WHAT SOUTHERN AFRICAN WISDOMS HAVE TO OFFER THE WEST #10

Soul Sickness and  Soul Loss

The soul and the body are supposed to be as one. The soul is pure, made in the image of the Divine and is always unified - it does not "split". When the body becomes subject to control by ego, monkey mind and shadow and the allure of sentient pleasures the soul may separate or split to a greater (soul loss) or lesser extent (soul sickness) from the body. 

There are many other factors besides physical, emotional and spiritual abuse by oneself (sex, drugs, rock and roll) or by others that can cause soul sickness or more rarely loss. The latter include; severe abuse, trauma from war or violence, isolation and loneliness, severe burn out or illness and some of the spiritual diseases discussed in the prior blog.

    

Witchcraft or sorcery. 

The commandment,

“Thou shalt not covet your neighbor or anything that belongs to your neighbor…”

 

 is an edict against those with an evil eye, an evil tongue and an evil inclination. Witchcraft and sorcery arise from someone with a heart of envy. Envy can lead to malicious covetousness which can have malignant consequences on others as well as severe karmic effects on the perpetrators.

The commandment not to covet one’s neighbor or anything that belongs to him or her is a preventative against jealous and toxic intentions. Witches have a compulsion to prevent someone from getting things they deserve or to take away the things that they already have. 

For some it is a lucrative profession when done on behalf of others. A heart of envy arises out of an inherently very dark shadow side or evil inclination. 

Witches and sorcerers with power are aligned with dark spirits who work with them as opposed to medicine men and women, indigenous healers and others who work with light spirits to do good. 

Witchcraft is more powerful if the victim believes in it and knows they have been bewitched (nocebo effect - the opposite of placebo.) Fear is a great ally of the sorcerer.

A hex is further empowered if there is an underlying guilt arising from wrong doing which led to the spell. At some level, even if subconscious, the victim feels that they deserve to be hexed. 

Apart from nocebo hexing works non-locally through the Field with the help of tricksters and occult dark forces whether the victim believes it or not or knows about it or not. 

The witch is often the traitor in the gates and assumes a benign appearance so that they can work unopposed.

Witches and sorcerers have real power and are also able to manipulate the "Field" which is non-denominational, or spiritually neutral. Evil intentions go through the "Field" just as effectively as do healing ones. There is no curse that cannot be neutralized. 

Witches and Sorcerers and their Dark Forces do not obey the Cosmic Law of Free Will. They operate maliciously with or without permission. Like many shamans they also use "containers" especially through the Law of Contagion. 

When objects are in contact with one another they can affect the other. 

Witches and sorcerers invoke their dark help using hair, a nail clipping, clothing or an effigy of the victim to enhance the power of their curses. 

 

Illness and misfortune can also occur because of malevolent intentions imposed by those who unknowingly have conscripted negative spirits.  These individuals are not necessarily recognized as being sorcerers nor themselves necessarily believe that they have this power - only that they are successful in their self-serving endeavors. These include some in positions of power.

 

There is nothing you can think or intend that is not accessible to dark forces and that they will not attempt to corrupt.

 

The greatest ally of the dark is in making you believe they do not exist, so that they can operate unopposed. The dark side, sorcery and witchcraft were recognized by Kabbalah as part of the omnipresent primordial darkness as opposed to its light.

 

“I create the light and the dark – choose light!”

 

Lucifer who became Satan and the Nephilim (the fallen angels) in a sense are "real" and not mythological. However, they may assume different titles and forms in varying cultures. 

 

“If you would dispel the darkness, seek the sacred.”

 

WHAT SOUTHERN AFRICAN WISDOMS HAVE TO OFFER THE WEST #9

Diseases or “Dis”-eases unknown to Allopathic Medicine and Psychotherapy

 

“This is the original truth the original medicine; it will never change – just like the law of gravity.” P.H. Mntshali (my sangoma mentor)

 

Diseases unknown to Western medicine or psychiatry are and were well known to many indigenous peoples. Those in Southern Africa could be described as follows. 

 

  Disease Just Happens 

  We really do not often know why some people get sick and others do not.

"Anyone who isn't confused here really does not understand what is going on." Unknown

Diseases of  Omission rather than Commission. 

   Our guides and ancestors turn away if we ignore them and we lose their protection. They can be our parachute in troubled times when we need to jump out of sticky situations. 

"The problem in the West is that you have forgotten your ancestors. If you pay them no attention they turn away and then you are unsupported in life from the other side - like papers blowing in the wind." P.H. Mntshali

 

“Thwasa” or the “Calling” Sickness

 This malady can be physical and somatic or psychological and can occur in a potential initiate, manifesting in many ways. It happens because of an energetic field around the initiate created by their guides that demands the sufferer's attention. This "dis"-ease can be disruptive and will defy an allopathic diagnosis. It has a spiritual origin and requires a spiritual solution. The person will need to initiate or at least dialogue as to why this is not possible at that time. The one chosen is being called to his/her destiny and delay may have karmic implications.

 

Spiritual Intrusions 

These hauntings arise from various conditions especially from earth-bound spirits or ancestors seeking forgiveness.

  

Earth Bound Spirits (E.B.S.)

These can be Involuntary or Voluntary.

The involuntary ones usually occur because of a sudden, traumatic or confused death. Here, the soul leaving the body may not see the light or hear the ancestors calling them home and hence becomes earth bound. 

It can be voluntary when the spirit wants to comfort and support a loved one left behind on the earth plane. When earth bound it is easier to appear in dreams or even "visit" in real time. After crossing the veil between the worlds this will become more difficult.

 There is nothing good about being haunted even if the spirit means no harm. It can interfere with one’s energy field and create a variety of symptoms including; headache, anxiety, depression, bad luck, trouble at work and in relationship ...

Intrusive Spirits or Shades.  

Usually these are blood related ancestors, mothers or fathers, grandfathers or grandmothers or other relatives which haunt the living because they had wronged them and are hoping to find forgiveness for their misdeeds - usually emotional, physical or sexual abuse. Forgiveness can release them specifically from the karmic implications of what they had done. The effects of the intrusions will be similar to those described above and often more severe.

Energetic or Ritual Pollution 

Be careful of what you taste and where you immerse -

 what you touch and what touches you.

Ritual impurity results from a negative energetic imprint due to many factors. Sangomas recognize a state of ritual impurity resulting from sex during menses, contact with a corpse, and eating a dead animal found in the bush or road kill. Many sangomas will purify themselves after officiating at funerals before doing any healing work. Objects may also be ritually impure such as war objects that have killed others, totems, talismans or masks etc. that have been used for dark purposes. To a sangoma, pollution is something that is spiritually “dirty.” I once questioned one of my mentors as to why it occurred from sex during menstruation. He advised; "a woman is too powerful for a man during her moon cycle." Pollution can also occur after a toxic journey or an illness.

 

One can also find references to many of these same ritual impurities in the Old Testament. 

In biblical times, anyone who had been in contact with a dead body, or who had eaten an animal that had not been killed in a kosher manner was not allowed back into the community until he or she had been purified. 

Religious Jewish women are not allowed to be in contact with their husbands during menstruation. 

Amongst religious Jews kosher killing and preparation of meat requires exsanguination of the animal and extraction of the remaining blood with the help of salt on the raw meat after the exsanguination.

Sangomas and Native Americans have similar beliefs around menstruation (a woman is not allowed to participate in a sweat lodge during this time.)

Blood carries the life force and is seen to have power. This is also true in Satanic cults where it is used for demonic purposes. 

In sangoma belief and in the Bible, land or places can be polluted or cursed. Sometimes fire is the only thing that can purify demonic evil and malevolence. 

 

“You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place.” Deuteronomy

 

Demonic worship is often practiced with such zealotry, determination and passion that its power has a lasting force for captivating and destroying. 

It is best that one not try to remove the rotten and decaying apples from the pile, but rather move the good apples far away. 

In some instances it may be appropriate for a cleansing, sterilizing and purifying to take place, but only by knowledgeable specialists in such matters.

 

Exorcisms may be required in some instances and fortunately are still practiced especially by highly selected Catholic priests. It is dangerous work that has been endorsed and supported by the Pope.

Places where demonic rituals have been performed especially where there is water (river, lake or even underground) are difficult to purify. Water has consciousness, memory and resonance and can hold on to both profane and sacred vibrations. 

 

WHAT SOUTHERN AFRICAN WISDOMS HAVE TO OFFER THE WEST #8

Just an aside for those who have an interest in rock art and altered states. Their importance also applies to Out of Body States of consciousness and Astral Projection seen in indigenous peoples.

David Lewis Williams was the first rock art expert who applied the three phases of the trance state to rock art. 

These three stages occur in advanced trance states and were depicted on the rock faces by many indigenous tribes. In the Americas the visions were often associated with the use of entheogens -  mind-altering plants used in sacred rituals. Similar images can be seen in the rock art of the San Bushmen in Southern Africa who did not use entheogens.

Entoptics: The first stage; dots, simple lines - wavy or straight, chevrons and lattices. 

Construals: In the second phase the entoptics take on more complex shapes that can resemble mandalas.

Both of these phases can be seen in this Chumash rock art in Santa Barbara county California below as well as elsewhere. 

 

Therianthropes: The third phase of trance showing shape shifting can be seen in the San Bushman rock paintings below as well as in Native American rock art.

The Music of the Spheres

The Zulu people refer to themselves as ‘the people of the heavens' - Star People and that they came from the stars.

 

"ˆWhen the stars of the morning sang together." Job

 

Pythagoras was said to be able to hear the music or singing of the spheres or the stars as did the ancient Chaldeans'. It is also described in the Zohar. 

 

We should thank the stars for their song. Their light emanates from their singing and when they sing they glow. That is how they reveal themselves.

The Zohar teaches when we pray in the morning it is a continuation of the singing of the stars.

 

The Druids called it the Oran Mo'r, the Great Song or the sacred tune of the universe. The Druids believed that the whole of creation arose out of this song (as did some other beliefs.) In other words there was the song and the word (intention) from the Infinite One during the Big Bang.

“Because we are stars we must walk the sky.” Song of the San Bushmen Lion Shamans

The San too talked about the singing of the stars. To hear the music or sounds of the spheres requires an exquisite purity (as was recognized by Pythagoras' peers who said that he alone could hear it.) It also requires an absence of ambient noise.

The Silence of the Stars
 
“When Laurens van der Post one night - in the Kalahari Desert told the Bushmen he couldn't hear the stars singing they didn't believe him. They looked at him, half-smiling. They examined his face to see whether he was joking or deceiving them…  
Then they led him away from the crackling thorn-scrub fire and stood with him under the night sky and listened. One of them whispered; Do you not hear them now? And van der Post listened, not wanting to disbelieve, but had to answer - No. They walked him slowly like a sick man to the small dim circle of firelight and told him they were terribly sorry.
And he felt even sorrier for himself and blamed his ancestors for their strange loss of hearing…” David Wagoner

Aldo Leopold - a wilderness adept also seemed to have heard something similar.

 

The sound of waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all.  To hear even a few notes of it you must first live here for a long time, and you must know the speech of hills and rivers.  Then on a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen for a wolf to howl, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand.  Then you may hear it—a vast pulsing harmony—its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries. Aldo Leopold

 

The chants and music of both Bantu and San were also no doubt influenced by the cacophony of nature’s sounds and the amazing animal and bird songs around them.

This blog is a bit shorter because I have a question to ask. 

Who among you readers would be interested in hearing some talks on Zoom around these topics? Typically it would be about an hour with time for questions in the chat box. There would be no charge, only a donation to our non profit Inward Bound, if one desired.

 

WHAT SOUTHERN AFRICAN WISDOMS HAVE TO OFFER THE WEST #7

More advanced levels of spiritual expertise and paranormal phenomena. 

This is also called PSI and refers to the unknown factors found in extrasensory experiences The term comes from the Greek letter ψ (psi), which is the first letter of the Greek word psyche, meaning "mind" or "soul".

 

The Oneness Experience or Unity Consciousness 

This occurs in Yoga when the 

Knower, the Known and the Experience of Knowing 

fuse and become one thing. You may be looking at a rainbow and the Knower - that's you, the rainbow - the Known - and in the process of the experience you become the rainbow. 

Also, when the dancer becomes the dance.

Maslow described this as a Peak Experience.

This is Bunnell's description of his experience on entering Yosemite valley. He was one of a party of Whites that were to first see the stunning beauty of the valley.

“Haze hung over the valley, light as gossamer and clouds partially dimmed the higher cliffs and mountains. This obscurity of vision increased the awe with which I beheld it and as I looked a peculiar exalted sensation seemed to fill my whole being and I found my eyes in tears with emotion.” Dr. L. Bunnell

These phenomena are not rare but brief and often trivialized,  rationalized or invalidated by ourselves or others. They are sacred and only to be shared with the right kind of person. They have the potential to change the way that we think.

 It is called Unity Consciousness or the Oneness Experience in Eastern traditions and Union or Unity with the Divine in Kabbalah. 

 

Telepathy.

Precognition. 

The three "Clairs" - Clair-voyance (seeing what seeing eyes cannot,) Clair-audience (hearing what hearing ears cannot hear,) Clair-sentience (feeling what the five senses cannot feel.) Many of us have 

clair-sentience which is our early warning system and should never be ignored.

Distant Viewing, Diagnosis and Healing.

Distant or Remote Viewing has been researched by both Stanford University and the C.I.A. and found to be evidential. There are numerous double blind trials that show Distant Healing or prayers for healing work. Placebo has been discounted because the healers do not know the patients they are healing and the patients do not know this process has been invoked.

If Distant Healing works it make sense that Distant Diagnosis does so too. There are many practitioners - shamans, psychics, medical intuitive etc. who have these abilities. 

It is sobering to realize that if distant healing works so also does distant hexing. The Field is democratic and value neutral.

Telekinesis.

This is the ability to move objects through intention, for instance a water-diviner. The diviner and the stick or instrument s/he uses has no power. The power is resident in the spirit force directing the object. The same is true for the divination bones (and may be for other divining techniques.) The diviner is the messenger who sets the specific intention with permission (because of the cosmic law of free will.) The message itself comes from spirit - the diviner is the messenger.

In all these PSI phenomena ancestors or guides are often the mediators in some mysterious way although there others who can directly "see."

Many scientists refuse to concede that such phenomena are real. Hence, they try and find names for something they cannot explain. Here are a few modern terms for these mystical occurrences. 

Medical Intuitive, Remote Viewing, Energy Medicine, Physiological Arousal, Cathartic Conversion Experience, Distant Mental Influence on biological systems… 

Similarly when the medical profession does not understand the cause of the disease they use the word Idiopathic. It also sounds profound but may be subtly saying we are idiots when it comes to trying to explaining this.

 

Shape Shifting and Animal Whispering

 

Shape shifting seems to be a far-fetched possibility even to those of us who know about the paranormal. It seems more likely that shape shifting can occur in deep trance in the mind's eye of the practitioner and possibly could also be induced in those who are doing the observing. 

Imagining a shaman transforming into a lion, however, is a bit of a stretch. I believe it can be real but have no personal evidence that this is so. I did once meet a San elder who was a lion shaman but he was dying of Tuberculosis and no longer shape-shifted. 

The Ancestors endorse that true shape shifting is possible, as did Malidoma Some' in a conversation I once had with him. 

The dark side of shape shifting also exists especially in Navaho tradition with the so called "Skin Walkers" and represents the antithesis of Navajo cultural values. They are seen as witches,  sorcerers and evil - performing harmful ceremonies and black magic - a perversion of the healing abilities of the medicine men and women who heal.

These teachings may support the possibility of shape shifting.. 

“All humans are endowed with the attributes of animals.” Cordova

We are all one though not the same.

We are all connected, some of all in each. All are spirit manifestations and exist in one another.

“Earth am I, air am I, water, fire and spirit am I. Earth are you, air are you, water, fire and spirit are you…"

 Celtic proverb

We are all made of the same elements and we will all return - dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

To experience the wild beings, you must dance with them.

On my many visits to the San, I did witness their incredible ability to mimic a particular animal's behavior which is key to shape shifting and "becoming" the animal.

I have seen a Bushman "put on animal mind" and  "dance," behave, imitate and move exactly like an ostrich. After a minute he seemed to become an ostrich but I still knew he was a human

 When they hunt they say;

"We put on animal mind and see how they are moving." 

Numerous rock art figures (rendered after the event) show the trance dancer beginning to attain an animal like form. This is called a Therianthrope - part animal - part human.  

In this figure the cord above the head is about the "rope" to God or the silver cord described by Solomon in Ecclesiastes that ensures that when the dancer leaves his body he can get back to it because of this cord.

 

It is likely the San could not have been such successful hunters when countering a huge animal with primitive weapons unless they had paranormal powers. The smaller animals were trapped. With larger animals (even a giraffe) they had small bows and unfeathered but perfectly balanced arrows tipped with poison and could get extremely close to the animal which required a profound zen like ability. 

If they had not had the trance dance to tell them where to hunt and the ability to put on animal mind to assist their unparalleled tracking abilities they probably could not have survived.

This short link to the movie The Great Dance done by the Fosters brothers (Craig Foster also did My Octopus teacher) is worth watching.

There is a longer version on You Tube which I highly recommend.

 For some it may not be appropriate and its best they do not watch the end of either. 

We should all remember that we all have Bushmen D.N.A. within us. This is video is a testament to who we once were. This hunt is not savage but an ancient sacred task, part of a people who were once pure made in the image of the Divine. They are trying to hang onto that purity in the face of the dark side of Western civilization but it is disappearing like it has for so many indigenous peoples. 

The force of the primal manifest as love is the glory of God.

Click on the link and have look at our past.

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