From the most ancient times, human beings have practiced disciplines of psychospiritual and physical healing, with dedication and intention. Of the three great traditions of transformation practices that have appeared on Earth, shamanism is definitely the oldest, dating to Paleothic times, and preserved in some indigenous cultures worldwide to this day. Yoga and alchemy can be regarded as the Eastern and Western extensions or developments of shamanism respectively, originating in Neolithic village cultures and Bronze Age city-states. In all three of these traditions, some practitioners were more focused on physical healing, some more on psychological problem solving and obtaining guidance for living, and yet others on the quest for spiritual knowledge, enlightenment, and liberation. Many of our modern systems of medicine, of psychotherapy, and of complementary healing and spiritual practice are the inheritors of one or another strand of these traditions.
Divination practices, which we are concerned with in this book, are also found in all three of these traditions. Generally recognized as a process of obtaining intuitive insight, divination literally means “obtaining knowledge from the divine world,” also referred to as the “inner world,” “spirit world,” “non-ordinary reality,” or “higher realms.” In essence, it involves a structured inquiry into questions of the past, for healing and resolving problems; or the future, for visioning and obtaining guidance. In medicine, the two kinds of divination correspond to diagnosis, assessing the causal origin of an illness or injury, and prognosis, its probable future outcome.
The renowned historian of religion Mircea Eliade, who wrote authoritative volumes on each of the three traditions of transformation, referred to shamanism as archaic techniques of ecstasy. The word “ecstasy” derives from “ex-stasis,” being “out of the state,” out of the perceptual framework of ordinary reality, i.e., in an altered state of consciousness. The anthropologist Michael Harner, who has pioneered the reintroduction of shamanism into contemporary Western culture, states that shamanism essentially involves what he calls a “shamanic state of consciousness,” in which one enters into a “non-ordinary reality,” very different from the ordinary reality of everyday life.
In indigenous cultures, the metaphor for entering into an altered state of consciousness is the shamanic journey: like an ordinary journey, the shamanic state of consciousness has a beginning, a time with various experiences, and an ending, the return to ordinary life and ordinary consciousness. The shaman goes on a shamanic journey for a purpose, which might be healing, or diagnostic divination, or connecting with a variety of spirits, such as deceased ancestors, spirits of place, or transcendent beings. He or she goes on the journey for an individual or a family or a community that seeks his or her help.
There are two main technologies for entering into the shamanic journey state that are found worldwide: rhythmic drumming or rattling and psychoactive plants or fungi. Both these methods can induce certain changes in brain functioning, which form the neuro-physiological substrate for the divination journey. The drumming method appears widespread in the Northern Hemisphere areas of Asia, Europe, and North America. The methods involving psychoactive plants and fungi are found more in the tropical latitudes—particularly Central and South America, and also Africa—presumably because of the much greater diversity of plant and animal life in the tropics.
In the earlier part of the twentieth century, psychologists and psychiatrists reading the anthropological accounts of shamans tended to denigrate them as “witch doctors” and purveyors of superstitious tribal beliefs. The practices of the shamanic divination journey were regarded as fraudulent or schizophrenic, though having somehow acquired credibility in the local tribe. Under the influence of the cultural relativism school of anthropology and the work of scholars such as Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, as well as Eliade, Harner, and others, such views have given way to an understanding that shamans and the cultures in which they exist live in a completely different worldview, with different assumptions about the nature of reality.
The two principal differences between the worldview of shamanistic indigenous cultures and the modern worldview of scientific materialism are one, the conception of multiple “worlds” or multiple levels of reality; and two, the recognition of the reality of spirits as autonomous beings inhabiting the many worlds (rather than being mere fantasies or symbols). The worldview underlying shamanism, as well as alchemy and yoga, is known as animism or panpsychism—the belief that all the forms of nature, both the organic (e.g., plants, animals, fungi) and the inorganic (e.g., stones, rivers, mountains, winds), both the terrestrial (i.e., this planet Earth) and the cosmic (other planets, stars, galaxies, universe) are imbued with psychic and spiritual energy and consciousness.
Psychologically speaking, from within the Western scientific worldview, one could say concepts of “other worlds” refer to levels or realms of consciousness that lie outside the boundaries of our usual and ordinary perception. The depth psychologies derived from psychoanalysis refer to such normally inaccessible realms as “the unconscious” or “the collective unconscious.” This would, however, be too limiting a definition for shamanism, if “unconscious” is taken to refer to something within the individual—that is, within the human psyche. Shamanic practices involve the exploration not only of unknown aspects of our own psyche, but also the unknown aspects of the world around us—the external as well as internal mysteries.
Most psychologists would say that all references to “spirits” are really symbolic expressions for aspects of the human unconscious psyche; and in the case of Jung’s psychology, archetypal symbols of the collective unconscious. However, I agree with those scholars and scientists who argue that the Western paradigms are in need of being revised and expanded to include the recognition of the reality of spirits. We can regard them as living, intelligent, autonomous beings, with whom it is possible to communicate and with whom we co-exist and interact in multiple worlds. The alchemical divination practices are predicated on such an expanded worldview, in which we human beings are spirits inhabiting human forms, interacting with multiple classes of spirits inhabiting diverse other forms in this and other worlds.
Shamanic healing practices that involve ingesting medicinal or visionary plants or fungi always include connecting consciously with the spirits of those plants or fungi. Such a dual perspective that recognizes the spiritual as well as the material dimension is also found in homeopathy and the traditional herbal medicine of many cultures. When doing shamanic journey work, traveling to other realms, shamans will also invoke the spirit of an animal species, such as Bear or Eagle, with which they have formed an alliance or collaborative relationship. Additionally, shamans may work with crystals and other material earth substances, as well as with elemental spirits of air (wind), water (such as rivers and rain), and fire.
An important large class of spirits with whom shamans communicate and collaborate are the spirits of deceased ancestors—family members who have passed over to the other side, the spirit worlds, and therefore have access to more detailed knowledge of these worlds than we ordinarily do. And then there are the greater ancestral, guiding, and teaching spirits of whole tribes and peoples that are traditionally known as “gods” or “deities,” and that play such a significant role in the world’s many mythologies.
Finally, the whole Earth itself is seen in traditional cultures as imbued with an intelligent, spiritual being, a goddess known as Gaia in ancient Greece, or Mother Earth among North American Indian tribes. The Gaia theory of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis is a perspective from modern science that in many ways parallels and converges with ancient indigenous conceptions in that it involves seeing the Earth as an integrated living system, self-maintaining and self-organizing. And as we know, not only the Earth but also the Sun, Moon, and other planets are recognized in ancient and indigenous cultures as the bodies of cosmic deities. Even in our modern world, the planets still have the names the ancient Greeks and Romans gave to these deities.
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Yoga comprises, like shamanism and alchemy, a certain world-view, as well as systematic technologies for expanding and raising consciousness. The title of Mircea Eliade’s classic work in this field, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom (1969), points to the essential belief in the immortality of the soul or spirit, and to the pathways of liberation from the bondage of illusion and attachment. The word yoga derives from the Sanskrit root yuj—to link, connect, or unite: the essential aim of all yoga practices is to connect with the essential spiritual core of the human being. In our ordinary states of consciousness the awareness of our spiritual essence is blocked by superimposed images and obstructions (called klesas), principally a kind of unconsciousness (avidya or “not-knowing”)—and hence the yogic path is described as one of liberation from these blockages.
Some strands of the tradition are focused on the physical level (hatha yoga); some more on the emotional, devotional aspect (bhakti yoga), and some on the mental, intellectual (jñana yoga). There are many variations in terminology in the texts that describe the different aspects of the practices of yoga: raja yoga is the “royal path” of psychological exercises; nada yoga and shabda yoga are the practices of working with sound and tone; tantra yoga, like raja and kundalini yoga, refers to practices of visualizations of color and form symbols in the subtle energy field with its energy centers, or chakras.
In the classic eighth-century text, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, believed by scholars to be the codification of much older oral traditions, the opening line defines yoga as the “cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.” In this formulation, our thought processes, being constantly agitated and distracted by contradictory emotions and sensations, form the principal challenge to the realization of our essential nature. Hence the primary technology of the yogic path of transformation are the different forms and aspects of concentrative discipline. However, it is clear from Patanjali’s systematic exposition of the “eight limbs” (ashtanga) of the yogic path that the practices are necessarily embedded in a way of life: the first of the eight limbs is the ethical principle of nonviolence in all our relations; the second limb is a balanced diet and sexual moderation. These are considered essential ethical and behavioral preconditions of the yogic path.
The next two limbs (called asana and pranayama) are concerned with improving the health and well-being of the physical body, the basis of all the mental and psychological practices. Asana, the well-known stretching postures and exercises, aim at increasing and maintaining musculoskeletal flexibility and strength. Pranayama refers to the breathing practices that further the health and balance of the vegetative (autonomic) nervous system by developing conscious participation in the functioning of the respiratory, circulatory, and digestive systems of the body. In Western psychosomatic medicine and psychology, the technology of biofeedback plays a similar role in helping individuals to consciously balance and harmonize their interior physiology.
The important fifth limb of the yogic process is pratyahara, which refers to the inward turning of attention and disidentification with the ordinary objects of the senses—a discipline most clearly evident in the closed eyes posture of the yogic meditator. Dharana (concentration) is next, which involves focusing on one object of attention and excluding or disconnecting from others; then dhyana (meditation or witnessing), in which there is unity between experiencing self and the object of awareness; and finally samadhi (mergence or absorption), a completely unitive state of consciousness, without separate forms or differences, akin to the Buddhist nirvana (“no thoughts or forms”). Thus, it could be said that the goal of the yogic process, in this formulation, is for the individual practitioner to experience the oneness, or complete mergence with divine spiritual essence. The relationship of yogic practice to divination is that it establishes a strong, clear connection to the inner spiritual intelligence, from which come the insights and understandings that can then be applied in healing and guidance.
Compared to the shamanic and alchemical traditions, there is less emphasis in the yogic traditions on connecting with nature, animals, plants, minerals, or metals, and more focus on developing interior, higher, more refined states of consciousness and subtle perceptions. Of course, the ancient Indian medical system of ayurveda does include the physical and breathing practices of yoga, along with the use of herbal and mineral preparations in healing. In some strands of the Indian yoga teachings, particularly of the Samkhya school, there is an emphasis on rigorous detachment from and transcendence of the realms of nature, matter, and the physical body. Important exceptions to this general tendency are tantra yoga in India and Tibet, and Taoist yoga practices in China, both of which are closely allied to alchemy in those cultures. Alchemy in India and China, as well as Tantra and Taoism, emphasize the transmutation of the physical body and practices of regeneration and longevity, along with the seeking of higher, transcendent states of consciousness.
Agni Yoga is a term and practice from an older layer of tradition in India: Agni is the ancient Vedic fire deity, whose name was invoked in elaborate rituals and prayers around an exterior fire altar. As a yogic path, it refers to practices of working with the interior light-fire energy centers and currents to purify the nadis, the field lines of the subtle electromagnetic energy field. References to inner light-fire are also found in the reports of shamanic practitioners, as well as the mystical traditions of all religions, in which light and fire (or, as we would say in modern terms, “energy”) are recognized as the essence of all reality and all beingness. The principle of purification by (inner) fire is one of the key operations of the alchemical tradition.
The divination practices described in this book include methods of light-fire yoga that are used to purify the channels of perception and enhance awareness of the subtle spiritual dimensions of our being. These methods are akin to the practices of Agni and Tantra Yoga in ancient India and to the vajrayana (“diamond lightning bolt”) path of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the Taoist practices of “circulating light.” My practical and experiential knowledge of these methods comes from the ten years I spent studying and working, intensively and exclusively, with Russell Paul Schofield (1906–1984) and the School of Actualism. Schofield was an American clairvoyant healer-teacher who brought forth these methods (which he originally called Agni Yoga1) from inner sources and taught his students how to apply them for self-healing and transformative personal growth. The training program was detailed and meticulously arranged in a series of basic and advanced programs that typically extended over three to four years; and the advanced stages of training also involved teaching the methods to beginning students.
The parallels with Indian, Buddhist, and Taoist practices are something I brought out through my own research and work with other teachers, so that the methods, as I teach them now, are a kind of integration of perspectives from these multiple traditions, with the Actualism methods providing core understandings and techniques. Russell Schofield once told me, when I was writing about alchemy for my book Maps of Consciousness, that alchemy was in essence concerned with the same methods and processes as the Actualism work, although the language used was necessarily different, considering the historical and cultural context.
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Alchemy, which developed independently in Europe, the Near East, India, and China, shares with shamanism the goal of consciousness transformation, the quest for healing and knowledge, and the profound respect for Nature. Alchemy could in fact be regarded as being a development of a certain type of shamanism—that is, one practiced by miners, smiths, metalworkers, toolmakers, and their associates. The psychospiritual purposes and techniques of the alchemists came in time to be all but forgotten, and overshadowed by their applications in the experimental physical sciences.
As I pointed out in the Prologue, modern schools of psychotherapy, especially those based on psychodynamic depth psychology and the newer so-called “experiential therapies,” employ many of the methods and techniques of changing consciousness that were known in the ancient systems of shamanism, alchemy, and yoga. In some instances—for example, in both Freud’s and Jung’s borrowing of alchemical terminology—the derivation is quite conscious and deliberate. In other cases—for example, in the use of inner journeys or imagery sequences—psychologists are rediscovering or reinventing methods that have been known and practiced for centuries in these older traditions.
Mircea Eliade posited in his book The Forge and the Crucible (1962) that alchemy grew historically out of the work of shamanic miners, smiths, and metallurgists, starting in the Bronze Age. They were the masters of fire, who knew how to extract metals from stone, blend them into alloys such as bronze, and make tools, weapons, and ornaments. In the archaic and classical period, the knowledge of metalworking, because of its obvious connection to power and wealth, was preserved in secrecy and handed down in craft guilds from master to student. Such technical knowledge was regarded as magical by ordinary people, because it seemed to involve inexplicable mastery of natural forces.
Alchemy and yoga can therefore be regarded as the Western and Eastern extensions and developments of Paleolithic shamanism respectively: they are systematic technologies of physico-psychic-spiritual transformation. It appears that in the Indian and Chinese traditions, physical, psychic, and spiritual transformation all remained more connected, even although subschools and movements arose that focused on one aspect or another. In the West, the psychic and spiritual aspects of human elemental transformation experienced an amazing flowering in the Hermetic traditions that arose in Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Arabic lands during the classical era, and flourished well into medieval times in Christian Europe. It was then suppressed, along with astrology, magic, and witchcraft (the mostly feminine herbal medicine traditions), during the advent of the scientific experimental method—leaving only chemistry, divorced from all psychic and spiritual considerations, as the modern impoverished inheritor of this ancient holistic science and art.
In the European Middle Ages, because of the persecutory dominance of the Catholic Church, the practices of alchemy and shamanism (called witchcraft—the “craft of the wise ones”) were deliberately shrouded in secrecy, as a kind of protective camouflage. Texts were written and illustrated, but in a symbolic code, the keys to which were largely lost, and which therefore became increasingly garbled. It remained for C. G. Jung and his followers, in the twentieth century, to recover the lost language of alchemy and reinterpret it as referring to psycho-spiritual transformation using symbolic and imaginal processes.
Jung interprets the opus or work of alchemy as being the individuation process—a moving toward wholeness. The alchemical vessel, in his view, is the psyche—both individual and interpersonal relational—in which these transformative processes are taking place. From my own studies of alchemical yoga, I would add only that the alchemical vessel should be understood to refer also to the physical body and subtle energy field, and not merely to the mental-emotional psyche. In other words, the entire set of interrelated energy systems constituting the human being is the vessel in which the alchemical transformations are taking place. The human energy systems, which can also be thought of as “personality systems,” are the multilayered vessel, container, body, or form for the immortal Soul or Essence.
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One difference between modern psychotherapy and the traditional transformation systems is that shamanism, alchemy, and yoga are not focused only on the solving of psychological problems, as are most forms of psychotherapy. Rather, these traditional systems operate from an integrated worldview, in which physical healing, psychological problem solving, and conscious exploration of the spiritual or sacred realms of being are all considered as aspects of the way, or work, or practice. A shamanic ritual such as the Native American sweat lodge, for example, is simultaneously a healing, a psychological therapy, and a form of worship including prayer. The alchemists’ interest in healing is evident in their search for and preparation of plant and mineral remedies. Their deep spiritual commitment is likewise apparent in their quest to produce the lapis, the philosopher’s stone, which parallels the tantra yoga idea of the vajra, the lightning-diamond. In yoga, the spiritual purpose, the attainment of higher states of consciousness, is paramount; and physical or psychological problem solving is almost a secondary effect.
The purpose of psychotherapy on the other hand is not generally to bring about physical healing, nor does it concern itself normally with spiritual values or religious issues. The goal is usually framed in terms of psychosocial adjustment, or the resolution of intrapsychic conflicts, or interpersonal communication problems. The split in the Western worldview between body, mind, and spirit is reflected in the rigid separation of the roles of physician, therapist, and priest. There are however encouraging signs that this situation may be changing: the contribution of psychological factors to the origins and the treatment of diseases is increasingly acknowledged. The work of C. G. Jung with archetypes, of Abraham Maslow with the notion of self-actualization, and of Roberto Assagioli with psychosynthesis have pointed the way toward a greater recognition of spiritual factors. The transpersonal psychology movement, particularly in the brilliant work of Stanislav Grof, pioneer of psychedelic and holotropic therapy, explicitly integrates the spiritual dimensions into a comprehensive understanding of the human psyche.
The second important difference in goals and values is that psychotherapy focuses on changing or helping the other—the patient, client, victim, sufferer; whereas in the traditional systems of shamanism, alchemy, and yoga, the emphasis is on self-transformation, self-healing, and self-understanding, as a necessary initiatory precondition to working with others. While it is true that the more sophisticated approaches to psychotherapy are well aware of the relevance of the therapist’s own perceptions and feelings to the therapeutic process, these tend to be categorized as “countertransference” reactions, and seen as an impediment to the conduct of therapy, to be eliminated if possible.
On the other hand, while it is also true that helping or healing others is the chief interest and application of shamanic work, such work is always based on the shaman’s own preparation and inner process. Typically, the healer shaman must be in contact with his or her own power animal or spirit ally in order to facilitate a similar contact with inner sources of support and healing for the patient or sufferer. The widespread concept of the “wounded healer” points to a direct personal engagement of the healer, first with their own wound or illness, before they deal with the sickness or wounding of their patients.
The shaman may journey into non-ordinary realities or inner worlds in order to combat or eliminate the “spirits” or “forces” that are manifesting as physical or psychic pathology. We recognize the same functional principle in alcoholism or drug addiction recovery programs, where former addicts who have dealt with their own psychic wounds are best able to help others deal with theirs.
The comparison of shamanism, alchemy, and yoga with modern psychotherapy as a problem-solving approach that uses similar methods and similar metaphors must be tempered by the awareness that the traditional systems see the human being as an integrated body-mind-spirit continuum. In bringing these ancient transformative teachings into the modern world, we seek to recover a way of knowledge that not only helps to heal and solve psychic problems, but also leads us to confront ultimate issues of human destiny, spirituality, and the meaning of life.