The inner tribe is Paul Francis’s name for the community of parts that each of us is made of: there is no single “I”. Just as we belong to the great Tribe of all the PeoplesThe Peoples. The Animal People, Plant People, Standing People (the Trees) and Stone People: our elder kin, of whom the Human People are the youngest and least wise. A family, not a hierarchy. Read the full answer, we carry a tribe of parts within us, and a healthy inner tribe is like a healthy outer one: every member is welcome, respected and has a voice, the Adults are in charge, and no part rules the others. Soul, the Lower-World member, is found in the Lower-World, 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 as our first Guide.
What is the inner tribe? #
The parts of us, seen as a community. “There is in fact no one single “self”, no single “I”. Rather, we are ourselves a community, an inner tribe.”1 We are made up of different ‘parts-of-self’, an ‘inner tribe’. The four main members are Soul, Spirit, the middle-world selfMiddle-world self. The everyday self (ego, persona, head-and-heart), made of our stories and experiences. A genuine and needed part of the Inner Tribe: of service, not in command. Read the full answer and the body, and the middle-world self has many smaller parts of its own. See What are the different parts of the self in Therapeutic Shamanism?
Why call it a tribe? #
Because the same pattern runs inside and outside us. “You are part of a bigger whole, a great Tribe of all the Peoples, a part 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 “Just as we ourselves are part of the greater Tribe of all the Peoples, within each of us we also have a tribe of different parts-of-self.”2 The inner tribe is animism turned inwards: relationship, not a single ruling self.
What does a healthy inner tribe look like? #
Like any healthy tribe. “Any healthy tribe is one where all tribal members feel welcome, respected, and have a voice. It is also one where there is a balance between meeting the needs of the individuals within the tribe on the one hand, and meeting the needs of the tribe as a whole on the other.”3 The work is to “get to know each of our inner parts, listen to them, and honour their needs.”
Take an everyday example: someone anxious about work discovers it is their five-year-old self who is anxious, and lets their adult part go to work instead. “Every part has a voice, every part can be what it is meant to be.”4
Who should be in charge? #
The Adults, inside as well as out. In a healthy group, “The Adults are the people in charge”, and “This applies not just to healthy outer Tribes, but to our inner-Tribe, too.”5 Wounded child parts are not banished; they become “parts-of-self that you can look after and care for, but parts who are no longer in charge.” See What is the Adult and what does healthy inner leadership look like?
What goes wrong when one part rules? #
The tribe falls out of balance. One common distortion is hierarchical spirituality, which tells us “the “highest” and most “noble” part of us is our 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 part”, and that the rest must be transcended.6 Paul’s test for any such idea is “What kind of corn does it grow?”, and that kind of spirituality “clearly grows terrible corn.”7 The answer is not to rise away from the other parts: “we need to rise, but rise rooted.”8
The ego can rule too, or be wrongly denied. “The ego is not “bad”, it just needs to be of service and not in charge.”9 And for most people, a childhood part 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 is still running everyday life, when it should be “the ‘body-guard’ of the adult person in charge”.10 See What are child, Orphan, fort-holder and protector parts?
Why do so many of us end up living behind a mask? #
Because of what this culture teaches us about our inner tribe. A healthy animist culture taught people how to live well with the tribe inside them as well as the one around them. Ours teaches that part of us is bad and should be sent away, and that we are acceptable only if we get good grades or do not answer back. So we put on a front. Carl Jung called this front the persona, from the Latin for mask, and the trouble is that we come to think the mask is who we actually are.11 It is what most people in this culture live and die in, never knowing who they really are. See What is masking, and how is it linked to domestication?
Is the inner tribe the same as my Lower-World Tribe? #
No. They are easily confused. Your Lower-World Tribe, your Ancestral Kin, are Human Lower-World GuidesHuman Lower-World Guide. A face put on the human Oversoul: the Ancestors met through an individual form, genuinely other than us, chosen from pre-Fall hunter-gatherer humanity. Related to as a teacher, never a master. Read the full answer you may visit for healing and belonging: “They are not ancestors, but AncestorsAncestors. The human Oversoul: the whole of humanity held as one Lower-World being. Distinct from individual dead ancestors (small a), who are not worked with in this approach. Read the full answer.”12 The inner tribe is the parts of you. Both are different again from the great Tribe of all the Peoples, the living world you belong to.
Can I find Soul without Power Animal? #
The books do not set a rule about this. Soul is the Lower-World member of the inner tribe, and “because your Soul is of the Lower-World, that is where they are to be found.”13 Every Lower-World journey is made with your Power Animal: “Your first and foremost guide working through you should be your Power Animal.”14 The Animal People are “your primary and most important link to the more-than-human world.”15 The book series follows that order too: the Power Animal in The Shamanic Journey, Soul in Finding Your Deep Soul.
