Soul retrieval is the shamanic healing of soul lossSoul-loss. The sending-away of parts of the self in order to survive: through shock or trauma, or (the chief modern cause) exiling our own parts to fit in. With Power-loss, one of the two root causes of shamanic illness. Read the full answer: the practitioner journeys with their Guides, finds a lost part of the person, persuades it to return and brings it home. Today it is more complicated than it once was, because the part of us that stayed behind may not want the lost part back, so the work also involves listening to that part and helping the returned part settle. It is done with consent, led by the Guides, and alongside other help rather than replacing it.
What is soul retrieval? #
Bringing a lost part of someone home: “The act of bringing back a lost soul or soul-partSoul-part. A small-s, middle-world part of the self that can be lost (sent away) and can be retrieved. Not the capital-S Soul. Read the full answer.”1 The practitioner journeys with the help of their Guides, finds the lost soul part, persuades it to return, and brings it home. Sometimes it can be that simple. See What is soul loss?
What is the purpose of soul retrieval? #
To heal one of the two roots of shamanic illness. “Given that it addresses one of the two underlying causes of illness, soul-retrieval is obviously of immense importance in shamanic healing.”2 It is something shamanism does especially well: “Soul retrieval is a specialism of shamanism. It is one of the things that shamanism is brilliant at doing.”3
Why can soul retrieval be more complicated now than in traditional cultures? #
Because of why parts are lost today. Traditionally, soul retrieval “would have involved some version of the shaman finding the lost soul part, or calling it back, and then placing it back into the person it belongs to”, and after a short time the matter would be resolved. Today most soul loss happens because we send parts away to fit in, and the part that stayed, 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, “may be ambivalent or even outright opposed to the ‘lost’ soul part returning. Because it is the fort-holder who sent the lost soul-part away in the first place, to try and protect us, and help us to survive.”4
So “for soul retrieval to be fully effective and long-lasting these days, there is usually a process of negotiating with the fort-holder that needs to happen first.”5 See How does soul retrieval work? and What is soul calling?
How does a soul retrieval journey happen? #
It is led by the Guides. In one soul retrieval, “the journey is Spirit-led. It is led primarily by the Animals and Lower-World beings”, and “None of it was led by the practitioner.” The practitioner’s job was “to ask for Ben’s soul retrieval and healing to be done, to be there to assist if needed, and record what happened”.6 The books describe what happens in such journeys but do not give a method for doing one; soul retrieval will have a book of its own later in the series.
What is the role of the Power Animal and the Guides? #
They are the ones who heal. The practitioner is not. “It is not the shaman that does the healing, but the guides.”7 In one example, the journey “is led by Wolf, the practitioner’s Power Animal”, along with other Animals and Lower-World Humans, and the practitioner “stayed with her Power Animal.”8 The Power Animal also brings power, meaning life-force, to the work.
Can soul retrieval be done in one session? #
Sometimes, but it is not a quick fix. The old method “certainly can” still work, “if the person really is fully ready to have the part back.”9 More often, “healing soul-loss that has already occurred tends to be marked by a series of events. These events are ‘soul-retrievals’.”10 Soul retrieval is not a quick fix. See What happens after soul retrieval and why is integration essential?
Settling a returned part in takes time too. Once a soul part is retrieved and welcomed back, “there often needs to be a process a few weeks or months to fully integrate it”. However long that takes, a retrieval is “a finite event”, whereas growing into our Lower-World Soul “is a lifelong process.”
What are intrusions, and why can they matter in soul retrieval? #
Intrusions are things that get into us through the holes soul loss leaves. They are a different problem from soul loss. Soul-loss and power-lossPower-loss. Disconnection from nature, the web of life and our place in it: like being unplugged from the national grid. One of the two root causes of shamanic illness, healed by reconnection (not by soul retrieval), beginning with the Power Animal bond. Read the full answer “leave our energy-body weakened”, so that “other things, ‘intrusionsIntrusion. Something lodged in us that should not be there, having entered through the holes soul-loss and Power-loss leave. Four broad types: unhelpful thought-forms, introjects, foreign-body energetic intrusions, and entity possessions. More about this’, can get into us and cause harm.”11 The two kinds of work are different, and confusing them does harm: “Taking away a part of someone is to create soul-loss and leave a hole in them that an intrusion (or worse) could then get into.”12 With grief, for example, 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 is the wrong response, whereas “grief often involves soul-loss, and so doing a soul retrieval would have probably been appropriate.”13
Is soul retrieval the same as finding the Lower-World Soul? #
No. Soul retrieval brings back middle-world parts, the soul with a small s. The Lower-World Soul is never lost: it is something we have to find, if and when we are ready, a lifelong process and not something we can retrieve via soul retrieval. See What is the difference between Soul and a soul part?
Why does soul retrieval need self-compassion? #
Because every part involved needs kindness, not force. The fort-holder needs to be met “compassionately and respectfully”.14 Meeting fort-holder parts, listening to them with kindness and thanking them can go a very long way in helping heal them. And a returned part needs to be welcomed, listened to, protected and integrated into everyday life.
Can soul retrieval be done for someone else? #
Yes, by an ethical practitioner and only with consent. Shamanic healing “should never be done on somebody without that person’s express and conscious consent”.15 One worked example, Ben’s, is a soul retrieval done by a practitioner for someone else. If you would like one, consider “seeing a shamanic practitioner for some one-to-one work.”16
Can I do soul retrieval for myself? #
Not from the books, which deliberately leave it out. Soul retrieval “usually involves working in all the realms, and often can involve doing a substantial amount of middle-world work”, and “a prerequisite of being able to do skilful middle-world work is being firmly rooted and anchored into both the lower- and Upper-Worlds first.”17 There is no need to rush: in the meantime there is much healing to be had from Lower-World and Upper-World work.
How do I know if a soul part is really mine? #
By not assuming. Discernment is needed. Something that seems foreign may in fact be a part of us: “We need to be able to discern when demons are real and need removing, and when they are parts-of-self that need owning and integrating.”18 Lost parts most often appear in human form, “usually simply looking like the client at the particular age that the part left or was lost.”19
Can soul retrieval help with addiction or compulsive patterns? #
It can be part of the help. Addiction “will always involve some soul-loss and power-loss”, and may also involve wounded parts of the selfParts of the self. There are four parts of the self, the realm-corresponding members of the Inner Tribe: the Body and the middle-world self (both of the middle-world), the Soul (of the Lower-World) and the Spirit (of the Upper-World). The Aware Self, also called the Witness, is not a fifth part but a capacity: the awareness that can watch all four, with compassion and equanimity. Read the full answer that need healing.20 Several things are usually at play, so soul retrieval is one strand of the work, not the whole of it. For the epidemic of addiction in our culture, “shamanism holds the cure.”21
Does soul retrieval replace therapy or medical care? #
No. Shamanism and psychotherapy do different jobs. Shamanism is “specifically designed and equipped to deal with the problems of soul-loss and power-loss”, whilst psychotherapy “is specifically designed and equipped to deal with the issues of the under-worldUnder-world. The realm of our repressed and disowned psychic energies, personal and collective: Jung’s Shadow and the unconscious, mapped shamanically. A part of the middle-world, created by the Fall, not the Lower-World, and psychotherapy’s proper territory rather than shamanism’s. Read the full answer”.22 “Neither is a good substitute for the other. Rather, they complement and enhance each other”.23 And not every illness is shamanic, so medical care still matters.
What is the relationship between parts work and soul retrieval? #
They need each other. Parts work listens to the parts that are still with us; soul retrieval finds the ones that have gone. A lost soul part is not in the room to be dialogued with. A part is not just repressed but has actually left altogether. This is when shamanism comes into its own, because shamanism can find the parts that have left altogether. And it is parts work with the fort-holder that allows a retrieval to last. See How do Guides, journeying and grounding support parts-of-self work?
