Specialist Human Guides are further Human Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer Guides who appear over time, after the main Human Guide, each skilled in a particular kind of shamanic work: soul retrievalSoul retrieval. Finding an exiled soul-part and inviting it home. In the modern psyche the fort-holder who sent it away must consent first, and the retrieval itself is a beginning: the real work is integration. Read the full answer, extractionExtraction. Drawing a foreign body (an intrusion) out of a person and packing the hole with something healthy. The iron rule: only ever foreign bodies, never a part of the self: extracting a genuine part of self creates soul-loss. More about this, dealing with the souls of the dead, plant spirit medicine and more. Some appear only when a journey calls for their speciality, and each can teach it if asked. They often belong to your Lower-World Tribe.
What are specialist Human Guides? #
Human Guides with a particular shamanic skill. “It is common to have at least one main Human Lower-World Guide.” In time, though, “other Human Guides will appear in the Lower-World too. These Guides may be relatives of your first Guide. Or they may have no relationship with your first Guide, and even be of an entirely different tribal culture.”1
These Guides differ from one another. “What you will find is that different Human Guides have different temperaments and personalities. Often they have different shamanic specialisms.” Like every Human Lower-World Guide, they are faces of the Human Oversoul, not individual people who once lived; see What are Human Guides?
What do they specialise in? #
The whole range of shamanic work. These are examples, not a fixed list: “Some Guides will be especially skilled at soul retrieval, others may specialise in extraction work, or in dealing with the souls of the dead, or in plant spirit medicine, and so on.” And “Each of them can teach you about their speciality if asked, and so your shamanic work will gradually deepen and broaden in scope.”2
In Paul Francis’s own circle of Guides are his main Guide’s father and brother. The three of them are specialists in soul retrieval, and he generally works with the three of them when doing soul retrieval work.3
When do specialist Guides appear? #
Usually when the work calls for them. “Some of these Guides will only appear when a journey involves a particular thing they are adept at.”4 They come later in a practice, after the bond with the Power AnimalPower Animal. The Oversoul of a wild species, met as a single Lower-World being and bonded with in a deep, committed, usually lifelong soul-bond of unconditional love. The practitioner’s first and foremost Guide: Panther, not “my panther”. Read the full answer and with a main Human Guide is established. See What is the relationship between Human Guides and Power Animal?
How do specialist Guides relate to the Lower-World Tribe? #
The Tribe is one place to learn from them. “As well as individual Lower-World Guides, at some point in your shamanic journeying you will meet your Lower-World Tribe. In shamanism, these people are sometimes referred to as your “Ancestral Kin”.”5 The Tribe is a place of healing and belonging, and “It is a place you can go to learn from Guides who specialise in particular areas of shamanism.”
Paul knows many members of his own: his main Guide’s aunt, her great-great-great-grandmother, and other members of her tribe, which is his tribe too.6
Is there a specialist Guide for working with the dead? #
Yes, and this is an area for great care. Psychopomping, “making sure that the dead move to the afterlife”, is “a specialist area of shamanic work.” If you meet one of the unquiet deadUnquiet dead. The middle-world self become ghost: the ego that, having no body left to anchor it, lingers among the living instead of moving on to the Land of the Dead. Unhealthy for the living, and moved on by psychopomping. More about this, you do not have to do anything: you can walk away, or seek the help of someone more experienced. If you do want to do something, you can ask your Guides to deal with them: “One of your Guides can act as the psychopomp, and take the soul of the deceased to the land of the dead, where it should be.”7
The safety rule is firm. “Unless you are highly experienced though, in order to stay safe and not risk being possessed yourself, you must in no circumstances go with the Guide who is doing the psychopompingPsychopomping. Guiding the dead on and away to where they belong: one of the shaman’s oldest tasks, and the exact opposite of mediumship, which draws the dead back. More about this or go anywhere near the land of the dead yourself. I really do mean this.” For the same reason, “this Guide cannot be your Power Animal, since you and your Power Animal must never be separated.”
Are only humans specialists? #
No. Animals can be associated with particular kinds of work too. Amongst the many Animals who appear in journeys, “Some you may come to associate with specific aspects of journeying work, such as extractions, disentanglementsDisentanglement. The ceremonial practice that unbinds unhealthy energetic ties to a person, role, object or story: a fourfold exchange in which each party gives back and takes back what they hold of the other. Not ‘cord-cutting’: done well it usually deepens the relationship, because what is unbound is the unhealthy aspect, not the love. More about this, psychopomping, or so on.”8 A specialist helper may be an Animal as much as a Human. The Lower-World is full of helpers, each with its own gifts.
Will there be more teaching on specialist Guides? #
Yes. Working with some specialist Lower-World Guides will be explored in more detail in later books in the series.9 For now, the published books give the outline above, and the main Human Guide and the Power Animal remain the heart of the work.
