Hello!
I’m thrilled to witness the growing excitement around the upcoming Healing the Past, Choosing the Future Course – big thanks to all who have already joined. With the increasing interest, there have been quite a few questions about the course, so here’s my attempt to address them. I hope this proves helpful.
To jump right to a specific question, simply click on it:
TECHNICAL DETAILS:
COURSE MATERIAL:
THE CURRICULUM
(MIGHT BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
THE FUNDATION
- Time and the multiverse, from a shamanic perspective.
- Time-travelling in journeys.
- The different parts-of-self involved on time-healing (particularly the difference between lost soul parts, fort-holder parts, and inherited burdens.
- How to disentangle and consciously entangle with different realities and versions of self.
- Middle-world journeying, including protection issues.
- Parts-of-self, (and parts-of-more-than-self, and not-parts-of-self).
UNBURDENING SELF
- Family history and dynamics.
- Identifying parts-of-self and not-parts-of-self.
- What we are responsible for, and what we aren’t; what we can change, and what we can’t.
- Recapitulation techniques.
ANCESTRAL BURDENS
- The difference between Ancestors and ancestors.
- How many ancestors we have (we are all related).
- What happens when we die.
- The unquiet dead and psycopomping (helping the dead find peace).
- Ethics and permission when working with the dead.
- Mythos and logos – what is factually true, and what is metaphor.
THE FUTURE
- How we want to live rest of our own life.
- Choosing the reality we end up in.
- Death as a Guide in shamanism. Coming to terms with death.
- Types of grief including personal griefs (such as the loss of what we have loved, the places in us that have not known love, and that we didn’t receive the things we expected or hoped for), ancestral griefs, ecological grief.
- How grief heals us.
FUTURE SELVES
- The future is a multiverse!
- Working with future selves as m-w guides.
- How we choose what we want, and what parts-of-self do this.
- Making more conscious and aware choices.
- How to fashion one’s direction and purpose in Soul and Spirit.
- How to live a good life (a Leaf that contributes to the Tree).
VISION OF A FUTURE
- Remembering the future is a multiverse.
- Different versions of humanity’s future.
- Communicating with the far future.
- Active hope, peaceful acceptance.
Ongoing access and free course repeats
Ongoing access to the course
When you sign up for the courses, you have access to the recordings and the other teacher materials for life – life, of course, meaning for the life of the college. So as long as there’s a college running, and as long as the internet exists, you’ll have access to the recordings. So you can take as long as you want to work your way through a course, and you can come back to it and revise any bits of it as often as you want. It’s sort of like buying a book – once you bought the materials, you know, they’re yours and for as long as you want.
Free revisions
When we (re)run any course that you have done previously, you can sign up for the new version for free!
Payment in three instalments
Money, of course, can be a challenge. We try to keep the courses as low-cost as we possibly can, and all of us involved in the college live quite modestly. Remember that in terms of signing up for the courses, our website gives you the option of paying for courses in three monthly instalments at no extra interest. For the First Steps course, for instance, you can pay 80 pounds upfront or in three instalments of 26.6 pounds each over the next three months. I hope that helps.
What if I cannot join the live sessions?
You do not have to be able to attend the live sessions to sign up for the course, and to get a huge amount out of doing it. At the moment, probably around 50% of our students don’t attend live at all and of the 50% that do, probably half of those only attend some of the live sessions, so you do not have to attend the live sessions, to sign up for the course.
Having said that, obviously, the live sessions add even more and the people that do attend them tend to really value them and love them, which is why we keep doing, offering them really the live sessions. The feedback we get is that people love the experience of journeying together. They love the sharing of journeys. they learn a huge amount from listening to other people’s journeys, but more than anything, they value the discussion time and the sense of community and support and things that come with that. So the live sessions are great and they do add a lot. On the other hand, we have loads of people who don’t attend the live sessions and still keep booking on our courses, and still, we get fantastic feedback from them too. So don’t let not being able to attend the live sessions put you off.
When will the course run again?
Considering the number of courses available and the constraints of the number of weeks in a year, as well as the time and energy we have, courses are typically repeated, at best, on a two-year cycle.
Healing the Past, Choosing the Future course covers some unique areas of shamanic work that are not covered in the other courses and is a course I don’t get to run very often. The last time was nine years ago – so it’s unlikely to be offered again for a long time (if at all) so, seriously, don’t miss this opportunity. Remember too, you don’t have to be able to attend the live sessions (all sessions are recorded anyway). Once enrolled, you can “bank” the course and do it in your own time and at your own pace if you wish.
Another thing to consider when signing up for it now is that I can’t guarantee it will run again. I mean, living with an awareness of death is a central theme in shamanism. Shamans are deeply connected to the cycle of nature, and death is an integral part of that. I’m not being morbid; it’s a reality. I’m not getting any younger, and I don’t know how long I’ll continue teaching. So, don’t assume the courses will be available indefinitely. Please seize the day and take the opportunity to sign up when the courses become available.
What are ancestral burdens?
An ancestral burden refers to the emotional, psychological, or cultural challenges and traumas that are believed to be passed down from one generation to the next within a family or community.
They can be just various fears, such as fear of betrayal, abandonment, or fear of being hurt. It could also be a sense of injustice, extending beyond personal history to ancestral lines. This phenomenon of transmission of trauma is part of a relatively new field of science called epigenetics, which explores how individuals carry trauma from their ancestral lines.
Personal vs. collective ancestral burdens
Ancestral burdens exist on a spectrum from more personal to more collective burdens. Personal burdens stem from individual histories, whereas collective burdens are shared by larger groups, including entire cultures.
Personal Burden: Fort-holder Strategies
As kids, we adapt to challenges by suppressing parts of ourselves, leading to strategies like staying quiet or playing the joker. These enduring aspects, called ‘fort holders,’ soldier on and shape our behavior. If unresolved, these strategies may pass through generations, creating ancestral burdens.
Generational Family Burden: Border Reavers
Both my partner Cat and I carried burdens from our families’ ancestral history in the English-Scottish border region, marked by centuries of instability known as the Border Reavers. These raiders, enlisted by the English and Scots, left a legacy of trauma. Despite the last incident being 300 years ago, the historical burden lingered in our families.
Cultural Collective Burden: Taker Culture
Our modern-day culture, spanning 6,000 traumatic years, collectively experiences post-traumatic stress. We carry ancestral burdens, extending back hundreds and even thousands of years, shaping our behavior in what has been a challenging period in human history.
We live in a multiverse - at any moment, there are several possible futures.
In shamanic terms, we live in a multiverse – at any moment, there are several possible futures. Why we end up in a particular reality is often a result of unconscious decision-making, influenced by patterns of behavior, choices, and stories that often operate beneath conscious awareness.
Many different shamanic traditions see the past as a tendril or a tentacle, moving in a spiral motion, entering our lower back from behind, just opposite our belly button. This tendril samples future possibilities, gravitating toward familiar scenarios based on past experiences. In the course, you’ll learn practical techniques to get to grips with this tentacle, ending the cycle of recreating the past and start to live more consciously.
Journeying to the past and healing past selves
By doing a shamanic journey to the past and supporting our younger selves, we create alternative timelines where we responded in healthier ways. This, in turn, lightens the burden of the past and allows us to make more conscious choices in the present.
This practice isn’t about altering the past but creating different timelines where healthier versions of yourself exist. As we engage in this process, we become more aware that there isn’t just one “I”; there are numerous versions in slightly different universes. Creating healthier versions of ourself can help move us to timelines where we live a more authentic, soulful and happy life.
Own Your Choices: A Shamanic Approach to Choosing the Future
Choice is about understanding what we can control, stepping into that awareness, then embracing our power and taking responsibility for the choices and decisions that are ours to make. Simultaneously, it’s crucial to acknowledge the aspects beyond our control and resist the urge to try and manipulate them. Instead, we have a response-ability — we can choose how we respond to those uncontrollable elements.
We will look at a shamanic practice that can help with this process, including connecting with future versions of ourselves for guidance and support in decision-making.
Time traveling: interview with Paul Francis
I hope to see you on the course!
The ‘Healing the past, choosing the future’ course consists of 6 pre-recorded theory sessions and 4 two-hour long live sessions.
Theory pre-recorded sessions will be released on or before:
January 6, 13, 20, 27, February 3, and 10.
The live (experiential/community) sessions:
January 13, 20, February 3, and 10.
They will be 2 hours long, and start at 2pm (UK time).
The closing date for enrolment is Saturday 6th of January. The course is highly unlikely to be repeated until 2026 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).
Blessings,
Paul Francis