Soul Roots, Spirit Branches

How This Book Is Laid Out

For most people these days, when it comes to exploring shamanic Upper-World journeying, there is not only things to learn, but a great deal of unlearning that needs to happen too. This is because, in the modern era, our understanding of Spirit and the Upper-World has been comprehensively overlaid with centuries of non-animist thinking. The result is that most of us now carry a whole array of assumptions, images and beliefs, about what Spirit is and what the Upper-World is going to be like, almost none of which corresponds to what original animism teaches. Which is why this book involves both learning new ideas and unlearning old ones, and both processes are equally important.

In the later chapters we will discover what the shamanic Upper-World really is, and the ways in which it differs from the Lower-World. This will include exploring the various beings, environments and practices we tend to encounter in the Upper-World, what Upper-World journeys are for, and their role in developing a balanced shamanic practice.

To do that though, because the Upper-World is the realm of Spirit, we will first need to understand what animists mean when they talk about Spirit, and not bring non-animist assumptions to that. Because, although animism has some similarities with other spiritual practices, there are crucial differences too. Understanding what those similarities and differences are, means getting clear about what specifically animist spirituality really is and, equally importantly, what it is not. So that is where we will begin our journey, in chapter one of this book.

In chapter one, we begin by looking at how and why we abandoned the original, animist, Earth-centred spirituality of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and how spirituality became hijacked and pressed into service in the dumbing down and domestication of ourselves and the domination of the world around us. We will look at how, in contrast to original animist spirituality, which is non-hierarchical, modern-day spiritual thinking is usually built around hierarchy, and how this way of thinking has become so ingrained that most people simply take it as a given. We will explore how this is not a ‘fact’ but an idea that developed only relatively recently in human history, and how adopting it has damaged not only our relationships with each other as humans, but broken our relationship with nature and the other-than-human worlds too.

In chapter two, we look at how this same hierarchical thinking shows up in our own personal and spiritual lives. We look at the difference between the pre-personal, the personal and the transpersonal, and at the pre-trans fallacy, where childlike, magical thinking is mistaken for the spiritual. We look at spiritual bypassing, projection, spiritual egotism and spiritual materialism, at the psychological limits to spiritual growth, at what a healthy, fully-functioning person looks like, at the healthy middle-world self, and at what we stand to recover. And we look at how animism differs even from those spiritual paths that love the earth, such as Taoism, Buddhism and modern paganism.

In chapter three, having gained a deeper understanding of the spiritual sickness that afflicts so much of modern life, we turn to how the non-hierarchical, nature-based spirituality of animism can help us heal these damaged and broken relationships. We explore four roots of animist spirituality — that it is non-hierarchical, that it holds all things as sacred, that it is grounded and of service, and that it is embodied. We look at the inescapable politics of spirituality and the importance of having a spirituality that is also politically engaged and aware.

In chapter four, we explore how the worlds are made. We look at what animism says about the Great Mystery, the Sacred Masculine and the Sacred Feminine, and how these give rise to the three shamanic realms. We then look at each of the three realms in turn, at what each of them is like, and at how the whole of it grows in the way that a tree grows.

In chapter five, we turn to the four parts of ourselves, Spirit, Soul, middle-world self (or ego) and body, and explore what it means to cultivate a healthy ‘inner tribe’. We also look at the Witness, or Aware Self, which is not a fifth part of us but our capacity for awareness. Then we come to mindfulness and meditation, looking below the surface of meditation practices to get a deeper understanding of what meditation is and how it works, drawing on both shamanic and psychotherapeutic perspectives. We look at why meditation on its own is not enough, at what can go wrong in meditation, and at the lure of chasing peak experiences. We explore how there are meditation practices even for people who have tried meditating and think it ‘doesn’t work’ for them, working through the senses one at a time, with both a narrow and a wide focus, and how different meditation approaches fit into shamanic work and the cultivation of the Aware Self, including how to meditate within a shamanic journey itself.

In chapter six, we turn to Upper-World shamanic journeys and what happens in them. This will include exploring topics such as: when and why to choose the Upper-World; how to ascend to the Upper-World and what to expect when you get there, including its different tiers and how to choose your Upper-World imagery; finding Upper-World Guides; finding your Upper-World ‘Self’ or ‘Spirit’; how the Upper-World can help you develop healthy perspective and detachment while staying grounded and compassionate; Upper-World healing practices, including the use of light, sound and presence; what Gods and Goddesses really are from a shamanic perspective; the ‘Council of Elders’ and its role in disentanglement work, and what forgiveness does and does not mean; the Convergence Point at the very top of the Upper-World; and how to ground yourself and come back down to earth after Upper-World work.

In chapter seven, we turn to shamanic ethics — what they are, where they come from, and how they can guide us in living an ethical shamanic spiritual life in the world. We look at animist guiding principles, how to identify your core values, and how to use Upper-World perspective to find meaning and purpose in your middle-world life, and at what it means to live as if everything is sacred.

In chapter eight, the final chapter, we explore moments of spiritual awakening, what they are like, and the many ways they come about, including through nature, ceremony and trauma. We look at how the initiation rites of hunter-gatherer cultures made use of this, at where awakening and psychosis overlap and where they differ, at the place of psychoactive plants, at how these states compare with bliss and flow, and at why they matter so much for our growth.

After that final chapter, you will find a few other sections: a request, information about the next books in this series, a little about me, information on training in Therapeutic Shamanism and Core Animism, and a bibliography.