becoming quite popular in certain circles here in the United States. As a layperson I have had experiences with an eagle, bear and lion that have personally and professionally helpful and have lead me down the path toward the shamanic way. While the spirits offer protection and guidance to the layperson and shaman alike, the use of them to heal others, or for divination, is normally the sole province of the shaman.

In the altered state generally the shaman will talk with and be guided by the tutelary spirit. This can be an ancestor, deceased training shaman, or another form of spirit being. The spirit possession refers to a further step wherein the shaman identifies with or becomes the helping spirit or the being that ensouls one of the animal species, such as Bear or Eagle. Often the spirit talks through the shaman, exhibiting voice, body and movement qualities of the spirit as in channeling. Shamanism is very practical and down to earth as evidenced by the specific choice of power animal. He might choose Eagle for soaring in the upper world, Bear for hunt rituals, and Ground Hog for trips to the lower world. The well-rounded shaman has many power animals and tutelaries for the variety of needs with which he will be confronted.

Psychologically speaking, the shaman identifies with and/or becomes the Bear to transcend the personal self or ego and to become a higher and deeper self in order to have contact with the wisdom, power and healing that is available in that higher consciousness.

Peters and Price-Williams (1980, p. 396) in an article in the American Ethnologist entitled “Towards an Experiential Analysis of Shamanism,” report on their survey of 42 shamanic cultures. Eighteen reported spirit possession only, 10 magical flight only, and 11 both. In the remaining three, neither concept was used to explain the shaman's trance. Thirty-nine of the 42 tribes use spirit possession or magical flight, or both, to create and utilize an altered state of consciousness for their various purposes.

The spirit world is often symbolized and treated as air. The breath of life and breath of spirit are used by many shamans. Blowing water and a sweet, inexpensive cologne called Aqua de Florida into the air or on the participants is a common form of cleansing, purifying and blessing in the Andes of Peru. This combines air, water, and sweetness. I experienced being “breathed into” by a shaman after a long, healing ritual. Putting her lips to my chest, she exhaled on my skin, transmitting the specific healing message from her journey and generally the power, love and wisdom of the spirit world.

While certainly not unique to shamanism, a talisman often plays a major role in the shaman’s work. A talisman is 1.) An object marked with magic signs and believed to confer on its bearer supernatural powers or protection, and 2.) Something that apparently has magic power (American Heritage Dictionary, 1996).

When the supernatural path is circular, as in the case of shamans who move into those realms and return to do the healing work of the world, those who travel that path bring back something of the glory of their visualizations. The beautiful sacred art of the shamanic cultures is precisely that. The yarn pictures, the beadwork, and the sandpaintings are all attempts to share the spirit realm through the media of this world. The visionary experiences were also preserved in the shaman’s medicine bundle: feathers, beads, skeletons of animals, stones, shells, dried plants, even European ‘junk’ found its way into the North American Indians’ sacred bundles. Sometimes the objects represent special gifts given to the shaman in the other world. Several generations after the vision, the medicine bundle is an objective technique of sorts. It has song, herbs, charms, and stories, all keyed to the original revelation and added to by those who have used the medicine. (Grossinger, 1980, pp. 42-43)

The Q`ero tribe in the high Andes and most other Andean shamans carry a “mesa” with them at all times. The mesa, meaning table in Spanish and possibly related to the concept of a religious alter, is a bundle filled with the shaman’s sacred objects which are folded carefully within a two or three foot square handmade cloth woven of orange, red, and black threads. Stones, bones, twigs, leaves, even the placenta of a llama may find themselves there and may be passed on to others at special times. The sacred 8-inch by 8 inch by 3-inch rectangular package forms the basis of the shaman’s ritual space and time and is used to heal and bless clients.

I was told that the Q`ero weave the cloths to be used as diapers, sewing two together to form a sacred mesa cloth after they are no longer needed for their original purpose. This practice is a perfect metaphor for the natural inclusion of the spiritual in the daily lives of tribal people and the judgment-free synthesis of human excrement and transcendence.

A few years ago my wife and I had the now rare opportunity for non-Indians to watch a Hopi dance. As a part of this particular sacred ritual, the Kachinas take children one at a time to race with across the plaza, with mock beating and real hair cutting awaiting all but the fastest and most cunning of the children. I was the first adult and white person chosen out of the audience. I entered an eternal, crystal clear tribal world of kachina spirits inhabiting feathered, painted mumbling Indian bodies who were clearly excited about the challenge of running me down. Surrounded by six or eight kachinas and more “mudheads,” I wondered if it was tribal memory, DNA, or old movies that had me feeling a frightening and exhilarating familiarity. I signaled “start” with my first movement forward and my body lurched ahead quickly, although not nearly as fast as my mind and spirit were racing across the plaza. Whether or not the “Haircutter” kachina could have caught my mind/spirit we will never know, but he certainly caught my body two-thirds through the plaza and clipped his blonde prize. Exquisitely honored to participate, the gifts of rain dance nurtured corn ears were an added blessing that turned into a beloved talisman on my office wall that will forever evoke a sense of ancient celebration, connection and awe.

2. Memory of Events in the Ecstasy

A second major principle of shamanism is memory of the altered state experience. Memory of the events, revelations and conversations in the shamanic state of consciousness, hereby referred to as SSC, is imperative to allow for communication to the relevant onlookers. Some altered states seem to produce amnesia, but this would hamper both the social and transformative functions of the shamanic way. One distinctive and necessary characteristic of the SSC is clear and complete memory.

Peters and Price-Williams describe in some detail an experience that shows psychological effects altering the SSC based on the personality of the shaman. As we will see in Section Two, various psychological considerations effect many aspects of any altered state of consciousness.

Our Nepali shamans said that they were conscious of their experiences and seemed to have complete recall of their possessions. They reported being fully conscious of what the gods or ancestors spoke through them. Bbirendra, the Tamang shaman, described himself as an onlooker-standing back, so to speak, watching himself perform and therefore somewhat removed from his trance activities. Parko, the Sherpa shaman, described his consciousness as "staying in the heart" while the gods spoke through him. An incident occurred with this shaman that is worth recording, as it illustrates the normative principle of memory. While drunk, Parko had a fight with an older man and got the worst of the encounter, suffering a head wound. Reaction to the fight developed in the village, and Parko became the brunt of derogatory gossip. At a subsequent ritual, when Parko was making a diagnosis of his patient's problem, his guardian spirit-one of his ancestors spoke through him to the audience. The homily consisted of accusing Parko of a way of life that had to be changed if Parko was not to suffer early death. The ancestor spirit chastised Parko over the fight, and told the listening audience that Parko would have to mend his ways. Now, it had been the habit to record and play back Parko's ritual singing and orations. When he heard this particular tape, he expressed shock and dismay, holding his head in horror at the words of his guardian spirit. Questioning him, it was obvious that what had been said in trance was revelational to him. He had never expressed such an attitude when listening to earlier tapes, and one has to assume that he had complete amnesia of what he had said in this particular case. The amnesia could reasonably be referred to the fight, and the subsequent shame and overall emotional turmoil experienced by Parko; but the exceptional nature of the amnesia points up the normative nature of memory for trance events. It further indicates that it is possible, because of emotional stress, to regress to a state atypical of shamanic ecstasy. (Peters and Price-Williams, 1980, p. 403)

Comparing these accounts with certain general findings about the hypnotic state Peters and Price-Williams show that amnesia is rare unless there is some intentional or unintentional suggestion for it. They go on to say, “there emerges another confirmation to our hypothesis that a recall of trance states in shamans is to be expected unless culturally mitigated or provoked by critical psychological situations” (1980, p. 403).

However, the occurrence and memory of trance do not define shamanism. Mystics, sorcerers, psychics, meditators, healers and many others enter altered states and have memory of its events.

3. Mastery of the Ecstatic Experience

Mastery of the altered state of consciousness journey is an important third principle of the SSC. The shaman becomes comfortable in various altered states and a master at moving within and between the “other worlds.” Traditional psychology has no theoretical umbrella to cover the “supernormal” except to classify the person mentally ill, or a hair’s breadth from it. Persons with great imaginative abilities and the individual who enters altered states of consciousness at will, like the shaman, were therefore thought to be ill rather than extraordinary. Psychological theory and practice simply had value for, or understanding of, states of consciousness other than the rational, ordinary state in which they were so facile. A few theories of personality composition and development discussed in Section Two, pages 107, 108, and elsewhere, by Wilber, Jung, and Assagioli, are beginning to address this deficit.

Achterberg addresses the once commonly held theory that the shaman was mentally ill by asserting that

. . . the schizophrenic metaphor results from a failure to discriminate between the phenomenological differences of the SSC and the schizophrenic state of consciousness. Noll cites the most important distinction as one of volition: The shaman as ‘master of ecstasy’ willfully enters and leaves the altered state; the schizophrenic exerts no control over such activity and is the hapless victim of delusion, with a notable impairment in role functioning. Harner emphasizes the necessity for the shaman to function in a commendable manner in ordinary reality, as well as in the SSC, in order to be believable and to maintain status within the community. Separating out the contents of different levels of reality is impossible for the schizophrenic, but, as Noll states, “the validity of both realms is acknowledged by the shaman, whose mastery derives from his ability to not confuse the two.” (Achterberg, 1985, p. 30, drawing from and quoting Noll, 1983, p. 452)

The shaman is routinely confronted with the spectacle of a transcendental cosmic drama, replete with flying gods, screaming demons, immensely challenging trials, and all sorts of frightening other worldly experiences. An average person could well be expected to lose complete control of his perceptive faculties, and be overcome by awe or fear. It is precisely the shaman’s ability to remain composed, even in his mythological confrontations, which distinguishes him from the schizophrenic. As Eliade (1970) asserts, the shaman is the technician of the sacred. His mystical journey is subject to will.

Other investigators pursuing the same question have administered Rorschach, Holtzman inkblot, TAT and other psychiatric examinations, all with equivocal results indicating that there is no reason to consider shamans, as a group, either "deranged" or "normal."

In addition to the shaman’s abilities of a) entering and exiting trance at will and b) confronting, handling, integrating, bringing back, and making use of his altered state experiences, shamanic mastery often includes the ability of having a foot in both worlds simultaneously. While not a universal trait, many shamans can c) journey into the upper or lower world and relate the experience to, or otherwise converse with, onlookers at the same time.

4. Highly Regarded and Utilized by Their Community

Standing in his community, the fourth principle of shamanism, begins to set the shaman apart from other altered state practitioners. The shaman is an integral, respected, visible, highly valued, and accepted part of his community. He helps create and hold together the belief system and social structure of his culture. While the path of the shaman is first and foremost spiritual, his success is measured by his own cultures’ yardsticks, based on the societies needs. He seeks enlightenment for the explicit purpose of aiding his community. Therefore the definition of shamanism implies that a social role is being served that is integral to, and recognizable by, his community. His social role is to defend the life, health, fertility, the world of light, and the psychic integrity of the community against death, diseases, atrocities, disaster, the world of darkness, demons and the “powers of evil.”

Shamans are pivotal figures in the rites of passage for their respective cultures in quite another way. Their wisdom is consulted in events that are believed critical to living, such as naming the infants, the vision quest or puberty rites that signify the beginnings of adult responsibility, and the ceremonial occasions of birth and marriage (Achterberg, 1985, p. 19)

Shamans also officiate at funerals. It had not occurred to me until researching this paper that I have assumed expanded and unusual roles for a psychotherapist by conducting weddings and delivering eulogies for clients and their families. In each case it has been joyful and fulfilling for me and apparently meaningful for everyone involved.

5. Natural, Instinctual Unity Consciousness

The SSC is also known by a fifth defining characteristic. Instinctual unity consciousness, in which there are no separations or distinctions between mind, spirit and body, or between spirit, human, animal, plant and rock, is fundamental to the shaman and to his entire community. The Lakota Indian term wakintanka means the interconnectedness of all things, holding that all of creation is animated, and that there is a wholeness, a oneness of spirit, in everything the One Creator breathed into existence (Zimmerman, 1999). Shamans naturally and automatically administer to the whole person (physical, psychological, spiritual, and social) at all times. He also addresses what is in the highest interest of community, the earth and all her creatures. An illness is often seen as a spiritual problem. Part or all of the soul of an individual could have wandered or been spirited away, leaving the body defenseless and depleted. Sometimes labeled soul retrieval, the cure is finding the soul and bringing it back to the individual. As Achterberg (1985) says, “getting well may have little or nothing to do with the body” (p. 25).

This wholistic way of looking at and experiencing life was the natural human condition of ancient peoples, shaman and layperson alike, before the development of the intellectual mind. For the average person in a shamanic tribe, awareness of the upper and lower worlds, with all the power and mystery that these terms imply, could be a very unsettling and terrifying condition. Gods, spirits and monsters ruled, and the individual had every reason to believe there was nothing he could do against the self centered whims of this vast, capricious group, many of whom had little goodwill for him (Zimmerman, 1999). The shaman, on the other hand, had mastered the spiritual realms by confronting the beings he found there, eventually amassing strong allies and developing the travelling skills to venture to every region necessary. The shaman was indeed the advocate, even the savior, for the frightened, defenseless average person. He was the bridge between sky, earth and underworld and a powerful champion of everyone in his tribe (Zimmerman, 1999).

6. Illness, Dismemberment, and Death in Training and Initiation

A sixth principle of the shamanic way is the widespread occurrence of severe illness, dismemberment, and death in the calling, training, and initiation of the shaman. In many tribes ill or deformed children are prime candidates for shamanic training. A trainee often expects to become sick or wounded as part of his initiation, or he may voluntarily submit to an imaginal experience of being dismembered, cut open, broken into small pieces, and then reconstituted by his animal ally or spirit guide. Psychologically, these are dramatic metaphors for psychic fragmentation that ancients and moderns alike often experience to a greater or lesser degree during various phases of their lives. The psychotic episode, with its shattered language and fragmented thinking, could be seen as an extreme, involuntary form of this kind of experience. In total contrast, the shamanic initiate who intentionally undergoes a dismemberment experience as part of his training feels he is being delivered from the limitations of the ordinary world and empowered to perform visionary, healing, and protective work for him and the members of the tribe.

Zimmerman (1999) notes that there is a belief in many cultures that a true healer almost always undergoes personal suffering of some sort before realizing his full powers. He says of this “wounded healer” concept, “It is often where your deepest wound is that you can touch your shamanic nature” (also see Halifax, 1983). The shaman’s personal entry into the realm of suffering is the ground for compassionate action in the social domain. The shamanic way is the precursor of, and the foundation for the knowledge of death that we find in written form in the Tibetan and Egyptian Books of the Dead. For those with courage and vision, death can be seen as a natural passage and a normal, even familiar, part of life.

In modern psychological terms these challenging experiences, when courageously and wisely handled, can lead to a development in the trainee of a willingness to face and descend into darkness in whatever form it is presented (see pp. 109 and 169).

In addition to suffering and illness as a prerequisite for the shaman, shamanism requires many innate abilities and the willingness to pursue and acquire many others. These remarkable people have achieved a degree of concentration well beyond the ability of the average person. They sustain exhausting activities during healing rites that sometimes last for several days. They manifest physical prowess and are able to self-regulate many bodily functions. They have mastered a complex body of knowledge through instruction and direct experience and they are able to apply this wisdom to individual situations in appropriate manners.

To this point in Chapter One, six major characteristics of the most ancient of all healing practices have discussed. Taken together they outline shamanism, begin to fill in its form and qualities, provide basic distinctions between shamanism and other forms of healing and altered state of consciousness practices, and offer glimpse at the culture and world view in which shamanism was developed and has flourished. To summarize, six defining principles of traditional shamanism are: 1) prominent use of the state of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness, 2) a clear memory of the altered state experience, 3) mastery of the altered state of consciousness journey, 4) the status of the shaman as an integral, respected, visible, highly valued, and accepted part of his community, 5) an everyday instinctual unity consciousness of both the shaman and his community, and 6) the widespread appearance of severe illness, dismemberment, and death in training and practice.

For the remainder of this chapter, we will take a further look at selection, training, and initiation procedures, as they will offer additional insights into the nature of personal qualities required in shamanism and the rigors of the profession.

Selection, Training, and Initiation

The prospective candidate’s behavior must indicate a greater than usual facility for entering altered states of consciousness, and for the use of the imagination. These abilities are often developed and demonstrated by severe illness or a near death experience and serve as entry to the shamanic path. Even after recovery, the illness or injury is revisited in ritual as a way to repeatedly deepen the shamanic powers. If the initiate has no naturally occurring trauma, it would usually be physically created in the initiation ritual or experienced in the imagination during an altered state of consciousness.

Each trainee must develop ways to deal with the traumatic physical and psychic effects of the training process. This is the only way he can endure the initiatory process and cultivate the attributes necessary to travel and master the lower and upper worlds. Many shamanic training techniques focus on what is called the Hara, or “energy garden” (Halifax, 1987, p. 221), as it is called in Zen, yoga, Tai Chi and other eastern transformational practices. This center of energy, focused in the physical and etheric bodies at a location a few inches below the navel, is consider the locus within the human of the kind of power that is necessary for shamanic work. Energy-building techniques, such a various breathing and imagination exercises, will produce a more powerful, grounded, centered, body-focused consciousness. The practice of developing energy at this point in the body is to bring a strong groundedness during the initiatory crisis, without which there might be a total shattering of the psyche, or even death.

One well known and wide spread initiation rite involves magically opening the neophyte’s abdomen to give him a new set of inner organs, causing his re-birth into the spirit oriented life of the shaman (Eliade, 1970, p. 332). The symbolism is refreshingly simple and direct. In order to embark on a life as a healer of spirit, the initiate needs to undergo evisceration and develop or be given new “innards.”

Lioness in my Study - A personal experience

While not a shamanic initiation by any stretch of the imagination, my entrée onto the shamanic path came in the form of a dream, and occurred nearly a year before my first exposure to the nature of shamanic selection, training, and initiation. The telling of this dream is the first example of what will be a major illustrative technique in this paper: detailed relating of my personal explorations on a path into the unconscious through the use of imagination and other shamanic techniques. They are meant to be illustrative and helpful, not necessary, important for anyone but myself, and certainly not to be admired or copied. And so, a dream, and a follow-up imaginal therapy session that display many shamanic characteristics and constitute one person’s beginning steps on what has been a valuable and mysterious journey into the unconscious follow.

I’m in a new study at my home with a mother and a baby. Recently introduced, I scarcely know them. The mother has discovered a new way of communicating and beginning to teach it to me, taping the conversation for future trainings. A painting of one black and one or two gray, shadowy figures dancing around a fire hangs on the wall. I feel a huge presence and loud noise outside my study. Opening the door I see three lions and slam the door shut. I am frightened yet their awesome beauty overshadows my fear. Even though dangerous and foolhardy, I must see them again and open the door a second time. They are so amazing! The female is standing on her back legs against the opening and I am looking into her chest. Slamming the door shut to keep her out, the door falters and I realize in a flash that I cannot stop her from entering. Mother lion is standing, growling, and pushing on the door. She is much stronger than I am. The door gradually turns to glass[29] as the human mother in my study says “Maybe I should turn on the tape.” I am angry with her for thinking of this in such an emergency and very afraid that I have let the lions in prematurely.[30]

I can feel the residue of the awe, beauty, and fear in my body for the entire day. I am not sure what to make of the dream but as the hours pass, fear turns to curiosity and eventually courage and resolve. Something profound is happening. What is unleashed and about to enter my study, my life?

I chose to continue this dream experience in an imaginal therapy session with psychologist and hypnotherapist, Dr. Smith,[31] a few days later. The following is an edited transcript[32] of the taped session, which begins after twenty minutes of talk therapy introduction and a mainly self-led trance induction.[33]

I…find myself very much wanting to let the lions in and also have a deep, visceral, physical response, shudder of fear in my abdomen, and I breathe peace, stillness, serenity and presence…. (Breathing peace and presence) draws the mother lion right through the glass door, without disturbing the door and draws her paws…man, is she big and beautiful…holy mackerel, draws her front paws as she’s still standing, or maybe sitting on her haunches, draws her paws right into my abdomen[34]… …I’m aware there is movement as if she is cleaning it out and at this point (I’m) having trouble feeling much about it…rather vivid[35]…rather vivid vision of my guts and entrails being pulled out[36]…. No pain…hollow cavity, empty hollow cavity up to here[37]. Her paws are clean; floor is a mess…I’ve never felt so much space in there before.

A magical initiatory evisceration by a spirit ally that came to me in a dream test my fear and ability to just stay with the experience by holding peace and presence. No pain. No fear. Just shock and awesome presence and wonder. Pawed clean of fear and old ways of being. What am I being prepared for? What purpose can this being and this experience have for me?

The second phase on the evisceration process is replacing the torn out and discarded aspects of self with new more healthy ways of being. In the framed painting of shadowy figures that I like to see as a depiction of a shaman and his spirits dancing around a fire, the most prominent image is a white eye ball in the side view of a black head. The shaman and his spirit allies enter the therapy session.

He, they are dancing around the fire. That white eye is…very apparent…. They’re a…pproving. The shaman and the lioness can exchange places or…no, I guess…more accurately the shaman can move into the lion really easily. Could it be that the shaman is in the lion and (it) is (he) who did the pulling out of my guts? I have the feeling again of it being pulled it isn’t painful. It’s like shocking, I guess, peace within the shock, shocking, not something that is done forever, it’s more of a process, it has to happen a number of times, maybe a lot of times[38]…something new has to happen there…What new needs to happen in my gut. I take my vision and awareness down in there some and I see and feel the cavernous insides of Brave[39]. I’m little compared to him. I’m experiencing a weird, fluid…reality with…permeable boundaries on me and him, folding in on my self as I go in here I become me and me but I’m me and him, and I come around and I’m him, I’m me, I’m him, him and me…. Brave and I are doing…this dance of flowing through each other’s being, one inside the other, the other inside the other….

My first “cleaned out” experience is dancing with the spirit being that brought me into this lifetime. We dance and I begin to lose any sense of distinction between the two of us and my consciousness expands to include he and I dancing as one. Perhaps this is what it means to be reborn in the spirit of shamanism? The imagery continues.

…and my consciousness moves out of (the dance with Brave) toward the lion, (even though the dance with me in it) continues back over there, and I’m over (here with the lioness). I can actually feel the fur, Oh my god! …Oh my god![40]…Oh, god, it’s like touching the universe, touching something so incredible. (I’m) hugging the upper chest and neck of the lioness. She’s sitting on back legs…she knows about mothering. I’ve almost become a necklace for her.

Dr. Smith: She’s someone you can hold on to.

I hold on and I can be outside holding, feeling her body and fur against me…and (also in her). (Holding her), doing that, (causes) the Presence or Love or whatever it is we have, allows me to move at least a few inches into her. …so that our physical bodies are interpenetrated[41]…and (part of) my consciousness is like a little kid that just won a prize and is jumping up and down, I’m part lion,[42] I’m part lion….

Identification with and atonement continues with Brave and yet magically also begins with Lion at the same time. I can be two places, doing two things at one time. Holding her makes a spiritual or archetypal quality (“Presence or Love or whatever”) available and allows me to move into and become one with Lion. I experience a profound joy and childlike enthusiasm. It is notable that I am only partly in Lion. I am just beginning. What is lion life? What are the potentials that Lion could make available to me? The altered state of consciousness experience continues.

…and I’m either moving deeper within her or up into her head or both…it’s a very different energy, hard to describe,[43] cool, less dense, vast, open, powerful, unlimited potential.”

Dr. Smith: What’s your sense of vision?

Look right THROUGH you![44] …(then softly, thoughtfully). Look right through you. (contemplative pause) I realize she could have melted my door with her vision. I have partially moved into her head, have her vision, partly. Is this OK mama lion? I’m looking around my study… through those eyes.[45] Sharper, clearer, bigger yet more…condensed gives a hint (of its magnificence), like with a wide-angle camera sorta…. I feel like (haltingly)…if I allow the vision to happen completely I could see things that can’t be seen. I could…see what needs to be healed. I could see…at least the cumulative effects of karmic experiences if not the karmic experiences themselves. I don’t, I can’t see it right now, but that is the potential. Now it’s dark.

Looking in her eyes. Looking in her eyes. Pawed clean of fear and readied for magical ways of being. Looking in her eyes. Just looking forever into what seemed like infinity was unlike any previous experience. And the cool, raw, all knowing, all seeing primal power I felt as I saw the world through her eyes shows me the possibility of a vision so profound that it sees the unseeable, knows the unknowable. The imaginal experience apparently says that Lion holds the key to my seeing so deeply into my clients that I could know the present day effects of lifetimes of thought and behavior and even how to effectively deal with the residual problems. Potentially, the key to unlocking a person’s most wonderful and terrible secrets and the wisdom to know if, when, and how to most beneficially aid the client in dealing with that knowledge. An awesome, awful possibility and responsibility! I get a glimpse of the potential. Then the special Lion vision leaves, as fast as it came and there is only darkness. If I were to choose to develop this vision, how could it happen? Continuing the session:

It’s partly a gift, grace, when a person intentionally moves into alignment with the lion, and it’s partly a skill developed. She’s willing, she teaches. (laughing) The shaman is racing around the fire saying, “I teach too. I teach too.” I know you guys do. (I utter a deep sound). I think that spontaneously, thinking of being a learner, a neophyte, I get into the child and see all of the teachers around, all the wisdom, all the exalted ones, the wise people.[46] Oh. They look very big! I feel very good! I’m well taken care. I want to learn, I’m here, I choose it and then[47]. I’m into the cub (as the cub lays next to the male lion). “Laying next to daddy”[48] and I become the cub. Wow (laughing) is it fun to be a lion cub. I’m not doing anything right now but I can tell it’s fun…clumsy…. It’s actually safer as a lion cub than a human baby, feels like it. I guess I’ve been graced with the potential of the vision and the mind and I’ve been placed in the child and the cub to…develop into what I’m destined to be…clean gut…a void waiting to be filled.

End of session. This final segment of the imaginal therapy session suggests that in order to have the Lion vision that could be so important for me personally and professionally I must the develop a clear and strong intention of relating to, identifying with, and in some magical way becoming the Lion. With this intention, I will be gifted with part of the tools, carried along part of the path. The remainder of the vision is earned through life experience, training by elders, and the trials and tribulations that naturally occur in the life of a maturing lion cub. In my case I am relative beginner on a journey into the magical, awful upper and lower worlds of the shamanic way. I do know the upper world of meditation by way of 15 years of esoteric meditation[49] practice. In what ways are the upper worlds of meditation and shamanism similar and different[50]? I have ignored and avoided the lower world my first 40 years. Western culture, in which I am fully immersed, has intellectually, medically, psychologically, and religiously ignored all of the under world and most of the upper for many centuries. And so I find it very comforting to find that there are powerful, wise, apparently loving guides waiting to be engaged. I begin by cuddling with the masters, Lion and Lioness, and as a beginner I am feeling safe and confident, and I am having fun. An infant cannot know what his life holds nor the strength and type of the obstacles. Neither can a traveler at the portal of a path of imagination and the shamanic way. I have a taste of the possibilities and the power, but for now I can only trust in the teachers and the process of growth.

As I had feared as roaring invitation dream closed, I have let the lions in. But is their entrance into my study (I call it my den sometimes now) really premature as I felt in the dream? The cub does not think so and I am trusting that all is proceeding within a bigger plan. Not prematurely, now it is intentionally. I will travel to the Andes, a hotbed of shamanism and the instinctual unity consciousness, to study the ancient healing ways and hike the sacred Inca trail to the mysterious long lost “city of light” Machu Picchu at the coming summer solstice.

The final segment of this rather fantastic imaginal experience has the feel of, and begins to give some insight into, the shamanic experience, and more generally, insight into a journey into the outer reaches of the human psyche. It is at least one person’s beginning experience. I believe it can be generalized to represent most people’s potential. There are great powers available to people willing to give their rational mind over to their own imagination and the shamanic powers that spirit allies possess and are willing to teach.

I share the preceding dream and imaginal therapy session, and will, for various reasons, offer many other personal experiences in this paper. First, they can give depth and energy to an intellectual discussion. Second, they illuminate and expand a particular point. In the above transcript the potential initiate is sought out by a power animal in a dream, and the neophyte’s acceptance of the call in an imaginal therapy experience. It vivifies the awesome fear, energy, attraction and eventual choice that has been described above as the beginning of the shamanic path. The evisceration demonstrates an aspect of the dismemberment element of the shamanic initiation, and the baby human and lion cub could foreshadow the death/rebirth element. Third, each personal sharing can be used by the reader many times, at many places, in this paper for illustration of various points whether a specific reference is made to it at the time or not. It is hoped that you will also relate your own ideas and experiences to what is being said at any and all times you deem beneficial. Fourth, a chronological look at examples from my life can give you a feel for how the content of an individual’s altered states, and the unfolding of journey into the unconscious, can evolve over time. Fifth, the various theoretical and phenomenological aspects of ordinary and altered states of consciousness can be seen, discussed and understood more readily with concrete examples from the literature, as told to the author, and as experienced by the author. The following is an example of the former.

Two Shamanic Initiation Self Reports

Tales of frightening initiations are not unusual. These ordeals occur particularly during the ritual vision quests, when a vocation is sought after days of fasting and isolation. Thus the mettle and motivation of the would-be shamans are put to the test.…

an account of the initiation of an Avam-Smoyed shaman has it that a man, stricken with smallpox, remained unconscious for three days. On the third day he appeared so lifeless that he was nearly buried. He had visions of going down to hell where he was carried to an island upon which stood the Tree of the Lord of the Earth. The Lord gave him a branch of the tree with which to make a drum. Moving on in his imagination, he came to a mountain. Entering a cave, he saw a naked man who caught him, cut off his head, chopped up his body, and boiled the bits in a kettle for three years. After this time, his body was reassembled and covered with flesh. During his adventure, he met the evil shamans and the lords of epidemics who gave him instruction on the nature of disease. He was strengthened in the land of shamanesses, taught how to “read inside his head,” to see mystically without his normal eyes, and how to understand the language of plants. When he awoke finally, or rather was resurrected, he could begin to shamanize. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 22)

For another example we turn to the Salish tribe shamanic initiation which takes place in what westerners might call “reality” instead of the imaginal experience of the Avam-Smoyed just above. It begins with a

…period of torture and deprivation: being clubbed, bitten, thrown about, immobilized, blindfolded, teased, and starved. When the initiate “gets his song straight,” or the slate that is the mind is wiped clean, the guardian spirit or power animal appears. This second phase of initiation is accompanied by significant physical activity: running barefoot in the snow, swimming in icy water, dancing and drumming to exhaustion. During the indoctrination period, the Indians describe entering into blissful or trance states, which some have compared with alcohol intoxication and heroin use. Others state, “I was jumping three feet high and I had such a thrill, a terrific feeling as if you were floating, as if you were in the air . . .” “It seems to me this power is like electricity; that’s why I would not let anybody dance behind me . . . it’s a force that makes you dance, something like a shock . . . you just hear your song and drums . . ..” (Achterberg, 1985, p. 22)

Shaman candidates are often chosen because of illness or deformity (Halifax, 1979). Although my personal introduction to the shamanic path came with Lion, the ground of my psyche was rendered fertile for something new and hopefully healing by a decade of what I have described as a “dark night of the soul”[51] (John of the Cross, 1992), or at least a mini, modern version of it.[52] F. Scott Fitzgerald said of this difficult time, “In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.”[53] This ten-year dark time of my life was filled with emotional and physical pain, depression, and loss. With no western medical explanation, I lost the ability to read or use my eyes for any close up work for more than a few minutes at a time. I was also unable to meditate or use my mind for meditation, concentration, or anything more that superficial thinking. I was able to see a limited number of psychotherapy clients although the depression, headaches, and muscle tension in my neck, head and shoulders were often intense. The previous decade had brimmed with the fulfillment of finding and fully engaging in a meditative practice that I enjoyed and worked well for me. I had spoken around the United States, in Canada, and in Europe and written articles and cassette tapes on meditation and other esoteric topics. I believed that a promising, rewarding inner and outer life was just beginning. However, what had been the joys and accomplishments of the previous decade had become unavailable to me. I say now that I was dragged into a new life kicking and screaming although at the time it felt more like being beaten and defeated. I was forced to find a different way to view and express my world and myself. I had been intensely involved in a mentally oriented spirituality that I loved, practiced and taught. The most devastating part was the loss of any feeling of connection with the meaning of my life and the oneness I had experienced the previous decade. These losses combined to form what was indeed a loss of soul. This deprivation and decay of the life I had created and loved left me ready for an entirely new and yet deeply familiar cosmology and practice, that would be delivered to me, as seen above, by Lion. I could not have known then that shamanism sees all illness as loss of soul and specializes in what present day shamans call “soul retrieval.”

A westerner could easily ask how such illness and torment could lead to health for the shaman or any of his patients. Intentionally subjecting oneself to such suffering, as some shamans do, makes it even more difficult to understand or accept. At least part of the answer lies in the shamanic notion

…regarding the purpose of life itself. For the shamanic cultures, that purpose is spiritual development. Health is being in harmony with the worldview. Health is an intuitive perception of the universe and all its inhabitants as being of one fabric. Health is maintaining communication with the animals and plants and minerals and stars. It is knowing death and life and seeing no difference. It is blending and melding, seeking solitude and seeking companionship to understand one’s many selves. Unlike more “modern” notions, in shamanic society health is not the absence of feeling; no more so is it the absence of pain. Health is seeking out all of the experiences of Creation and turning them over and over, feeling their texture and multiple meanings. Health is expanding beyond one’s singular state of consciousness to experience the ripples and waves of the universe. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 19)

If health is all that Achterberg suggests, pain and illness become less consuming and can even be seen as one door to the depth of personal experience that can lead to the true purpose of health and life, namely “spiritual development.” While certainly not recommended by this author or most modern day shamans, with Achterberg’s shamanic definition of health in mind, it can be more readily understood why some traditional shamans subjected themselves to Dark Night of the Soul experiences. For most westerners the vicissitudes of family, community, and professional life offer plenty of opportunity for the physical, psychological, and spiritual pain that can be rode into the depths of the unconscious, allowing the eventual facing, mastering, befriending, accepting, and/or incorporating of all that is found there. This is the promise of the shamanic way, the path into the unknown of human potential.

This chapter is an introduction into vivid, dramatic, intensely personal, perplexing, and occasionally troublesome characteristics of shamanic selection, training, initiation, and practice. Necessary skills for the implementation of the shamanic way cover a wide range. They include: intentional entrance into, and exit from the SSC; the ability to think, act volitionally, and communicate while in the trance; interaction, even battle, with spirit allies of both the “light and dark” type; possessing an accurate memory of all ecstatic events and the ability to imbue their communities with the solutions, motivation, essence, and wisdom found in the other worlds. All this and more are done within the experience of oneness that is the hallmark of unity consciousness.

A Brief History of Imaginal Therapy in the West - Chapter Two

The unconscious is the ocean of the unsayable, of what has been expelled from the land of language, removed as a result of ancient prohibitions.

Italo Calvino, 20^th century Italian author and critic.[54]

As we have seen, ecstasy and a consciousness in which there is an experience of unity or oneness with all of creation are two defining elements of shamanism. They characterize the normal, natural, everyday human experience of all ancient peoples before the development of the intellectual mind: a development that gradually moved humans into an entirely new way of relating to themselves and their environment. This history will trace the glories and the travails of the use of imagination for healing, from the development of shamanism some 50,000 years ago to the flowering of a new shamanism, hypnotherapy, and many imaginal therapies in modern day healing at the turn of the 21^st century. I will also touch on the parallel journey in the area of belief, cosmology and the development of mental polarization and scientific thought. Said differently, I will briefly although incompletely, delineate the course of the evolution of consciousness that has so drastically expanded our abilities to interpret and evaluate our own experience, but at the same time has limited our ability to have a wide variety of experiences and perceptions that were common in bygone eras.

The use of imagination and altered states of consciousness for everyday living and healing purposes as well as relating to the Creator, develops rather naturally, organically, and slowly around the world for tens of thousands of years as humanity evolves from hunter/gatherer to farmer/rancher to city dweller. A momentous, transformational shift begins in the first nation-state, the creative and thoughtful Greece.

Asclepian Dream Temples in Greece

The drama unfolds at the height of Grecian civilization with the power animals and spirit allies of the shamanic tradition, or gods as the Greeks called them. Chiron was a centaur charged with rearing the illegitimate children of the gods. He had full knowledge of the healing arts. Asclepius was an apt pupil of this magnificent half animal/half human guide. Eventually Asclepius’ skill at saving lives was so great that Zeus became fearful the afterworld would soon be depopulated. Zeus then struck Asclepius down with a lightning bolt, and brought him into the heavens as a deity.

Achterberg relates how the story developed and expanded into a legend that effected healing for millennia.

Asclepius had a famous healing family: his wife, Epione, soothed pain; his daughters, Hygeia and Panacea, were deities for health and treatment; and his son, Telesphoros, came to represent convalescence or rehabilitation. Asclepius himself became the patron, the demigod, and the chief representative of healing for centuries. The legend of Asclepius was merged with that of the Egyptian god of healing, Imhotep, and with the god Serapis of the Ptolemies. Historians say, “Apparently the legend was so persuasive, and Asclepius so satisfied the need for a personal, compassionate divinity, that he inherited, replaced, or merged with the power and influence of each local healing god, wherever the Asclepian rites were introduced.” The legend was even later incorporated by Christianity, with Saints Damian and Cosmas carrying on the healing traditions. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 54)

As with shamanism, clearly delineating what parts of the Asclepian healing legend is “real” and what part is from the world of “imagination” is not easy. Separating the rational, scientific events from ecstatic and imaginative events is equally difficult. Fortunately, from the point of view of individual healing and the thrust of this paper, scientific factual truth is neither important nor significant. However, we do know that Asclepius was indeed an influential mortal. Over 200 temples were eventually erected throughout the area of Greece, Italy and Turkey to honor him and the practices of medicine that he fostered. These Asclepia, as the temples were called, were the first holistic treatment centers. They were located geographically in lovely areas, and contained baths, spas, theaters, and places for recreation and worship. All who came for treatment were accepted, regardless of their ability to pay. This policy conformed to Asclepius’ basic teaching that a physician was, in the first instance, one to whom anyone in suffering or trouble could turn. The most famous of these temples were excavated and reconstructed on the island of Cos (the birthplace of Hypocrites) and in Epidaurus during the 1980’s.

Within the Asclepia, dream therapy or divine sleep, later to be called incubation sleep by Christian practitioners, reached perfection as a healing tool. Dream therapy is a prime example of the imagination as diagnostician and healer. Most of the patients to receive this therapy were severely ill, and all the usual medicines had proven ineffective. At night, the patients went to the temple or outlying buildings to await the gods. In preparation, the priests took the inquirer and kept him fasting from food for one day and from wine for 3 days. This was intended to give the patient spiritual lucidity and the ability to absorb the divine communication.

The diagnosis and healing took place during that special state of consciousness immediately prior to sleep[55], when images come forth automatically like frames of thought projected on a movie screen. During this sensitive, susceptible time, Asclepius purportedly would then appear as a handsome, gentle and strong healer, who either cured or advised treatment. He held a rustic staff with a serpent entwined about it—resembling the present day symbol of the medical profession known as the caduceus. “During the dreamlike experiences in the Asclepian temples, the snakes were reported to slither over to the patient and lick on their wounds and their eyelids—an event that in most of us would at least activate the adrenal glands!” (Achterberg, 1985, p. 55).

Since the temples were established well after Asclepius’ lifetime, the rituals were performed by physician/priests, dressed as Asclepius, accompanied by a retinue representing his family, and even by animals such as geese, which, in addition to the serpent, were believed to have some healing ability. Moving from patient to patient, the group carried the accoutrements of the physician, such as medicines and surgical tools, and performed, or perhaps just playacted, both the standard medical treatments as well as magical rites. In the semidarkness, in the presence of the earthly representatives of healing deities, with music playing in the background, and surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance of the magnificent shrines, whatever innate healing ability the patients possessed in the face of their grave illnesses was greatly enhanced. It was a perfect situation for the imagination to go to work in, just as it did in the more traditional, native tribes in Siberia, the Americas and all around the world in the very same centuries.

From the use of power animals, spirits, fasting, abstinence, natural settings, the induction of altered states to the creation of dramatic spectacle, we see a strong shamanistic influence in Asclepian dream therapy or divine sleep. However, one major difference emerges. It is the patients themselves who have the insightful, prescriptive, inspirational, and potentially health-restoring dream. This difference marks a point of departure from traditional shamanism toward a decentralization and democratization of the connection to the spirit worlds. Inspiration, wisdom, intuition, healing, and power are becoming available to all humans from a well-developed and nurtured relationship with energies and beings in non-ordinary reality.

Aristotle and Hippocrates were trained in the Asclepian tradition, and each one was able to articulate the role that the imagination played in health. Aristotle believed that the emotional system did not function in the absence of images. Images were formed by the sensations taken in and worked upon by the sensus communis, or the “collective sense” (Achterberg, 1985, p. 55). These images caused changes in bodily functions, and affected production, development, and cure of disease. Aristotle also suggested that the special images of the dream state were vital. He wrote in the Parva Naturalia, “Even scientific physicians tell us that one should pay diligent attention to dreams, and to hold this view is reasonable also for those who are not practitioners but speculative philosophers” (Achterberg, 1985, p. 56).

Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine,” symbolized the change in the practice of medicine from mystical to naturalistic principles. He believed that the physician’s role was essentially to understand and assist nature, to know what humans were in relation to food, drink, occupation, and what effect each of these had upon the others. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 56)

Although oral histories and traditions had existed in many cultures for many millennia, Hippocrates, Aristotle and other great thinkers and physicians of their time were among the first people to record a written description of the effect of the imagination on health, indicating that they understood the relationship between body and mind. They viewed the body/mind/spirit as an inseparable unity. They placed great emphasis on and took great pride in the body, as evidenced in magnificent, well-proportioned nude statues and their love of physical fitness, which led to the original Olympic Games. The soul and mind reside in the body and the physical being and its health is therefore very important. Prodicus, a 5^th century BC scholar, states “That which benefits human life is God” (Achterberg, 1985, p. 57). In the absence of laboratory tests that are used today, the patient’s imagery or dream content was believed to offer clinically important diagnostic information. Aristotle tells us above that “scientific physicians” need to give special attention to the content of dreams. The unity of body and spirit, their inseparability within the healing process, and the use of altered states of consciousness are very similar to shamanism. The basic similarities will be changing soon. Within the potentially important steps forward in healing and transformation by “scientific physicians” through “clinical diagnosis,” the seeds of the scientific model and its dissection, literally and figuratively, of the human body and psyche were sown. As we shall see below, in the hands of the Romans and the Christians, the wholistic view of the human being and the inclusion of the imagination in the treatment of physical, emotional and spiritual problems will be severely compromised.

Modern, western medicine traces is roots back to Hippocrates, Greek philosophy, and practices of healing. The Hippocratic oath, the ethical code of honor still taken by every practicing physician today, is a dedication to the mythical founding family of medicine, whose contributions included a method of healing with imagination and dreams. It begins: “I swear by Apollo the Physician, by Asclepius, by Hygeia and Panacea and by all the Gods and Goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgement this oath and this covenant.” The fact that your family physician pledged her practice to the god Apollo and half god, half-human Asclepius, is amazing enough. Further acknowledging that the roots of Greek medicine run deeply into the soil of traditional shamanism borders on the incredible. How has modern medicine strayed so far from its imaginative foundation to its present theory and practice?

Jesus Christ and His Followers

Moving forward a few centuries to the time of Jesus in the Middle East, seemingly unrelated events are beginning to have an important effect on the use of altered states of consciousness and imagination in healing. The historical Jesus Christ, by all accounts a great being, a man or a God or both, clearly brought a much needed revelation of love and grace for the world. Three centuries of infighting, maneuvering, and politics within the embryonic Christian leadership would set the course of Western civilization for the next 2000 years and more. There were many players, but the main ideological battle raged between the Peter and Paul camp and the Gnostics camp. Peter and Paul developed a religion for the masses that acknowledged and exploited the persecution of Christians by granting the Christian faithful an automatic ticket into eternal paradise. The price was public declaration of allegiance to Jesus and the martyrdom that usually ensued. To be saved, anyone, at any time in their life, simply needed to make Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior. There was considerable focus on the hereafter. On the other hand, the Gnostics Christians focused more on enhancing the present life. They developed and used ritual and meditative practice that fostered an ever deepening and expanding “experience” of God here and now. They saw Jesus Christ as an avatar, a teacher of methods and directions that we could all use to move along our individual spiritual path. Since very few modern people, excluding religious scholars, have even heard of Gnosticism, the victor of the ideological, theological, and political battle is apparent. The Roman Church stamped all Gnostic “competition” out in the 13^th century. It mounted a “Crusade” against the Cathars and nearly eliminated the Templar Knights, two strongholds of the Gnostic teachings.

Gnosticism included many of the principles of shamanism in addition to its connection to Greek philosophy and practice. The importance of “experience” as the paramount way of relating to the divine and a wholistic view of the human being were two of Gnosticism’s basic values. Paul and the subsequent church fathers (the church mothers, Mary, Mary Magdalene, and others were quickly discounted, ignored, and even discredited) ordained male priests as the intermediaries between man and the spirit world and quickly split the human being into the good soul and the evil body (Pagels, 1989). The essential Greek principle of a unified and equally valuable body, mind, and soul was not necessarily at odds with the Christ consciousness that was about to sweep through the Western world (Achterberg, 1985, p. 57). It was, however, the very antithesis of much of what St. Paul and the Roman Church would enforce on the Christian world. To look at, touch, or even spend time focusing on the human body became a diversion from true spiritual pursuits. At its worst, the body became a temptation and a vehicle for sin and put its owner at risk for eternal damnation. Like most theological and political powers before or since, the emerging and eventually dominant Christian Church of St. Paul would vigorously pursue systematic discrediting, desecration, and destruction of any beliefs deemed threatening to its belief system and hold on power. The use of imagination and altered states of consciousness for healing was one of the casualties of the Christian era (Pagels, 1989).

Wise Women Healers (a.k.a. Witches)

While certainly under attack by the Roman Church and the Church dominated political system, the use of ancient imaginal healing practices did continue underground and the torch was carried by some unlikely characters.

From piecing together facts from the historical accounts of Europe and the British Isles, it appears that the period extending from AD 500 through approximately 1300 could be described as most colorful and creative in the use of the imagination. The methods used go back to the dawn of civilization, and mingle with the shamanic roots of other continents. The deities invoked in the healing rituals have their counterparts in both Greek and Roman myth. . . what little we know of the practices of these groups provides historical support and documentation of the primacy of the imagination and the use of altered states of consciousness in medical intervention, and the ability of the human body to heal itself, often in spite of the travesties visited upon it in the name of medicine. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 58)

It was witches, called the “wise women” by Achterberg (1985), who were using the nonrational, intuitive aspects of the mind in a healing capacity. Anthropologists have concluded the witches were acting within the long-standing pagan tradition of European tribes whose practices were essentially shamanic. They would fly in another state of consciousness to realms where the imagination could breath freely, and work could be done to heal the social structure of the community and the bodies and souls of its members. Shamans and wise women are alike in that they both had a profound respect for nature, and believed in the interconnectedness of all things. Their healing rituals reflected these principles. Wise women, again like shamans, were often experts of herbal remedies and masters of the art of magic incantation. Midwives were often part of this healing group. The ability of wise women to soothe pain and heal bodies survived the Middle Ages. These women had great knowledge of the body, the soul, and the spirits and they used it for the good of their community. They provided the medicine for the masses of humanity, yet their healing arts were banished to the fringes of society, first by the Church and then by the governments of Europe, England, and eventually North America. The western world is practicing government legislated, God-ordained obliteration of a wholistic, unitive view of the human and the outlawing most of the use of ecstasy and imagination in healing work in what they considered the “civilized world.”

Paradoxically, astrology and alchemy were regarded as natural medicine; they were practiced by the physicians of the time, and were generally within the teachings of the Church. But the herbs and blessings administered by the midwives were considered to be the work of the devil. It is not that a wise woman’s healings were considered less effective than prayer, but prayer was Church sanctioned and controlled while incantation and charms were not. It seems that one could readily distinguish God’s cures from the devil’s, because God worked through the priests and doctors, not through the women.

Even more incomprehensible to the objective mind, the Church apparently found white magic much more abhorrent than black magic. Church authorities are said to have exhorted, “...a good witch was a more horrible and detestable monster than the bad,” and, “if death be due to any [witch]. . . then a thousand deaths of right belong to the good witch” (Ehrenreich and English, 1973[56]), apparently believing that a woman doing good in the community for the right reasons[57] is more dangerous to the Church than power hungry, self-centered woman doing negative things[58] for the community.

Medicine of the imagination endured and even flourished during the witch-hunts, trials, and burnings in the most unlikely place of all. Many times the treatments of choice for severe illness specified by the Church were medicines of the imagination in every sense of the term: shrine cures, processions and pilgrimages to holy places, and worship or and prayers to relics of saints and martyrs.

Imaginative Healing Techniques in the Church

The Church was attempting to impose its belief system and set of values on the use of ASC and imagination for healing. And to the extent that it could not wipe out the use of altered states of consciousness treatments that the layperson needed and demanded, it incorporated the ancient techniques into its own dogma and practice.

The golden thread of healing with the imagination that was associated with the Asclepian temple of Turkey and Greece remained intact, despite the marked influence of the Church, the guilded physicians, and the folk healers. Instead of Asclepius and his retinue, the miracles of healing were attributed to Saints Cosmas and Damian, twins . . . They later became patron saints for the entire healing profession of Western civilization. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 65)

Churches dedicated to their names were open day and night for the care of the sick, using the method of incubatio, or incubation sleep, modeled after the divine sleep cures of the Greeks. During the twilight state between sleep and wakefulness, the patients would have images of their revered healers, who would provide diagnostic information and administer cures. The credentials of the techniques, as with the Greeks and shamans before them, were established and embellished in legend, increasing the expectancy of the patients and ripening their readiness for cure.

Incubation sleep practices were continued in the Christian churches in England until the present, and had a perpetual reputation for effecting exceptional cures. Thus, the methods of the shamans and the wise women – healing in nonordinary reality and invoking visions of spirit guides – has been a part of Christianity since its inception. Only the names have been changed. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 66)

The Use of Imagination by Other Healers

Understanding the ascendancy and reign of the Christian Church in the first 1800 years AD in Europe and much of the western world is essential for understanding modern western medicine and psychotherapy and the culture in which it is practiced. However, it needs to be stressed that during the same years in Russia, Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Americas, viable shamanic traditions continued to hold forth, often despite suppression and official denial of their existence. In all but the United States[59], present day general medical and psychological practice is an integration of western and native people’s practices. In the Peruvian Andes, for instance, a sick Roman Catholic person is as likely to go to their shaman for medical advice as to a physician. They go to the shaman with spiritual problems as well. In part because of these inclinations within the populace at large, and in part because the doctors and priests themselves are personally open to various ancient practices, the Peruvian medical doctor and Catholic priest have integrated many of the traditional healing and spiritual ways into their practices. Such has not been the case for the medical lineage of the United States. As the 20^th century ends, medical science and practice includes or honors very little of its native peoples healing practices, although in psychology, the past two or three decades have seen a surge in interest in shamanism and Native American culture and practice. While founded and more accepted in Europe, Carl Jung’s (1953b) Analytical Psychology[60] and Roberto Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis (1965),[61] both of which make generous use of the imagination and altered states of consciousness, have grown in popularity and use in the United States in the last half of the 20^th century.

Even though it was extremely dangerous for women to practice healing and their worldview and their ways fell into disuse, the imagination that so permeated their techniques continued to be incorporated into medicine during the Renaissance. It became associated with avant-, but licensed, medical practice primarily through the work of Paracelsus. (Achterberg, 1985, p. 71)

This 15^th century Swiss-German alchemist and physician transformed the medical concept of disease into the model that has dominated western medicine until the last few decades on the 20^th century. He held that illness was the result of external agents attacking the body rather than imbalances within the body, mind, soul unity as the basic belief until his time. He advocated the use of chemicals against these external disease-causing agents. Paracelsus identified the characteristics of numerous diseases and used ingredients such as sulfur and mercury compounds to counter them. With a remarkably open mind for his time, he did much more than prescribe pills. Rather than turning a deaf ear, or worse, ridiculing the people’s medicine, Paracelsus listened to the wise women and the folk healers, and incorporated their knowledge into his own. With this integration, he developed quite a reputation as a healer and compassionate humanitarian. On the subject of the imagination, Paracelsus said the following:

Man has a visible and an invisible workshop. The visible one is his body; the invisible one is imagination (mind)… The imagination the tool, and the body the plastic material…. The power of the imagination is a great factor in medicine. It may produce diseases…and it may cure them…. Ills of the body may be cured by physical remedies or by the power of the spirit acting through the soul. (Oyle, 1976, p. 11)

Newton, Descartes, and a New World View

Starting a few centuries later, but then running parallel with changes in the religious and social worlds, is a “. . . shifting paradigm of science. As humanity began its preparations for the new world view that would encompass the scientific method, all that was irrational and all that was intuitive was subject to being purged” (Achterberg, 1985, p. 68). Women were the prime targets of the purge as they were had been the principle practitioners of the ancient healing arts for centuries. Women’s science and women’s medicine were in jeopardy. Did women really have sufficient intuitive knowledge of natural law to alter the course of a storm, or to transform a human life as shamans had been doing for millennia? The Church fathers thought so and an emerging intelligencia agreed, as did most of the population at large.

During the great times of change leading into and extending through the Renaissance, both Women and Nature were to be stripped and their inner parts revealed. Nature/Woman was being forced to confess her knowledge.. . . Sir Francis Bacon, the great empiricist whose work is credited with uniting science and technology said, in describing his new methods of investigation, that nature had to be “hounded in her wanderings,” “bound into service,” and made a “slave,” and that the aim of science was to “torture nature’s secrets from her.”[62] Bacon seems to have been inspired by the witch trials over which he presided as attorney general for King James I. ‘Indeed, his view of nature as a female whose secrets have to be tortured from her with the help of mechanical devices is strongly suggestive of the widespread torture of women in the witch trials of the early 17^th century. Bacon’s work thus represents an outstanding example of the influence of patriarchal attitudes on scientific thought. (Achterberg and Lawlis, 1981, as quoted in Achterberg, 1985, p. 70)

The basic tenets of shamanic healing, the shamanic culture and “... the qualities traditionally associated with women in Europe [during the 2^nd millennium AD] posed a threat to what was eventually to become known as the Newtonian[63] world view, i.e., the concept that the body, as well as the universe, was a great machine” (Achterberg, 1985, p. 70). This included the human being, body, mind and soul. Intuition, feelings, supra-rationality, wholistic thinking, even nurturance, and certainly the use of imagination in healing had little place in a universe made of cogs, wheels, and various other mechanical parts. Even to this day, many champions of western culture believe science advanced from magical thinking to its current status principally because this perceived superstitious baggage was cast aside.

For as many as 50 millennia, “Pre-Cartesian [healing and] medical thinking was invariably holistic, and the tenet of the inseparability of mind, body, and spirit in concerns of health care was consonant with the existing worldview” (Achterberg, 1985, p. 72). Images were as much a physiological reality as any of the other body functions. A strong imagination of a particular malady, such as fever, paralysis or suffocation, was sufficient to produce its symptoms. All this changed dramatically in the mid 1600’s as Descartes attempted to apply the rational inductive methods of science, and particularly of mathematics, to philosophy. In his philosophy, called Cartesianism, he held nothing true until he established grounds for believing it true. He expressed the single fact from which his investigations began with the famous words “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am.”). As the prevailing world view changed to incorporate the Cartesian model of dualism – the separation of the functions of mind from the material of the body – the wholistic approach that had existed since the beginnings of humanity became logically inconsistent. Descartes asserted that there was nothing included in the concept of the body that belonged to the mind and likewise nothing in the mind that belonged to the body. Now implicit permission was given to dissect, bisect, examine, and otherwise invade the human body without fear of damage to the soul. This new compartmentalized view of the human being would open the door to miraculous advances in physical medicine and science. However, the trade-off that came with the mind/body split and the resultant treatments and cures, was monumental. Namely, in the core practice of medicine[64], imagery had lost its status, and the spiritual integrity and value of the human body and by extension, the plant, animal and mineral kingdoms, were sacrificed.

The final step in the ostracism of the shamanic aspects of medicine of the wise women is in place. The accepted science of the time could not account for what appeared to be transpersonal phenomena in the healings performed by the wise women, and even Paracelsus. If events were not explainable by the science of the day, or ordained acceptable by the male church hierarchy, they were wrong or worse yet, evil. Experiences and abilities of non-ordinary consciousness were therefore legislated or decreed out of existence, and the work of using and developing the imaginative functions for making this world a better place was forced completely underground. The western world entered a new era dominated by scientific principles and a doctrinaire, patriarchal Church. Splits between spirit and body, mind and body, and reason and intuition become woven into the collective mind, christening a new ordinary state of consciousness.[65] This emerging, eventually pervasive, mind set was based on the requirement that all legitimate activity, accepted reality, and even truth itself must be rational, tangible, and replicable.

Hypnosis: An Attempt to Integrate Science and Imagination

Hypnosis enters the world stage in the late 18^th century as an attempt to scientifically approach and intellectually understand healing with the mind and imagination. Until the latter part of the 20^th century, hypnosis proponents have tended to disavow the obvious roots of their discipline in shamanism and Greek dream therapies, at least partly in the hope of acceptance by the scientific community. Its history demonstrates the difficulty in applying the scientific model to the world of imagination, ecstasy and spirit that shamanic cultures found so comfortable.

Stephan G. Gilligan’s (1987) book Therapeutic Trances, beginning on page 32, is a major source for parts of the following conclusion to a brief history of supra-rational healing in the western world. Franz Mesmer (1734-1815) is most often credited with founding the theory and practice of hypnosis. Mesmer believed that human health is influenced by the action of planetary and lunar forces on an invisible magnetic bodily fluid. He believed that disease resulted from an unequal distribution of this animated fluid. Therefore, he felt that channeling magnetic forces into the sick person should restore equilibrium through a convulsive healing "crisis." These beliefs and techniques were certainly in the tradition of shamanism, Asclepian dream temples and the witches of Europe. Mesmer's hypnotic rituals were initially performed with actual magnets; later "discovery" revealed that animal magnetism could be transferred to other therapeutic objects. Because Mesmer insisted that the spectacular healings that often seemed to result from such rituals were due solely to the physical energy of animal magnetism, his theories and practices were soon discredited. He rejected any suggestions that there was a psychological component and the undeniably dramatic effects of mesmerism, as it came to be called, nor its similarity to shamanism, was ever explained or explored.

A number of 19th century investigators compared trance to sleep. One of the first was Jose Faria (1755-1819), a Portuguese priest who lived in Paris. Originally a practitioner of animal magnetism, Faria advanced a theory of somnambulism which held that the hypnotized subject entered a state of "lucid sleep." This state occurred when the subject voluntarily concentrated his or her thoughts and withdrew from sensory experience, thereby restricting the conscious will and inner freedom. Faria claimed that somnambulists were capable of extraordinary acts that are reminiscent of the Grecian era, such as diagnosing their own illnesses and dissociating from surgical pain. He was one of the first to claim that the development of trance was due to characteristics of the human subject, not the magnetizer. This is significant as a continuation of a move away from the professional doing healing on the client toward empowering the client to use their own imagination for their healing. I have labeled this process, which began in the Asclepian temples, the democratization and decentralization of imagination healing techniques.

From the mid 1800’s forward, in hypnosis, imaginal therapies, and North American shamanism, this encouraging and healthy trend toward self responsibility and self healing has been slowly developing. From political, social, physical health, mental health, and spiritual health viewpoints, the more active, involved, knowledgeable, and empowered the individual becomes, the better life and culture is for the individual, groups, countries, and the entire planet. It is the manifestation of the evolution of consciousness[66] that is at the heart of the human beings relentless drive toward progress, growth, knowledge, expansion, and control. At the same 100 to 150 years later during the second half of the 20^th century, however, there is movement away from patient responsibility and control in western medicine. The individual patient is increasingly dependent on the pronouncements of a medical doctor and the results of scientific medical research. The layperson is taking less responsibility for, and has less understanding of his health rather than more. And in the spiritual realm, the Catholic Church had been discouraging and even demonizing any direct experience and relationship with the spiritual and the divine for more than a millennium.[67] In terms of body, mind and soul, western medicine and the Church tells us that someone else knows best.

James Braid (1795-1860), a Scottish surgeon, was another early proponent of modified sleep theory. He created a trance by asking his subject to gaze steadily at a spot slightly above eye level. After several minutes the subject's eyes would usually tire and then close. He originally called this condition “neurohypnotism,” then shortened it to “hypnotism” from the Greek hypnos, or sleep, and the unfortunate, misleading name has stuck ever since.

The metaphor of "trance as sleep" has been shown to be inaccurate on at least several counts. First, no physiological similarity exists between sleep and hypnotic trance (Barber, 1969; Sarbin, 1956); the latter more closely resembles a relaxed waking state. Second, the hypnotized subject rarely loses full awareness and response capabilities. Although appearing lethargic at times, the subject's internal world is far from being passive or inactive. (Gilligan, 1987, p. 34)

Two other early theories developed in the late 1900’s were also not accepted as complete or wholly accurate explanations for the hypnotic phenomenon by the medical establishment of the day. Each was developed further and offered as more modern versions, which have certain compelling aspects and will be discussed below along with other present day theories of hypnotic trance. These two early theories believed that hypnotic trance was caused by suggestibility, in one case, and dissociation in the other.

Sigmund Freud, William James, and other late 19^th century practitioners in the emerging field of psychology and psychotherapy were very interested in the unconscious and the use of the imagination and non-rational techniques to access the unconscious. Freud practiced hypnosis for a number of years and then renounced it and as he began the development of his psychoanalysis that exists to this day. “Free association,” the primary psychoanalytic technique had the client lying on a couch and verbalizing whatever comes to mind. This process makes use of a certain altered state of consciousness created by relaxation, motoric inhibition, staring at the ceiling, and the disorienting experience of talking to person who you cannot see and is sitting behind your head.

My first therapeutic trance was stimulated, unknowingly to the therapist I believe, when he asked me to turn away from him and look at his bookcase. His stated reason was to eliminate the possibility of me “reading” his face and tailoring my responses according to what I believed I saw there. I had a pleasant, spinning, disoriented sensation, and difficulty collecting my thoughts or forming sentences for some minutes until I adjusted.

Contemporary Theories of Hypnosis and Hypnotic Phenomenon

There are five main categories of contemporary proposals as explanation of hypnosis and hypnotic phenomenon.[68] 1) Trance as regression. Trance has been explained by a psychological regression of the self or ego to a younger age.[69] Many psychodynamically[70] oriented therapists, from Freud to the present, have interpreted the hypnotic experience in terms of concepts of psychic regression and transference. [71] While there are many variations put forward by numerous theorists,[72] the basic idea is that the client regresses to a psychologically younger age, develops a very close emotional relationship with the therapist, and exhibits trance behavior because she believes that it what the therapist wants her to do.

2) Trance as acquired learning. Learning theory and behaviorism combined to form another very popular 20^th century theory of psychology and hypnosis. Along with psychoanalysis, behaviorism dominated psychology until the 1960’s. In an alternative to Freud, Clark Hull, an eminent American psychologist, believed that all hypnotic processes could be explained by the laws of formal learning theory, which includes associative repetition, conditioning, habit formation, and habituation. In his classic 1933 work, Hypnosis and Suggestibility, Hull proposed that hypnotic phenomena were acquired learned responses similar to other habits. His conclusion was that the subject's trance experiences resulted from the hypnotist's suggestions and were due to the strictly physical basis of the association between stimuli and responses, ideas becoming purely physical symbolic acts. Other theorists have employed learning concepts such as habit extinction[73] and drive reduction[74] in discussing the hypnotic process.

3) Trance as dissociation. Ernest Hilgard's (1977) neodissociation theory adds ideas from contemporary cognitive psychology to the aforementioned dissociation theories and described the hypnotic experience as a temporary detachment by the subject from the usual conscious planning and monitoring functions. By operating independently from reality testing, the subject becomes less critical, and thus able to develop dissociative experiences such as amnesia, hypnotic deafness, pain control, and automatic writing.

4) Trance as motivated involvement. T. X. Barber (1969) has criticized the metaphor of "trance" as "an altered state of consciousness," claiming that such vague hypothetical constructs are strongly misleading and limiting to both the therapist and the client. As an alternative, Barber advanced a cognitive-behavioral viewpoint that assumes trance experiences to result from “positive attitudes, motivations and expectation toward the test situation which lead to a willingness to think and imagine with the themes that are suggested” (Barber, 1969, p. 5). He believes any motivated individual can be trained to develop hypnotic phenomena. Barber believes formal inductions to be unnecessary and focuses instead on contextual variables such as the operator's behavior and the interpersonal relationship. Barber is described in Section Two, page 99, as a person with unusual abilities to exhibit trance characteristics without any apparent induction, a fact that may influence his theories.

5) Trance as role enactment. Gilligan states,

This view emphasizes the social psychological aspects of the hypnotic situation. White (1941) described trance as a goal-directed state in which the subject is highly motivated to behave “like a hypnotized person” (as defined by the operator and understood by the subject). Sarbin (1950, 1956; Sarbin & Coe, 1972), the most eloquent proponent of this theory, depicted the hypnotic subject as an individual enacting a "role." Like Barber, Sarbin expressed disdain for vague and circular mentalistic terms such as “trance,” “state,” and “the unconscious,” arguing for a more descriptive language to identify the variables and conditions responsible for “trance experiences.” Sarbin contended that it was more helpful to view hypnotic behavior as “as if” conduct. His repeated portrayal of “trance” as an abstract metaphor wrongly assumed to be concrete (and thus a misleading one), taken with his strong emphasis on social psychological variables, led many to assume erroneously that his position denied any validity to the “trance experience.” In actuality, Sarbin invoked the role enactment metaphor to describe all social behavior, and emphasized that the level of organismic involvement in a role may vary considerably, from "casual role enactment" and "ritual acting" to the extremes of "ecstasy" and (death-inducing) "object of sorcery and witchcraft" (Sarbin & Coe, 1972). Sarbin placed classical hypnotic behavior midway along this “involvement” continuum by claiming that a skilled and motivated individual could become deeply immersed in the hypnotic role to the extent of experiencing dramatic qualitative shifts in subjective reality. (Gilligan, 1987, p. 38)

As will soon be demonstrated in Chapter Five, Hypnotherapy, page 227, a more complete, useful, comprehensive, and inclusive theory and set of principles for understanding altered states of consciousness and trance can be formulated. Based on the innovations of Milton Erickson, an inclusive theory emerges that can bring together the fields of shamanism, hypnosis, and imaginal therapies. In Chapter Three, Imaginal Therapy, page 185, a vast array of practices based on a wide spectrum of psychological formulations will be presented. This, along with the modern developments in shamanism previously discussed in this chapter and Chapter Two, will complete the history of healing with the imagination module of the paper.

Ironically, as we enter the 21^st century only 350 years after Descartes’ death, emerging scientific understandings in the fields of physics, biochemistry, and physiology suggest something quite different than the Cartesian revolution has asserted. It now seems that both the remaining mysteries of life and significant improvement in the conditions of living on this planet will be out of reach of the physical sciences until we enter a new era in which precisely those shamanic qualities that were displaced by the Cartesian model are once again acknowledged and integrated.

Imaginal Therapy in Modern Western Society - Chapter Three

The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.

Lord Byron (1788–1824), English poet. The Dream, sct. 1.^{^[75]}

Jung and many 20^th century psychotherapists take the unconscious and its images very seriously. They believe that most of who and what we are as human beings, including the best and the worst of our characteristics and potentials, is hidden from us. “The images of the unconscious place a great responsibility upon a man. Failure to understand them, or a shirking of ethical responsibility, deprives him of his wholeness and imposes a painful fragmentariness on his life” (Carl Jung, in Memories, Dreams, and Reflections[76]). Equally significant, the key to accessing the richness of these hidden qualities is the development of a healthy relationship with our unconscious.

Comparing Modern Imaginal Techniques

The use of imagination in therapy has developed dramatically during the last 100 years in the western world. In an attempt to help clarify what can be a bewildering array of imaginal therapies, four different classification systems will be offered. First is listing excerpted from the table of contents of a current text on the use of imagination in psychotherapy, summarized below, which begins to show the wide variety of imagery uses and techniques. There are actually many more. The list also demonstrates the tendency toward categorization, specialization, elaboration and proliferation of the western mind. Shorr (1978, p. xv) categorizes the function of imagery: Psycho-Imagination Therapy, Spontaneous Imagery, Directed Imagery, Self-Image Imagery, Dual Imagery, Body Imagery, Sexual Imagery, Predicting Imagery, Task Imagery, Cathartic Imagery, Depth Imagery, General Imagery, and Group Therapy Imagery.

A second classification system also comes from Singer and Pope (1978, pp. 12-13). In a table entitled “Technical Variations in the Psychotherapeutic Uses of Imagery,” the following listing briefly describes ten different schools of psychology,[77] their objectives for the client, a description of their therapeutic process over time, and a process overview of their technique. This list is not meant to be exhaustive or to give any more than a hint of each modality. Contributors to Singer and Pope’s (1978) volume do explain the various schools and give ample bibliography for the interested student. For the purpose of this paper, carefully note the variation in objectives, from symptom relief to resymbolization to ego expansion to personal and transpersonal growth. Note also which type of functioning (encoding) and which part of the brain each modality uses. Each therapy style adapts the use of imagination for its particular purposes and to fit within its particular psychological construct. Asclepius or a shaman would probably be aghast at what they would consider secularization, if not bastardization of what is to them an inherently spiritual process demonstrated in some of these techniques. Even if this is so, this listing graphically demonstrates the viability and flexibility of the imaginal techniques.

Technical Variations in the Psychotherapeutic Uses of Imagery

Three Encoding Systems

· Visual-sequential processing of information, primarily left hemisphere functioning.

· Motor-kinesthetic processing of information, primarily limbic-motor areas of the brain.

· Imagery (visual, auditory, spatial) processing of information, primarily right hemisphere functioning.

1. Hypnosis

Objective or symptom focus-Symptom relief, habit change, or improved recall

Direction of the system, process, technique - Intense concentration on each encoding system individually. Motor and verbal imagery

2. Psychoanalysis, with its two aspects, Dream interpretation, and Transference analysis

Objective or symptom focus - Insight and ego expansion

(a) Overcome resistance, enhance affect, and ideational integration

(b) Identify unlabeled childhood parental memories and fantasies

Direction of the system, process, technique - Imagery à verbal sequential à joint (client and therapist) verbal imagery integration

3. Perls' Gestalt therapy and Reich's character analysis

Objective or symptom focus- Freeing and redirecting energy

Direction of the system, process, technique - Motor-kinesthetic à imagery à motor

4. European mental imagery approaches (examples include Desoille's guided daydream)

Objective or symptom focus - Resymbolization, ego strengthening, symptom relief

Direction of the system, process, technique - Verbal-sequential à imagery or imagery (1) à imagery (2)

5. Gendlin's focusing (based on Rogerian Therapy)

Objective or symptom focus - Expanded self-awareness

Direction of the system, process, technique - Verbal or motor à imagery-affective

6. Kelly's personal construct therapy

Objective or symptom focus - Improved role-discrimination and role-enactment

Direction of the system, process, technique - Verbal à imagery à verbal à motor

7. Wolpe's systematic desensitization

Objective or symptom focus - Relief of phobic symptoms

Direction of the system, process, technique - Motor à imagery à motor

8. Covert aversive conditioning (behavior modification)

Objective or symptom focus - Symptom-relief; control of compulsions, unwanted thoughts or behaviors

Direction of the system, process, technique - Imagery à motor à imagery kinesthetic

9. Bandura's symbolic mediation

Objective or symptom focus- Symptom relief and self-regulation

Direction of the system, process, technique - (Perception) à imagery à motor

10. Ellis's rational-emotive and other cognitive theories

Objective or symptom focus - Symptom relief, self-regulation, self-assertive

Direction of the system, process, technique - Verbal (1)à imagery-affect à Verbal (2)

11. Psychosynthesis (Roberto Assagioli)

Objective or symptom focus – identification of parts of personality, integration of parts, and personal and transpersonal growth

Direction of the system, process, technique – Verbal à imagery-affective and/or imagery-kinesthetic (1) à verbal and/or verbal-kinesthetic and/or verbal imagery integration à imagery (2)

(Singer and Pope, 1978, pp.12-13)

A third classification system for understanding and categorizing imaginal therapies focuses on the process within the therapy session. Four different features of the therapies can be differentiated. Used as classification mechanisms, or more accurately continuums of classification, these four guidelines can be helpful in defining the qualities of any one therapy or in comparing qualities among a number of them. They are: a) involvement of the therapist with the clients image, b) how the client interacts with their images, c) what is done with the images after their registration, and d) whose ideas, intuitions, feelings, connections and interpretations are most encouraged, discussed and valued.

The first a) quantifies the involvement of the therapist. In all modern imaginal therapy modalities, the images used in the therapy are primarily occurring within the client[78] while the therapist simply listens and supports or becomes involved in the client’s imagery. Focusing and the guided daydream approaches are on the quiet, passive end of this therapist involvement continuum. Behavior modification and Rational Emotive therapists are on the other end of this continuum and are much more likely to be involved in and suggest alteration of the client’s images. The phrase “images are primarily within the client” above refers to the occasional offering by some therapists to the client of an image that came to the therapist during the session. The purpose of this type of sharing is to offer the therapist’s image for possible exploration by the client in regards to the client’s own situation and goals.

The second feature looks at b) the type of involvement the client has with their images. In one direction on this continuum the client simply observes and experiences whatever happens and does not attempt manipulation or extension of the spontaneous imagery. Focusing and guided daydreaming therapies are examples. The other pole of this continuum has the client controlling and changing the images to conform to his wishes and the techniques and goals of the therapy. Bandura’s (1977) Symbolic Mediation and Wolpe’s Systematic Desensitization (1958) are examples of the latter.

A third qualifying aspect c) clarifies what the client and therapist do with the imagery after the imagery part of the session is complete. Focusing, guided daydreaming, and hypnosis form one end of this clarifying spectrum. While there may be some verbal description of the imaginal experience in these three styles, there would be no in depth discussion, interpretation, analysis, or evaluation by either the client or therapist. In most of the other styles of imaginal therapy, in depth discussion, interpretation, analysis, and/or evaluation are important and oft used components of each session.

The fourth continuum identifies d) whose ideas, intuitions, feelings, connections and interpretations are most encouraged, discussed and valued. On one extreme the therapists sees his sole task as inspiring and helping develop the client’s associations to the imagery. In therapies of the other extreme the client is often found anxiously awaiting the therapist’s omniscient evaluation.

In practice, most therapeutic modalities and practitioners vary within each of the four features by session and by client based on the perceived needs of the moment. When a therapist is aware of the various possibilities, and skilled at implementing a wide range of techniques, he has greater flexibility, creativity, and likelihood of success.

A fourth explanatory classification of imaginal therapies regards the scope and purpose of the therapy. 1) Symptom change therapy is the most focused and limited. Bandura (1977), Wolpe (1958), covert aversive conditioning and any number of therapies that can be described as behavior modification fit in this category. 2) Exploratory therapies uncover and deal with unconscious qualities, our most counterproductive aspects and our highest potentials. By exploring unknown aspects of the overall self as it is known at this time, the client can gradually becomes more loving, happy, whole, integrated, and fulfilled. All the therapies not listed in #1 Symptom Change are working in this area, although they also hope and may work for desired symptom change. 3) Expansion therapies endeavor to go beyond the client’s present consciousness or sense of self to the ineffable realms of the spirit. Over time the client’s sense of self may expand to a point where he is able to feel at one with someone or something that was once considered outside of him. This can be described as expansion of consciousness, or transpersonal therapy.

The shaman might summarize all the above by affirming that the client, or traveler, is simply going to another world, another reality, and having experiences. From a psychological point of view in symptom change and exploratory imagery, the client is using the ego[79] to observe and manipulate the imagination in order to explore the unconscious. In expansive imagery, the goal is to go beyond the ego to the transpersonal, Higher or Deepest Self[80]. What seems to be clear is that a wide variety of imaginal therapies have developed in the rational, western psychological world. I believe that most practitioners are unaware of the rich history of altered state and imaginal work, and could benefit from such exposure. One of the purposes of this paper is to provide the reader the opportunity to deepen her experience of life and enhance her work as a psychotherapist.

In general, imagining can be done with the eyes open or closed, although I believe that most therapists use a closed eyes style. The former, with the eyes unfocused and the mind not paying attention to any external stimuli, tends toward a more mental focus with less affect, while closed eyes elicits more images and feelings. Generally a seated client is more mentally focused and the supine client more feeling based.

Introducing the Imaginal Therapies of Jung, Assagioli, and Holmquist

Carl Jung’s Active Imagination process (1953a) forms an integral part of the widely practiced and discussed therapy called Jungian analysis, and is a major psychology unlisted by Singer and Pope above. Active Imagination involves re-experiencing part or all of a dream imaginally during the sessions, dialoguing with images from the dream, identifying with and living the energy of the image, and an extensive discussion and “analysis” of the images, associations and feelings brought forth. There is considerable focus on symbols and metaphor from numerous mythologies, from the shamanic to Nordic to Greek and Roman. Jung wrote in Memories, Dreams and Reflections,[81] “The most we can do is to dream the myth onwards and give it a modern dress.” Applied to the client and her history and internal process, the lower and upper world of spirits become a basis for the interpretation of the client’s inner world. Through the trance, the client embodies the dream images, giving them attention, value, flesh, and presence. The more she can allow the imaginal world to be as “real” as the ordinary state of consciousness, the more likely the effects will be beneficial.

Psychosynthesis, developed in the first half of the 1900’s by the Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli, also incorporates the unconscious and spiritual realms into the theory and practice of psychotherapy. My three year postgraduate training program in Psychosynthesis included a weeklong retreat and weekly three hour classes with more than 50% of the class time devoted to non-didactic, altered state-oriented experiences. The altered state of consciousness work was geared for personal and professional development, and to teach techniques that could be used with clients.

Training in the use of the imagination is also a part of the “therapy” as it is practiced by Psychosynthesists and in most other imaginal therapies. The Psychosynthesis practitioner uses imaginal techniques for many purposes and in many ways: to enhance dream, vision, journal, dealing with feelings, problem solving, grief, and relationship work; for guided daydreams that can bring insight and direction such as climbing a mountain, meeting and talking with a wise person, going into a basement or cave, and directing a band or orchestra; to flesh out and have dialogue among the various subpersonalities that combine to form the all encompassing personality; and in client centered, primarily non-directed waking daydream fashion that can be used in personal and transpersonal exploration, expansion, and integration.

“My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious” (Karl Kraus, Austrian satirist, 1917).[82] Biting truth is the power of the accomplished satirist. Kraus captures within his cutting remarks about analysis, a fundamental concern of mine about many non-behavioral imaginal therapies. Is the highly trained intellect of the analyst over powering the wisdom of the deepest, unconscious self, or Higher Self of the client? Certainly the deepest, unknown self can be dark, disorganized, chaotic, and frightening. In ancient times the traditional shaman had all power, abilities, and wisdom in his hands for the good of the client. I know of analysts who are nearly as authoritative and controlling of their client’s imaginal and intellectual production as the traditional shaman is in control of his client’s treatment. In an era of the developing ego and personal will, and the dawning of the transpersonal will,[83] less directed input from the therapist and more control by the client is important. The therapist is more and more a guide for the inner explorations of the client. The therapist sets the tone and creates a safe, supportive, and encouraging atmosphere within which the client learns to exercise her imagination, creativity, intellect, and will. For these reasons, especially when formally or informally using altered state therapy, I see the transpersonal self, or Higher Self, of the client as the true therapist and base my participation accordingly.[84]

Of all the theoretical orientations covered by Singer and Pope (1978, pp. 3-34) in their chapter “The Use of Imagery and Fantasy Techniques in Psychotherapy”, the “European mental imagery” method comes closest to describing my theory and practice.

By contrast, to psychoanalysis and Jungian analysis, many of the European mental image methods[85] emphasize the translation of verbal experience into imagery as the core of the method and do not attempt in any systematic way to reformulate the imagery experiences into verbal labels or linguistic shorthand. In effect, a change is sought in the undercurrent of ongoing symbolic representations that are part of human experience, with the belief that such changes will lead to efficacious modifications, not only in experience, but also in behavior or interpersonal relationships. A minimum of emphasis is placed, therefore, on verbal encoding and lexical formulation of the “imagery trips” that characterize the procedure (Singer and Pope, 1978, p. 11).

I believe the most essential and most transformative aspect of the imagination-based healing process is the initiation, nurturing, and development of the client’s conscious relationship with his own unconscious. This personal awareness can eventually expand to an exploration of what Jung (1953b) calls the “collective unconscious,” or as a shaman would say, the “lower and upper worlds. This individual altered state of consciousness work becomes a bridging of the great breach between the conscious and unconscious, spirit and matter, spirit and mind, and all the other “us and thems” that haunt many western individuals and much of western society. These great polarities are a natural and good part of manifested life. They are not the bad guys. The present day problem is that western society has lost sight of the wholistic unity behind all polarities. Imaginal therapy work can reconnect us with the unity consciousness that was the ordinary state of consciousness of ancient times and at the same time honoring and integrating the rational, scientific, discerning mind that is now predominant in the west. While unfolding for tens of millennia with the development of the frontal lobes of the human brain, the receding of unity consciousness and the era of the development of the rational mind was taken to an extreme by the institutionalization of the human’s natural relationship with the spirit world by the Roman Catholic Church, the ordination of mind as the only way to know oneself and God by the church and Descartes, and the complete acceptance of the scientific method as the only way to gain knowledge, wisdom and truth. Imaginal therapy can be a path back toward the inclusivity and the unitive consciousness of the shamanic way.

Imaginal Therapy and Shamanism Compared - Chapter Four

Each of the “comparison” chapters[86] will begin with a summary listing of the modalities discussed in the chapter. The remainder of these chapters will feature a discussion of the major points of comparison. The following is a summary of the similarities and differences between imaginal therapy and shamanism over a broad range of variables, including background, training, principles, type of altered state of consciousness, techniques, purpose of the treatment, and role in society.

A Summary

Similarities between imaginal therapies and shamanism. Each modality has:

· A basis in ancient practices

· More than one person involved

· Two distinct roles. The professional and the client play very different roles, with one person in the power or authoritative role

· Highly trained professionals

· Imagination and/or altered states of consciousness as a prime aspect of its technique[87]

· Recollection of the trance experience

· High value for the unconscious

· Healing and/or growth purposes

· Often been a treatment of last resort

· Some similar, and some different, techniques

· Been thought of (during the 19^th and 20^th centuries) as alternative or fringe modality, and is maligned by many western intellectuals (although shamanism is still highly valued in the unwesternized cultures in which it is still practiced)

Differences between imaginal therapies and shamanism. The modalities generally differ in terms of:

· The use of physical exertion and deprivation as altered state of consciousness inducing technique

· Who is entranced, the professional or the client

· Who has the images and receives the information, professional or the client[88]

· Who speaks

· The depth of the trance

· Conceptualization of the trance experience as “real” or symbolic. Shamans consider their “journeying” experience as real as everyday reality, while many imaginal therapists and their clients do not.

· The goal or purpose of the treatment. Shamanic treatment aims for harmony and balance among the body, mind and spirit of the individual and among the individual, her family, her community, the spirit worlds, and even Nature herself. Imaginal therapies have various goals.[89]

Many imaginal therapies and shamanism are heavily involved in the use of altered states of consciousness. However, there may be considerable differences in the training, experience and expertise level of the professional who is doing the work. Ideally the shaman/therapist is highly trained in SSC. The imaginal therapist may or may not have significant personal experience in altered states of consciousness (ASC) work. More problematic is the possibility that the therapist may have not personally ventured into the depths where his client is traveling. In the intimate atmosphere of the good therapy session, the therapist’s unconscious often gets activated and can be inducted into the trance of the client. A therapist who has not done his personal lower world (lower unconscious) work will find it difficult to be a grounded, poised guide in a foreign land in which his only eyes and ears are those of the entranced client.

The shaman has not only traveled extensively in the other worlds, he has experienced dismemberment and death in the SSC and has returned, the master of the trance state, armed with allies from those worlds to assist him and his clients in journeying work toward healing and balance. What was once a spontaneous crisis is now a controlled ecstasy in which he has mastered the techniques and learned the parameters of celestial space.

Whose Consciousness is “Altered”? Healer or Client.

Shifting the focus from the professional to the client, in the traditional shamanic way, the client is usually considered a spectator and is instructed to relax and simply be aware of what she is experiencing. In imaginal therapy the client is the primary person in the ASC.[90] In contrast to the traditional shamanic way the person doing the bulk of the ASC imaginal work is often not very experienced. Fortunately for the client, she has the therapist as a non-spirit guide as she ventures into the worlds of the spirits.

What are potential problems arising from this discrepancy in ecstatic experience between the shaman and the therapy client? First and foremost is the ego state of the client. Journeying or ASC experiences in imaginal therapy are most useful when perceived by the client as real[91] experiences. However, ASC can be very similar to the everyday experience of the schizophrenic who has disruption of the editing and filtering functions of her ego, which leaves her open to and unprotected from both the lower and the higher levels of consciousness. In discriminating the mystical state from the phenomenology of the schizophrenic, Wilber has stated that the mystic and shaman are

…exploring and mastering some of the same … realms that overpower the schizophrenic. [In contrast to the schizophrenic] The mystic [and shaman] seeks progressive evolution. He trains for it. It takes most of a lifetime – with luck – to reach permanent, mature, transcendent, and unity structures. (Wilber, 1980, p. 152)

The shaman develops his ability to journey, engage, and conquer in the three worlds for the health and prosperity of his community. He is far from being overpowered by the lower and upper worlds. He is empowered by them and his allies therein. Wilber goes on to say mysticism and shamanism are “not regression in service of the ego, but evolution in transcendence of the ego” (Wilber, 1980, p. 152). In this regard the mystic and shaman are similar: “an evolved state of consciousness is a prerequisite for the vocation” (Wilber, 1980, p. 152). This baseline of an intact and healthy ego is also important for the serious participant of transpersonal imaginal therapy, or the client runs the risk of plunging into an abyss and not having the ego strength or the developed will that is necessary to return safely. It is of course incumbent upon the competent imaginal therapist to be able to assess the ego strength of his client and the severity of any psychological elements that could be too difficult for the client to handle if contacted in an ASC.

Magical Flight in Modern Psychotherapy

The preceding paragraph highlights a second difference between the shaman and the imaginal therapy client.[92] The shaman has a long term, deeply held, and fully practiced dedication to developing the abilities and power necessary to journey into the depths of the unconscious. Additionally, as was discussed in Chapter One[93], the shaman has many additional supports and strengths that make the rigors of ASC work possible, productive, and healthy. These factors include his strong connection with nature, inclusion in a tight knit community, and being tempered physically, psychologically, and spiritually through the dismemberment, death, and rebirth aspects of shamanic training. Very few clients of imaginal therapies are going to plumb the heights and depths of consciousness that are the goal and eventual achievement of the shaman.[94] The harder an imaginal therapy client wants to work and the deeper she wants to go into her unconscious, the more important it is to mount a sustained effort of building the necessary physical, psychological, mental, and spiritual foundation that allows the safe exploration of the limits of human consciousness. It is a matter of lifestyle, intention, and values. Most modern day people lead a hectic, ungrounded life. We are disconnected from Nature and from our body. We have other activities that are more important. In Section Three, the shaman will be used as a model for building a modern value system and lifestyle that will support deep unconscious work by layperson and professional alike. For now, it can be said that the higher and deeper a person goes in consciousness, the more balance and grounding she needs in her daily life to support the ASC work.

The two major techniques of shamanism, magical flight or journeying to the higher and lower worlds, and spirit possession or identification with spirit allies, both have counterparts in imaginal therapies. A version of the shaman's controlled soul journey is now being used as a psychotherapeutic device by many late 20^th century therapists. The same means by which the shaman comes to “master himself” are now being used in modalities such as Jung's (1953b) “active imagination,” Desoille's (1966) “directed daydreams,” Leuner's (1969) "guided affective imagery," and Assagioli’s (1963, 1975) Psychosynthesis with its guided imagery work.

In New Guinea, the Sambia shamans dispatch their familiar spirits to the other worlds in search of patients' lost souls. In their visions, the shamans report to the spectators their imaginal adventures and the narrow escapes of their familiar spirits, even while acting them out. At the end of the trance state, the shamans give complete narratives of their experiences. (Peters and Price-Williams, 1980, p. 405)

This description of his work by a traditional shaman mirrors the experiences and activities of the client in a typical imaginal therapy session. As an example, in my practice, my client and I would begin with a discussion of what the client wants to work on that day. Usually the client comes to a decision on a topic or intention[95] of the ASC journey, although it can also beneficial and rewarding to enter the ASC with only a vague intention such as “show me what my next step in growth might be.” I then lead the client through a three to ten minute relaxation or induction into an ASC. The client “journeys” by “going with[96]” their internal visions and feelings for up to sixty minutes, reporting out loud occasionally what they see, hear, feel, touch, smell, taste, and do in the ASC. There may be long silences, broken by the client or if I feel she needs contact or support I might ask “And what are you experiencing now?” My verbal offerings are a very judicious use of simple suggestion, guidance and support, hopefully assisted by my inner wisdom and “spirit allies.” My other and perhaps more important contribution is creating a safe, receptive environment that encourages exploration in the unknown, potentially awful realms of the other worlds. The client, upon rejoining her ordinary state of conscious (OSC), may discuss some of her experience, but I usually suggest that she stay “in the experience” and think or analyze what has transpired only after a day or two has passed. Drawing[97] a significant image or two from the session[98] is often helpful to deepen, ground, and make the experiences and energies of the journey more available in the client’s OSC and daily life. I usually discuss the imagery and any additional work, reactions, and follow-on experiences that she has had in the following session.

The following is a summary of imaginal therapy from the European school that employs many aspects of the shamanic Journey. Hanscarl Leuner is quite specific in assigning his clients a setting for the imaginal session based on his assessment of the client’s characteristics and goals. As noted in the preceding chapter, page 194, I usually support the client in selecting her own topic and then we allow the unconscious to produce the imagery to be developed and worked with. Once the imagery is started, however, Leuner works in a non-directed manner, much as I do. He guides his client’s thinking into certain set scenes like “a meadow,” “a cave,” or “under water,” then encourages her imagination to freely develop. He becomes involved only to help the individual recognize and talk to the figures that emerge in the client’s imagery. Leuner believes that one can note the gradual progress in therapy by the increased frequency of positive images over negative ones, which the patient gradually must learn to “confront.” “Psychoanalytically speaking,” he writes, “the end result of successful confrontation is a strengthening of the ego” (Leuner, 1969, p. 20).

Identification with Spirit Allies

There exists considerable therapeutic potential in the second of two primary shamanic techniques: spirit possession[99] or more accurately, identification with a spirit ally. Dissociation in western psychology is unconsciously splitting off one’s consciousness from whatever is happening in the present moment, in order to escape present trauma or the memory and re-experiencing of a past trauma. This is very different from the intentional, temporary leaving of one’s present experience to identify with another entity as a therapeutic technique. The primary difference between possession, dissociation, and the imaginal technique is will, intention, and choice. The first is done to you. The second unintentionally and unconsciously. Only the third is an act of personal will.

The entity identified with in the therapeutic imagery could be a spirit, animal, a part of oneself, or another person. These therapeutic experiences may be induced by certain therapeutic acting-out maneuvers similar to those found in Moreno’s (1947) psychodrama and in Perls’ (1964) Gestalt therapy. Although true of both therapies, psychodrama especially has a theatrical quality that is reminiscent of the drama of the shamanic ecstasy in the tribal setting. These two therapies, whose techniques are borrowed by many therapists and are formally taught in Psychosynthesis training, offer westerners the opportunity to identify with, and become for the moment, a family member, a despised, adored or disowned part of themselves, an animal, or an image from a dream. For some people physically enacting behaviors and verbalizations of a part of themselves or another being is most helpful. Others prefer the same techniques applied without the physical body involvement by acting in the imagination only.

For example, I used both techniques in the development of my relationship with two spirit allies. My inner Trickster/Shaman and Brave, two beings who, in a sleeping dream, brought me out of the High Sierra mountain range in central California as a baby and gave me to my adopted parents. My parents then drove me in a yellow convertible toward a life in Southern California. Through imaginal work on my own and in hypnotherapy sessions, they have lead me on fantastic voyages by horseback and space travel into underground desert caverns and orbits in distant galaxies. I have been ingested by Trickster/Shaman and to the day of this writing, December 8, 1999, am still in the digestion and assimilation process. I identify with and to a certain extent become Brave while hiking alone toward what has become “my spot” in the San Gabriel mountain range a few blocks from my house. This area was originally the home of the San Gabrielino Indians, a tribe that has apparently lost its outer identity as the millennium turns. Reaching my spot in a small meadow at the edge of a tree-lined stream requires climbing a waterfall, rock-hopping the stream, and climbing a small embankment to reach the apparently virgin area. My spot is a fertile environment for ritual and imaginal work Brave, Trickster/Shaman, other allies and me. Captivating, challenging, frightening, meaningful, and eventually of practical use in my personal and professional lives, these SSC experiences have the flavor of both magical flight and spirit possession.

The Setting of the Imaginal Experience

The setting in which the imagery takes place is another point of comparison among the various imaginal therapies and between the totality of them and shamanism. There is considerable variety of setting within the imaginal therapies and a much more consistent pattern within shamanism. The most important variable is the inner and outer life experience of the person having the experience. The modern westerner has considerable exposure to many natural and manmade environments visiting different part of the world and images seen on television and movie screens. Imaginal settings during sessions reflect this diversity. In the aboriginal cultures in which shamanism developed and flourished, nature was dominant in the external environment and therefore the setting for most imaginal journeys. It would be logical to assume that an urban westerner would have imagery based primarily in the city. While this is partly true, the unprompted unconscious of many modern westerners produce nature settings at least as often as urban settings.[100] Note the imagery of mine that I reported in the previous paragraph. Leuner believed so deeply in the primal healing value of the nature setting that he prescribed “a meadow,” “a cave,” or “under water” scenes to begin certain imagery sessions. I believe that nature settings and animals present more primitive emotions, access both our most instinctual and inspiration qualities, and then strip away the outer facades and complexities of our problems and therefore, often present superior opportunities for exploration, insight, and growth. In terms of nature settings for therapy, shamanism is a good model.

Induction Methods and the Perception and Evaluation of Imaginal Content

Methods used by the therapist for inducing the ASC or “waking dream” during psychotherapy are generally different than those occurring in shamanism. Modern therapists tend to use relaxing hypnotic techniques while the shaman usually produces these states through singing, dancing, drumming, rattling, and/or medicine plants.[101]

One of the most salient and telling differences between therapies that make use of the imagination and shamanic journeying is the interpretation given to the imaginal processes. Most western psychologies[102] explain the visions as only symbolic of internal processes[103] or a convenient and effective way to program the unconscious.[104] Conversely, the shaman’s trance journeys are experienced and conceptualized as “objective” by the shaman. He values information from the lower and upper worlds highly and holds these experiences as ways of knowing about life that are different from, but no less valid, objective, real, or useful than, waking experiences. It is the shaman's work in the SSC that is the heart and soul of shamanic life and the resultant healing. It is the relationships he establishes and nurtures with the spirit beings[105] that are contacted there that actually yield the knowledge and wisdom from which to proceed in his work as a healer. The diagnosis and treatment for a particular ailment is told to him by his images. Naturally these worlds and their inhabitants are real and objective to the shaman. They are useful, effective, reliable, and comfortable. They are the basis for his personal and professional life, including his calling, training, initiation, source of mentoring, and fount of healing information.

However, certain modern theoretical perspectives reflect their developers[106] grounding in shamanic traditions and eastern philosophy, and therefore treat ASC experiences much like shamanism does. Peters and Price-Williams quote Jung (1961) and his renowned successor, M. L. von Franz (1976), as follows.

The inner images and events must be met with the attitude of ‘as-if-they-were-real’. A threatening tiger image is responded to by real fright, not as if it were a projected image on a screen. Similarly, a message conveyed by a figure is fully experienced, not dismissed as an illusion. (Peters and Price-Williams, 1980, p. 406)

The “as if” technique, in which the client acts as if something is objectively real,[107] is a common Psychosynthesis process and used by many psychotherapists. There is considerable fluctuation from time to time by one person and among various individuals in the depth or comphrensiveness of the “sense of realty” of an imaginal experience.[108] Generally, the deeper the involvement in the imagery the more effective the process is, although there are many exceptions.[109]

Goals of Treatment

The goals of treatment and what is regarded as a successful outcome are another area of comparison and contrast. Among imaginal therapy goals, as noted in a table in Chapter Three (see page 185), are habit change, symptom relief, relief of phobic symptoms, relied from compulsions, increased role discrimination and role expression, self assertiveness, self regulation, awareness of various parts of personality, integration of the various parts, personal growth, ego expansion, insight, expanded self awareness, freeing and releasing energy, and transpersonal growth (Singer and Pope, 1978, pp. 12-13). Leuner described one of his goals as follows. “Psychoanalytically speaking, the end result of successful confrontation [of an image within the ASC session] is a strengthening of the ego” (Leuner, 1969, p. 20). For Carl Jung (1953b) the ultimate successful outcome is similar to Psychosynthesis’ transpersonal growth. Jung describes his therapy as the process of recognizing and participating with inner images that leads to what he called the “transcendent function,” a uniting of conscious and unconscious ways of knowing that leads to an integration of the whole person, or “individuation.” Maslow (1971) would later coin the term self-actualization to describe a similar, highly evolved human condition.

The goal of shamanic treatment is balance, harmony and wholistic health within the client, and with her relationships with her entire community, the spirit worlds, and all of Nature. Jung’s purpose of therapeutic work approaches the goal of shamanic journeying, while Leuner, whose main technique with animals and nature is so reminiscent of shamanism, has a very western, more limited goal of ego development. Most behavioral, cognitive, and hypnotic therapies have even more finite, non-shamanic goals of symptom reduction and elimination, as noted in the preceding paragraph.

Integration of Waking Life and Imaginal Experiences

Another important shamanic/imaginal therapy comparison involves the type, quality, and degree of synthesis in the individual’s relationship with her unconscious and the worlds contacted in ASC and SSC. A growing number of westerners today, including clients, friends, and myself, consider their sleeping dream life and their waking visions life as real and important as their daily waking life. We can value our inner life as an important part of the wholistic consciousness that shamanism holds as potential for us. We can also use dreams, visions, and other ASC experience as catalyst for and indication of Psychosynthesis’ transpersonal growth and momentum toward Jung’s individuation. However, these inner experiences could also be symptomatic of avoidance of reality, denial of potentially destructive psychological patterns, a pathological withdrawal from life, overwhelming fear, or any number of other counterproductive conditions. The real test is how the individual functions in their personal and professional life, the same standard applied to the shaman for millennia by his tribespeople and for a century by anthropologists. Once again the shaman can be a model for westerners of a healthy life, this time by a balanced relationship with non-ordinary states of consciousness and all that can be contacted therein. His journeying is only a temporary flight from everyday reality and does not imply a cognitive distortion or the inability to distinguish fantasy events from waking events as occurs in delusions. His journeying nourishes, heals, and fulfills his, and his community’s, everyday life.

Transformation [ego expansion, transpersonal growth, and individuation], the ultimate goal of wholistic therapies and hallmark of shamanic initiation, consists in first recognizing the degree of fragmentation that exists, through the methods of interior visualization, and then integrating and harmonizing these separated fragments and pieces. Discriminative separation precedes and prepares for integration and wholeness, as death precedes and prepares for rebirth. (Metzner, 1987, pp. 246-247)

Shamanic dismemberment is the “discriminative separation” that is the necessary precursor to “rebirth” into the spiritual self and the healing powers of the shaman. At first glance dismemberment seems extreme, even grizzly, and yet it provides an apt metaphor for the spiritual death and rebirth experience that is central to shamanic training, and is akin to the examination and discrimination process of psychoanalysis. Metzner calls this aspect of psychoanalysis the “taking apart process,” a direct reference to shamanic dismemberment. Strong similarities are also found in the core Jungian analysis process of uncovering of the various parts of the shadow[110] and the discrimination and articulation of the various “personae.” [111] In Psychosynthesis, various “sub-personalities” of a heretofore unified but dysfunctional personality are first uncovered, then identified with, and finally integrated or “synthesized” into a new, healthier personality under the wise and unifying direction of the “self.”[112]

Conceptualization and Utilization of Duality and Opposition

A final point of comparison looks at the concept of opposites or dualities. The development of the frontal lobes has given humanity an ever-increasing ability to discern differences, discriminate various aspects, and intellectually dissect anything we come across in our internal and external lives. One aspect of this important human development is the recognition of opposites inherent in the world as it exists, and the creation of opposites that exist only in our minds. Three examples of the inherent type are listed below. While the psychotherapist finds clients with need of reconciliation of both type of dualities, the latter “only in our minds” type is a prime cause of distress in western civilization. It presents itself in therapy as “I can’t be loving with my adolescent or he will walk all over me,” “If I tell my spouse how I really feel she will never respect me again,” “If I go into my feelings I will cry and I will never be able to stop,” “If I relax my ironfisted control of my mind I will go crazy,” “If I relax or have fun I will be a bad girl (said as an adult),” and many similar self imposed either/or dilemmas. Fortunately a process that involves identification, honoring, and reconciliation of polarities, which has been central to all traditions of transformation for millennia can be and is used in imaginal psychotherapy. This process, which is called the transmutation of opposites in esoteric meditation,[113] demonstrates fundamental similarities of philosophy, intent, and technique between shamanism and many imaginal therapies. There are at least three major pairs of opposites whose mutual balancing and integrating is important to shamanism and the more wholistic of the imaginal therapies such as Jungian analysis and Psychosynthesis. These are the metaphors of 1) androgyny, or the balance of male and female; the 2) reconciliation of good and evil; and the 3) relationship between and integration of human and animal consciousness, or intellectual mind with instinct and intuition. These dualities are discussed in detail in the Chapter Eight, page 283. The therapeutic task is to recognize the polarizing that exists within, and then find ways to transform the opposites from a state of divisiveness and antagonism to a state of powerful serenity in holding the tensions between the opposites, peaceful coexistence, integration, and eventually complementarity. Imaginative work with these three fundamental polarities can provide a conceptual framework and guideposts to individuals in contemporary society who are undergoing transformative crises, and who are looking to ancient teachings for insight into the dilemmas and challenges of 21^st century Homo Sapiens.

Appendices B and C contain transcripts of imaginal therapy sessions of mine with Dr. Smith that illustrate certain aspects of a modern day, imaginal dismemberment experience and many other features of shamanic and imaginal therapy. They are representative of sessions I have conducted with many of my clients as well. I have annotated the sessions to illustrate, demonstrate, and make tangible various aspects of this paper.

Various similarities and differences between shamanism and the imaginal therapies have been explored. It has been shown that the differences between the behavior modification and wholistic type imaginal therapies may be greater than the differences between shamanism and the wholistic imaginal therapies, which find their roots in, and borrow techniques from, the ancient healing practice. The powerful potential within the use of ASCs for healing and transformation becomes more evident as we learn about, and, more importantly, experience altered states of consciousness. Who can benefit from the non-ordinary states of consciousness, who will receive no result, and who may find distressing and even negative outcomes? We have seen in this and the preceding chapters that goals and outcomes vary greatly, from symptom relief to integration with the spiritual self (see pages 185 and 189). What is the appropriate pacing and sequencing of ongoing ASC experiences? What preparation and environment are important or necessary to maximize desired results? What are the salient individual differences in clients that warrant differential treatment? Is it possible for a therapist to successfully guide a client on inner journeys that he, the therapist, has not taken for himself? What training is necessary, sufficient and advisable for a guide? …and for the client? We continue our beginning exploration of these questions as we move on to hypnotherapy, the third of our quaternary of transformation modalities that feature the use of the imagination and ASC.

Hypnotherapy - Chapter Five

It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.

Samuel Butler, 19^th century English author.[114]

Hypnosis is an ill-defined, amorphous, and yet potentially healing and transformational field that begins on the wrong foot with its name, which is derived from the Greek hypnos, meaning sleep. As we have seen in the Chapter Two, page 178, there is no commonly accepted comprehensive definition of hypnosis and a number of diverse and contradictory explanations for its effectiveness. It is used in a variety of settings for a variety of purposes, from stopping smoking to past life regression to family therapy to exploring the deepest recesses of the unconscious mind. Some practitioners are strictly researchers and others strictly clinicians. Some are already trained and licensed in their in the fields of medicine, dentistry, nursing, psychotherapy, family therapy, theology, etc. while others simply learn the principles and techniques of hypnosis and open a business in self confidence building or symptom reduction. Non-licensed hypnotherapists tend to denigrate long-term psychotherapy and licensed medical doctors and psychotherapists tend to see unlicensed hypnotists as quacks. Some focus on the physical body, others the psychological realm, and others the “spiritual.” Some consider hypnosis and its roots to be scientific while others see hypnosis as a continuation, adaptation, and extension of the shamanism and imaginal therapies. Some use the principles and techniques without having been trained in hypnosis or calling what they do hypnosis. Many people who consider themselves hypnotherapists believe that much of the effectiveness of medicine and to even a greater degree psychotherapy, is due to the unintended or unnamed use and effects of hypnosis.

We do know that hypnosis often seems to create important change in client’s lives, occasionally bordering on the miraculous. From anesthesia for major surgery to dramatic personality changes, from ending addictions to chronic pain reduction and athletic performance enhancement, the list of successes or cures is long and wide-ranging. It is generally accepted that not all people can be hypnotized, at least to the extent of using it as a total anesthesia for surgery, childbirth, or major dentistry. Yet we all are in a trance part of each day while watching TV, driving a car, concentrating on our work, or in a daydream. Milton Erickson believed everyone could be hypnotized given time and the proper training. We know that some people swear by hypnosis, treating it almost like a religion, while some religions, fundamentalist Christianity for instance, consider it off limits, if not evil.

How can a rational person in the scientific western world approach and use the power of the unconscious, that “…is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth” (Bachelard, 1960[115]). For many 20^th century non-meditating westerners not inclined toward anything as primitive as shamanism, hypnosis is a major path away from the analytical mind into the wisdom and power of the unconscious and supra rational. It is a methodology for initiating a relationship with and proceeding with a journey into the unconscious. Two additional modern alternatives are wholistic imaginal therapies and self guided active imaginal experiences.

Defining Hypnosis

Like any behavioral or psychological process, hypnosis cannot be explained by any single factor because it “cross-fertilizes with many areas of human thinking” (Kroger, 1977, p. 32). It is “not a sharply delineated state, but a process along the broad, fluctuating continuum of what is loosely referred to as awareness, depending, as it does, upon the degree of arousal or perceptivity.” Areas of the brain that are not generally active during the waking state are engaged in hypnosis. Areas of the cortex that store memories[116] and perceive certain experiential data[117] that could limit the goals of the therapy are rendered inactive.[118] Other cortical areas that are excited by hypnosis can be conditioned to selectively perceive their present internal and external environments in a way different from the client’s normal pattern. Kroger continues, “Under these conditions, ‘unreality becomes reality,’ and the ‘conviction of hypnosis leads to hypnosis,’ as there is no other way to think” (Kroger, 1977, p. 32).

A consensus definition of hypnosis starts and perhaps ends with the following statement. Hypnosis is a state of mind that allows the client to function directly and creatively at an unconscious level of awareness without the interference of the conscious mind.

Therapeutic trance is a period during which the limitations of one's usual frame of reference and beliefs are temporarily altered so one can be receptive to the patterns and associations and modes of mental functioning that are conducive to problem-solving. (Erickson and Rossi, 1979, p. 3)

In the hypnotic state the so-called “reality” of a headache, or a nervous tick, or an abusive family, or disdain and even fear of irrationality can all fade into new, self-chosen, healthy and productive realities.

Richard Neves, president of the American Board of Hypnotherapy, defined hypnosis in a recent interview as “a directed method of working with the subconscious toward a self-defined outcome” (Neves, 1999). This self-defined outcome can be a narrowly defined goal such as stopping smoking or remembering to take keys when leaving the house or a nearly boundless style of hypnotic exploration. An example of the latter style in session with Erickson and Aldous Huxley is detailed below. However the typical goal of most hypnotherapy sessions is to help the client effect a strategic change of their own choice involving a symptom or a complex of symptoms. Symptom change therapies were discussed in the Chapter Three, contrasting them with exploratory therapies and expansion therapies. I get calls for stopping smoking and weight loss quite often, and have created hypnosis and meditation CD’s for people interested in dealing with these problems on their own, and occasionally work individually with a person on these problems. Other common problems are phobias, bedwetting, fear of public speaking, exam taking, sports performance, general anxiety, and sexual difficulties. While these are certainly worthwhile goals, I do not particularly enjoy working with a person for one to four sessions exclusively to stop smoking as many hypnotists do. I occasionally have done this but my passion is for a longer term, deeper and more involved relationship with a client. I also believe that the human being is multi-dimensional and has unlimited potential that is often untapped and unlived. I prefer to be one of many catalysts for their mining, refining, and jewelry enterprises.

While Erickson might agree wholeheartedly with my assessment of human potentials, I believe he often did not feel the need or desire to be involved over time in the client’s growth and change process. This is similar to many hypnotists. He intended to remove a dysfunctional brick within the foundation of the client’s often self-defeating personality structure, thereby releasing the person’s energies to be used in self-enhancing and growth-oriented ways. Erickson, in contrast with many more traditional hypnotists, expanded that goal considerably. He adding a second phase once the client’s objective is achieved. Building on the skills learned, the confidence gained in accomplishing her goal, and new stasis of the client’s inner life, she finds more freedom to make many additional desired changes and develop her underdeveloped qualities on her own. I enjoy being an observer to and an ongoing facilitator of the transformational process.

This is not to say that Erickson and many other hypnotherapists are not interested in dealing with all that is human, including our deepest problems and our greatest potentials. Erickson wrote about an essence deep within the unconscious as “that vital sense of the ‘beingness’ of the self [that] is often overlooked” (Erickson, 1980a, p. 345). Stephen Gilligan describes “an essence of Self [that] can be recognized as the nonconceptual, ineffable Deep Self” (Gilligan, 1987, p. 21). He continues:

I propose this essence as the source of life energy and generativity. It cannot be divided, being a natural integral (whole); yet it can be denied or devalued. I see one of the tasks of generative hypnotherapy as reconnecting clients with their Deep Self via hypnotic explorations…precisely because Self cannot be divided, it is unavailable to phenomenological experience since such experience requires splitting Self into subject (perceiver) and object (perceived); nevertheless, Self can be intuited in special transpersonal states such as love and generative trance. (Gilligan, 1987, pp. 21-22)

I characterize Gilligan’s generative trance as an expansive use of altered states of consciousness, as described on pages 190, 299, 36, and 41.

A story that Tart (1975) relates suggests a number of issues and characteristics of hypnosis.

One final example [and be given] to illustrate the importance of these implicit and expectational factors. When phonograph recordings were still something of a novelty, George Estabrooks, one of the early researchers in hypnosis, decided to see if hypnosis could be induced by simply recording the verbal procedure on a record and playing it to a group of volunteer subjects. He recorded an induction procedure and got some volunteers from one of the college classes he taught. At the time for the experiment, he put the record on and, to his consternation, found he had bought the wrong record from his office: he was playing a record of Swiss yodeling. Deciding to let it entertain his subjects while got the right one, he said nothing but left and went to his office. When he returned, he found one subject was in a deep hypnotic state! The professor had said this record would hypnotize him and the student went into hypnosis. (Tart, 1975, p. 87)

As we saw in Chapter Two, page 178, the contemporary theories of trance each emphasize one or two important characteristics of the hypnotic experience, while ignoring or downplaying others. This demonstrates the multidimensional nature of hypnotic experience. There are many important situational and interpersonal variables affecting the general development of a trance state, and even more importantly, the unique qualities of each subject make it impossible to characterize trance as being essentially the same for everyone. As Gilligan (1987) reports:

Erickson was extremely aware of this complexity; over the years he maintained a fairly constant atheoretical position. On the frequent occasions in his later years when he was asked to define specifically the nature of trance or of unconscious processes, he would typically demur, explaining that ‘whatever I say it is ... will distract me from recognizing and utilizing the many possibilities that are’ (Erickson, personal communication [with Gilligan], 1977). After his disclaimer he would launch into one of his elaborate, metaphorical teaching stories apparently intended to communicate more directly with the unconscious of the listener. (Gilligan, 1987, p. 39)

In general, simplistic and categorical statements about trance experience, or consciousness in general, can offer guidelines to the theoretician, but may bias and unnecessarily limit the practitioner. As Erickson (1980a) noted:

It must be recognized that a description, no matter how accurate or complete, will not substitute for actual experience. For successful hypnotherapy, a therapist or a subject cannot just theorize, or learn or understand or intellectually master the hypnotic process. It must be experienced and lived. (Erickson, 1980a, p. 144)

Continuing on the same page, no categorization of the levels of trance can “be made applicable for all subject (sic). Any description of a deep trance must necessarily vary in minor details from one subject to another” (Erickson, 1980a, p. 144). Thus, the wise theoretician or practitioner remains wary of any categorical claims about hypnotic trance.

Having said this does not rule out a practitioner's developing an opinion about the nature of trance, or attempts at developing and elucidating a more complete and useful framework in which to conceptualize hypnotherapy. Gilligan (1987), of whose ideas I have made extensive use in the development of this chapter, has collated the essential and complementary aspects of the contemporary theories of trance. His table offers a strong foundation on which to build a comprehensive, inclusive view that, not surprisingly, encompasses shamanism and the imaginal therapies as well as hypnosis.

Notable Contributions by Contemporary Theories of Trance

A Basis for a Comprehensive, Integrated Foundation for Trance and Hypnotherapy

by Stephen Gilligan (1987, p. 41), edited by Allen Holmquist

1. Psychodynamic Schools

a. Strong relationship develops between the therapist and subject.

b. Client shifts to less analytic and more primary processing style, e.g.:

· less critical and defensive

· more image oriented

2. Learning Theory Schools

a. Trance is a naturalistic skill that can be learned.

b. Trance ability can improve with practice.

c. Other learned attitudes, ideas, and behaviors may interfere with trance development. To maximize the use of trance, these counterproductive elements need to be addressed and depotentiated.

3. Neo-Dissociation Theory

a. Medium and deeply hypnotized subjects are often dissociated from normal monitoring and control processes.

b. This general dissociation permits the development of specific dissociational phenomena such as age regression, hypnotic dreams, automatic writing, hallucinations, and pain control.[119]

c. Dissociative experiences can occur with informal hypnosis, e.g.:

· Sleeping dreams

· State-dependent recall

· Watching television

· Driving an automobile

4. Motivated Involvement Theory

a. Trance is a naturalistic experience that is phenomenologically similar to other psychological experiences.

b. Because it is natural to humans, any willing subject can be trained to develop “trance” characteristics or phenomena.

c. Formal inductions and rituals are not needed to develop “trance” experiences.

d. Developing good rapport with, adequately informing, and effectively motivating the client is necessary and fundamental.

5. Role Playing Theory

a. Hypnosis and trance are really just metaphors and should not be reified.

b. Because trance is a response occurring within a social psychological context, situational variables must always be taken into account, e.g.:

· Therapist’s verbal and non-verbal communications.

· Nature of the relationship.

· Setting

· Background of the client.

Woven into a fluid, loosely connected whole, this table summarizes the main components that facilitate movement into the various altered states of consciousness that are addressed in Section Two, page 47. For now let us move on to a homogenized example of the traditional hypnosis process.

A Typical, Traditional Hypnotic Induction

A description and analysis of the traditional steps for the therapeutic induction of hypnosis is given by Charles Tart (1975) in his important book, States of Consciousness. I include a detailed accounting of this view of hypnosis because he is a scholar of general consciousness studies and a highly respected researcher in that field. He is not wedded to a particular theoretical position or biased for or against hypnosis in relation to other therapeutic modalities or states of consciousness. Tart’s summary does not attempt to be complete nor does it account for most of Erickson’s innovations that will be discussed later in this chapter.

The procedures for inducing hypnosis are many and varied, but certain steps are common to most of these procedures.

The first such step usually involves having you sit of lie comfortably, so you do not have to exert any effort to maintain your bodily position, and telling you not to move and to relax your body as much as possible. This step has a variety of effects. For one thing, if you are somewhat anxious about what is going to happen, your anxiety, which is intimately related to bodily tension, is at least partially relieved if you relax. You limit your ability to feel anxiety. This makes it easier for you to alter your state of consciousness. Also, when your body is in a relaxed position and lying still, many of the kinesthetic receptors adapt out, as in going to sleep. Thus the body as a whole begins to fade out as a conscious experience; this known, patterned stimulation fades and no longer serves as a load and patterning force to help stabilize your present state of consciousness.[120]

You are instructed to listen only to his voice and to ignore other thoughts or sensations that come into your mind. Ordinarily you constantly scan the environment to see if important stimuli are present. This constant scanning keeps up a continuous, varied pattern of information and energy exchanges among subsystems, which tends to keep subsystems[121] active in the waking state pattern. By withdrawing attention and awareness energy from this scanning of the environment, you withdraw a good deal of psychological energy and activity from a number of subsystems: a major loading and patterning process is attenuated.

[The hypnotist tells you to] not think about what he is saying, but just listen to it passively. If the hypnotist says your arm is feeling heavy, you are not to think, “He says it's feeling heavy, I wonder if it really will get heavy, I remember it got heavy a long time ago but that's because there was a weight on it. Well, I guess I shouldn’t be doubting….” In the ordinary state you constantly think about what is being said to you and what is happening to you, and this maintains a great deal of evaluative and decision-making activity and again activates the subsystems” that create your normal consciousness. Thus, this step also slows down the constant thinking that helps to maintain your ordinary state [or consciousness] through loading stabilization .

You are frequently told to focus your attention on some particular thing to reduce further your scanning of the environment, with the same effects…. If you do, all sorts of unexpected (to most people) visual effects occur because the retina becomes fatigued. Colored halos start to appear around the object being stared at, shadows appear and disappear, apparent movements occur, parts of the object fade. Because the hypnotist earlier stated that he has the power to make you have unusual experiences, the fact that you are now having unusual experiences enhances the prestige of the hypnotist and gives you more trust in him.

[The hypnotist] suggests to you that you are becoming sleepy or drowsy. This elicits a variety of memory associations that help the induction process. Since going to sleep means that your present state of consciousness breaks down, this suggestion acts as a disruptive force. And since going to sleep is associated with a fading out of your body image, it suggests to you that you are becoming sleepy or drowsy. [This elicits a variety of memory associations that help the induction process.] The references to sleep also draw up memories and expectations of your identity fading, so energy is not required to keep evaluating the situation in terms of your personal values.

As well as suggesting sleep, the hypnotist often further indicates that this sleep is not quite the same as real sleep because you will still hear him. The hypnotist may not need to suggest this overtly: everyone in our culture knows enough about hypnosis to realize that the subject can still hear the hypnotist. This is a specific patterning. The suggestions telling you that what is happening is like sleep primarily serve to disrupt your present state, but since the hypnotist does not want you actually to go to sleep, he adds a patterning force to produce a passive sleeplike state in which communication with the hypnotist is still effective.

Once you appear passive and relaxed, most hypnotic procedures go on to simple motor suggestions, such as having you hold an arm horizontally out in front of you and telling you it is getting heavy. Motor suggestions like this are relatively easy for most people to experience, and as you begin to respond to these suggestions, the hypnotist's prestige is further enhanced.

Ordinarily it is your own "voice" inside you that tells you to do a thing that you then do. Now the hypnotist's voice takes over this role, and your sense of self begins to include the hypnotist. Success with simple motor suggestions also produces a novel kind of body stimulation: you feel your body moving, but with different qualities than ordinarily.

Finally, we should note that an important factor in understanding the hypnotic induction technique is the subject's implicit expectations of what it is like to be hypnotized and how a hypnotized subject behaves. [Because Americans, at least, have a] fairly good general knowledge of what hypnosis is like, in spite of some misconceptions, …a subject that agrees to be hypnotized and believes that the hypnotist can do it has implicit expectations that affect his reactions to do the particular things the hypnotist suggests.

The Hypnotic State. If the induction is successful and the neutral hypnotic state is developed, the result is a discrete altered state characterized by a quiet mind; most of the structures are inactive, many of the psychological subsystems[122]…are not actively functioning. Typically, if a deeply hypnotized subject is asked what he is thinking about or experiencing, the answer is “nothing.” However, this state is also characterized by greatly enhanced suggestibility, a greater mobility of attention/awareness energy, so when particular experience is suggested to the subject he usually experiences it far more vividly than he could in his ordinary consciousness, to the point of total experiential reality. Thus the hypnotic state has a high flexibility of functioning, even though it is relatively quiet between particular functionings. The state is also characterized by a quality called ‘rapport,’ a functioning of the Sense of Identity subsystem to include the hypnotist as part of the subject’s own ego (Tart, 1975, pp. 77-81).

While Tart suggests a few techniques above that the hypnotherapist might use to create the hypnotic state, he is far from comprehensive. In fact the techniques are so diverse as to seem unrelated and even contradictory. When Erickson’s confusion techniques are added to the mix, constructing an umbrella under which all techniques can be understood feels daunting. Tart side steps that problem by focusing on the hypnotic state and begins a list of its mental, psychological, emotional and physical characteristics. Diamond, according in Peters and Price-Williams, sets the following sensible guidelines “for the study of hypnosis: that is, by viewing it as an identifiable domain of behavior, and as a distinctive class of behavior, not an explanation for behavior” (Peters and Price-Williams, 1980, p. 401).

Characteristics Associated with the Hypnotic Trance

With Diamond’s more circumscribed definition in mind, the following list of symptoms or characteristics commonly associated with the hypnotic state and by which many practitioners and subjects alike assess for hypnotic trance is offered. It should be said that some characteristics may not be present or noticeable in all hypnotic trances, and that the quantity and quality of each characteristic can vary from a light, to medium, to deep trance. It is also true that many of these traits are found in other altered states of consciousness, and therefore are not in and of themselves definitive of hypnotic trance.

Characteristics Associated with the Hypnotic Trance

1. Analgesia: the first stage of anesthesia and is characterized by a lack of startle reaction, facial flinch, and grimaces.

2. Anesthesia: a lack of awareness of pain by the client, although nerve endings and other parts of the nervous system are registering stimulation that would be felt as pain without the trance.

3. Time distortion: the cessation, speeding up, and/or slowing down of the experience of time.

4. Hallucinations: positive and negative,

5. Hypermnesia: greater than usual memory recall.

6. Dissociation: detachment from oneself or one’s environment,

7. De-personalization: temporary forgetting of one’s own identity and assuming another.

8. Age regression: simulated pattern of acting out past events in the framework of the present.

9. Revivification: a much deeper type of age regression in which the client actually relives earlier life events. The client is amnesiac to all of her life events subsequent to the age to which she was regressed.

10. Catalepsy: limbs or eyes remain in any position in which they are placed by the therapist until the therapist moves them, the client acts on a suggestion by the therapist to do something different with them, or trance is ended.

11. Amnesia: temporary or permanent memory loss. While it is neither necessary, sufficient, nor usual, amnesia is popularly identified with hypnosis.

Ericksonian Conceptualization and Utilization of Trance

In his book Innovative Hypnotherapy, Erickson expands the notion of hypnotic trance by suggesting that it is a special psychological state which effects an opening in the patient's normal consciousness and habitual associations, analogous to the opportunity that can result from a “psychic shock” (Erickson, 1980b, p. 461). Many of Erickson’s techniques are intended to confuse or shock the client out of their normal, self-defeating patterns and open them to change. Creative learning can take place as follows:

The induction and maintenance of a trance serve to provide a special psychological state in which the patient can re-associate and reorganize his inner psychological complexities and utilize his own capacities in a manner in accord with his own experiential life ... therapy results from an inner re-synthesis of the patient's behavior achieved by the patient himself. It's true that direct suggestion can effect an alteration in the patient's behavior and result in a symptomatic cure, at least temporarily. However, such a “cure” is simply a response to suggestion and does not entail that reassociation and reorganization of ideas, understandings and memories so essential for actual cure. It is this experience of re-associating and reorganizing his own experiential life that eventuates in a cure [emphasis added], not the manifestation of responsive behavior which can, at best, satisfy only the observer. (Erickson, 1980b, p. 461)

Erickson touches on my concerns and hopes for hypnotherapy. If only the symptom is treated, the cause or root that predates and is psychologically deeper than the symptom will often manifest in some other unhealthy way. To the extent that hypnosis can facilitate us to “re-associate and reorganize the ideas, understandings and memories” of the client, the possibility of long term change toward self-valuing and self-enhancing ends are encouraging. At this level, hypnotherapy sounds like and in many ways acts like Psychosynthesis (in which the goal is integration of the personality and potential synthesis with the Higher Self) and Jungian Analysis (with individuation as the goal).

The principles, techniques, and characteristics of hypnotherapy can also be used for an ongoing exploration into the heights and depths of the human psyche. This can be done with a hypnotherapist as guide and coach, or with self-hypnosis or “autohypnosis.” This purpose aims much higher that amelioration of symptoms and re-associating and reorganizing his or her experiential life, although the latter may involve considerable exploration. The defining element is intention. Is the exploration of the heights and depths of the human psyche undertaken for the symptom change and personal goal achievement, or is it done for growth, joy, fulfillment, or curiosity.

Huxley and Erickson Explore Alternative States of Consciousness

Erickson seemed to believe that the unconscious is the real self, and the more it is accessed and made available, the more its insight and wisdom is available to the conscious self and the better our life will be. He reports on an exploration toward the outer reaches of this real self in “A special inquiry with Aldous Huxley into the nature and character of various states of consciousness” (1980a, pp. 83-107). This unfortunately abortive attempt at excavation of the depths of Huxley’s considerable mind with the renowned Erickson as a facilitator offered incredible possibilities. After a fire destroyed Huxley’s beloved home and papers, the project abruptly ended and we are left with only Erickson’s rendering of his own incomplete notes. Even with these limitations it is a valuable resource.

One of Huxley’s hypnotic trances is detailed below and is a classic example of the exploratory use of altered states of consciousness. Huxley has considerable and varied sensory experience and he uses this phenomenology for experiencing and learning about himself. Much of the use of trance in psychotherapy is similar although would usually be somewhat more directed by the therapist.

Huxley had over time developed a deeply profound, pleasing, creative, productive, and refreshing subjective emotional state of meditation that he called Deep Reflection. It was comfortable and familiar. Usually done alone, Huxley would stay under for as long as two or three hours at a time. In their joint project, he and Erickson set about comparing his usual practice with hypnotic trance as Erickson knew it. Erickson later described Huxley’s Deep Reflection as “intense concentration with much dissociation from external realities but with a full capacity to respond with varying degrees of readiness to externalities” (Erickson, 1980a, p. 105). It is also clear to Erickson that it “served as unrecognized foundation for conscious work projects” (Erickson, 1980a, p. 105). Huxley described it as an “inner enduring feeling” (Erickson, 1980a, p. 98) that plays part in his pattern of living with “certain unidentifiable subjective values not attained in hypnosis” (Erickson, 1980a, p. 98). He described participating in a “feeling through” (Erickson, 1980a, p. 98) of new and complex intellectual and intuitional ideas. He had an awareness of external reality, but was unconcerned and gave it no importance. He maintained a feeling of control and a desire to utilize the capabilities he found there. Past memories, learnings, and experiences flowed freely and easily, and he had confidence that a comprehensive understanding of everything that was happening could be utilized immediately and with little conscious effort. The experiences were orderly, meaningful psychological experiences, even though the sensual imagery became extremely vivid and dramatic at times.

Huxley’s experience of hypnosis on that day in early 1950 was remarkably different and intriguing to him. He found himself in, and accepted without question, judgement, comparison, or contradictions, a different, dream-like, reality. As Erickson (1980a) later wrote:

In his deep trance Huxley found himself in a deep, wide ravine,[123] high up on the steep side of which, on the very edge, I sat, identifiable only by name and as annoyingly verbose.

Before him in a wide expanse of soft, dry sand was a nude infant lying on its stomach. Acceptingly, unquestioning of its actuality, Huxley gazed at the infant, vastly curious about its behavior, vastly intent on trying to understand its flailing movements with its hands and the creeping movements of its legs. To his amazement he felt himself experiencing a vague, curious sense of wonderment as if he himself were the infant and looking at the soft sand and trying to understand what it was.[124]

As he watched, he became annoyed with me since I was apparently trying to talk to him, and he experienced a wave of impatience and requested that I be silent. He turned back and noted that the infant was growing before his eyes, was creeping, sitting, standing, toddling, walking, playing, and talking. In utter fascination he watched this growing child, sensed its subjective experiences of learning, of wanting, of feeling.[125] He followed it in distorted time through a multitude of experiences as it passed from infancy to childhood to schooldays in early youth to teenage. He watched the child's physical development, sensed its physical and subjective mental experiences, sympathized with it, empathized it, rejoiced with it, thought and wondered and learned with it. He felt as with it, as if it were he himself, and he continued to watch it until finally he realized that he had watched that infant grow to the maturity of 23 years. He stepped closer to see what the young man was looking at, and suddenly realized the young man was Aldous Huxley himself, and that this Aldous Huxley was looking at another Aldous Huxley, obviously in his early 50's, just across the vestibule in which they both were standing; and that he, aged 52, was looking at himself, Aldous, aged 23. Then Aldous aged 23 and Aldous aged 52 apparently realized simultaneously that they were looking at each other, and curious questions at once arose in the mind of each of them. For one, "Is that my idea of what I'll be like when I am 52?" and, "Is that really the way I appeared when I was 23?" Each was aware of the question in the other's mind. Each found the question of "extraordinarily fascinating interest," each tried to determine which was the "actual reality" and which was the subjective experience outwardly projected in hallucinatory form.[126]

To each the past 23 years was an open book, all memories and events were clear, and they recognized that they shared those memories in common, and to each only wondering speculation offered a possible explanation of any of the years between 23 and 52.[127]

They looked across the vestibule (this "vestibule" was not defined) and up at the edge of the ravine where I was sitting. Both knew that that person sitting there had some undefined significance, was named Milton, and could be spoken to by both. The thought came to both, could he hear both of them, but the test failed because they found that they spoke simultaneously, nor could they speak separately.[128]

Slowly, thoughtfully, they studied each other. One had to be a memory image or projection of a self-image. Should not Aldous aged 52 have all the memories of the years from 23 to 52? But if he did, how could he then see Aldous aged 23 without the shadings and coloration’s of the years that had passed since that youthful age? (Erickson, 1980a, pp. 102-103)

Even amid this elaborate, detailed, otherworldly experience, Huxley reported that an orderly intellectual content ran parallel to it. He also related that its feeling content was less profound that in Deep Reflection. When an external reality entered his trance, it took on a new, subjective tone that created a new reality. For instance, Erickson was represented in the trance, but only as someone with whom he had a vague, unidentified, unimportant relationship.

While in what both he and Erickson later described as a deep trance, he did not want to hear Erickson’s hypnotic banter. “I say, Milton, do you mind hushing up there. This is most extraordinarily interesting down here, and your constant talking is frightfully distracting and annoying[129]” (Erickson, 1980a, p. 99). Huxley had complete amnesia for the contents of the deep trance, although certain words (“vestibule”, “edge”, and “ravine”) that played an important role in the trance experience stood out to him in later conversation. Those three words had a “most extraordinary effect on me, a meaningful warmth, but I could not put meaning on them in the waking state[130]” (Erickson, 1980a, p. 101).

In this post hypnotic experience state, Huxley was profoundly susceptible to subtle suggestions. For instance, the word “available,” used by Erickson in any type of casual statement acted as a light switch for complete memory of the trance experience to amnesia and back again. Amazingly to Dr. Huxley, he regained and lost the fantastic memory three times. He even forgot the first two episodes in which he had remembered the whole story and related it to Erickson as he was relating the same story a third time.

The curious and changeable amnesic aspect of Huxley’s experience demonstrates a compartmentalization characteristic that subjects sometimes demonstrate. Like two tracks on a compact disc player, they are completely discrete and can be switched between in an instant, with no knowledge or recollection of the each other or even the switching between them. Erickson reports that other highly intelligent, well-adjusted subjects have had similar experiences (Erickson, 1980a, pp. 106-107). They have always been spontaneous. Efforts to create them have failed.

Erickson also recounts having seen trance dialoguing between two different aged representations of the same person, similar to Huxley’s, in a number of other highly intelligent, well-adjusted subjects. In each case the intervening years between their ages were not available in memory to either. He states that they were always spontaneous occurrences.

In both hypnotherapy and psychotherapy, many practitioners use hypnosis or imaginal therapeutic techniques to intentionally produce dialogue with a younger version of the client. I have found these sessions to be rewarding and helpful although the amnesia and absorption are rarely at the extremes that Huxley demonstrated. Fortunately, the benefit of the experience is not necessarily based on the depth of the trance.

Additional basic principles that are essential for understanding hypnosis will be discussed in Section Two, page 65. Additional hypnosis techniques will be discussed in that section as well, along with more techniques of shamanism, imaginal therapies and meditation.

Hypnotherapy and Shamanism Compared - Chapter Six

With Additional Imaginal Therapy Commentary

Each of the “comparison” chapters[131] will begin with a summary listing of the modalities discussed in the chapter. The remainder of these chapters will feature a discussion of the major points of comparison. The following is a summary of the similarities and differences between hypnotherapy and shamanism over a broad range of variables, including background, training, principles, type of altered state of consciousness, techniques, purpose of the treatment, and role in society.

A Summary

Similarities between hypnosis and shamanism. Generally they both have:

· More than one person involved

· Pairing of different roles, with one person in the power or authoritative role

· The professional getting and/or taking credit for the changes

· Use of the imagination

· Use and valuing of the unconscious

· Healing and/or growth purposes

· Often been the treatment of last resort

· Alternative treatment styles that are marginalized and maligned by most western intellectuals and professionals

· Intriguing and threatening aspects to many westerners

· Involved a variety of interesting, incredible, if not bizarre rituals.

Hypnotherapy and shamanism generally differ in the following ways:

· Physical exertion and deprivation in shamanic preparation and induction, little or none in hypnotherapy

· Who is entranced (hypnotherapy = client, shamanism = the professional)

· Who has the altered state of consciousness experience (hypnotherapy = client, shamanism = professional)

· Who gets the info (hypnotherapy = client, shamanism = professional)

· Who speaks (hypnotherapy = client and professional, shamanism = professional)

· Depth of the trance (in hypnotherapy it varies from light to deep while in shamanism it is usually moderate to very deep)

· Hyper-suggestibility (while hyper-suggestibility to the therapist is a prominent characteristic of hypnosis, the shaman is not suggestible to anyone, with the possible exception of his spirit allies)

· Conceptualization of trance experience as “real” or symbolic (hypnotherapy = while there are exceptions, most clients and therapist do not consider the trance experience to be as “real” as waking life, shamanism = journeying, dreaming, and daily working life are all considered equally real)

· Goal or purpose (hypnotherapy = generally symptom change, shamanism = re-balancing, re-harmonizing, and healing the intrapsychic, interpersonal, and spiritual lives of the client.

The most obvious and important commonality between hypnosis and shamanism is the use of imagination and non-ordinary consciousness to create the temporary reduction or elimination of conscious reality testing to enable healing and growth activities. As the main theme of this paper and the commonalty among the four modalities studied herein, altered states of consciousness are elaborated extensively in Section Two, page 65, and also in this and subsequent chapters of Section One.

Suggestibility

Peters and Price-Williams (1980, p. 400) note that the “hypnotic situation differs from ecstasy in that the ultrasuggestibility prevalent in the former is absent in the latter.” In many short term, symptom based hypnosis sessions the therapist is speaking most of the time in what is appropriately called “banter.” The “script” for the banter, which is sometimes written out, is designed to facilitate the client’s goals by using verbal and physical techniques to bypass the client’s rational mind and “suggest” new ways of doing, thinking, and being to the client’s hopefully undefended unconscious.

On the other hand, there are styles of hypnotherapy that take a very different approach. As stated in the last chapter, Erickson saw suggestibility as a relatively minor and insufficient aspect of hypnotherapy, asserting that direct suggestion can only result in a temporary symptomatic cure and it is “this experience of reassociating and reorganizing his own experiential life that eventuates in a cure” (Erickson, 1980b, p. 461).

Erickson used suggestion to open up and initiate a creative process within the client, not to effect a narrow outcome of the therapy. He said that therapy based primarily on the power of suggestion was doomed to failure. I hypothesize that Erickson did not use suggestion any more than the shaman, the Asclepian physician, the Roman Catholic healer that prayed to Saints Cosmas and Damian, the wise woman (labeled witch at the time), past and present faith healers, or the modern day imaginal therapist for that matter. He just employed suggestion more scientifically, consciously, and intentionally. And in my “Eagle eats my heart” session[132] with Dr. Smith, who is both a Clinical Psychologist and certified hypnotherapist, there is little banter and only mild and sparse suggestion. It is in fact very similar to imaginal sessions I have experienced from Psychosynthesists and other psychotherapists, and to sessions that I conducted long before my introduction to hypnosis.

Concerning a comparison of hypnosis and shamanism on the specific issue of suggestion[133] and suggestibility, there are at least two more issues. As described in the preceding paragraphs, the amount of suggestion as a major, active, planned technique depends on the type of hypnotherapy and the purpose of the work. The same is true of shamanism. Their “songs” are usually filled with intention and suggestion for the shaman himself, the client, and the audience. On the other hand, there are silent rituals such as the meditative trances of the aboriginal bush shaman, and the sacred despacho preparation and blessing of the Q`ero tribe from the high Andes that use little verbal suggestion. The induction for shaman, client, and audience alike is more meditative.

On the second point of comparison about suggestion, it is commonly accepted that the hypnotic trance is characterized by ultra-suggestibility (Peters and Price-Williams, 1980, p. 400) and as stated by Peters and Price-Williams (1980, p. 400) above, they believe it is absent from the shamanic trance. Suggestibility has not been highlighted or evident in the ecstasies of the shaman that I have witnessed, but that may be an artifact of the purpose, techniques, behaviors, and setting rather than a consistent feature of the SSC. Because the shaman is usually the omnipotent protagonist in the healing ritual, little is being said or done to him to which he could be suggestible. It is also possible that suggestibility may be only an aspect of various qualities that are shared by all altered states of consciousness, such as unity consciousness, self-referential processing, and synchronicity. Much of the Section Two of this paper is devoted to an exploration of qualities of consciousness.

While the shaman himself may not be open to suggestibility from humans present while he “journeys,” due to his intention about his altered state and the unique setting in which the shamanic séance takes place, he probably use a great deal of suggestion on himself and is most certainly suggestible to the beings, energies, and images that come to him during his trance. Another issue is his clients and audience. Through listening, watching, drumming, chanting, and dancing, they also participate in the elaborate inductions of the shaman and may be as suggestible as the hypnotherapy subject. To the extent that a participant can evaluate his own suggestibility, I believe that I am as suggestible in the state created by shamanic inductions as I am in hypnotic ones. The real difference is that in hypnosis the professional is probably more actively focusing on the client and using her suggestibility for specific, goal oriented purposes.

Trance Experience: Real or Hallucinatory

Hypnotherapists vary considerably on the issue of whether or not the images of trance are symbolic/subjective or objective/real. Traditional shamans strongly believe, rather “know,” that their journeys are objective reality. The fourth characteristic of the hypnotic trace listed on page 233 is “Hallucinations: positive and negative.” The simple fact that hypnosis labels anything experienced in trance that would not be seen, heard, tasted, or felt in non-trance as a hallucination [134]certainly suggests that hypnosis theory counts “hallucinations” as subjective and not real. In my experience, however, more and more hypnotherapists and psychotherapists are accepting the tenets of modern physics that there is no one reality, only various, changeable perceived realities. What we call reality is simply a shared set of mutually agreed upon perceptions. There is no one objective reality. This appears to be the opposite side of the coin from the shamanic adage that the three worlds are all objective reality. I believe that a circle better symbolizes this apparent difference than a coin. In a circle two extremes eventually flow into each other, so that those of us that are moving toward or believing the modern physics relative view of reality are coming closer and closer to the shamanic way.

The “rapport,” or relationship, between the shaman and audience is typically one of mutual involvement and communicative interaction. In hypnotherapy, rapport is also a very important factor, but is defined and used differently. The shaman, who is in the trance, speaks to and has dialogue with his client and the entire audience. Most hypnotherapists do most or all of the speaking in the hypnotic process, believing that if the client speaks it will lighten her trance. With sufficient training, perhaps the motivated, western hypnotherapy client could be in a helpful, productive trance and still relate her experience at the same time when deemed useful by either the therapist or the client. This is common practice in the world of imaginal psychotherapy.

Experience In, and Depth of, Trance

Depth of trance is another dimension in which hypnosis and shamanism can be compared. A role-playing model of consciousness distinguishing various types of altered states of consciousness according to their organismic intensity and involvement is advanced by T. R. Sarbin in an article on role theory (Sarbin, 1954). On a seven point scale in which level 1 is casual role playing and level 7 is thanatomania, death by voodoo, he places the role of the hypnotized subject at level 4, and ecstatic states, including shamanic trance at level 6. He writes, “Ecstasy, a condition usually involving suspension of voluntary action, illustrates organismic involvement to a degree which is not ordinarily observed in day-to-day social interaction” (Sarbin, 1954, p. 235). He includes in this category “… accounts of ecstatic trance experiences, possessions, religious revivals, conversion experiences, and mystical unions… What is common to these events is the intensity of involvement, the apparent relationship of this intensity to the activities of the sympathetic-adrenal system, and the autonomic equilibratory controls” (Sarbin, 1954, p. 235). In the higher levels of role involvement, self and role are undifferentiated; on the lesser levels, role and self are differentiated.

Clearly Sarbin has a very expansive definition of role-playing if the actor can even create her own death as in thanatomania. The important point here, however, is that Sarbin considers the shamanic ecstasy to be somewhat deeper, with less self-differentiation, than hypnotic trance. My direct experience, observation, and literature review leaves me less certain that Sarbin. I believe there are times when the opposite is true. Certainly in deep hypnosis or the imaginal therapeutic ASC when revivification and de-personalization are strongly active, there seems to be as much undifferentiation as in a shaman’s spirit possession. Some observers of the SSC have even thought that the shamanic activity was all theatre, obviously not believing that deep trance was achieved (Peters and Price-Williams, 1980, p. 407). It is a matter of evaluating each situation on its own merits.

With the preceding qualification, I generally agree with Sarbin that the SSC as practiced by traditional peoples is a deeper trance, demonstrating less ego identification than most hypnotic trances. The fact that traditional people’s everyday consciousness often involves less sense of separate individualized self than average overly self-centered westerner is a big contributing factor. Most traditional people simply experience themselves as more interconnected with everything worldly and spiritual around them whether in trance or not, and therefore have less distance to travel in letting go of their individual sense of “I-ness.”

A more fair and useful comparison of SSC and hypnotic trance would involve modern western people trained in one or both of these modalities. As an example, my experience with ASCs has varied in depth and disidentification with self over time, based on inner and outer environmental factors. I count my deepest, most momentarily impacting, and profound personal ASC experience as shamanic ones, and my most long lasting, consciousness changing experiences as meditative ones. In both cases, however, I had immersed myself over extended periods of time in a culture and/or environment that exudes a stable daily consciousness different from the active, materialistic, externally directed one that I have in my daily in the Southern California foothills. These include trips to Arizona, Canada, Europe, the Soviet Union, Mexico, and Peru, some of which are described in other parts of this paper. My own hypnotherapy and imaginal therapy sessions have necessitated freeway drives and other factors of urban/suburban life. It is not easy to distinguish what is a quality of the ASC itself and what are extraneous factors. Practically they are inextricably linked.

Another factor that contributes to less ego-differentiation in the SSC has to do with the involvement of the body in SSC induction and maintenance. Shamanic trance often involves exhaustion and other physical deprivations. Mihaly Hoppal (1987) reports on a study in which:

Eva Banyai (Department of Comparative Psychology, University of Budapest) developed a completely new active-alert induction procedure by which a hypnotic-like altered state of consciousness could also be achieved under experimental conditions. In this method the subject rides a bicycle ergometer under load, with the eyes open. While exercising in this manner, verbal suggestions are given to enhance his alertness, attentiveness and a feeling of freshness.

The analysis of subjective experiences revealed that – in contrast with traditional hypnotic induction – the applied induction technique was effective in inducing a hyper-alert ecstatic state, or, as the subjects expressed it, a peak experience. The subjects felt a very active participation in their task. Beside these differences, active-alert hypnosis was also characterized by a relinquishment of the planning function, a lack of reality testing and highly focused attention, characteristics that are found in traditional hypnosis.

As the speed of pedaling increased, posture became tenser and movements were accelerated and often exaggerated in extent. Similar to traditional hypnosis, after active-alert induction the responsiveness to every type of test suggestion (motor facilitation and inhibition, positive and negative hallucinations, hypnotic dream, hyper-amnesia, analgesia, post-hypnotic suggestion and amnesia) increased in comparison to the non-hypnotic condition. (Hoppal, 1987, pp. 87-88)

The author further asserted that “ . . . active-alert hypnosis may become an appropriate experimental model of the ecstatic trance states of shamanism” (Hoppal, 1987, p. 88). This appears to be confirmation that the active induction techniques of shamanism can and do create a different type of trance than hypnosis. Building on some of the traditional hypnotic characteristics, the shamanic ecstasy is also hyper-alert, actively involved, and euphoric during and after the physical exercise.

To my knowledge the proposition has not been formally tested in the other direction. Namely, does a shaman in ecstasy have many or all of the eleven characteristics of the hypnotic trance listed on page 233? Based on my observation, anecdotal accounts, and anthropological research, it appears that shamans do have versions of what we call analgesia, anesthesia, hallucinations, dissociation, and de-personalization. They do not appear to age regress, or revivify and I have not seen or heard of instances of catalepsy, although I believe it is very possible. I suppose a westerner would say that shamans time distort, although the shaman would say they that the upper, lower and part of the middle worlds are outside of time. There are many similarities in the type of ASC and yet enough difference to draw distinction.

Purpose and Goals

Another commonality is that shamanism and hypnosis are alternative treatments, marginalized and maligned by most western intellectuals and professionals, and often resorted to only as a last measure. It is fascinating and telling to see the threatening mixture of intrigue and fear that rises in people at the mere mention of my personal and professional involvement in shamanism and hypnosis.

The goal of shamanistic healing is first and foremost the restoration of harmony and balance among the various forces within the individual, family and his community, along with all of the animal, human, and spirit kingdoms, and even the planet and all of creation. A secondary goal is the curing of physical or psychological disease, creating rain or good hunting, and solving social problems. Generally, hypnotherapy reverses these priorities and most practitioners are unaware, uninvolved, and ignore the larger, unitive primary purpose of shamanism.

Traditional shamanism and traditional hypnosis both tend to give credit for the changes or healing to the practitioner, not the client. This has changed somewhat in the second half of the 20^th century in hypnosis, paralleling a similar evolution in psychotherapy initiated by the Humanistic Psychology movement. Traditional shamanism is still very “shaman centered,” but developments in the last 150 years in North America have given considerable power and credit to the people. My perception and experience is that imaginal therapists tend to take less credit for the work of the client than do hypnotists.

I have referred to and quoted Milton Erickson extensively because he was instrumental in changing the purpose and techniques of hypnosis. Erickson’s hypnotherapy distanced hypnosis from shamanism in terms of drama and technique, and yet brings it closer to the ancient way in theory, principle and purpose. The separations show up in the elimination of the grand theatre of swinging crystals, scripts, relaxation techniques and even laboratory settings in favor of talking with the subject. Erickson’s movement of hypnotherapy toward shamanism, and wholistic imaginal therapies as well, is centered around his belief that effective therapy occurs when the client can beneficially re-associate and reorganize her inner psychological world and therefore use her innate abilities to better live her life based on her goals, beliefs, and values. “Therapy results from an inner re-synthesis of the patient's behavior achieved by the patient himself. Reassociation and reorganization of ideas, understandings and memories are essential for actual cure” (Erickson, 1980, p. 461).

Mary Schmidt (1987) writes about traditional shamanism in a way that is strikingly similar to Erickson.

…the shaman comes to know ultimate undifferentiated reality through his ecstatic experience and to know cultural differentiation through his analytic ability; further, he understands the need to arrange [and rearrange the world of daily human experience]. Now he gathers this knowledge and begins to work. [Quoting Victor Turner, 1974, p. 297.] ‘Only those who know how to build know how to collapse what has been built.’ [Schmidt continues,] The shaman begins by collapsing his own structures, aiming for controlled rebirth, and then goes on to rearrange the mental surety of those around him in order to effect social cures. (Schmidt, 1987, p. 69)

Two important points stand out in this juxtaposition of Erickson hypnotherapy and Schmidt’s shamanism. First, Erickson clearly sees the crucial synthetic work being done by the client after the therapist helps free her of fixed, dysfunctional personality characteristics, while Schmidt talks only of the shaman and his work.[135] Second, both stress the need to break down existing, counterproductive reality and institute a process that leads toward rearranging and re-synthesizing a new mental surety that is more self-valuing and fulfilling. This is completely compatible with the theory and practice of wholistic imaginal therapy as well.

Value of Theory and Analysis

Another important Erickson/shamanism comparison is the need for and value of theory and analysis. In a discussion of theory and how much of it is important to the hypnotherapist, Erickson (1980a, p. 144) notes “It must be recognized that a description, no matter how accurate or complete, will not substitute for actual experience”. This seems to compare favorably with the perception that “experience” is a major principle and a primary technique of shamanism. Apparently knowing a lot about the theory of hypnotherapy is no more important for a hypnotherapist than knowing the theory of shamanism is for a shaman. In both cases it is the lived experience that is the useful, crucial, transformative element.

Meditation - Chapter Seven

With an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English poet.

Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.^{^[136]}

Meditation dates back at least four millennia and has exchanged influences with and developed parallel to shamanism at various places around the world. Meditation means many things to different people and in different contexts. For the purposes of this paper it can be defined as follows.

1. Using the mind to explore who we are and what we know, and using the gained awareness as a foundation, going beyond what is commonly thought of as human consciousness and abilities.

2. The art and science of exploring non-ordinary realities and alternative states of consciousness by way of the mind.

3. A method of expanding an individual’s consciousness.

4. A consciousness technology for moving from lower to higher mental processes, or from the rational, intellectual mind to the intuitive, unitive mind.

5. At its very essence, meditation is a singular or lifelong attempt of the individual to attune with the rhythm of the Life, Heart, and Mind of the Universal Being, the Creator Him/Herself.

The inclusion of meditation in this paper may seem puzzling to the reader. The other three modalities primarily by a professional to help or heal their client. Meditation is done to and with oneself, and while physical and psychological healing is often a byproduct and occasionally a goal, the five defining aspects of meditation listed above do not directly mention healing. I decided to include meditation in this paper for the following are reasons. One group of reasons is personal. I have many years of intense involvement in meditation and have found it very meaningful and effective. Although not traditionally practiced as a mode of healing, many people, myself included, now do so. Therefore it fits within the scope of this paper. Since being involved in shamanism for a few years, I have noticed and been puzzled and curious about a striking difference between westerners trained as shamans, people involved in learning shamanism, and even native shamans on the one hand, and many of the serious meditators I know on the other. I wanted to explore this difference in depth and used this paper as a vehicle. Some general differences between shamanic types (listed first) vs. meditative types (listed second) that I have noticed are:

· Late to bed and late to rise vs. early to bed and early to rise

· Use of alcohol and drugs vs. abstinence from alcohol and drugs.

· partying, dancing, hearty laughter, gut wrenching crying vs. monastic type lifestyle and circumscribed expression

· Cultivation, experiencing, and full expression of the body, emotions, and feelings as well of the ability to be introspective, contemplative, and serene vs. generally refining one’s sensibilities and energies and withdrawing from anything that distracts from that.

· Embodied vs. disembodied

· Engaging or dealing with the vulgarities and tragedies of human life vs. withdrawing, ignoring, or even denying the complete, daily human condition.

I also have more broad based cognitive reasons for adding meditation to this paper on healing modalities that use altered states of consciousness. I have a desire to present a wider panorama of the consciousness landscape. Meditation can lead to a harmonious and balanced life, i.e. healing. Meditation can bring a daily experience of the Creator, and various other non-ordinary energies and realities. I believe that moving toward a full manifestation and experience of these truths is one of the main purposes of life, as we know it and that the development and use of ASCs is an important tool. And a final reason for including traditional meditation in this paper, even though it is primarily self-practiced and not a transformational technique to be used with and for another person, is that I believe that meditation is an essential part of a comprehensive look at the future of transformation and consciousness.

Meditation, imaginal therapies, and hypnosis all have their roots in shamanism, although in certain parts of the world at certain times in history, shamanism borrowed from meditation in its adaptation and development. If shamanism is the roots and trunk of a tree, meditation is the oldest and most developed branch. Meditation takes an aspect of shamanism, the use of the mind, and specializes in it and purifies it. It can be seen as a “profoundly refined, more available form of trance,” according to Jack Zimmerman (Zimmerman, 1999). Richard Neves (1999) told me that “meditation tunes the higher senses” and Alexander Docker (2000) notes it “tunes in to the higher senses.”

Meditation can be, and usually is, done alone, although there are two types of group meditation. The first and most obvious is having a number of meditating people in the same location at the same time. The other is sitting alone but linking in consciousness with other people while in meditation. Either “group meditation” allows for each person focusing on their own theme, but a more powerful form is one in which each participant is engaging the same seed thought. Unity consciousness[137] (Wilber, 1993) is a 24 hour a day extension of this second type of group meditation in which we know and experience that we are connected with all humans and the rest of creation while not necessarily in a formal meditation. This connection is a mental and intentional one, and does not belie another seemingly contradictory characteristic of meditation and meditators: namely that they, because of what can become an unbalanced, overly mental focus of their meditative practice, some meditators may be unnecessarily and counter-productively detached from their physical body, their emotions, and nature as a whole.

A close analysis of the five elements that comprise my definition of meditation, given at the beginning of this chapter (page 257), points out that meditation is both a set of techniques and a state of consciousness. Charles Tart writes, “Meditation usually refers to a wide variety of techniques that may or may not induce an ASC at a given time” (Tart, 1975, p. 82). He later refers to the meditative state of consciousness and its achievement as “meditation.” In the Simple, Little Meditation Book, I describe esoteric meditation by stating that:

Meditation is a mental process which also involves the heart, Higher Self, and will. It is the intention to contact and be at one with the highest part of yourself possible at that given moment. Meditation is also the result of that intention and technique; namely, the achievement of a particular type of ASC and the manifestation of that contact in our daily life as service. For most of us this “highest part”[138] is the transpersonal self or soul, our unlimited source of love, wisdom, and group or unity consciousness. (Holmquist, 1983, p. 3)

Tart and I agree that meditation has two distinct but interrelated aspects. Meditation can refer to the set of techniques. It can also refer to the realization of a meditative state of consciousness that is the result of those techniques. I have added the element of intention as a third aspect. Without the willingness to appropriately use and adequately train in the techniques, they will be ineffective. On the other hand, the intention to be in meditation can lead to the ASC of meditation without the use of any additional technique. Intention and will are very powerful, little understood aspects of meditation and the other three modalities and will be discussed in Section Three, Chapter Ten..

Formulations and Techniques

Most meditation techniques involve, as the initial step, sitting absolutely still in a posture that is comfortable and keeps the head, neck, and spine in a straight vertical line. A small but significant amount of muscular effort is needed to maintain this posture. Since much of our sense of identity comes from body image, as the awareness of the body decreases in a comfortable, steady posture, our sense of identity tends to loosen or dissipate, thus helping to destabilize the normal waking consciousness. Sitting absolutely still, behaving in a “technically simplified” manner frees energy that would otherwise be automatically absorbed in acting (Tart, 1975, p. 83).

An attentive, alert, aligned relaxation is the primary technique used by meditators to begin to move toward the ASC. Other techniques borrowed from shamanism and hypnosis can also be used and are effective in bringing about the meditative ASC as long as the fundamental qualities of meditation are maintained and carried forward.

There are many types of meditation formats and techniques. Naranjo and Ornstein (Tart, 1975, p. 78) have classified the various forms into three basic types: (1) concentrative meditation, (2) opening-up meditation, and (3) expressive meditation.

Concentrative Meditation

1. Concentrative meditation requires the focus of all attention on one particular thing. This can be an external object that is gazed at fixedly or some internal sensation such as the rise and fall of the abdomen in breathing. As in hypnotic induction, the meditator is told that if his mind wanders away from this focus he is to gently bring it back to original point of focus and not allow it to be distracted. Through consistent focus on one thing, unusual phenomena are often caused by various kinds of receptor fatigue, as in the induction of hypnosis. Most meditation systems stress that these perceptual phenomena, including images, should not be taken as signs of success, or given any special attention. In hypnosis these experiences are often considered useful and important and pointed out to “convince” the client that she is hypnotized. In imaginal therapy, the images are valued as messages from the unconscious to be the focus of further imagery, interpretation, or other talk therapy.

Opening-Up Meditation

2. Opening-up meditation refers to a variety of techniques whose aim is to help us achieve full sensitivity to and awareness of whatever is happening to us. The goal is to be a conscious witness observing what we are experiencing without being swept up in our reactions to our experience. Opening-up meditation is a state of clear awareness without thinking about what is happening or even thinking about not thinking about it. We observe and avoid becoming identified with any reactions we might have to our experience. Vipassana (Tart, 1975, p. 79) is a Buddhist opening-up meditation. The word means bare attention: clear and unimpeded attention to sensations, feelings, thoughts, and our reactions to these things as they occur. In this seemingly simple and yet profoundly difficult task of witnessing, we neither reject anything as unworthy of attention, nor welcome anything as worthy of more attention than anything else. A beginner spends much of his or her time attempting to simply be aware of the fact of “failure” to objectively witness rather than fighting or decrying the so-called failure.

Non-identification with stimuli prevents attentional energy from being caught up in the automatic, habitual processes involved in maintaining our ordinary state of consciousness. While awareness remains active, various psychological processes tend to drift to lower and lower levels of activity. Traditional accounts of serious meditators indicate that after a high level of success is achieved, there is a sudden shift into a state of consciousness that is characterized by a great freshening of perception and a euphoric serenity. This is the meditative state itself. The meditator experiences inner and outer stimuli in a much more intense, subtle, and clear way. Eventually, meditation can bring a transparency to the upper transpersonal worlds and an ever-expanding connection with the transpersonal or true Self.

I will expand Naranjo and Ornstein’s third category, expressive meditation, into a number of categories drawn from my aforementioned book (Holmquist, 1983). Note that the following meditations involve what you do in the ASC once there, which is significantly different from the essential inactivity of the first two styles.

Reflective Meditation

Reflective meditation is a strictly mental process that involves thinking on a definite theme. This is perhaps the simplest form of meditation and a good way to start. It is not unlike our accustomed style of thinking. The major differences are choice of subject and intention. Suggested subjects: seed thoughts, symbols, areas of possible growth, projects, and dream or vision material. This begins as concentrative meditation, but values at least some of the thoughts that pass in and retains them for future use.

Receptive Meditation

Receptive meditation is raising our consciousness to the highest point possible, creating inner silence, and maintaining an attentive receptivity for impressions…With right intention, information can come from Universal Wisdom by way of our intuition and often expresses in the form of abstract ideas, images or energies. Impressions may also be registered in the mental, emotional or physical bodies.

Creative Meditation

Creative meditation is building channels of thought substance through which ideas, ideals, energies, and qualities can find expression. This purposeful and intentional construction using the technique of visualization can eventually manifest in change on the physical plane of everyday life. Note that Huxley’s Deep Reflection[139] is probably a combination of reflective and creative meditation.

Healing Meditation

Healing meditation involves the imaginative radiation of healing light and energy by way of the heart, forehead, and/or palms, to an individual or group in need of physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual healing. This is best done as a group, linking in consciousness with like-intentioned people. This group connection brings extra power, love, and protection for well being of both the meditator and the recipient. Healing can be a strenuous as well as rewarding activity. Because this meditation can initiate a transfer of considerable energy that could vitalize both healthy and unhealthy conditions, it is important not to send the energy directly to a diseased area or a specific part of a person or group. Send the light to their Higher Selves, making additional light and love available for use toward their own, and the planetary, highest good.

Walking Meditation

Walking meditation is a synthesis of all types of meditation. In a significant way, it is the goal of any meditative or religious tradition, including shamanism, as the 21^st century unfolds. We go about our daily activities in a meditative state; that is, with the intention to think, talk, and act from the highest part of our being. The motive of our actions becomes the manifestation of a better world for all sentient beings. We move toward establishing a dual consciousness, living in our ordinary state of consciousness and the meditative ASC simultaneously. We continue to concentrate on and take good care of our outer activities and yet keep a part of our attention is always directed to the inner life. We become an intentional point of light in the world (American readers please note that phrase was coined well before President George Bush’s campaign slogan of 1992) and eventually[140] we exist as a Higher Self in our everyday consciousness. This is obviously more than a set of techniques or an occasional foray into another state of consciousness. This becomes a way of life, a state of beingness.

Invocation

Invocation is a final meditative style that may be even more revolutionary or controversial to many traditional meditators and otherwise religious persons than walking meditation. Invocation involves a prayerful attitude of heart, a meditative state of mind, and focused will – the Will for the Good of all beings of earth. To invoke, we not only ask, call forth, and summon, we actually see and know that what we can rightly demand and affirm will emerge. It is an appeal, a presenting of need, the power to expect, and faith that good will prevail. When this invocative intention and the evocative spirits are present, the results are inevitable and sure, and the response evoked cannot be stopped. This is the basis for the success of desire, aspiration, prayer, and meditation. Always we get, in time and space, what we invoke. The knowledge of this fact, scientifically applied, will be one of the liberating forces of humanity. I cannot stress too much that this technique is only effective, useful and safe when carried out within the Will to Good for all beings. [The personal and transpersonal wills, which are the engines that drive invocation, are discussed in a chapter on the will. (Holmquist, 1983, pp. 3-4)

The various meditative styles tend to build on each other and can be blended into and out of one’s meditative practice as situations change and years roll by. It has been customary in the east for thousands of years to stay with concentrative or opening up meditations for long periods of time, perhaps a lifetime, to fully develop the skill and realize the benefits. Recently, more people, especially westerners, are adapting their meditative practice to their present inclinations and needs, often using two or more types in a “sitting.” Walking meditation is very difficult in any time or place. Yet a person would find it relatively easy in a 12^th century monastery or a 19^th century Himalayan village, when compared with a 21^st century western urban environment. The latter is where most of us live. It is a daunting challenge.

Esoteric Meditation – A Synthesis

Esoteric meditation is a fluid, creative, and individualized combination of the various meditation styles outlined above. Your mixture and practice would be based on your preferences, your perception of healing needs for yourself, your group, or the planet, and would have your intention toward the highest good for you and all those around you. It is called esoteric because it has generally been used quietly behind the scenes and it works with energies. The meditative work is part of a larger plan for the benefit of all beings on this planet.

Aldous Huxley’s Deep Reflection (Erickson, 1980a, pp. 83-107), as discussed in Chapter Five, page 236, is similar in experience and outcome to esoteric meditation. Perhaps he had meditation training before 1950 when he and Erickson set out to explore consciousness. It is common knowledge that Huxley had psychedelic drug experience. In any case, the description by these two remarkable people of Huxley’s Deep Reflection practice, personally developed in the first 50 years of his life, is a rich and useful description of many aspects of esoteric meditation as I have practiced it. Erickson characterized Huxley’s Deep Reflection as “intense concentration with much dissociation from external realities but with a full capacity to respond with varying degrees of readiness to externalities” and that it “served as unrecognized foundation for conscious work projects” (Erickson, 1980a, p. 105). Huxley depicted his beloved practice as an “inner enduring feeling” that plays an integral part in his pattern of living, as he maintained a feeling of control and a desire to utilize the capabilities he found there (Erickson, 1980a, p. 98). It is a “feeling through” of new and complex intellectual and intuitional ideas (Erickson, 1980a, p. 98). He maintained confidence that a comprehensive understanding of everything that was happening could be utilized immediately and with little conscious effort. The experiences were orderly, meaningful psychological experiences, even though the sensual imagery became extremely vivid and dramatic at times.

A subtle, yet important, distinction can be drawn between meditation’s hoped for daily effects, such as those described by Huxley, and a more fundamental, long lasting expansion and refinement of consciousness. In the former, a person meditates each morning to clear and lift her consciousness, like striking a tuning fork that she hopes to hear throughout the day. Some individuals and groups meditate more than once a day or do short meditative tune-ups at various intervals. As life’s circumstances drown out the morning meditative note, the meditator can return to the consciousness and energy of the meditation by mentally tuning in to that vibration, reconnecting to a prominent meditational image, or simply refocusing on the breath, whenever she chooses. This is sometimes called mindfulness. The other meditative effect that is long term comes as the result of conscientious effort and spiritual grace. When this second effect and outcome of meditation is accomplished, she holds the energy and consciousness of the transpersonal self all day. Meditation and right living that is practiced for months, years, and some would say lifetimes, eventually lifts consciousness permanently above what was normal, standard awareness. The process of moving toward this goal begins with the consistent use of meditation to clear and lift consciousness only to have it sink most or all the way back in a few minutes or hours. Eventually the refinement of consciousness is held longer and longer until what once was “meditative consciousness” becomes a new daily, standard consciousness. At this point, meditation that is initiated from this new, higher foundation may begin to take her to transpersonal and Universal realms[141] not dreamed of or possible before.

Many meditators hold a mystical world view in the tradition of the Perennial Philosophy or Ancient Wisdom Teachings as described in great detail in the books of Alice A. Bailey and numerous authors over the centuries (Bailey, 1922, 1951a, 1951b, 1953, 1963 and Huxley, 1946). This philosophy is characterized by a belief in a numinous unity that underlies all forms and all appearances. This vital essence from which all visible forms, both animate and inanimate, in the world emerge and by which they are nurtured, is a power or energy that can only be characterized as the essence of all life. Ultimately everything returns to this ineffable, mysterious, impersonal unknown. Most meditation forms, religious expressions, and movements such as the Freemasonry, Rosicrucians, and Knights of the Round Table are attempts to develop a meaningful and/or practical relationship with this power.

According to this esoteric philosophy, the various worlds of form and appearances are seen as interdependent, and there is a recognition that nothing can exist in and of itself without being in relationship to everything else. Therefore, it is irrational and counterproductive for humans to consider ourselves as essentially unrelated parts of our community, humanity, or the whole Earth. The concept of sattva (Halifax, 1987, p. 216), or “beingness,” proclaims that humans, animals, plants, rocks, and all the kingdoms of creation have sentience, a consciousness of some type. Beings of all types are essentially made of the ineffable energy of the One Creator described in the previous paragraph. This belief system creates a foundation for, and the necessity of, a compassionate and harmonious relationship with our fellow humans and the entire natural environment, based on respect and reverence for all forms of life.

There is a potential for misconception in the use of linear, two-dimensional descriptions such as up/down, higher/lower, and higher/deeper. Because meditation deals primarily with energies rather than images, higher and lower generally do not relate to either direction or value. Esoteric teachings describe the various levels of consciousness as differing in vibratory or frequency rate, as the notes of a musical scale, for instance. “Lower levels” are slower in frequency like base notes, and the “higher dimensions” are subtler, lighter, and less dense like treble notes. Consequently raising consciousness means lifting the frequency of our consciousness to a higher and finer vibration not necessarily going higher in space.

Powers of Mind and Alternative Consciousness

It is reported that advanced meditators have developed the mind to such an extent that they possess incredible powers of mind over matter. Patanjali, considered the founder of yoga as we know it today, lived more than 2,000 years before Christ and related that advanced yogis were able to fly, bilocate, shrink, grow, and perform other fantastic physical feats. Arhats, advanced Buddhists, must attain four abilities, called siddhis, one of which is flying. Demonstrating these skills in public, however, is prohibited (Eliade, 1970, p. 410).

The basis for these dramatic abilities is the skill to use the mind to transcend the space/time continuum and thereby have the powers to manipulate the various levels of creation. To this very advanced and rare meditator, these dramatic powers may even be considered a nuisance. They are simply an effect or byproduct of achieving the real goal of transcending the world of form, time, and space and establishing a new daily dimension of consciousness in a formless, undifferentiated, wholistic state of being. In this rarified state, the individual has either a very expanded sense of self or no self at all and is at one with all beings, all knowledge, and all creation. Drawing on Ken Wilber’s formulation (Wilber, 1993), I have been calling this difficult to describe and attain condition, unity consciousness.

The siddhis of advanced yogis described above are reminiscent of the fantastic abilities of the shaman. Zimmerman (1999) notes that Tibetan Buddhism is a fascinating hybrid of shamanism and meditation. Early Tibetan culture was based around the shaman with lots of sound, movement, and ceremony in the daily life of the people. Such definitely shamanic elements as climbing a rope to sky (Eliade, 1970, pp. 510-511) and dismemberment of the physical body after death were prominent (Metzner, 1987, p. 246). Healings were prevalent and consisted mainly of the retrieval of lost souls, and ceremony had the extensive use of drums. As Tibetan Buddhism became a major cultural and religious force, the shaman evolved into priest and moved into the monastery. The healings continued and the drum evolved into the prayer wheel, a most distinctive and beautiful element of Tibetan Buddhism. Shamanism does remain as a secondary but distinct practice in Tibet and the Himalayas even today (Zimmerman, 1999).

The roots of shamanism can be seen in Hinduism in a less obvious and extensive way than in Tibetan Buddhism, while Zen, which is the most purely mental form of Buddhism, bears little resemblance to the most ancient of spiritual healing practices.

Working with Personal Problems

A major aspect of healing and transformation is working with, and changing, personal and relationship problems. Hypnosis, shamanism, and imaginal therapies are designed to accomplish this type of goal. While personality change in traditional meditation practice is usually not given the same amount and kind of attention that it receives from the other three modalities studied in this paper. As might be expected, traditions that emphasize meditation use meditation to deal with personality limitations and problems. In the yoga traditions, for instance, negative psychic complexes are described as samskaras, the karmic binding patterns resulting from past actions, that keep us trapped in the same old negative attitudes. These samskaras are dissolved and reduced through the practice of meditation (Metzner, 1987, p. 247-248).

In dealing with what shamanism calls the lower world and psychology calls the shadow,[142] the meditator practicing an “opening-up” style simply watches any material that comes to them from the lower unconscious. This is a fine technique and can be very effective. The concentrative meditator working on personality issues could choose to focus on aspects of the shadow, noticing how the images change over time, and what effects her “meditative shadow work” has on her life. As Zimmerman (1999) noted however, “People for whom meditation is primary practice tend to have trouble embracing the shadow.” This problem is “not inherent in the practice as much as in the particular people that choose to do the practice.” The meditative practitioner can tend to be “saintly” and focus on only what she considers to be her neutral or transcendent aspects, ignoring that which she deems counterproductive, negative, or unredeemed. This can lead to an exacerbation of personality weaknesses or problems as the extra energy that is invoked in meditation impacts these denied and unresolved characteristics.

The Tibetan Buddhist, with his or her integration of the meditative and shamanic paths, tends to deal more shamanically, and therefore more directly and wholistically, with personality issues.

As is the case with most human creations, meditation’s strength can also be its weakness. By over focus on the mind to the exclusion of the body and emotions, there can be a loss of balance and harmony and with a resultant debilitating narrowness and rigidity to the individual’s daily life. I can personally attest to this unhealthy possibility. I have spent many years recovering from an overly one-pointed mental focus on the higher spiritual worlds and their manifestation in the world of daily experience. A noble pursuit, but a literally burned out, clinically depressed worker who is unable to meditate or even read, achieves little movement toward his personal or transpersonal goals. I have found a different, more balanced and wholistic way, to move toward the same goals in modern adaptation of shamanism integrated with aspects of esoteric meditation, hypnosis, imaginal therapy, yoga, Tai Chi, and “hiking meditation.”

Purpose and Goals

As suggested by the various purposes, orientations, types, and methods of meditation discussed above, the goals of meditation vary a great deal. Some modern meditators take up the practice mainly to achieve symptom change such as relaxation, healing an illness, calming the emotions, training the mind, and learning how to be better in a relationship. This large group of goals is much like the motivations that would lead a person to consult an imaginal therapist, a hypnotherapist, or a shaman. Most people meditate for religious and spiritual reasons. These transpersonal reasons include rising above the limitations of the personality and moving toward atonement with the transpersonal self, some superhuman being such as Christ or Buddha, or the One Creator (known as God, Allah, Jehovah, objectless infinite consciousness and other names). For some, either for spiritual reasons, or simply a desire to leave the problems and suffering of the physical plane life behind, the goal is leaving behind the trials and tribulations of physical plane existence and becoming a transcendent being. For others, the purpose is to approach the rarified energies and beings of the highest realms in order to contact and bring back energies, powers, ideas, and motivations for individual and group use toward making the planet a better place for all its inhabitants.

Many meditation teachers or gurus function with a mixture of shamanic, imaginal therapeutic, and hypnotic techniques, and their students are much like clients of those three practices. There are also many meditators who place a high value on self-determination (the personal self and more importantly the transpersonal self) and individual insight, and would not become a student of any meditation teacher. Any guidance or coaching that this latter group would accept comes from internal sources, whether they consider that source to be part of themselves, or of a superhuman being.

The following chapter and Section Two offer more exploration and explanation of meditation.

Meditation and Shamanism Compared - Chapter Eight

With Additional

Imaginal Therapy and Hypnotherapy Commentary

The following is a summary of the similarities and differences between meditation and shamanism over a broad range of variables, including background, training, principles, type of altered state of consciousness, techniques, purpose of the treatment, and role in society. Shamanism and one or more types or meditation are similar in that each has:

A Summary

· Use of ASC as major aspect of the practice.

· Conceptualization of ASC experience as “real”, even perhaps more real than the everyday, waking state.

· Involvement with the mastery of spirits or energies and the right to call on them when the purpose is community or planetary based (in esoteric meditation, although not with many other types of meditation).

· Belief in various layers or dimensions of reality and that what is seen and experienced in everyday reality is only a small portion of the whole.

· Belief in, and experience of, the sentience of all kingdoms on this planet.

· Belief in a mysterious, impersonal, vital power, energy or essence that underlies everything in creation.

· Availability and use of superhuman abilities (by the most advanced practitioners).

· Ancient practices, initiated well before written history.

· Belief in and use of the unconscious and supra conscious.

· Long term goals and purpose are similar.

· Public image as an alternative, fringe, or even maligned practices by many western intellectuals (although shamanism is at the core of most native cultures where it is still practiced, and meditation is held in the highest esteem in many eastern cultures and parts of the west).

· A type of dual consciousness. Walking meditation and shamanism both require a type of ASC that maintains a dual awareness.

· Creative and healing meditations and shamanism contact energies and/or beings in the spiritual worlds, work with and attempt to manifest them and their beneficial, healing effects in the physical world of daily life.

· The shamans’ suffering, which is undergone to enhance their healing abilities, is similar to the eternal dedication and sacrifice of Mahayana Buddhism in the service of humanity.

· Embraced fully, shamanism and meditation are ways of life, whereas hypnosis and imaginal therapies are techniques with life transforming potentials.

Differences between shamanism (mentioned first) and meditation (mentioned second) include:

· “Spirit guides” are usually animal vs. yogic deities that take on human or half-animal appearance and esoteric supra-humans have no form at all.

· Different trappings based on the culture of origin.

· Physical exertion vs. very still induction procedures.

· Emotional, instinctual focus and profoundly explored, developed, and refined activity in this ASC realm called astral by esoteric meditation vs. mental focus and equally developed ASC abilities in the mental sphere.

· Imagery based vs. energy based.

· Living on the edge of the village with feet in both worlds vs. in a monastery

· Involvement and communication vs. detachment.

· Full participation in the “pleasures” of life vs. ascetic lifestyle.

· Intention is to be of both this world and the spirit world vs. the traditional meditative intention to transcend this world.

· Short-term goal is practical; one on one healing vs. short-term goal varies from transcending physical plane to healing the planet.

· Generally done in a group with family and/or community vs. generally a solo pursuit.

· Done for and to another vs. usually done for one’s own consciousness (although belief in distant, radiatory healing and an eventual overall planetary effect of raising one’s vibratory level are other focused).

· Integrated with Nature vs. detached from Nature.

· Elaborate, visible, even theatrical ritual vs. simple and/or sparse ceremony, although often significant internal ritual.

Shared Experience of a Unity That Underlies All Forms and Appearances

The fundamental connection between these ancient practices is their belief in a numinous unity that underlies all forms and all appearances. This is the power, the energy, and the vital essence that initiates, energizes, and sustains the entire manifested universe. Ultimately everything returns to this ineffable, mysterious, impersonal unknown, as well. This is the power that the shaman draws on for his or her healing work, and the meditator aims for in his or her meditative practice.

A corollary to the one source of all creation is that the various worlds of form and appearances are seen as connected and interdependent. If all humans, animals, plants, rocks, and all the kingdoms of creation have beingness, sentience, a consciousness of some type, we share that basic building block of existence. We see and know the basic kinship of all life. A recognition follows that no-thing exists in and of itself without being in relationship to everything else. It is therefore irrational, counterproductive, and inaccurate for humans to consider themselves as separate unrelated entities within our family, community, nation, human kingdom, all the kingdoms, or the individual on whom we live, and move, and have our being, the Earth herself. This belief system becomes a catalyst and springboard for a type of consciousness and life program that manifests a compassionate and harmonious relationship with fellow humans and the whole natural environment that is based on respect and reverence for all forms of life.

One ancient type of meditation practice and philosophy, esoteric meditation, takes this interrelationship among humans and the various other kingdoms on earth a level deeper. In relating the unique, pivotal, and essential position of the human kingdom in the life of this planet, Bailey (1955) that

Their link with all these planetary groups (and it is real and vital) can be grasped in the key statement that “all Lives upon or within the aura of the planetary Logos[143] and of His manifested Body, the Earth, have been, are or will be in the future human being, thereby establishing and demonstrating their past, present or future identity with humanity, the fourth kingdom in nature.” This kingdom is the planetary group or centre that expresses in time and space all the divine aspects---sometimes in latency and sometimes in potency. Here lies the clue to the entire mystery of divine guidance…. (Bailey, 1955, p. 209)

If this is to be accepted as fact, all manifested life here on this planet is not only interconnected and made of the same essential energy, all of this planet’s creatures, mineral, plant, animal, human, and “supra-human,” are all of the same line of evolutionary development in different present manifestations of consciousness and form. Bailey adds a second significant point. As humans we innately have in our very being all the “divine aspects” of the One Creator, and therefore we can potentially know, feel, and express all of God’s characteristics.

Relationship with Duality

Central and essential to shamanism, meditation, and most traditions of transformation, is a) the notion of opposites or dualities, b) the need to move toward their reconciliation, and ultimately c) the paradoxical non-existence of the perceived dualities. Three major pairs of opposites whose mutual balancing and integrating is important in shamanism and in meditation are: the balance of masculine and feminine energies and qualities; the reconciliation of good and evil; and the integration of human and animal consciousness. Halifax (1987) points out that shamanism and meditation work with these polarities in a two step process. First, the student must recognize that the duality exists within her and then “find ways to transform the opposites from a state of divisiveness and antagonism to a state of complementarity or peaceful coexistence” (Halifax, 1987, p. 247). A third crucial step is integration of the opposites under the direction of the personal and transpersonal selves so that the qualities and potentials of each polarity are available to the individual. A fourth, more difficult, and distant process is the synthesis of the dualities into a new unity that incorporates the essence and truth of both.

Masculine and Feminine

The tension between masculine vs. feminine can be seen in every aspect of western life. It is reflected in such wide ranging conflicts as marriage problems, the “battle of the sexes,” intrapsychic “warfare,” permissive love vs. tough love, love vs. will, and wartime behaviors. The misunderstood, and much maligned, concept of androgyny holds that all human beings are, in essence, comprised of both masculine and feminine characteristics, although one is generally more developed and expressed in the world. Shamans, meditators, and the mystics of most religious traditions, have all concerned themselves with integrating these polarities.

In shamanic cultures the mythology of Father Sky and Mother Earth is the cosmic dualism on which this integrative project is based. Shamans in some cultures may practice a ritual transvestitism, or even live for long periods of time completely as the other sex does, in order to bring about a better balance of the masculine and feminine energies. (Halifax, 1987, p. 247)

There are also reports of shamans having spirit wives in addition to their worldly wife (Eliade, 1970, p. 12). The spirit wife and the shaman carry on a full life together, including sexual intercourse. In the spiritual copulation, feminine energies, spiritual truths, and healing powers are transmitted from the spirit ally to the shaman. The same is true for female shamans, with the genders switched. In certain meditation and yoga practice masculine and feminine energies are found in “the notion of solar and lunar currents of energy flow, the ida and pingala, which must be balanced for the [practitioner] to attain liberation” (Halifax, 1987, p. 247). In Jungian (1953b) psychotherapy, the goal of the therapeutic process, individuation calls for integration with one’s interior sexual opposite, the anima or animus. In Psychosynthesis, the integration and synthesis of drives, abilities, values, and behaviors under the direction of the personal and transpersonal selves always includes working with, coming to terms with, and integrating masculine and feminine energies.

Good and Evil

A second polarity to be reconciled is good vs. evil. Battling sorcery spells and evil spirits is fundamental to shamanic practice, and demonstrates that dealing with and reconciling this duality is an integral part of shamanic way. As noted in the previous chapter (page 275), the negative psychic complexes of the yogic tradition, called samskaras, are reduced and dissolved through the practice of meditation but hold a much less significant place in the yogic practice than the shamanic. One Tibetan Buddhist technique displays distinctive shamanic aspects. In this technique, the meditator invokes light, or sometimes the more potent image of fire, and then brings it through the top of the head and sends it out through the forehead in a highly focused, powerful beam, toward an imagined object that is a symbol chosen intuitively for a particular personality flaw. This is done until the image either transforms to a healthier image or is simply dissipated. Many meditators and meditation traditions deal with evil primarily by focusing on positive energies, values, and activities. Based on the principle of “energy follows thought,” these “positive thinking” advocates believe that the evil within each of us, and society as a whole, is best dealt with by conscientious inner and outer work on positive projects. The Jungian imaginal therapist conceptualizes this duality in terms of integrating the shadow, first discussed on page 215, which are unacceptable and/or destructive tendencies of the individual that are relegated to the unconscious and therefore are unknown to that person. This is the concept of the inner adversary, which Christians call the devil. Jungian psychology and Psychosynthesis believe the individual and society must come to know and eventually embrace the shadow if they are to put an end to the unconscious, unhealthy acting out of these self-limiting qualities. This acting out is often in the form of projecting the split-off enemy image onto other people in our lives. As groups and countries, we cast the “other guys” as the evil adversary and blame them for the problems of the world. Seeing “them” as the enemy, who we blame for everything that goes wrong in our life, is an artifact of an unintegrated good vs. evil polarity.

Human and Animal Consciousness

The cultivation of balance and right relationship between human and animal consciousness, the third of the dual pairs, is also emphasized more in shamanism than the other three disciplines. “Shamanism holds out to humanity the ancient wisdom and strength that come from a mutually supportive symbiosis between the animal and human kingdoms of life” (Metzner, 1987, pp. 248-249). Shamanic cultures speak of the soul or spirit of each species – Bear, Wolf, Eagle, Dragonfly, Lizard, for instance – who represent and protect the individual members of that species, and with whom the shaman can communicate on SSC journeys. Many tribes, the Hopi for instance, identify their clan, or extended family, by an animal name and give honor to and derive power from that great being. Shamans say that people used to know the language of animals and vice versa. Through the practice of finding and working with a power animal or spirit guide, shamans re-establish in the inner realms the kind of communication and alliance that existed outwardly in ancient times. The western world, through its focus on the preeminence and development of the rational mind, and the domination of religions that preach the separation of spirit and body, has lost an important connection with animals, our own animal body, and our basic animal-like and animistic instincts. Many westerners, myself included, find shamanic techniques and experience helpful and enlivening at a time when so many modern individuals feel dispirited and cut off from their vital instincts.

In the yoga tradition, animal spirits and animal consciousness play some role, though much less than in shamanism. While the advanced yogi does not generally deal with power animals, he does identify with gods and has the intention of becoming one with them and utilizing their powers. This is the meditative equivalent of the shaman becoming possessed by animal or human-like spirits, which he eventually masters in order to provide the power and wisdom for his healing work.

In yoga and some forms of Buddhism, there are symbolic animals associated with each of the chakras (centers of energy located at various points between the base of the spine and the top of the head). In Hinduism the elephant is associated with the first or root chakra, for instance. There are animal figures and human-animal composites embodying “wrathful deities” or threshold guardians in the intermediate bardo realms of Tibetan Buddhism. Metzger states that “these figures appear to function primarily as symbolic meditation images, and are not treated as real inner animals as in shamanism” (Metzger, 1987, p. 248). Many meditators, while conceptualizing of these images as manifestations of unseen beings and/or energies and symbolic to that extent, experience meditative imaginal experiences as powerful, real entities. For me personally, comparing meditative and shamanic experience, the beings, energies, and images within each modality have had equal, albeit somewhat different, impact and reality. Whether an individual’s experience is more like Metzner’s characterization (meditative spirit images experienced as more symbolic that real) or mine (shamanic and meditative images and experiences as essentially real and more similar to each other than different), such images play an important role in both transformative processes. This importance has been demonstrated in research by the psychotherapist Eligio Gallegos. Significant improvement was observed in psychotherapy as a result of using guided meditations with animal images in each of the chakras, based on a common technique of yoga. Gallegos concluded that the yogic practitioner is learning, through such symbolic visualizations, to incorporate within himself or herself the strengths and qualities of the animal. This is the precise intent of power animal work in shamanism.

In Psychosynthesis, participants often have animal subpersonalities[144] and encounter animals to be related to, and eventually integrated, from their dreams, visions, and imaginal therapy sessions. In Jungian psychology, many archetypes[145] have an invisible influence on human thought, feeling, and behavior, and may be partially or entirely animal in form. Scientific confirmation of the benefit of working with inner animals comes from Jose Steven, who found that individuals who regularly worked with animal imagery in their meditations and dreams scored higher on tests of self-actualization than a control group (Steven, 1981).

Synthesis of Instinct, Intellect, and Consciousness Unity

A useful and instructive re-conceptualization of the human/animal polarity can be seen as rational, intellectual mind vs. supra-rational instinct and intuition. Viewed in this manner, this polarity embodies not only the needed human acceptance and integration of the so-called lower, instinctual kingdoms of animals, plants, and minerals, but also human acceptance and integration with the so-called higher kingdoms of the intuitive, transpersonal worlds of unity consciousness. The shamanic way formulates this notion in its customarily simple, natural way by the referring to the former as the eagles, the lions, the corn, and the rocks, and the latter as Eagle, Lion, Plant people, and Stone people. Eagles are animals and Eagle is the huge spirit that ensouls and guides every eagle: past, present, and future. For the modern person intending to incorporate the best of these worlds, a triple integration is suggested. This difficult, but potentially dynamic and healing integration, includes 1) the basic, animal, and early human instincts of the shaman, 2) the highly developed intellectual, scientific mind of the west, and 3) the wisdom, intuition, and essential unity of the meditation-developed transpersonal self.

Dismemberment Imagery and Experience

Dismemberment imagery and/or experience is another major concept that is included in shamanism, meditative practice, and the transpersonally oriented imaginal therapies. As an aspect of death and rebirth, dismemberment plays a significant role in the training and initiation of the shaman. He is being disassembled and destroyed to the everyday world and reborn to the wholistic world of spirit. The vision quest, or “vision-fast,” is also a death and rebirth experience. It is a multi-day, solitary, fasting and usually living in the wilds off the land, nature experience that is meant to encourage a “vision” of a person’s personal and spiritual work in the world and/or a glimpse of one’s destiny (Zimmerman, 1999). In traditional shamanic practice this information and inspiration usually comes by was of a spirit ally or power animal. Primarily a North American activity for shaman and tribespeople alike, this practice has been brought into contemporary life in the last quarter of the 20^th century by a number of teachers, providing valuable opportunity to interested Westerners (Foster, 1987).

Metzger (1987) reports that dismemberment imagery occurs in the yoga traditions also, where the “ability to separate the body into different pieces and reassemble them at will is recognized as one of the siddhis of an advanced yogi” (Metzger, 1987, p. 246). The Tibetan Buddhists have a three step meditative process that moves the meditator toward the enlightenment of knowing the true Reality of life. First is dying, or “going back into the pool” from which everything comes, and to which everything returns. Second is glimpsing absolute reality, “seeing the vision of what is” and the perpetual nature of consciousness in all life forms. Third, becoming a new person with this vision and knowledge “upon re-entry” in the everyday world (Zimmerman, 1999).

A type of psychological dismemberment is seen in the a) analytical “taking apart” process of psychoanalysis (Metzger, 1987), b) the discovery, discrimination, and integration of the various aspects of the shadow in Jungian analysis, and c) the uncovering, naming, identification with, and eventual integration of various subpersonalities in Psychosynthesis. Separating the personality into its constituent parts is seen as a necessary prerequisite to healing and new growth. Transformation is seen as dependent on recognizing the elements that exist within the personality and then integrating and harmonizing these separated fragments and pieces. “Discriminative separation precedes and prepares for integration and wholeness, as death precedes and prepares for rebirth” (Metzger, 1987, p. 247).

Spirit Possession and Overshadowing

There are additional connections between shamanism and the Hindu and Buddhist meditative models. Shamans use two primary techniques for their shamanic state of consciousness (SSC) activities: magical flight and spirit possession. The latter is the identification with, the shaman would say becoming, a power animal or spirit ally. The shaman literally has the experience of becoming a Great Being, Eagle for instance, and having powers of healing and insight that are not available to a mere human. In the esoteric meditation tradition a similar phenomenon called overshadowing can take place when there is “a kinship in quality, in objective and in nature” (Bailey, 1957, p. 305) between a supra human being and a human.

This is done through meditation, through a directed stream of thought energy, the presentation of a thoughtform and the evocation of the focussed will of the one who is overshadowed. All this proceeds rapidly where there is close cooperation between the latter (the sensitive responding disciple) and the Avatar. (Bailey, 1957, p. 305)

Shamanism and esoteric meditation have similar purposes for the spirit possession or overshadowing; the healing, transformation, and evolution of consciousness of individuals, groups, humanity, and all beings of the Earth.

Chakras, Planes, and Subplanes

One distinctive and important parallel can be seen in the Tamang Shaman concept of the three souls and the Hindu concept of chakra, or centers of energy. The stages of yogic initiation are demonstrated by the yogi’s ability to move energy from the base of his spine to various chakras throughout the body to the top of the head. Described as a coiled serpent (note the power animal connection), or kundalini, in the Hindu practice, and as air or wind by the Buddhists, the essential energy is drawn up from the root chakra at the base spine, along a channel located in, or just outside of, the spinal column, to the crown chakra. Similarly, in the Tamang system, the lower levels of initiation correspond to the activation of lower souls located at lower levels in the body. The highest level of initiation in the Tamang formulation involves the che wa soul that is located in the forehead between the eyebrows. This highest soul is the one that leaves the body through the top of the head and travels as Eagle or Condor to the Far East where the highest god lives (Peters, 1987, p. 172).

Intriguingly, I found that high in the Andes of South America, shamans and other healers describe a five chakra system (and less frequently the seven chakra system that is common to Hinduism and Himalayan Buddhism) and have particular healing practices for each chakra. Until this century, of course, there had been little or no contact between the South American shamans and the meditators of the Indian subcontinent. One explanation is that each group came to its similar conclusions about the energetic human constitution based on etheric vision or psychokinetic readings of its clients.

A parallel between shamanism and meditation is also found in allusion to, and use of, the spinal column and chakra system in to attain final initiatory powers in Tantric yoga and the ritualistic climbing of ropes, ladders, or trees by shamans. By climbing physical manifestations (trees, ropes, and ladders) of the world tree or axis mundi, the shaman journeys to the upper spiritual worlds. An even more fundamental parallel compares the axis mundi and its many branches, each leading to a different and higher aspect of the upper world, with the planes and subplanes system of Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and esoteric meditation. These planes and subplanes are an attempt to account for the various levels, or dimensions, of creation by noting a wide spectrum of consciousness, best described as a range of frequencies or vibratory rates.[146]

Activity Level and Imaginal Content

Typically, meditative induction and the meditative state are hypoactive and non-hallucinatory conditions while shamanic induction and ecstasy are hyperactive and hallucinatory. This is a useful generalization, but there are exceptions. For instance, some shamans have meditative-type trances[147] and yogis have ecstatic experiences.[148] Spirit possession, which is usually a hyperactive state, may not involve hallucinations. In Nepal, the Tamang shaman often begins his trance with frenzied dancing and drumming, ending in a passive, hypo-aroused trance in which he reports visions. Samadhi, the goal of most traditional meditation forms, is an invulnerable state in which perception of the external and internal worlds are absent. The meditative technique used to move toward this goal may use visionary or non-visionary states. In the Yoga-sutras, an ancient description and instruction for meditative practice, Patanjali distinguished between “samadhi with support,” or concentrative meditation, and “samadhi without support,” or “opening-up” meditation (Eliade, 1969, pp. 90, 109). The support referred to a thought, physical sensation, or external object, on which the mind is fixed. This often includes visions or images. However, samadhi with support, or “opening-up” meditation, employs no intentional visualization. The practitioner does observe whatever images his unconscious mind offers to him. In both Hindu and Buddhist Tantric practice, the meditator gradually learns to control his mind’s production of “visualizations” and eventually enjoys their complete elimination, in order to advance in the yogic initiatory progress. The shaman dramatic images and experiences as a major part of his journeying. His control of the direction of the journey, or type of consciousness, and mastery over the energies and beings encountered there are definitive of the title shaman. Based on these different practices, it can be confidently stated that at the higher initiatory levels, imagery becomes mastered in both meditation and shamanism. Shamanic mastery involves control over the experience and receiving the healing information he seeks. Traditional meditative mastery, samadhi, is mastery of imagery by creating a condition in which there is none. Esoteric meditation develops and uses both master skills.

Relationship to Imaginal Content: Real or Not

Expanding this point further and bringing in the other two modalities surveyed in this paper, we find other important differences in relationship to images. Shamanism, along with imaginal therapies and hypnosis, uses images as either an end point of the ASC work or an intermediate step toward contacting the energy of an emotional block, an idea, curative formulas, a desired quality, or any other notion deemed important. As described in the preceding paragraph and preceding chapter (pages 264 and 273), meditation generally does not make use of intentionally chosen images[149] or hold on to and evaluate random images. The meditator attempts to move toward pure beingness. Along the way, he or she is receptive to thoughtforms and to an experience of what can be called the essential energy within the thoughtform or the image. Thoughtforms are large, abstract ideas that can be considered, in part, the mental, meditative equivalent of images. They have less sensual and feeling content than an image. They may eventually manifest however, as an image, symbol, sensual experience or idea in the physical, emotional, or lower mental apparatus of the meditator.

A basic difference between meditation and the other three methodologies covered in this paper is that meditation practice focuses more on the contact with and use of energies and less on the registration and use of images that the other three. When meditators intentionally use images for mind stabilization or movement toward samadhi, geometric forms are preferred because these universal symbols have less emotional connotation to the individual. This limits personal associations and reactivity, allowing a more pure experience of and identification with the energy that the symbol represents or holds. Naturally occurring images are simply viewed by an internal witness in order to develop the important mental ability of objective observer. Intuition and inspiration are often received in the form of an image and are used and valued, but generally meditators do not identify with or give the same importance to their free flowing images that are the heart of the other three practices.

Shamanism, hypnosis, and imaginal therapies work primarily with the imagination and its product (i.e. images) as a carrier for the essential energy that the image represents. Personal association and emotional reaction are accepted, if not encouraged, in shamanism and constitute an important, although secondary, aspect of the healing work. In imaginal therapies and hypnosis, personal associations and reactions are the heart of the transformative work and are fostered, developed and valued. As we have seen with other issues, Tibetan Buddhists tend to use both styles.

Primary meditative methods include developing and setting of intention, focusing the mind, clearing the mind, and mantra. Mantra, which correspond to the songs or chants of shamanism, are specifically designed words, phrases, or sentences that tend to create experiences of energies such as love, compassion, wisdom, will, and synthesis. They are chosen by the meditator for specific personal and/or planetary transformational work.

Symptom Change, Exploration, and/or Expansion

Comparing our modalities by way of the three general categories of therapeutic work that were introduced on page 189 can offer further insight. The categories are 1) symptom change, 2) exploration of the undiscovered aspects of the existing self, and 3) expansion of the boundaries of the self. A client often turns to a shaman for symptom change, but the shaman conceptualizes, diagnoses, and treats most afflictions as a soul loss problem. In addition, the traditional shaman would generally not make the categorizing distinctions necessary to formulate the question about the three categories. If we forced the point, the shaman might admit that he works with all three categories. I find that shamanism creates symptom change by re-ordering and harmonizing the worlds of the known self (exploration) and the realms beyond the self (expansion).

Imaginal therapies and hypnosis participate in all three types of therapeutic work depending on the abilities, needs, goals, and inclinations of the client and therapist. Behavior modification styles tend toward symptom change and wholistic therapies work primarily in the exploratory realm, occasionally touching on the expansive. The foundational practices of concentrative and opening-up meditation both stress expansive techniques, with only limited emphasis on the first two types. Esoteric meditation, with its reflective, creative, healing, and to some extent receptive meditation, falls in all three categories and has goals in all three areas.

Goals and Connection to the Everyday World

The psychological and social goals of shamans and meditators are quite distinct. The shaman’s trance has a different purpose than that of most meditators. The shaman is not a seeker of enlightenment, nor does he seek detachment from the world. Samadhi, the primary and perhaps lone goal of concentrative, opening-up, but not esoteric meditation, is a state consciousness in which perception of the external world is transcended. The shaman’s trance is outwardly oriented. It is not autonomous, but is directed toward the community and therefore the shaman and his SSC serves as a medium of communication between the lower and higher worlds on the one hand and the people in his community on the other. The Tamang shaman, for instance, while spirit-possessed or on an imaginary flight, remains in rapport with the audience. By identifying with and speaking with the voice of his spirit ally, he describes what he sees, diagnoses the illness, and even answers questions aloud that are put to him by spectators (Peters and Price-Williams, 1980, p. 403).

The esoteric meditator may remain physically detached from the physical world but does not ignore it. Like the shaman, the esoteric meditator, by her conscious and intentional process of travelling to, contacting, stepping down, and radiating transpersonal and Universal energies, is communicating with spiritual worlds. She is engaging in the rigors of meditative life primarily for the purpose of connecting with potentially healing and transformative spiritual energies. She does this in order to do her part in making transcendent realities and healing energies more available in the world of everyday human life. This is a different social role from that of the shaman, but a social orientation nevertheless. In terms of healing the individual, community, society, Nature and our relationship to Her, and any other planetary problem, an esoteric meditator works primarily internally, energetically, and physically alone. While the shaman also practices internally, energetically, and physically alone, in the drama of the shamanic healing event he also works externally, physically, verbally, and in a group setting. Although with a different style, both healers have a foot in both worlds.

Complementarity

In many significant ways shamanism and meditative practices complement each other. Shamanism tends to develop the instinctual side of one’s being – the lower chakras in Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist terms. There is great importance attached to the cultivation of what can be called “life energy force.” In meditation, there is emphasis on taking that energy to the higher chakras for the development of compassion and wisdom. Meditators generally ignore the chakras below the heart.

In Korean Zen Buddhism, however, which is influenced by native Korean shamanism, there is an emphasis on cultivation of energy and to centering ourselves in the “energy garden,” the region just below the navel corresponding to the third chakra. Tai Chi and the martial arts conceptualize this area, traditionally called the Hara, as the powerful, balancing physical and spiritual center of the human being (Halifax, 1987, p. 243). This is in sharp distinction to the extremely “heady” orientation of traditional Chinese Chan or Japanese Zen, which is more, differentiated from its shamanic origins than any of the other meditative traditions. Much like Tibetan Buddhism, Korean Zen shows balance and integration by emphasizing that the instinctual energy or life force of the lower centers must be integrated with the higher centers, thereby creating a joining and balancing of the instinctual with the mental and spiritual.

The complementarity of shamanism and meditation, and the already integrative practices of the Tibetan and Korean Buddhists, may constitute basic elements for the weaving of a tapestry. A new creation could be birthed from time tested Earth philosophies such as shamanism, where instinctual energies are honored, developed and enhanced, and the sky philosophies, such as Buddhism and most other meditative paths, which develop and use the mind to transcend the everyday human life. I consider this a challenge and opportunity for 21^st century healers and therapists who have developed the knowledge and skills of both paths. It is the task of bringing the shamanic way to the urban, fast paced, analytically oriented, 21^st century person. It is the task of bringing the energies, qualities, and achievements of meditative traditions to the streets, homes and offices of our modern world. It is an opportunity outlined and discussed throughout this paper and extensively in a forthcoming book detailing a shamanism and meditation-based training program for developing the Therapeutic State of Consciousness.

Section Three - The Therapeutic State of Consciousness (TSC)

…Transformations…and…healing. In every case the common denominator was the state of mind, the one mind, of the shaman and the subject, the healer and the patient.

Alberto Villoldo, Cuban-American anthropologist, psychologist, and shaman. (1990)[150]

One aspect of understanding and model developing in the field of consciousness is the consideration of the possibility of dual and multiple consciousness. To this point awareness has been addressed as if it is a singular, unidimensional phenomena at any given moment with the recognition that awareness can change from moment to moment. This implies that it is not possible to have two discrete states of consciousness at the same time. Without falling too far into endless splitting of hairs over definitions, there are reasons to believe that a person can train herself to have two very different, simultaneous types of consciousness.

Are Two or More Discrete Concurrent Awarenesses Possible? Is This Dual Consciousness?

It has been noted above that one of the necessary, early skills developed in meditation practice is keen observation of the internal and external environment and one’s reaction to them.[151] This witness, observer,[152] or personal self[153] is also important in good imaginal and hypnotherapy. In Psychosynthesis a major technique is the observation of the body, emotions, and intellect as a way of sensing and developing the personal and eventually Higher Selves. In order to have observation, there must be two participants: an observer and the observed. Is witness consciousness a part of the rational OSC that is unknown to most westerners? Is witnessing a potential ability of the OSC? Is its particular set of stabilizing factors different enough from other aspects of the OSC that it warrants the distinction of a discrete state of consciousness? Or is it somewhere in between, for instance an ego state or subpersonality?…or an expanded, highly developed OSC? A closer look at the notion of two or more discrete, divergent present awarenesses is taken below (see page 319), with both theoretical and practical considerations.

The Witness

I have found my developed witness awareness to be a non-analytical state. It was not always that way. While developing the ability to non-judgmentally watch my thoughts and emotions I came to know my judging side very well. He did not, and still does not, step aside easily. When I am completely the witness, I am not my thoughts or emotions and I observe them dispassionately, almost as if they were part of someone else. I sometimes ask a client to observe, experience, and describe her life as if she was a real news (not sensational news) reporter writing a story. And yet I am (or she is) the one having the thoughts and emotions. If both dispassionate, objective witnessing and the deeply felt emotional subjectivity are a part of simultaneous awareness, I must have the ability to be conscious of two things at once. If they are not quite simultaneous, rather quickly alternating awarenesses, I must have the ability to rapidly and seamlessly move from one to the other without efforting or noticing. In either case it is a type of dual or near dual consciousness that can be helpful, if not necessary, in transformation processes.

Differential Awareness of the Psychotherapist

As with many other complex human endeavors, the good psychotherapist must cultivate the ability to be aware of many coexisting variables. There is my client and other external variables in the room, the building, the street, and the parking lot. Internally I could monitor my body, emotions, intellectual mind, and intuitive mind. This requires a multi-dimensional awareness that is difficult within the narrow confines of rationality in the OSC. Interestingly and significantly, multi-dimensional awareness is facilitated in many ASCs. In fact I suggest that there is a therapist role, or mode, or therapeutic state of consciousness which is optimally conducive to the client’s healing, growth and transformation.

While researching this project I was pleasantly surprised to find that many renowned therapists and trainers agree. Erickson, for instance, wrote and spoke of an externally oriented or interpersonal trance.

I go into trances so that I will be more sensitive to the intentions and inflections of my patients’ speed. And to enable me to hear better, see better. I go into a trance and forget the presence of others. And people see [original emphasis] me in a trance. (Rosen, 1982, p. 66)

Gilligan reports that many of the great psychological thinkers, innovators, practitioners, and authors of the late 19th and 20th centuries have addressed this general state of mild trance.

Freud advised the therapist to withhold all conscious influences from his capacity to attend, and give himself over completely to his “unconscious memory.”[154] Or, to put it purely in terms of technique: “He should simply listen, and not bother about whether he is keeping anything in mind.”[155] (Gilligan, 1987, p. 73)

Rosen, referring to Erickson again, declares that trance is often useful “for the therapist, in order to enable him to find the best ways of responding effectively to his patients” (Rosen, 1982, p. 68). Gilligan adds:

…extensive conscious processing will inhibit the creative unconscious processing needed to generate various hypnotic [or otherwise beneficial] communications. Thus, the Ericksonian therapist sometimes sets aside conscious processes to absorb all attention in the client. In this process, the therapist does not “go inside” to think and is not distracted by extraneous external cues [emphasis added]. The primary contents of the therapist's consciousness are the client's ongoing behaviors. (Gilligan, 1987, p. 73)

Gilligan (1987, p. 76) calls this state of consciousness an externally oriented interpersonal trance.

In emphasizing the primacy of unconscious intelligence, Erickson wrote:

Underneath the diversified nature of the consciously organized aspects of the personality, the unconscious talks in a language which has a remarkable uniformity...so constant that the unconscious [emphasis added] of one individual is better equipped to understand the unconscious of another than the conscious aspect of the personality of either. (Erickson & Kubie, 1940, p. 62)

I have often found myself telling interns that the real therapist in the room is the Higher Self, or transpersonal self, of the client. The best and most effective way we can influence the therapy is by way of our own Higher Self, which communicates directly and easily to the Higher Self of the client, and then in the right time and right way, her Higher Self relates any useful transmissions to the personality. Carl Rogers describes his experience of this transpersonal communication and relationship in the following way.

When I am at my best as a group facilitator or a therapist…I am closest to my inner, intuitive self, when I am somehow in touch with the unknown in me, when perhaps I am in a slightly altered state of consciousness [emphasis added] in the relationship, then whatever I do seems to be full of healing. Then simply my presence [original emphasis] is releasing and helpful. At those moments it seems that my inner spirit has reached out and touched the inner of the other.[156] Our relationship transcends itself, and has become a part of something larger.[157] Profound growth and healing and energy are present (in article entitled “Reaction to Gunnison’s article of the similarities between Erickson and Rogers,” (Rogers, 1985, pp. 565-566)

Alternative States of Consciousness

A common thread in these revealing observations is the use of non-rational, non-analytical, and non-ordinary consciousness. Many of the principles, characteristics, and much of the phenomenology of ASCs detailed earlier in this section, page 77, can be heard as these great therapists describe their best work. These attributes include the benefit of expanded consciousness, the similarity even unity of perception within an ASC experience, full attentional absorption, effortless expression, experiencing not thinking, inhibition of motor (and sometimes verbal) functioning, willingness to experiment outside the bounds of usual comfort level, wholistic thinking, synchronicity, and unity consciousness.

When I am doing therapy or supervision I often enter a light ASC or trance. I began this practice long before I realized what I was doing or had a label for it. I believe its genesis was the extensive meditation I undertook in my office at the beginning of each day and quick alignment to my Higher Self and each client I did just before most sessions. The meditative state seemed to carry into the sessions and eventually became a naturally occurring event. As I walked the hall with a client and sat down, I moved into my “therapeutic state of consciousness (TSC).” At that time I feel as though I am in a light altered state and yet communicate easily, appropriately, and when needed rationally, analytically, and intellectually without any sense of moving back and forth between states of consciousness. I am either able to move quickly and seamlessly between the TSC and OSC, or able to hold a dual consciousness, or have expanded the boundaries and abilities of my OSC to include qualities of the meditative state and other ASCs.

Applicable Intellectual Knowledge

As a therapist or healer there is usually a need to have a body of assimilated intellectual knowledge and accumulated experience available during a session in addition to “profound growth and healing and energy” (Rogers, 1985, p. 566). Just entering a light trance, focusing on the client, and having a certain spiritual presence will not be enough to facilitate growth and transformation in all clients. The TSC must also make appropriate aspects of my education, professional training, and experience readily accessible. The rational, intellectual, linguistic, and communicative OSC must also be available to the therapist. This is even true of the occasionally wild ecstasy of the shaman.

So the shaman in fact has to think about what is being seen and otherwise experienced, and perhaps also silently talk to himself or herself about what is happening on the journey so that the knowledge can be recovered. Therefore, entering the shamanic state of consciousness (SSC) does not at all involve paralyzing the left brain rational faculties. (Harner, 1987, p. 14)

In fact it is only the intellectual mind in coordination with a non-rational, non-analytic, receptive frame of mind that brings forward the most helpful intellectual and intuitive formulations based on past learning. A linear search through millions of bits of stored information will not get the job done in the moment. Neither the rational OSC or the usual self-centered, emotionally-based nature of the secondary OSC will allow for the flexibility, creativity and client focused needs of the therapy session.

Thoughts, Feelings, and Physical Sensations

In psychodynamically[158] oriented therapy, the thoughts and feelings of the therapist are also important elements of the overall therapy and cannot be ignored as the foregoing descriptions of Freud’s and Erickson’s non-mental state, Gilligan’s outer directed interpersonal trance, and Rogers’ client focused therapy seems to require. Although similar to the secondary OSC in terms of inner, emotional focus, this additional aspect of the TSC, the therapeutic state of consciousness is actually very different from self-centered focus on our feelings. Instead, we view the client and her goals with the clear objectivity of the externally focused witness while we observe our thoughts, feelings, and body sensations with the internal witness. I assume from other things I have read and known about them, these great therapists also made use of a highly developed internal witness function even though it is not evident in the above quotes. During a session as a therapist or supervisor, in addition to the content of the discussion and acute awareness of signals the client is emitting, I constantly monitor my seemingly unrelated thoughts and feelings. This is sometimes quite conscious but usually semi-conscious and automatic. At various points during the session, I collect, collate, and quickly make a supra-rational discernment about the relevancy of those seemingly unrelated thoughts and feelings to the client and the particular session. Many reactions I discard, a few I bring up immediately, some I store for later use with the client, some I take into my personal life for exploration, and occasionally I label them as necessary for work in my own psychotherapy. Used judiciously and in a timely way, the wisdom that can be received by the internally focused witnessing therapist can be a major catalyst for transformation in both client and therapist.

Appropriate Registration and Possible Sharing of Therapist Images

One particular type of witnessed therapist registration is especially useful. As noted above, metaphorical processing is a characteristic of many ASCs. Applying metaphorical processing to the therapy session can offer valuable results. The TSC that facilitates the deeper possibilities in therapy tends to act and communicate metaphorically by sending images to the therapist during the session. The reception, intuitive analysis, shrewd timing, wise utilization, and appropriate sharing of images and symbols that come to the lightly entranced therapist can be a rich source of vitality, insight, and wisdom for the client. This is but one more reason for the therapist to develop and use the TSC. Speaking metaphorically, it could be said that the transpersonal self of the client, by way of the transpersonal self of the therapist, communicates its most important messages to the mind of the therapist in images. Erickson (1940), repeating an earlier reference, says, “the language of the unconscious has remarkable uniformity” (Erickson and Kubie, 1940, p. 40). This language of the unconscious is primarily in images. So if it is true that “the unconscious of the therapist is better equipped to understand the unconscious of the client than the conscious aspect of the personality of either” (Erickson and Kubie, 1940, p. 40), the competent therapist had best make use of his or her images. Whether shared immediately, later, or never, this important information often moves the therapy in a new and healthy direction, leading to behavioral changes, insight, personality shifts, and spiritual growth.

As we have seen above, contacting, registering, utilizing, and sharing of images received in the ecstatic state are hallmarks of shamanism. These vital abilities are the first in a number of shared traits between the shaman and the skilled therapist, although each may characterize their experience very differently based on divergent lifestyles, cultural settings, and belief systems.

Wise Verbal Communication with Client

Another distinguishing quality of the shamanic state of consciousness is the ability to remain in social rapport and communicate effectively during ecstasy. The shaman is able to journey to other worlds while at the same time describe and prescribe for his client and the audience, just as the successful western therapist must communicate verbally with his client. Often called “talk therapy” to distinguish it from other styles, psychotherapy and its close relative hypnotherapy, rely on the effective use of language as a major tool in facilitating desired changes in the client.

Summary

The therapeutic state of consciousness includes the following principles, characteristics, and abilities.

1. Limit extensive conscious processing. (Erickson)

2. Withhold all conscious influences from your crucial ability of attending to the client. (Freud)

3. Give yourself over completely to your “unconscious memory.” (Erickson)

4. Altered state of consciousness. (Rogers)

5. Trance helps me hear and see better. (Erickson)

6. TSC is full of healing. (Rogers)

7. The unconscious of the therapist is better equipped to understand the unconscious of the client than the conscious aspect of the personality of either. (Erickson)

8. The transpersonal self of the client is the real therapist in the room. (Holmquist)

9. My presence becomes the healer. (Rogers)

10. My inner spirit reaches out and touches the inner self of the client. (Rogers)

11. The therapist/client relationship transcends itself and becomes part of something larger. (Rogers)

12. Much of # 1-11 is communicated in non-verbal, transpersonal, and/or energetic ways. (Holmquist)

13. Placing a paradoxical demand on the therapist, his thoughts and feelings are also important elements of the overall therapy, when judiciously shared within the context of the existential therapeutic relationship and based on the previous 12 points. (Holmquist)

14. Ability to use appropriate verbalizations to communicate intuitive and intellectual information to the client while in the TSC is important if not necessary. (Holmquist)

15. The therapist therefore must, like the shaman, keep a foot in both worlds (the OSC and a light ASC). (Holmquist)

The TSC is very different from the average western psychotherapists OSC. By contrast, the traditional, non-westernized shaman’s OSC is not rational in nature and he therefore finds it much easier to transcend his OSC and move into the SSC than a westerner does. There is simply “not as far to go” or “as much to alter.” The modern shaman, either a westerner highly trained in shamanism or the indigenous person who has attended and mastered the western university system, does have similar challenges in moving between and balancing their OSC and SSC to the western psychotherapist and hypnotherapist aspiring to the TSC. These challenges can be daunting. And yet the highly effective therapist seems to need a discordant variety of abilities and a breath of consciousness that has many characteristics of the SSC. While there are many differences, such as induction procedures and arguably, depth of the trance, I believe that the SSC and the proposed TSC (therapeutic state of consciousness) have many similar characteristics. To the extent that this is true, beginning and experienced therapists alike may find carefully chosen shamanic training facilitative of their professional and personal lives.

No one finds the divergent tasks of the psychotherapist easy at first. In fact many people are not equipped to do it. Even the person with good potential has trouble balancing the various required aspects for years. The TSC can be explored and deepened though use of the various methods discussed in this paper and a training program for the TSC and the 21^st Century Therapist is laid out in a forthcoming book. With training and experience, the competent therapist eventually negotiates the various awarenesses seamlessly, effortlessly, and for the most part unconsciously.

There are infinite variables within human consciousness. Each person’s OSC is different in both its composition and the facility with which he or she can move between its various aspects. For some, beneficial symptom change comes easily and they are able to lead ever more productive, happy, loving, and creative lives, while others seem to be stuck in self-devaluing psychological ruts. Exploratory therapies help the individual learn to connect with and relate to their hitherto unconscious parts that are within the boundaries of their known self. Many find this a wonderful adventure with occasional, manageable challenges while others have no desire or inclination.

Exceptional people like Nicola Tesla, Theodore Barber, Ludwig von Beethoven, and advanced meditators have a breadth of OSC far beyond most of us and experience a greatly expanded normal consciousness. Expansion therapies and meditation are ways to extend the boundaries of our OSC.

There is considerable variation in interest and ability for leaving the OSC and establishing a discrete ASC. Some do so only on a spontaneous basis while others do so at will. While we are at the beginning of classification of ASCs, it does appear that some people are more inclined toward and adept in particular ASCs and others favor others. Little is known about abilities to move from one ASC to another.

Methods for inducing an ASC are legion and different ones work for different people. There is also variation in the individual over time, even though we generally respond more easily and deeply to a technique with more exposure to it.

The most important variable may be the perceived benefit an individual receives from this kind of activity. People who find increased joy and fulfillment, and who are more productive and creative in their personal and community lives, are the models to which we can all look to for guidance. Qualities such as wholistic thinking and unity consciousness seem to offer hope, inspiration, and ideas for many of the most difficult planetary problems.

Necessary Fluidity in Consciousness Theory, Modeling, Research, and Experience

The issue of whether or not TSC and other complex types of consciousness constitute a) a singular discrete state that happen to include qualities of two or more other discrete states, b) rapidly alternating states, c) the ability to hold two discrete states at one time, or d) a combination or synthesis of the first three, is open for further discussion and investigation. Even asking these questions displays a bias for, and qualities of, the OSC. In most ASCs we would not think of asking the question or care about the answer, although it can be enlightening to take this, or any other important, question into meditation or other ASCs for possible information or answers. While there seems to be inherent and growing need for, and drive toward, ASC in western people, there is obviously a strong parallel desire to know, understand, and even control our internal and external environments, sometimes to our detriment. The balance provided in acknowledging, honoring, and deepening both the quest for scientific research and intellectual knowledge and a growing need for the supra-rational qualities and abilities of alternative states of consciousness are the focus and goal of this paper. Science is beginning to map, develop, and make accessible, in a distinctly western way, the uncharted universe of consciousness that shamans have known in non-analytical form for tens of thousands of years. The journey of the evolution of consciousness continues as we gradually understand and become more comfortable with previously threatening, unknown, or unbelievable abilities that have always been found in the ancient ways of shamanism and meditation. We will gain understanding and acceptance of heretofore-unknown human potentials in successive waves, until our individual and collective OSC will comfortably and beneficially include much of what is now considered genius, impossible, hallucinatory, irrational, or deviant by western society at large.

Epilogue

The past…years have been preparatory years for you, even if you do not yet know for what ends they are the preparation. They have taught you much. But here I would remind you that all the teaching, training and experience which you have undergone has now to be brought to a point of synthesis within the illumined mind; it then becomes a potent seed thought, capable of bringing much intuitive perception and later revelation.

Alice A. Bailey, 1955, p. 629.

We have begun an exploration of consciousness and of four healing and transformation modalities that use alternative states of consciousness as a major part of their practice. While consciousness is something that all humans spend 24 hours a day involved in one way or another, it is not well recognized, understood or appreciated by modern people, whether layman, psychological professional or intellectual. Great variations in experience and ability make clarification and description difficult, and yet there are promising possibilities in various alternatives to the rational ordinary state of consciousness.

The shamanic state of consciousness and the shamanic way of life have been highlighted due to their extreme interest and benefit to me as well as my belief that they offer balancing and harmonizing solutions to many modern problems. Loneliness, depression, anxiety, addictive behavior, ecology, international relations, hunger, distribution of resources, racial and ethnic frictions could all benefit from the wisdom, balance, dismemberment, death and rebirth, empowerment, supra-rationalism, soul retrieval, and community based aspects of shamanism.

The fields of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy could be enhanced by exploration and implementation of the shamanic based therapeutic state of consciousness (TSC). Our personal and professional lives as healers, guides, facilitators, models, and leaders, would be deepened and expanded by an intentional effort to develop abilities seen described and demonstrated by the greatest of shamans, meditators, and modern day therapists.

Future Exploration and Research

There is a great deal more to explore, learn and write about these areas. Given my time and energy considerations and the fact that the information above fulfills the requirements of my doctoral project and more than enough to be a complete dissertation, I will leave the rest to future sections that I may write and to others that have been and will be touched by the same inspirational hand that has graced me.

While all of the following have been addressed to some extent in this paper, I believe these points deserve further exploration.

· Whether or not the TSC constitutes: a) a singular discrete state of consciousness that happens to include qualities of two or more other discrete states, b) rapidly alternating discrete states of consciousness, c) the ability to hold two discrete states at one time, or d) a combination or synthesis of the first three.

· Belief systems and their effects on psychotherapy. The world view of the

· client,

· therapist,

· family,

· community,

· society at large.

· Interaction among the client’s belief system, the therapist’s belief system, and the therapist’s theoretical formulation,

· Detailed training manual for the 21^st Century Therapist

· Particularly the illness, dismemberment, death and dying and rebirth aspect of the 21^st Century Therapy training as exemplified in the lives of great innovators like Milton Erickson and Carl Jung, the training and initiation practices in shamanism, the Dark Night of the Soul, and a reflection of the Dark Night in the author’s life.

· Preparation for the transformational, healing session(s) with clients

· Optimum consciousness of therapist (more on the TSC)

· Optimum consciousness of client (more on the client’s TSC)

· Techniques for 21^st Century Therapy

· Goals, outcomes and purpose of the work

· Evolution. How have consciousness and healing practices have changed over time and what does that suggest and require for the future.

· The role of will and intention in the fact of ASC development and the particular type of ASC developed.

· The development and application of personal will, transpersonal will, and Universal Will for individual evolution and healing, professional efficacy, human evolution, and global justice and harmony.

· Application of ancient and updated shamanic practice to the challenges of the first quarter of the 21^st century as portrayed in prophecy by the Hopi, Inca, Q`ero, Mayan indigenous peoples and the Ancient Wisdom Teachings that form the basis of what I have called esoteric meditation.

An Initiation Song

We end as we began, with Malidoma Some`, the Jesuit educated man who was reunited with the Dagara, his West African tribe of birth, and underwent their traditional initiation. The following account of the songs of that initiation gives a flavor of the purpose and happenings of the ancient initiatory experience and can serve as a guide for the self directed journey into the TSC. Perhaps you can take it to heart and mind as an imaginal experience of your initiation and a catalyst for your growth in the TSC.

As the candidates for initiation passed through the crowd, they took off their shirts and shorts. Their families embraced them. Some family members grabbed their hands and sobbed with them; perhaps they were saying goodbye for the last time. …We sang as we walked into the belly of the bush, swallowed by the trees.

My little family I leave today.

My great family I meet tomorrow.

Father, don’t worry, I shall come back,

Mother, don’t cry, I am a man.

As the sun rises and the sun sets

My body into them shall be…

…To become a man I must go,

Into Nature’s womb I must return,

But when I come back,

The joy of rebirth for you I will sing.

My little family I leave today.

My great Family I meet tomorrow.

Father, don’t worry, I shall come back,

Mother, don’t cry, I am a man.

I was becoming conscious of entering an unknown space. The message of the flute was the first mystery. How many more were to come? …The coach plunged his hand into his medicine bag, bringing out two firestones. He placed dry grass next to the fireplace, and scratched the firestones one against the other. A spark flew out onto the grass…”

O light of burning fire,

Clean the mud of the night

That sticks to the lids of my sight.

O instrument of my sight,

Do not close the lids of my eyes

Even when you eat the wood to ash.

Can I see without your light?

Can I live without your heat?

Can I survive your plight:

O light of burning fire…

Each initiate should select a sizeable tree. We were to sit, stand, or kneel about twenty meters from the tree and look hard at it. We were supposed to see something, but were not told what. Each elder was assigned a certain number of students. Apparently his task as to supervise this boring training and to make sure that we saw what we were expected to see.

The blind man had two eyes

That saw thing that moved

And thing that did not move.

He thought he was not blind

And was proud to see,

But when asked to see the moving

In the thing that does not move

He decided he was blind.

His eyes would not believe

That the still was not still

And that the moving could cease

Because the only thing the moving knew

Was move move and move.

Seeing has become blindness

And that which does not move

Knows you lie to yourself

When you lend trust to what you see now.

We were supposed to go to the village circle for a dance ceremony, the last one before the feast. Everyone got dressed and, surrounded by my loved ones, I left the house. …We said nothing. Only the music of the xylophone outside reached our ears, and even its voice did not last very long. Suddenly the silence was broken by another gunshot. The sound of the xylophone began again, accompanied by a drum that roared out rhythms as if it were angry at something. The music…was familiar. It was the song of return:

I had a date in the bush

With all the gods,

So I went.

I had a date in the bush

With all the trees,

So I went.

I had a date in the mountain

With the Kontomble.[159]

I went because I had to go.

I had to go away to learn

How to know.

I had to go away to learn

How to grow.

I had to go away to learn

How to stay here.

So I went and knocked at doors

Locked in front of me.

I craved to enter.

Oh. Little did I know

The doors did not lead outside.

It was all in me.

I was the room and the door.

It was all in me.

I just had to remember.

And I learned that I lived

Always and everywhere.

I learned that I knew everything,

Only I had forgotten.

I learned that I grew

Only I had overlooked things.

Now I am back, remembering.

I want to be what I know I am,

And take the road we always

Forget to take.

Because I heard the smell

Of the things forgotten

And my belly was touched.

That’s why I had a date with the bush.

That’s why I had a date with the hill.

That’s why I had a date with the world

Under.

Now, Father, I’ll take you home.

I am back.

As we circled the xylophone and the drum, walking in tune with them, a power surge up from the depth of my belly, climbed the steps of my spine, and invaded my heart, making it throb frantically. When this power reached my eyes, they filled with tears of joy. I thought: What a commencement exercise this is!

Some` (1994, pp. 193-194, 1996-197, 207-208, 295-297)

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[1] Many examples will be given below.

^{^[3]} Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

[4] Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

[6] The shadow is a concept popularized by Jungian psychology that encompasses the unknown, unacceptable, and rejected parts of an individual’s personality.

[7] This section in The Act of Will details an exercise that can be used to disidentify with the body, emotions, desires, and intellect and identify with the personal self which is a “center of pure self consciousness and or will.” It is called the Dis-identification or Self Identification Exercise.

[8] See the following paragraph and table.

[9] William James (1842–1910), U.S. psychologist, philosopher. The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures 16–17, “Mysticism” (1902). The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press.

[11] See my Black Madonna experience in Section Three..

[12] As in Navaho and other shamanic rites as mentioned on pages 55ff.

[13] Sky diving, cliff climbing without ropes, bungee jumping, etc.

^{^[14]}Albert Camus (1913–60), French-Algerian philosopher and author. The Myth of Sisyphus, “The Absurd Man” (1942; tr. 1955). The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press.

[15] This sentence is a paraphrase of the definition found in the American Heritage Dictionary, 1996.

[17] Note the switching of gender roles discussed in Section One, Chapter Eight, page 116.

[18] See excerpts from Wordsworth (page 27) and Dickinson (page 11 earlier in this section and refer to the poetry of Blake, Rilke, Keats, Shakespeare, Rumi, and Kabir, among others.

^{^[19]}Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922), U.S. novelist. Quoted in: Observer (London, 27 Dec. 1987). The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press.

[20] See page 19.

[21] Barber and his theory of hypnosis are discussed in Section One, Chapter Two, page 75.

^{^[22]}Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), Russian revolutionary. The History of the Russian Revolution, vol. 3, “Conclusions” (1933). The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

[23] See Section One, Chapter Five, page 96, for a more complete discussion of Erickson’s positions.

[24] See Section One, Chapter Seven, page 110, for more about esoteric meditation.

[25] Van De Riet, 1996, p. 1

[26] Both men and women have been, are, and can be shamans. After much soul searching and consultation with colleagues and friends, including feminists, for the purpose of clarity and ease of reading I have decided to use masculine pronouns when referring to the generic shaman and therapist and feminine pronouns for their generic clients. The opposite would be confusing because most of the experts I quote use the masculine pronoun to refer to the professional.

^{^[28]}Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

[29] The actual door in my study at home is a glass French door.

[30] Appendix A contains the dream content as I wrote it upon awakening.

[31] A pseudonym.

[32] Appendix B contains the complete transcript.

[33] For a complete transcript of an induction similar to the one used here, see Section Three.

[34] Said with a slight laugh and an expression of amazement.

[35] Long, deep sigh.

[36] Big breath.

[37] Referring to my diaphragm.

[38] Big breath.

[39] Brave is character that, along with Trickster/Shaman, brought me into this world. They are both very large, at least 50 feet tall, and I passed through the open abdomen of Brave to enter this life and the plane of everyday awareness. See page 86.

[40] Softer, with a hint of tears.

[41] Long, slow sighs and moans.

[42] Loudly, with great enthusiasm and wonder.

[43] The tone of my voice in the session changes dramatically, becoming softer, firmer, with much clearer diction and more precise, unusual intonation patterns.

[44] Spoken very quickly with an other worldly monotone, with the exception of the word “through,” which is dramatically emphasized.

[45] As an example of synchronicity (discussed at length in Sections Two and Three) I must relate that at this very moment of writing these words for the first time at the computer, a neighbors cat climbed a couch outside our window and gazed into my eyes, just two or three feet away.

[46] These are imaginary, spiritual beings (spirit allies and power animals) that I consider inner teachers or guides. They include Brave, Trickster/Shaman, Bear, Eagle, Lion, as well as I Am, Imaybe, Knight/Warrior, My Biki, Young Monk, Night Watchman, referring to sub-personalities or ego states of mine that I have identified over the year and will be discussed in Section 2.

[47] Loud swooshing sound like a speeding object going by races through me.

[48] Voiced as a four year old.

[49] For more information about esoteric meditation see page 110.

[50] This is the topic of Chapter Eight, see page 114.

[51] In his most well known lyric poem by this title written while imprisoned for advocating monastic reform, the 16^th century mystic St. John of the Cross describes the often difficult, at times agonizing, journey of the human soul in seeking and attaining union with God by taking a course parallel to Christ’s crucifixion and glory.

[52] In the Ancient Wisdom Teachings and esoteric meditation traditions (both of which are discussed in Section One Chapter Seven and Section Two), the dark night of the soul is described as a “potent opposition and, [that] symbolically speaking, produce [s] eventually that "tearing asunder" which always precedes initiation and illumination and which is testified to by all the mystics and initiates. This is in reality that which produces the destruction of the veil of illusion and is symbolically referred to in The New Testament as "the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." This constitutes the result of the dual activity of the Great Wheel. It precedes the dark night of the soul wherein the man stands pendant between heaven and earth [emphasis added] and then cries:

[Page 277]

"Where is the one God who has forsaken me? He is nowhere to be seen and all other gods have gone. I stand alone, bereft yet unafraid. I see the dark of form; I see the dark of distant spirit. And all the light of soul seems gone." Then comes the cry triumphant: "I know I am the Light of God. There is naught else"” (Bailey, 1951a, pp. 276, 277).

[55] Western science calls this the hypnogogic state.

[56] As quoted in Achterberg, 1985, p. 68.

[57] A “good witch” doing “white magic.”

[58] A “bad witch” doing “black magic.”

[59] And Canada to a lesser degree.

[60] See pages 68, 80 87, 87, 116, 149, 117, and 31.

[61] See pages .78, 80, 88, 116, 116, 118, 16, 42, 123, 322.

[62] From materials presented by Dr. Heidt at the Second Annual Conference on Imaging and Fantasy Process, November 1978, and case studies were published in Achterberg and Lawlis, Bridges of the Bodymind.

[63] Starting about the year 1665, at the age of 23, Sir Isaac Newton set forth the principles of mechanics and the law of universal gravitation, separated white light into colors, proposed a theory for the propagation of light, and invented differential and integral calculus. Newton's contributions covered a range of natural phenomena. He was able to show that planets and objects on Earth both follow the same laws of physics, to predict the appearance of comets, to explain the moon's role in producing tides, and to explain the precession of the equinoxes. While the development of physics owes much to Newton's laws of motion, his primary contribution to physics was the clarification of the force of gravity (Encarta® 98 Desk Encyclopedia © & 1996-97 Microsoft Corporation).

[64] Which included the treatment of what we now call mental illness.

[65] Ordinary and altered states of consciousness are discussed in detail in Section Two, see pages 13.

[66] Discussed in Section Two, page