What  Southern African and other Indigenous Wisdoms 

have to Offer the West # 7

Ritual is more powerful than prayer alone and can become a "container" or a "vessel" for amplifying our requests - both for receiving, as well as for giving gratitude for what has been received. Ritual also has an effect on our subconscious and will be more indelibly imprinted in our limbic system than prayer. 

Rituals in any form can be containers for a healing outcome.

Sound and incense repel tricksters and dark forces (both within and without.) They cannot withstand the high vibration of sacred sound and or incense. Smudging can be considered a spiritual shower.

Chanting when using incense will release the spirit of the plant and strengthen the effect. 

Immersion in water infused with sacred plants is a message, a password or informed consent to the spirit world asking for help. We need to ask to receive because of the cosmic law of free will and be very specific in our requests. 

Community creates Coherence providing everyone involved has a  positive intent. Even a few participants can be a bigger container for propagating the intention of the ritual to the Field. Sometimes "it take a village."

Knowledge of Plants

The Growing Beings are of the Water Element

If we want to learn from the plants we have to "listen" to them - listen with all the senses including smell, touch, and if safe, also taste. We need to ask them how they can be of assistance. 

Being of the breath of God, all creation is responsive to love, gratitude and petition.

Each as it is acknowledged becomes receptive to giving and receiving. That is how we experience the other.

Sacred plants are there to help us but they also have to be honored and respected. Only what is needed should be taken for the task at hand and one should show gratitude in some way when harvesting - for instance - a little water to enliven them, since they enliven us. 

Certain plants hold more power than others especially if they have aroma and when dried create incense. There are certain universals that we can learn from indigenous peoples concerning those plants of power.

“God says, “I will sprinkle clean (or empowered) water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities.” Ezekiel

In using plants for immersion, incense and sound can be added for the making our requests. We also enhance the placebo effect with ceremony while invoking help from the Field, our guides and the Great Spirit. Any ritual is a powerful message or password to the Field requesting help and giving them permission to help because of our own free will.

Its crucial to understand that we cannot help someone unless they are completely sure they want to be helped. We must have permission or we cannot interfere and even if we do, without their consent, the light forces in the Field will not comply. Doing a ritual for the "greater good” is fine if we do not have permission. This differs from casting a spell to achieve a result even if we think it would be beneficial for the person concerned. 

Remember the wisdom of wild things, the holiness of elements, and the healing power of water.

All healing comes through the Field, through our guides and the Infinite One to help, heal, inspire, transform and protect. This energy is essentially universal love that emanates from the Creator. Some living beings are chosen more powerfully to channel this energy be it a person or even a pet but we all have some ability to do so. 

There are several essential, basic intentions that we can send out to the Field for help when calling our guides for ...

Healing 

Protection

Cleansing 

Asking for a dream

And anything else ...

One does not have to have an extensive knowledge of plants to be effective. One can use any plant for our intentions but preferably a high vibration one such as white sage, cedar or juniper which we can burn or place in a ritual bath. Plants are of the water element and water can be used to empower the water for bathing with imaginative intention. Water has resonance, memory and consciousness and when a sacred plant is placed in water the vibration changes favorably (Masaru Emoto, confirmed by German scientists.) 80% of our cells contain water and we can fuse our own "water" with that of the sacred bath.

Water tricking from the top of the hill is but a drop of the deep spring within.

The Still Beings of Nature are of the Earth Element.

We can use rocks, crystals, semi-precious stones and precious metals with their positive vibrations as lockets or as talismans for protection and for grounding. We empower them by placing a sacred plant/s inside a locket or immersing them in a sacred plant infusion. Gold and silver have high vibrations and have always been used in the past as such, apart from their material allure.

The Wild Beings are of the Air Element

When we light incense or vocalize sound in drumming, rattling, blowing a wind instrument, chanting, a mantra or singing we are protecting and cleansing ourselves through the Air element. We can also use the Wild Beings to help us by using a feather for smudging. The Wild Beings are of the more refined element of Air than we Fire Beings because they are doing exactly what the Creator wants from them. We can ask for their help, for instance by employing a bone for a specific intention as sangomas do in their divination kits.

The Talking Beings are of the Fire Element.

Unfortunately we usually use the fire in the bellies of our lower chakras of ego to destroy rather than to transform and inspire. 

Fire, however, can also create a comforting hot spiritual bath or a cleansing steaming as well as being essential for lighting incense. 

Using fire or even a candle as a tool for meditation can be up-lifting.

We can use sacred objects made by the Talking Beings in any form to help us as well. Designing an altar for your guides is a container for making requests and giving gratitude.

To connect with the Talking Beings we have to "feel" with them.

In other words raise the fire energy of our third "power" chakra below the diagram into the heart chakra above. San Bushmen healers say that if one wants to be a powerful healer one must love them, no matter what we think of them.

Treatment and Rituals

Red is a protective, cleansing, clearing color in sangoma medicine as well as universally. Wearing red clothing or a wrist band fortified by a sacred plant infusion can protect. One can use plants that are red in color for ritual purification from intrusive spirits (bad blood) or red wine in a bath for the same reason.  It is important to meditate in the bath. Breathe in the white light of positive intention and breathe out the thick black smoke of whatever it is you need to get rid of. When the bath is complete be sure to rinse the thick black smoke down the plug hole, walk out of the bathroom and do not look back. Looking back may indicate to the Field that you are unsure. 

Purification in the Old Testament was also done with water, fortified with the ashes from a red heifer, the red dye of a particular worm and cedar. Amulets, bracelets and crystals that are red are protective but need to be cleansed and reenergized for this purpose. 

Kiaat the Blood Tree, used in Southern Africa for getting rid of intrusive spirits (Bad Blood) and for Protection.

There are many ways to correct spiritual maladies using prayer, ritual, sacred plants, incense, exorcism (Femba in Zulu tradition,) and with love, laughter, sound and song.

With song you can open the gates of heaven.” The Talmud

 

“We pray by singing and dancing.”  San Bushmen and Bantu peoples of Southern Africa

Just as sangomas and Bushmen healers believe in the power of ancestors and guides to help them so too does Kabbalah although the manner in which they do so differs. Kabbalists describe a Veil of Illusion that must be bridged in order to receive messages from their teachers on the other side. This is usually done in dreams. 

Sangomas and Bushman shamans are experts in crossing the veil in and outside of the dream time. 

We are not just influences but also recipients of influences from distant places and distant times

 

There is an “Old Testament-like,” universal nature in much of what the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa believe and this existed long before the missionaries arrived who focused mainly on the New Testament. 

Incense repels and clears dark forces within and without. 

Animal sacrifice was used in biblical times for forgiveness as it is used by sangomas for releasing intrusive spirits and appeasing the dead. Sacred plants were used for an array of issues.  

Smudging and blowing medicinal smoke through a ram horn (shofar) could purify. 

Red string, stones and amulets were also used for protection. 

Witches and Sorcerers and their Dark Forces do not obey the Cosmic Law of Free Will. They operate maliciously with or without permission. They also use containers especially through the Law of Contagion (when things 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. 

 

What  Southern African and other Indigenous Wisdoms 

have to Offer the West # 6

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

Our Guides or Ancestors can create "dis"-ease usually through omission rather than commission. They turn away if we ignore them. 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 is a malady that can be physical or psychological that occurs in a potential initiate. It happens because of an energetic field around them created by their guides that demands 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 initiate is being called to his/her destiny and delay can have karmic implications.

Spiritual intrusions due to hauntings arise from various conditions especially from earth-bound spirits or ancestors seeking forgiveness.  Earth bound spirits usually occur because of a sudden, traumatic or confused death. The soul does not see the light or hear the ancestors calling them home. There is nothing good about being haunted even if the spirit means no harm it can interfere with our energy field. Other non-blood related intrusions can haunt the living because they had wronged the them and are hoping to find forgiveness for their misbehaviors. Forgiveness can release them from the karmic implications of what they had done.  

Energetic or ritual pollution is a negative energetic imprint due to certain situations, places, articles and unskillful exposures to blood or to a dead person. To the Zulus, pollution is something that is spiritually “dirty.”

 

Be careful of what you taste and where you immerse – what you touch and what touches you.

 

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. Kosher killing and preparation of meat required exsanguination and then extracting the remaining blood with the help of salt on the raw meat after the exsanguination.

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

Sangomas also 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 will also purify themselves after officiating at funerals before doing any healing work.

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

Pollution can also occur after a toxic journey or an illness. 

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, if the stench and rot still present danger, then it may be appropriate for a cleansing, sterilizing and purifying to take place, but only by knowledgeable specialists in such matters.

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. Objects may also be ritually impure such as war objects that have killed others, totems or masks etc. that have been used for dark purposes.

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 were recognized as arising from someone with a heart of envy. Envy leads to covetousness which can have malignant consequences on others and 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 malicious intention. 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 inherent 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 and indigenous healers 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.) Fear from nocebo is a great ally. A hex is empowered if there is an underlying guilt arising from wrong doing which created the spell. At some, even a subconscious level, the victim knows they deserve to be hexed. Hexing also works non-locally through the Field with the help of tricksters and occult dark forces whether one believes it or not or knows about it or not. 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. Illness and misfortune can also occur because of hexes imposed by other malevolent people, not necessarily recognized as being sorcerers. The witch is often the traitor in the gates and assumes a benign appearance so that they can work unopposed.

Indigenous cultures, Kabbalists, the Celts (and Druids) and others are well aware of the power of tricksters and dark forces that can sabotage one’s life.

 

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 light and darkness.

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

Lucifer, the Nephilim (the fallen angels) are real and not mythological. However, they assume different titles in varying cultures. 

 

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

 

Soul loss or soul sickness. 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 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. These include trauma from war or violence, isolation and loneliness, severe burn out or illness or some of the spiritual diseases discussed here.

 

 

What  Southern African and other Indigenous Wisdoms 

have to Offer the West # 5

 

Shape Shifting and Animal Whispering

Shape shifting seems to be a far fetched possibility even to those of us who accept the paranormal. It is more likely that shape shifting can occur in deep trance, in the mind's eye of the practitioner and possibly also 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. 

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 at first key to shape shifting and "becoming" the animal. 

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.  The Ancestors endorse that this is possible, as did Malidoma Some' in a conversation I once had with him. These teachings may support the possibility.

 

“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.

This type of ability also helped them in their hunting when they linked their mind to the mind of their prey.

 

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

There are three stages that occur in advanced trance states and these  were depicted on the rock faces by many indigenous tribes - in the Americas often associated with the use of entheogens -  mind-altering plants used in sacred rituals.

The first stage is Entoptics, simple lines - wavy or straight, chevrons and lattices. 

The second phase is that of Construals where the entoptic 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.

The third phase of trance - Therianthropes - can be seen in these etchings of San rock paintings below as well as in Native American rock art.

 

The Music of the Spheres

 

"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 and 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 San too talked about the singing of the stars. To hear the music or sounds of the spheres requires an exquisite purity and an absence of ambient noise.

“Because we are stars we must walk the sky.”

Song of the San Bushmen Lion Shamans

 

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

The Zulu people refer to themselves as ‘the people of the heavens' - Star People.

 

Aldo Leopold who was a wilderness adept also seems to have heard them.

 

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.

 

What  Southern African and other Indigenous Wisdoms 

have to Offer the West # 4

Its all very well looking at the extraordinary paranormal abilities of the San, the sangomas and other indigenous peoples but how can that apply to us? We should have our own proclivities for the paranormal and must identify our own strengths. We cannot expect to duplicate what they have experienced. Below are some of those more commonly described. We each may only have one or two of these depending on our inherent nature and that potential. I wasted a lot of time in my early years trying to replicate the experiences described in yoga texts and elsewhere. The Ancestors say; "you are to find the ones meant for you ..."

Synchronicity

We are all able to experience synchronicity when we are attuned to some inner or spiritual pursuit. This is the phenomenon where an outer event coincides with an inner event and it is not coincidental. For instance you are thinking of a college friend that you have not seen or contacted in years and synchronously the phone rings and its him/her on the line. In some way when this happens we are picking up on the intention of the call with that thought of the person. The thought is connected with a certain energy arising from the Field. As our spiritual practice deepens these events become more common.

Superfluidity 

Superfluidity is a state of mind or spirit where things are unravelling perfectly in accord with the universe. A musician has a faultless recital which just "flows." A surgeons feels that some sort of divine intervention has intervened during a challenging surgical procedure which unfolds effortlessly. This has also being called being in the zone.

Power Animals

Having an encounter with a "power animal" may occur because your guides are manipulating an animal to empower you or send you a message - say a humming bird that circles around your head and then hovers while facing you. Usually the animal concerned is not behaving normally.  These type of encounters are also not coincidental.

Coherence

This is commonly experienced in group meditations where the sum of the parts of the meditators is greater than the whole and the meditation for each individual is more propound than it would have been meditating on their own. There are many other examples of coherence. Indigenous healing rituals usually occur when many people are present creating coherence and more power.

Dreams scripted by your guides to instruct or warn.

"Truth bumps" when truth that has been expounded that creates piloerection sometimes also sending shivers up the spine. On occasion this can also cause one to tear up.

Music

Experiencing a particular genre of music that makes you come alive. I believe this may be an indication of a past life that enhances the profound feeling. The music is familiar to your soul essence.

More advanced levels of expertise

The Oneness Experience or Unity Consciousness 

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

Maslow described this as a Peak Experience.

These phenomena are not rare but sadly we often trivialize them, rationalize them away or forget them or others invalidate them for us. They are sacred and only to be shared with the right kind of person.

In its more sophisticated manifestation it is called Unity Consciousness or the Oneness Experience in Eastern traditions and Union or Unity with the Divine in Kabbalah. 

Other more advanced levels of expertise

Telepathy, Precognition, the three "Clairs" - Clair-voyence (seeing what seeing eyes cannot,) Clair-audience (hearing what hearing ears cannot hear,) Clair-sentience (feeling what the five senses cannot feel,) distant viewing, diagnosis or healing, and telekinesis.

Many scientists refuse to concede that such phenomena are real. Hence they try and find names that sound profound but essentially confirm that they do not know what the hell is going on. Neither do we but we do not pretend that we do but rather acknowledge how useful and even life saving these blessings can be. Here are some of these terms. Medical Intuitive, Remote Viewing, Energy Medicine, Physiological Arousal, Cathartic Conversion Experience, Distant Mental Influence on biological systems…

Click and play below. 

The San dancer travels out of body to glean non-local information from the Field which can help the clan. S/He also may learn who among them needs healing. The other dancers help those to come out of trance and back into their bodies. In this video (shot by myself in the Kalahari in 2000) several of the clan tranced. One of them finds the person who needs healing, putting "Num" into her - the same magical energy that enabled them to trance. The San are known for their renowned healing abilities. The dance can go on all night and is a more extreme example of Coherence facilitated by the clan - it takes a village.

                    San Bushmen Out of Body Spirit Healing Trance Dance

What  Southern African and other Indigenous Wisdoms 

have to Offer the West # 3

The Bantu tribes of Southern Africa are distinct from the San. There are numerous Bantu tribes in Southern Africa. They all use similar divining and healing methods. The Bantu tribes migrated south centuries ago and when they arrived they encountered the San who had already been there for millennia. 

There are many paths to the mystery wisdom exuding from the growing things that surround us, from the color of the sky and from all the Beings of nature.

Spiritual Skills arising from the Primal.

 

Contacting The Field

 

The Field is mostly Unknowable – more was made knowable to indigenous peoples who were the first yogis, sages and mystics.  

 

“Whatever being (Still, Growing, Wild or Talking) comes to be, be it motionless (Still Beings) or moving, derives its being from Field and Knower (The Creator) of the Field. Know this!” Bhagavad Gita

 

Information, knowledge, doubt, denial, disbelief, ego and judgment get in the way of our accessing the Field, our guides and the Divine.

 

God’s voice is heard in quietness and stillness. Beware the noises of ego which drown out the Divine Spirit.

"Blessed are the meek..." Jesus

 

The indigenous mind was schooled by their experiences in nature. They have and had an almost "Quantum" like ability to access Non-Local information in the Field.

In the case of the San wilderness was their Yoga and their Zen until civilization’s temptations intruded. Before that they were mindful mainly of needs, not wants. They enjoyed the magic of polarity balance and entrainment in the natural meditation offered by the wildness around them. Nature is a room with many doors and windows to spirit. Nature's power enabled them to find the middle way of the Buddha. They learned to coexist with the difficult, the life threatening, the dark, the negative and the profane with acceptance, realizing it was part of the necessary tension required for the magical to occur.

 

Balance is achieved by harmonizing polarities. Dualities come into harmony by negotiating a third or middle path, a path not of assimilation but a path of coexistence.

 

The San Bushmen hunter-gatherers naturally adopted a profound connection to Gaia - their Earth Mother. Their spiritual practice of being immersed in nature gave them the purity and the vibration required to travel out of body during their healing trance dance and obtain non-local information, critical for the protection and healing of the clan. 

Magical Powers. The San Out of Body Spirit Trance Dance.

 

With their trance dance and mastery of Num, the San Bushmen describe similar energetic phenomena mostly seen in advanced spiritual practitioners such as; heat rising up the spine, creeping sensations, tingling, vibrating, shaking, light experiences, inner sounds and smells, an empty mind (“my thoughts were nothing in my head”), connection with Self (“I feel my-Self again”), out of body experiences and astral travel, paranormal powers, spontaneous movements including adopting yoga-like postures, paralysis, falling and mastery of fire.

Rock art left by them showed some of the visions they experienced in trance 

Beyond the veil they connected with their ancestors and some, even saw an anthropomorphic representation of the Great Spirit; "when I make myself very small," (San healers to Richard Katz in his book Boiling Energy.)

 

The Medicine Person or "Shaman"(The Seer") and Healing

 

“With our potions and charms we arouse in the sick one’s brain the will to be healthy. Without the strong will to be alive a human can be carried into the valleys of death by even the mildest sickness.” Credo Mutwa

 

 Credo Mutwa a Bantu, Zulu sangoma, or more accurately a sanusi or prophet, was profound in his spiritual teachings. He is talking here about increasing the power of placebo rather than discounting it, for instance as we do in our double blind controlled studies.

 

The soul is like an orb inside which are two worms, one blue, the other red that move constantly. The blue represents good and the red, evil.  These components balance the soul. A balance of the two is essential for all souls to exist. If there is only blue or good, the soul cannot long survive. If there is only red or evil the person deserves not to survive.” Credo Mutwa

 

There is similar Native American teaching about a grandfather explaining these two inclinations to his grandson. “Within all of us there are two wolves fighting for domination – the one good and the other evil.” His grandson asks, “which wolf wins?” - the elder answers, the one you feed. 

Those with only an evil inclination, a "Red Worm" or a dark wolf often become witches or sorcerers. 

 

How does one integrate the intuitive - how does one learn it?
The thing about a shaman is that s/he is able to integrate left brain - right brain and have whole brain function and this comes out of initiation.
You cannot just "think" it for it to happen – it is a process that comes from the training.

"Only love can generate the healing fire,” Agnes Sanford

 

The San healers teach that in order to heal we must love everyone no matter what we think of them. All medicine men and women, shamans or similar, inspire hope through their charm, charisma, compassion and competence. In doing their magical divinations or rituals they  enhance the power of placebo. Allopathic medicine, often unknowingly, does the opposite by invoking nocebo with prognoses and describing every detail of all the mishaps that could occur when obtaining the legally required informed consent.

Obtaining information from spirit guides.

 

Spirit guides are not subject to time and space. They are always around but not always to be known, always within call but not always to be heard, always present but not always to be sensed, always holding us, but not always to be felt.

Both the San and the Bantu tribes obtain non-local information through three methods:

1. Directly through trance and astral travel in the San, or spirit possession in the Bantu tribes.

2. Indirectly through Divination - a form of telekineses where the spirit guide manipulates the Bones so that they fall in a distinctly readable non-random fashion which depends not only on the objects orientation to itself but also to other objects and also to their orientation on the mat on which the fall.

3. Dreams are frequently scripted to convey a message and can be "official" rather than unofficial.

 The psychological orientation that explains dreams as scripted only by the subconscious makes dream interpretation quite limited.

A purely psychological interpretation of dreams discounts a guiding, Non-Local spirit source  
that can be nurtured and is personal.

 

Southern African indigenous peoples are connected to their ancestors and guides in the dream state and often in real time. Some of the most expert San hunters did not need to follow the spoor of their prey, they just "knew" where to go. Their guides were telling them in one way or another. The San Bushmen and women travelled out of body - astral travel - in the trance state to get information that told them where to find water and where to hunt the next day, who might be sick or how to find a lost child... Their out of body state was enhanced by dancing rhythmically around the fire with rattles around their ankles. The women with their incredible chants and hand clapping, facilitated the trance state. The women also tranced but usually separately from the men.

The Bantu healers of Southern Africa get "possessed" during trance. The healer's ego would step aside and the spirit of an ancestor or guide would take over and impart information not confined to the space-time continuum. The voice of the channel would change as would the facial appearance. This phenomenon was induced with drumming and dancing.

Both the San healers and the Bantu sangomas use divination “Bones” and dreams for diagnosing and healing. The bones are not all strictly bones but comprise various animal bones but also other objects that assign a specific meaning. 

The San told me that they were the ones that introduced the Bantu to the bones. In central Africa many of the tribes tend to use shells instead for divination. 

We in the West, on the other hand, use different methods such as; tarot card, Runes, a pendulum, a divining stick to find water... Telekinesis from an outside spirit source is often part and parcel of the mechanism here as well.

Possession differs from trance channeling in the West where the spirit is giving the channel the information without totally taking over the body. There are two forms of spirit possession, involuntary and voluntary. Involuntary possession is a serious condition requiring an exorcism. Voluntary possession, where the ego steps aside and a spirit takes over completely, is part of sangoma tradition. Trance-channeling in the West where the spirit giving information is remote from the channel is less intense.

Kabbalah has its own expression as to how this information is provided - mostly in dreams.

 

“The sages who have died are present in this world to a greater extent than when they were alive.” The Zohar

 

“When a word is spoken in the name of its speaker his lips move in the grave. And the lips of him who utters the word move like those of the master who is dead. A sage cannot speak words of teaching unless he first links his soul to the soul of his dead teacher or to that of his teacher’s teacher.” Talmud