Is shamanic journeying safe?

What do people mean when they ask whether journeying is safe? #

The question usually carries fears: of being possessed, of meeting demons, of getting lost and not coming back, or of opening a door that cannot be closed again. Shamanic cultures themselves have always taken the dangers of the spirit world seriously, and different traditions answer the question in very different ways.

Therapeutic Shamanism gives a precise answer, based on the map of the three realmsThree realms. The Upper-World, the middle-world and the Lower-World: the cosmological map of shamanic reality. Rooted first in the Lower-World, then the Upper-World, and only then the middle-world. Read the full answer (see What are the three shamanic realms?). Most of the usual fears belong to one realm only, the middle-world, and the safe way to learn is to start somewhere else. The second matter is the person journeying: shamanism depends on moving between this reality and shamanic reality and coming back again, and that ability needs to be there first.

Is the Lower-World safe? #

Yes, completely. “Both the Upper-World and Lower-World are places of love and healing. Nothing ‘bad’ happens in those realms.”¹ The Lower-World is the realm of Mother EarthMother Earth. The sacred Feminine pole: pure potential, from whom all the Peoples arise. The Lower-World is her realm, and she is all the realms: “The Earth is indeed our Mother.” More about this and wild nature, of the Animal, Plant and Stone People, and the healing given there is given freely. Lower-World healing practices are done “in a safe place where no harm can occur.”

The Power Animal adds a second layer of safety. It leads the journey, and it keeps the journeyer within what they can manage: “like any good parent or teacher, it will not let you make dangerous or fatal mistakes.” If necessary, “it will even haul you out of the journey altogether.”²

Is the Upper-World safe? #

Yes, in the same sense: it is the realm of Father Sky and of Spirit, and nothing harmful lives there. The caution with the Upper-World is a different one, about balance. A practice that reaches up to Spirit without first putting down roots tends to become “overly-detached, other-worldly, and ungrounded”.³ Therapeutic Shamanism uses the image of a plant, which grows its roots before it reaches for the sun, and this is part of why the Lower-World comes first.

Why is the middle-world different? #

The middle-world is the realm we live in, physical and energetic at once, and it is a mixed place. Alongside its beauty it holds human-made thought-formsThought-form. A human-created living being: an ideology, religion, corporation, conspiracy theory or platform that has taken on a life of its own. Genuinely alive, but soul-less in the deep sense: natural things alone are full of Soul. More about this, 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 and other beings that do not wish us well: “The middle-world is a realm where we need to be careful and look after ourselves, as not everything has good intentions or our best interest at heart.” Waking up to the energetic middle-world can be sobering and sometimes frightening, and “It is certainly not a place to start one’s shamanic journeying.”⁴

None of this makes the middle-world a new danger. We already live in it, and journeying only makes a person more aware of what is there. “It is not being aware of what is going on, and not knowing what to do about it, that is the dangerous state to be in.”

What is the safest way to learn the realms? #

In a set order. “Safe, sane shamanic practice needs to come from a rooted and grounded place”, so “we start by establishing a strong Lower-World connection first, then a strong Upper-World connection, and only then do we embark on middle-world journeying.”⁵ Training therefore starts in the Lower-World, building a deep bond with a Power Animal and learning to notice when middle-world things, such as fences or domesticated animals, bleed into a journey. Middle-world work comes much later, once those roots are strong.

What if something frightening appears in a journey? #

Since nothing bad happens in the Lower-World or Upper-World, anything that feels threatening, uneasy or ‘off’ is a sign that the journey has not yet reached them. Often the source is closer to home. Since domesticationDomestication. The process by which, in domesticating other species, we domesticated ourselves. When dated precisely, Domestication begins with the Neolithic era, before the Fall proper, which begins with the first city-state cultures around 4000 BCE. What rewilding works to undo. More about this and the Fall, humans have pushed huge amounts of feeling and experience out of awareness, and the under-world this created “is a realm full of ‘demons’ and ‘monsters’”, parts of ourselves that need to be faced and integrated.⁶

That does not mean every dark figure is imaginary. Not everything in the middle-world has good intentions, and the old assumption that “the demons are always real” is “no longer a safe assumption” either: “There are demons, and then there are ‘demons’.”⁷ Telling the two apart is skilled work. For a beginner the answer is simpler: keep returning to the Lower-World with the Power Animal, where nothing harmful can happen.

Do I need protection when journeying? #

Not in the Lower-World or Upper-World, because protection is a middle-world matter. Even there, Therapeutic Shamanism keeps it proportionate: “I like to keep things grounded and drama free”, and “99.999% of the time, everything is fine.”⁸ What it rejects is the idea that a formula can make anyone invulnerable. As for the popular affirmation of being ‘perfectly safe’: “Nobody is ‘perfectly safe’! That is just not the nature of the middle-world.” Real safety comes from the bond with the Power Animal and the Guides, from listening to them, and from a grounded practice.

Who should not journey for themselves? #

Journeying means leaving ordinary reality at will, travelling in the shamanic realms and coming back, and “The ability to come back at will is essential. The ability to do so is one of the differences between shamanism and psychosis.” For people who struggle with depression, anxiety, addictions or low self-esteem, journeying “can often be of great help”. But for anyone prone to “schizophrenic episodes, paranoid fantasies, moderate to severe dissociation, unstable and unmanaged manic-depression, or anything else that makes it hard to keep a grip on ordinary, everyday reality”, journeying for themselves could make matters worse. Shamanism may still help them, done with an experienced practitioner journeying on their behalf.⁹

The same principle runs through the whole practice. Shamanism is often described as having one foot in this world and one in the other, and “Having both feet in the shamanic reality all the time is not shamanism, but madness.”¹⁰

What if I get stuck, or cannot come back? #

For most people coming back is easy, because the body never leaves. There is no need to retrace the journey, since “your physical body is your anchor and is already there.” The drum’s call-backCall-back. The change in the drumbeat that signals the return at the end of a journey: back through the route you came, into the physical body, grounded. More about this marks the end of the journey: “Do not worry about missing the call-back. It is designed not to be missed.”¹¹

Feeling ‘stuck’ in the more everyday sense, when nothing seems to be happening, is not a danger at all. It is usually the left-brain trying to stay in control, and the answer is to use the imagination to take the next step, at which point the journey starts to flow again (see What is shamanic journeying?).

Is it safe to journey for other people? #

It can be, within clear limits. Journeying for someone else always needs their express permission. Whilst still new, a practitioner works only on small issues, never on someone with major mental health problems, and above all should “always, always ask your guides before doing any work on anyone else. If they say ‘no’ then do not do it!”¹²

Some work is not for beginners at all. 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 and spirit release depend on knowing whether a troubling energy is a real intrusive being or a disowned part of the person, and “Knowing which is the case, and responding appropriately, is of vital importance.”¹³ Getting that wrong can harm either way, so such work is not for beginners.

Does a teacher make journeying safer? #

A good one does. The first teacher is the Power Animal, and most mistakes come from not listening to it. Human teachers need choosing with care: “somebody with a good degree of self-awareness, and who is relatively sane, grounded, and who has some humility.”¹⁴ Anyone seeking a practitioner should look for someone who has some understanding of mental health, and “will tell you if they think shamanic work isn’t right for you, or isn’t right for you yet.”