Nothing you are shown in your journeys is really insignificant. In nonliterate cultures, where note-taking was not possible, shamans had to discipline their memory to recall as many details of their journey as possible. To forget what the spirits told or showed them was disrespectful, and the shaman could eventually lose their continued help.

Separate from soul loss, and very important as a factor leading to illness, is the loss of personal spiritual power—a consequence of the individual having lost the protection of a personal guardian spirit to help ward off illnesses, injuries, and adversity in general. However, even the retention of such spiritual power and protection is usually not

This will be the start of your use of the classic shamanic journey method for getting answers to questions by entering realms of hidden knowledge. To begin, please take a few minutes to think about the most important personal questions in your life. These should be questions with which you have struggled without obtaining a clear answer or

Conversely, when you journey for healing, you may also be given advice or information instead or together with the healing. So remember and learn everything you can. If you receive a healing or advice, thank the teacher or the helping spirit before you leave. If you receive a healing, go back for repeated treatments until you are completely well.

Spiritual factors that can contribute to, or bring about, illness are of two main types: (1) those that involve a loss by the patient of a spirit important to the patient’s well-being; (2) the acquisition by the patient of a spirit detrimental to the patient’s well-being.

Soul loss commonly manifests as a “dispirited” condition, the degree of which depends upon the severity of the loss as well as the history of previous soul loss. A person who with a history of significant soul loss frequently can be characterized as “not being all there,” an apt phrase that may represent an unconscious awareness in our culture of

Sometimes a quartz crystal, a uniquely important stone cross-culturally in shamanism, is pressed into that center to help the beginning shaman see shamanically more clearly.

Whatever the entrance you choose, it should be firmly located in the Middle World and known to you firsthand in OR. It is important that you do not simply close your eyes and visualize any cave or other type of departure place. For accurate shamanic journeying, you should know that it is in the Middle World and where. I advise using the same

That is when the animal turns and runs away. If that happens, then run after it. The animal will lead you on a journey—showing you the answer. That is, the sights you see on the journey constitute the answer to the question. Much of the journey work of the evolving shaman consists of learning how to “read” such journeys; in other words, of learning