The middle-world is the realm we live in: this physical world, together with the energies and non-physical beings “behind” it. Unlike the 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 and 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, which are only places of love and healing, the middle-world is a mixed bag, full of beauty and kindness but also of suffering, deception and harm. It is the realm where care and protection matter, which is why shamanic practice begins elsewhere, and why living well means having one foot in this world and one in the other.
What is the middle-world? #
This world, in two aspects. “The middle-world is, of course, where we live and spend most of our time. It is here; this physical reality. In fact, there are two middle-worlds, or two aspects of the middle-world. One is the physical world, and the other is energetic.”1 The second, the shamanic middle-world, is “the non-physical aspects of the middle-world. This includes things like the energetic atmosphere of buildings and places, the energy given off by people (‘radiating calm’, ‘looking daggers at someone’, etc.), and non-physical beings such as spirits of the land, elementals, lost souls of the dead, and more.”2
Seen shamanically, that energy takes visible form. “We say someone is ‘looking daggers’ at someone; if we look shamanically then we will actually graphically see the daggers.”3
Why is the middle-world a mixed bag? #
Because it holds everything, the terrible and the wonderful. “If there is a hell, then it is the middle-world. Or, at least parts of the middle-world are indeed hell.” It is “the realm where poverty, inequality, injustice, plagues, pollution, wars, famine, torture, rape and murder exist. It is a realm of much beauty and good things too of course! It can be a realm of courage, bravery, love, hope, kindness, acts of compassion, laughter, and beauty. But it is undeniably a very mixed bag indeed, and in being so it is totally different to both the Upper-World and the Lower-World.”4
The energetic side is mixed too. Some places feel beautiful, “Conversely, some places may feel bad or somehow ‘wrong’ or ‘dead’.” None of this makes the middle-world bad: “This does not make the middle-world ‘bad’, it just is what it is.”5
How is the middle-world different from the other two realms? #
It is the realm of separation. “Compared to the Upper and Lower Worlds, the middle-world is the world of separation and individual identity.”6 Where the Lower-World is wholeness and the Upper-World oneness, the middle-world is full of separate individual things, each with its own story.
It also feels different. “The middle-world (particularly the human middle-world) is murkier than the other two realms. It is much ‘stickier’, much less clear, and sometimes outright deceptive. It can be a tricky place, where there are trickster people and spirits.”7 The Upper-World and Lower-World, by contrast, “feel ‘cleaner’, and less ‘complicated’. They are places of safety, love and healing.”
Is the middle-world more complicated now than it used to be? #
Yes. Hunter-gatherers lived in “a pristine natural environment”, as part of nature, whilst most people now live in towns and cities, almost entirely insulated from the natural world.8 Two things have added to the complexity. One is 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: “Unlike the shamanic Lower-World, the under-world is still part of the middle-world”, and 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 FallThe Fall. The catastrophe at the root of the whole diagnosis: the shift from animist, egalitarian hunter-gatherer life to owning, agricultural Taker culture. In domesticating other species we domesticated ourselves, cutting ourselves off from Mother Earth (Power-loss) and from parts of our own nature (soul-loss). When dated precisely, the Fall begins with the first city-state cultures, around 4000 BCE (Domestication begins earlier, with the Neolithic). A sickness, not our true nature. ‘Fallen culture’ is used interchangeably with Taker culture; the Great Rupture is a looser alternate name. Read the full answer it has grown “a thousand-fold or more.”9 The other is 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. Since we lost our shamans, and with them nearly all our knowledge of helping the dead move on, “we are now surrounded by the lost souls of the dead.”
The dead are as varied as the living. “In terms of their nature and intentions, the unquiet dead are as much of a mixed bag as the living are. Some are just lost or frightened and need help.” Others are selfish, and some are dangerous.10 If you meet one, you do not have to do anything; you can walk away, or ask your 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 to deal with them.
Why don’t beginners journey in the middle-world? #
Because it can be disturbing, and because clarity needs a root elsewhere first. “Waking up to the reality of the energetic middle-world can be sobering, disquieting and sometimes shocking and frightening. It is certainly not a place to start one’s shamanic journeying.”11 Paul Francis has seen students who were taught unclearly go straight into middle-world journeys and have experiences that frightened them, occasionally seriously.
Middle-world work is important, “but only once we are properly ready for it, and able to do it safely. To get to that point requires a firm and solid connection with the Lower and Upper Worlds first”. Being anchored in both “is essential for giving us the perspective to see with clarity what is really going on in the middle-world, without distortion.”12 See Why does Therapeutic Shamanism begin with the Lower-World?
Is the middle-world dangerous? #
It needs care rather than fear. We already live in it: “we live in the middle-world, so safety and protection are issues whether we are doing shamanic journeying or not.”13 What matters is awareness. “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.” In middle-world work, “we need to have our wits about us and not take things at face value. We need to take seriously issues about protection and good energy hygiene”.14
What does it mean to have one foot in each world? #
To be aware of both ordinary and shamanic reality. “Shamanism is sometimes described as having ‘one foot in this world and one in the other’. Or, sometimes as ‘walking between the worlds’… To live shamanically is to be aware of both realities, and to be able to move between them at will.”15 Both feet in either is a problem: most modern people have both feet in ordinary reality, whilst “Having both feet in the shamanic reality all the time is not shamanism, but madness.”
