In shamanic work, consent means a person’s actual, explicit agreement, given by them before any shamanic work is done on them. Paul Francis’s books are clear that doing shamanic healing on someone without it is an invasion of their privacy and an assault, however well meant. The rule reaches into journeys too: we can work on ourselves and our own side of a relationship, but we do nothing shamanic to anyone else without their permission.
What does consent mean in shamanic work? #
A person’s real agreement, given knowingly and in advance. Shamanic healing should never be done on somebody without that person’s express and conscious consent, meaning their actual, physical, real consent, not just consent sought from that person’s ‘higher self’.1 Asking someone’s ‘higher self’ in a journey is not asking them. See What are shamanic ethics and how are they different from rules or morality?
Why is consent so important in shamanic healing? #
Because shamanic healing does something to a person. Working on someone without permission “is a huge invasion of that person’s privacy, shows no respect for their right to set their own personal boundaries, and quite simply is an assault, no matter how well intentioned!” It is different from wishing someone well: “Shamanic healing is a lot more involved and intimate a process than simply asking for blessings for them. Doing a shamanic healing on someone involves you actually doing things to them, and your being involved in the healing process, albeit on an energetic level. It needs prior consent.”2
Does consent matter to the practitioner too? #
Yes. True GuidesGuides. The Lower-World and Upper-World beings a practitioner works with and learns from, of whom the Power Animal is the first and foremost. True Guides are ethical to their core; the shaman’s power comes from the depth of these bonds, not from the shaman. More about this will not help with anything unethical: “If a practitioner persists in using shamanism unethically then the great and transcendent Upper-WorldUpper-World. The realm of Father Sky and of Spirit: spacious, rarefied and clear, layered in tiers, offering not escape but perspective. Not better than the Lower-World: we ascend rooted, and bring the gifts back down. Read the full answer and 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 will leave them, to be replaced by lesser middle-worldMiddle-world. Ordinary physical reality together with its energetic layers: the realm of individuality, separation and mixed intentions, and the only realm where harm is possible. “If there is a hell, then it is the middle-world.” Read the full answer guides. The practitioner may not realise this.”3 And even with the person’s agreement, check with your own Guides before working on anyone: “always, always ask your guides before doing any work on anyone else. If they say ‘no’ then do not do it!”4
Can I journey to get information about another person? #
The books do not address this directly, but they set clear limits. In a journey for our own healing, “it is entirely unethical to do anything to that person in this journey”, and “the only person from your life in this physical reality who should be in this journey is you.”5 Shamanic healing is not a way of finding things out either: “it is categorically not about getting messages, advice or guidance, or predictions about the future.”6 And journeys do not give us facts: “You cannot use them to find out ‘facts’. They are instead the realm of meanings, relationships and insights.”7 See How do I distinguish guidance from projection and middle-world bleed-through?
What is a good intention when human relationships are involved? #
One that is about us, not the other person. When asking for healing in a journey, ask for the thing itself to be healed, “and leave the middle-world stories and content about it behind”, even when a difficulty is connected to someone in our life.8 We can always work on our own side of a relationship. In disentanglement, “you absolutely have the right to give back to someone anything that they have dumped on you. You also have the right to take back anything that is yours.” But “you do not have the right to do anything else to the person that you are disentangling from, including any healing on them, unless you have their clear and explicit permission.”9
Can I wish someone well, pray or send healing? #
Wishing someone well, yes. “It is, however, fine to wish someone well (in the sense of feeling kindness and compassion towards them)”. We have the right to do that, “as that is about us and our feelings.”10 Therapeutic Shamanism does not rule on other traditions’ healing or prayer, but “Sending somebody healing is not the same thing as doing a shamanic healing on them.” The shamanic equivalent is to ask our Guides to bless someone, “without you having any involvement or awareness of what the guides then do.”11 What we must not do is anything shamanic to them: “Without their express consent, you must not do anything shamanic to anyone else in a journey (or visualise anything happening to them).”12
Does distance make a difference? #
Not to the need for consent. In the healing method taught in The Shamanic Journey, “it really does not matter where the client’s physical body is in relation to your physical body”, but the starting point is “Having obtained the clear and explicit consent from your client to do the healing”.13 Consent comes first, wherever the person is.
What about spells and influencing other people’s choices? #
They impose on people without their agreement. A spell is “putting a thought-formThought-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 on someone that interferes with their own processes, and instead imposes on them what you decide that they should think, feel or behave.” “Spells are usually a power imbalance, in that they are one person trying to make someone do something, or make something happen to them, usually against that person’s conscious knowledge and free will.”14 Paul speaks only for himself here, saying “Your ethics are for you to decide”, but for him, “spells are not something I wish to have anything to do with.” See How does animism understand power and hierarchy? and What is sorcery, and are there ‘dark’ shamans?
Does a person’s inner world have to agree as well? #
In a sense, yes. A practitioner must listen to the protective part of a person called the fort-holderFort-holder. A protective part of the self that stayed behind to ‘man the fort’ when we were wounded: the inner critic, perfectionist, pusher, pleaser: the loyal soldier still fighting a war that ended long ago. Usually the part that sent an orphan away, so no deep healing holds without its consent; befriended, never extracted. Read the full answer, because “no deep or permanent change happens without the fort-holder’s consent.”15 When a fort-holder resists, the practitioner greets it, listens to its concerns, and sees whether they can be addressed. See What are child, Orphan, fort-holder and protector parts?
What are common ethical challenges in shamanic work? #
Many of them come from good intentions: sending healing or praying for people without asking them, relying on ‘higher self’ consent, bringing other people into our own healing journeys, giving messages and advice, and being the expert who tells people how to live. Working on someone we are strongly attached to is also a risk, because our own feelings can get in the way of the Guides.16 For anyone choosing a practitioner: “A good practitioner will only work with your clear consent, keep what you tell them confidential, and be honest about what they offer and about the limits of what they can do.”17
