Most modern spiritual teachings offer us a kind of reassurance about death: eternal life, reincarnation, ascension, continuation. From an animist and shamanic perspective, these ideas are relatively recent. They arise after domestication, after the Fall, after we lost our original place in the web of life.
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors held a very different relationship with death.
Not one of denial or consolation – but one of intimacy, realism, grief, reverence, and belonging.
This course explores those older teachings. Not to tell you what to believe about death, but to explore what a sane, grounded relationship with death can teach us about how to live.
Dates: July – August 2026
On the course, we explore:
- What happens when we die. What animism and shamanism actually say about death – starting from the reality that nobody knows for certain, and why certainty is not the point.
- Endings and wintertime. Death as part of the Wheel of Life. Why things need to end properly, and what goes wrong when we try to avoid decline and endings.
- Stages of life and Eldership. How death perspective brings maturity, perspective, and simplification, and what it means to grow into true adulthood and eldership.
- Grief. Different kinds of grief, why grief isn’t something to “get over”, and how grieving works when it’s allowed to be a process.
- Preparing for death. Looking at what you want to happen when you die, where you want to go, who you want to show up – and what that tells you about how you’re living now.
- The inner tribe at death. What happens to Spirit, Soul, body, ego, and awareness at death, and why death is best understood as separation rather than continuation.
- The Land of the Dead. The shamanic understanding of the Land of the Dead, the unquiet dead, and why clear boundaries between the living and the dead matter.
- Death as teacher. How keeping death in awareness – without fascination or denial – teaches us how to live more honestly and fully.
- …and much more
£150.00 for the course
Or just £165 bundled with 6 live sessions
The Live Shamanic Journeying Sessions are now open to all students with an account, not just those in the Embodied Shamanism course, so they are sold separately. You can either buy just the course for £150, or add 6 Live Sessions for just £15 more (a saving of 50% off the Live Sessions price if bought separately). Details of the Live Sessions are here.
IN THIS COURSE
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE – STARTING FROM NOT KNOWING
In this course, we explore what animism and shamanism actually say about death, beginning from the most grounded and honest starting point: that nobody knows for certain what happens when we die. Rather than attempting to provide certainty or reassurance, we examine why animist traditions are not interested in definitive answers to this question, and why certainty itself is often a distraction from what really matters. We look at how modern spiritual ideas about death, including reincarnation, arise, and how these differ from older shamanic and animist perspectives.
This exploration is not about arguing for or against particular beliefs. Instead, it is about understanding why animism begins from not knowing, and what becomes possible when we stop trying to resolve death intellectually. By looking carefully at reincarnation and other commonly held ideas, we explore how belief systems can shape experience, and why shamanism places more emphasis on how we live than on what we believe about what comes after death.
endings – Death, Winter, and the Completion of Cycles
We look at why things need to end properly, and why endings that are rushed, avoided, or denied tend to cause problems rather than renewal. From an animist perspective, endings are not a failure of life, but an essential part of how life stays healthy. When something has reached its natural end, whether that is a relationship, a role, an identity, or a phase of life, it needs to be allowed to complete. When endings are avoided or prematurely “turned into” new beginnings, what actually happens is not renewal, but stagnation. Something unfinished continues to take up space and energy.
This includes exploring what happens when individuals and cultures try to avoid decline and endings altogether. We look at how resistance to endings shows up in many areas of life, not just around death itself. Relationships are kept going long after they have ended, identities are clung to even when they no longer fit, and life stages are stretched out or blurred rather than allowed to complete. From an animist point of view, this creates confusion, exhaustion, and a sense of being stuck, because energy that should be released is being held on to.
When winter is respected as winter, and endings are allowed to be endings, something essential can settle and compost. Only then does genuine renewal become possible. Without this, what often looks like rebirth is actually forced or premature, carrying unresolved material forward rather than allowing something truly new to emerge.
NAVIGATING GRIEF
Grief is a central theme of this course. We explore different kinds of grief, not only in relation to death, but also in relation to loss, change, endings, and decline more broadly. From this perspective, grief is not something to “get over”, resolve, or eliminate. It is not a problem to be fixed, but a natural response to loss and ending, and an inevitable part of being alive.
We look at how grief functions when it is allowed to be a process rather than treated as pathology. We also explore what happens when grief is rushed, suppressed, or avoided. Rather than disappearing, ungrieved grief tends to linger and affect other areas of life. By allowing grief to move at its own pace, we explore how grieving supports emotional honesty, restores movement, and deepens our capacity to live fully.
THE INNER TRIBE AT DEATH
We explore what happens to the different parts of the inner tribe at death: Spirit, Soul, body, ego, and awareness. This includes understanding death not as continuation of the self, but as separation. We look at how these parts come together during life, and what happens as they part company at death.
This perspective challenges the idea of a single, enduring self that simply moves from one state to another. Instead, death is understood as a process in which different aspects of our being follow different paths. We explore why this distinction matters, and how it changes the way we understand identity, selfhood, and responsibility during life.
THE LAND OF THE DEAD
We explore the shamanic understanding of the Land of the Dead, including the unquiet dead, and why clear boundaries between the living and the dead are essential. From this perspective, the Land of the Dead is not a place of permanence, and lingering attachments can create difficulties for both the dead and the living.
We look at why animist traditions place such importance on the dead moving on, and why fascination with death is treated with caution rather than encouragement. By understanding the role of boundaries, we explore how a healthy relationship with death supports life rather than undermines it.
DEATH AS A TEACHER
Finally, we explore death as teacher. This does not mean dwelling on death, becoming fascinated by it, or allowing it to overshadow life. Rather, it means keeping death in awareness without denial or fixation. We explore how this kind of awareness brings honesty, proportion, and clarity.
From this perspective, death quietly teaches us how to live more fully. It encourages us to pay attention to what matters, to let go of what no longer serves, and to live with greater presence and integrity. Rather than diminishing life, death perspective tends to deepen it.
This course is deeply experiential
Practices include:
- Dying in journeys – the Transformation Practices
- Hunting, killing, and eating in journeys – meeting the life/death cycle directly
- Preparing for death journeys
- Middle-World protection practices
- Finding and strengthening connection with Soul
- Growing into Soul – responding to its earlier callings
- Spirit and perspective journeys
- Meeting older selves and future selves
- Decluttering life and lightening energetic load
- Ancestral unburdening journeys
- Meeting Death as an energy
- “A year to live” practice
- Gratitude and presence practices
What this course offers
Many people report that after this work they feel:
- less afraid of death
- more at peace with endings
- clearer about what matters
- more present
- less burdened
- more able to grieve cleanly
- more alive
Not because death has been made “nice”
but because it has been made real and relational again.
Who this course is for
This course may be for you if:
- you feel called to a deeper, more honest relationship with death
- you work shamanically or animistically and want more clarity around the dead
- you are navigating grief, endings, or life transitions
- you are curious about how death can guide living
- you feel the pull toward eldership, perspective, and simplification
It may not be for you if:
- you are looking for certainty or guarantees
- you want death to be bypassed or spiritualised away
- you are not willing to sit with ambiguity
practical DETAILS
The course starts on Saturday 4th July 2026 and consists of:
• 6 pre-recorded theory modules. Each module contains a video presentation of between 1 and 3 hours in length, with accompanying learning resources. They will be released at weekly intervals. The dates are July 4th, 11th, 18th, 23rd, August 1st, 8th.
• As usual, a website forum and an (optional) Signal group, where students can ask questions, discuss topics, share experiences and additional resources, and get support, encouragement, and a sense of community.
• Bonus recordings if and when needed.
In addition, there is the option of adding:
• 6 live shamanic journeying sessions. On each of the 6 dates above, there will also be a Live Shamanic Journeying session. These are optional, so you can buy the course without these (for £150), or add all 6 live sessions for just £15 more (a saving of 50% on the usual Live Sessions price). Whilst the Live Sessions are optional, people who attend them usually find them of great benefit. The Live Sessions start at 2pm UK time and are two hours long. Click here for more details of our Live Shamanic Journeying sessions.
THE CURRICULUM
(MIGHT BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
BODY IN ANIMISM & THE ROLE OF BODY-CENTRED PSYCHOTHERAPY
Module 1 will look into the body’s place in animism and an introduction to Wilhelm Reich’s work and body-centred psychotherapy practices.
Once a student of Freud, Reich soon broke away, frustrated by how psychoanalysis kept people stuck in their heads. He turned his focus to the body, becoming the founder of body-centred psychotherapy. A century on, his work has evolved, deepened, and uncovered profound ways to release what’s held in the body. In this course, we’ll explore these developments and how shamanism and animism take them even further.
The role of the Body
In the modern era, we have become very disconnected from our bodies. We live up in our heads and often neglecting our bodies. Or, if we do pay attention to our bodies, it is usually to try to master them in some way. This includes much of contemporary spirituality, which often sees the body as lesser, lower, just a vehicle, or something that needs to be controlled or disciplined. This perspective is profoundly different from animist teachings about the body.
Animism and the Body
Animists knew that the body never lies and knows the truth. They knew how to be grounded and centred in their bodies; how to be comfortable in their own skins. Far from viewing their bodies as just a vehicle, a ‘meat sack’ they inhabited, original animists revered their bodies. They understood that the body is sacred and full of its own profound intelligence and wisdom. They listened closely to their bodies and trusted its deep wisdom and guidance. In particular, they understood that the body is deeply connected to Soul and to the Lower-World, and to Mother Earth herself.
This is entirely different from our heads – the part of us that, these days, we live in most of the time. Our head is constantly making things up, telling stories, rationalising, explaining, and justifying. It is not necessarily concerned with the truth. Instead, more important to it is to feel like it understands why someone did something or why they were treated a certain way. So with our heads we create stories to explain our own actions, justify ourselves, and make sense of the world. We get caught up in these invented stories, and believe them to be true.
The body, however, is incapable of making up stories. It is always authentic and is always trying to tell us the truth. The problem is that, just as we have stopped listening to the other-than-human world – the Animal, Plants and Stone People – we have also stopped listening to our own bodies.
When we are not listening to our bodies, because our head is in charge, a gap opens between what we think the truth is – who we think we are – and what the truth actually is and who we really are.
Body-centred psychotherapy
The truth that the body holds has to be suppressed if we are to tell ourselves something different in our heads. Wilhelm Reich called this suppression “body armouring.” Body armouring is how emotions, stories, and unresolved issues become locked in the body. If you have taken previous courses, you may have heard me talk about body armouring before. But in this course, we will explore its mechanisms in much greater depth so that we can uncover the truth, wisdom, and authenticity that the body holds for us.
CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Wilhelm Reich proposed that our early life experiences set the foundation for emotional and behavioural patterns that persist throughout our lives. These patterns, which develop in response to our relationships and environment, influence how we interact with the world and cope with stress. Reich’s theory also shows how unresolved emotional struggles can have lasting effects on both our minds and bodies.
Each stage of early development comes with its own emotional challenges. If these challenges aren’t handled well, they can lead to fixed emotional and behavioral patterns. As these emotional and physical patterns remain unresolved, they become fixed and solidify into what Reich called “character types.” These fixed patterns, formed from unresolved trauma, continue to influence how we perceive and respond to life, often dictating our relationships and behavior. Over time, these patterns manifest as eight distinct character types, each with its own way of navigating the world.
CHARACTER TYPES
We’ll take one character type per module and go through it in detail, including practices for working with that particular character type. We’ll draw on many practices, including technique called focusing, which is a way of accessing deep information from the body. I’ve covered this on other courses, but we’ll use it in much more depth here. We’ll also draw on other practices, such as physical self-massage to release areas of the body, and of course, shamanic journeying and other shamanic practices to help heal the wounding and resolve any trauma tied to particular character patterns.
Boundaried (Shitzoid) Type
- From conception to 6 months.
- Body type: small or tall, thin, angular, and disjointed.
- Key issue is not feeling safe to be here; not feeling welcomed, so never properly arrive on the earth. Feels they don’t belong. Unwanted. Chameleons (nothing feels real, so everything is an act/mask). Feels ‘weird’ and things feel ‘weird’. Difficulty with grounding and making contact.
- Examples: David Bowie, Lee Evans, Luna Lovegood, Vincent Van Gough.
Oral (Oral) Type
- 6 months to 2 years.
- Body type: thin, collapsed chest, s-shaped, child-like eyes.
- Key issue is feeling underfed, unsupported, and starved of love and nurture. Vulnerable. Longing, neediness, dependency. Nothing ever is enough.
- Examples: Kate Moss – waif-like models with cigarettes and big eyes.
Compensated Oral Type
- Has the same issues as Oral, but has responded by denying their neediness.
- Body type is wiry and athletic.
- Examples: marathon or fell runners and other lone endurance sports-types – proving to themselves that they can survive on their own.
Controlling (Psychopathic) Type
- 2 years to 4 years.
- Body type: either suave and charming or powerful and dominating.
- Key issue is it is not safe to be vulnerable; it is essential to be in control and to be top dog.
Dominating through charm, persuasion, manipulation and/or bullying. Charismatic. Confident. Narcissistic. Leaders. - Examples: Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, Bill Clinton, John Prescott, Mussolini – most politicians!
Holding (Masochistic) Type
- 2 years to 4 years.
- Body type: overweight, burdened, rounded shoulders; can look a bit ‘put-on’.
- Key issue is it is not safe to be assertive. Must behave oneself and do as one is told. Good boy/girl. Duty and responsibility. Enduring. Long-suffering. Low self-esteem and confidence. Must not assert oneself or be fiery. Beast of burden. Self-sabotage. May hide behind being ‘jolly’.
- Examples: Dawn French, Timothy Spall, Nick Frost.
Thrusting (Phallic) Type
- 4 years to 7 years.
- Body type: rigid, athletic, upright; because of cultural gender norms, tend to be male.
- Key issue is they feel they are only worth what they achieve. Love is given to them for success and being good at things. It is not safe to collapse and underachieve. Stiff upper lip. Captain of cricket and then of industry. Officers. Pushers and perfectionists.
- Examples: Richard Branson, David Beckham, public schoolboys, armed forces officers – the people who ‘built’ the British empire.
Crisis (Hysteric) Type
- 4 years to 7 years.
- Body type: overtly sexual, exaggerates sexual characteristics; because of cultural gender norms, tend to be female.
- Key issue is they get attention and self-esteem from being sexual and attention-seeking, but feel conflicted about this. Sexualises most interactions. Needs to be the centre of attention. Drama queen. Goes from crisis to crisis. Dramatic. Exciting. Melodramatic.
- Examples: most hyper-sexualised female pop-stars, ‘babe’ culture.
Denying Crisis Type
- Same issues as crisis type but more conflicted about the attention, so is cooler and unobtainable. Aloof. ‘You can look but you cannot touch’. The Ice Queen.
- Examples: Meryl Streep, Sharon Stone, Isabella Rossellini, Ingrid Bergman.
SEGMENTS OF THE BODY ARMOUR
Body armour tends to build around seven key segments of the body. Each segment relates to specific emotional patterns and unresolved trauma from early development, contributing to the build-up of body armour that restricts emotional and energetic flow.
- Ocular Segment: This area includes the eyes, forehead, cheeks, and scalp. Emotional expressions such as suspicion, anger, and grief are often stored here, stemming from difficulties in trusting or seeing the world clearly.
- Oral Segment: This includes the mouth, jaw, and chin. Tension in this segment is connected to feelings of desire, fear, pain, or struggles with communication and self-expression.
- Cervical Segment: Involving the neck and tongue, this segment is associated with emotional patterns like self-pity, helplessness, fear, and a block in self-expression or creativity.
- Thoracic Segment: This includes the chest, arms, and shoulders. Emotional blockages here often relate to love, grief, rage, and fear, affecting one’s ability to express heartfelt emotions.
- Diaphragmatic Segment: The diaphragm and stomach are central to this segment, which holds tension related to the experience of pleasure, pain, and emotional release. Blockages in this area hinder the flow of emotional expression.
- Abdominal Segment: This includes the muscles around the abdomen, spine, and pelvis. Emotional patterns stored here are linked to trust, fear, and nourishment, often reflecting one’s sense of safety and grounding.
- Pelvic Segment: The pelvic area, including the genitals and surrounding muscles, holds emotional tension associated with sexual feelings, anger, rage, and fear, as well as struggles with personal power and pleasure.
Explore our latest blog, Shamanism & the Wisdom of the Body, for a sneak peek at what’s to come!
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Do I need a background in psychotherapy to do this course?
Not at all! People usually find the material in this course hugely eye-opening and useful even if they have no prior experience in therapy. You really don’t need any prior therapy experience, just an openness and curiosity about the inner lives of yourself and others.
I already have a background in psychotherapy. Will this course be useful to me?
Yes! Most psychotherapists I have taught this work to find it incredibly useful, and not just in terms of their work with clients, but in so many other aspects of their life too.
Do I need a background in shamanism to do this course?
Yes, and not only in shamanism, but specifically in Therapeutic Shamanism. To do this course, you must have done our First-Steps course, and at least one Next-Steps or Further-Steps course with us (please note, there really are no exceptions to this).
I have already done the Inner Tribe course. Will this new course be covering the same material?
The vast majority of the material on the Embodied Shamanism course is unique to this course. If you have done the Inner Tribe course though, you will find the two courses dovetail together and can greatly add to each other. If you haven’t done the Inner Tribe course though, that is absolutely fine too! You really don’t need to have done the Inner Tribe course before doing the Embodied Shamanism one.
Mental health!
As you will be aware, with all our courses we stress that, whilst shamanic healing can be of great benefit with mental health issues, to be done safely it does require a reasonable degree of mental robustness and emotional resilience too. As such, like meditation and other similar practices, it can be contra-indicated in mental health issues such as psychosis, mania, severe depression, or dissociative disorders. In addition, this particular course involves exploring deep mental and emotional issues. People will be able to work at the depth that feels comfortable to them, and at a pace that suits them. However, if you have any mental health issues, current or historical, which you feel may impact on your ability to do this work safely, then please discuss this with us prior to booking on the course (any such discussions will, of course, be treated confidentially).
HOW DOES IT WORK?
PRE-RECORDED ONLINE TRAINING & LIVE SESSIONS
- Zoom Online Sessions With Founder of Therapeutic Shamanism, Paul Francis.
- Live Shamanic Journeying.
- Study in the Comfort of Your Own Home.
SUPPORT BETWEEN SESSIONS
- Detailed Course Notes.
- Video Recording of Every Class.
- Submit Your Questions for the Next Session and Discuss with Peers.
- Learn at Your Own Pace.
YOUR SHAMANIC TRIBE AND COMMUNITY
- Meet Like-Minded People.
- Connect Between Sessions on Website Forum and (optional Signal group).
- Deepen the Connection in Break-Out Rooms During Live Sessions.
WHAT OUR STUDENTS SAY?
ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS
JOIN US!
To attend the ‘Living and Dying’ course, you need to have completed our First Steps course, and at least one other, Next-Steps or Further-Steps, course with us (please note, there really are no exceptions to this). There are 2 Next-Steps courses you can take before July when the course starts:
Exploring the Lower-World
The Animal, Plant, Standing (Tree) and Stone People
The closing date for enrolment is July 4th. The course is highly unlikely to be repeated until 2030 at the earliest, so please do take this opportunity to book (remember, once booked, you can always work through the recordings at your own pace, and with no time limits).
Payment by instalments. We are committed to keeping our courses as affordable as we can, and this course is way cheaper than almost any comparable one. However, please remember that (depending on what country you are from) PayPal offers the option of spreading the payment over 3 monthly instalments. There is no fee at all for this, nor any interest incurred.
£150.00 for the course
Or just £165 bundled with 6 live sessions
