Nicholas E. Brink's Blog, page 5

Seeing into the World of the Spirits

Seeing Beyond 7/22/19
How do we learn to see not with our eyes but see the world beyond, the world of the spirits? As we go into the New Age seeing beyond is one important dimension of seeing in Time-Free Transparency, seeing auras and the energy field of the Universal Mind, seeing with the “Third Eye.” One suggestion to see in this manner is to bring our eyes out of focus, often with eyes partially closed as suggested by Carlos Castaneda.
Seeing in this way became most evident to me when I participated in a hypnosis workshop. In the workshop we divided into groups of three people where we took turns in playing each of three roles. One role was to be the trance leader, one to be the hypnotic subject and the third was as observer to carefully observe the hypnotic subject, watching for changes in muscle tension, skin color, breathing, among other indicators. The leader was to lead the hypnotic subject through six imagery experiences, e.g. waiting for a plane that was an hour late, sitting in an easy chair after eating a big thanksgiving dinner, walking on a snowy evening, and putting of a shirt with a highly starched collar. The subject was then to reimaging one of the six images. I as the observer was then to identify which image was being re-imagined from my observation of the various physical changes. Though my eyes were closed or partially closed I knew immediately what the subject was imagining. After a few moments she changed what she was imagining and I saw the change and reported it. I was one of the few participants in the workshop who had extensive experience with hypnosis and when in hypnotic trance we realized that we often experienced what the subject experiences.
Thus hypnotic trance opens one’s Third Eye as does ecstatic trance. In trance I can see what is beyond the physical world around me. When I look with my physical eyes I see in the words of Gregg Braden only “consensus reality.” When in trance I can see beyond, see into the world of the Universal Mind, the world of the spirits. In trance I can experience the world as my spirit guide experiences it.

War of the Witches

Review – A War of Witches: A Journey into the Underworld of the Contemporary Aztecs by Timothy Knab, San Francisco, CA: Harper San Francisco, 1993.
I was drawn to A War of Witches at the recommendation of Matt Wood, the author of a number of books on herbal medicine because of the important concept that it teaches us: “When one dreams of one’s animal one gains eyes and ears in the spirit world.” Though it was written 26 years ago, this story through the underworld is timeless and needs to be read now to bring us in touch with those spirits that reside within us which can teach us how to survive in the approaching New World.
Timothy Knab, as an anthropologist, gained the confidence of two shamanic healers of an Aztec community in the mountains of Mexico such that they took him under their wings to teach him of their medicine ways. In this community there was a history of numerous witches who used their ways to kill others in the battle for wealth gained through growing coffee to the exclusion of corn needed for the people’s survival. These murders led to more murders that led to an open war between these two factions of the community, ending with the decimation of the witches. Though Knab’s search to uncover the history of this war was very fascinating such that the book was hard to put down, more important to me was his dreamtime journey through the underworld, Talocan, an underworld that was quite extensively mapped by his two mentors, the blind Inocente and the elderly Rubia. Both curers were very open in teaching him their ways of healing and journeying into the underworld, but they were very evasive in telling him about the War of the Witches.
As with several other anthropologist such as Felicitas Goodman in their search to understand the nature of the ways of a shaman, Knab goes beyond remaining aloof or objective in understanding these ways as is expected of anthropological research. They become very personally involved in the ways of these shamans such that they gain a deeper understanding and the ability to personally experience such powers.
When the elderly Rubia becomes sick, she and Inocente believe that she was bewitched by a sorcerer. Knab in his concern sought how he could help in healing her, which led him on his first journey into the underworld of a cave that was considered one of a number of entrances to the underworld. To enter the blackness of this terrifying cave with it many dangerous spirits he needed to take a number of offerings to appease the spirits, including flowers, beans, and a live chicken to be sacrificed. Innocente and Rubia tell him in detail the ritual he needs to perform to appease the spirits to protect himself and to retrieve Rubia’s bewitched soul. Some of the offerings were purchased from Don Pedro, a local merchant who was the person who eventually opened up to tell Knab about the war of the witches.
Upon his return from the cave Rubia and Innocente begin to question him about his nighttime dreams, looking for his spirit ally. All his past dreams seem quite mundane but he does recall childhood nightmare of a black bull that they think has possibilities for this spirit. But over the course of the book, with their encouragement as they interpreted his dreams, Knab’s dreams become much more intense, involve journeying into the underworld through its various entrances and into its various domains, some dangerous and others healing, with his dreams providing him with his needed spirit guides. One dream character with the name Cruz becomes a pivotal figure in the story in protecting him in these dreamtime journeys. Again Rubia and Innocente become evasive in telling him about Cruz, but Knab eventually learns that he was one of the witches who tried to bring about peace in the war of the witches but ends up as a spirit in the underworld along with the other witches who die in this war.
With my personal love for and valuing of my dreamtime experiences, whether from my nighttime dreams or my hypnotic and ecstatic trance experiences, and in working with these dreamtime experiences, I find A War of Witches especially exciting and valuable reading. These dreamtime experiences are healing and provide considerable spiritual growth in soul recovery from the many major and minor traumas one experiences in life, and Timothy Knab brings alive the healing nature of these dreamtime journeys. I believe that with global climate change and the possibility of the world as we know it coming to an end, there is much we need to do to change how we experience the world by returning to the ways of our hunting-gathering ancestors. A major change is to again learn to commune with the spirits of the Earth and of our ancestors to find the needed ways or maps for our survival, and this communication needs to be through our heart while experiencing these spirits in dreamtime.
This is why I have become a certified instructor of ecstatic trance as taught by Felicitas Goodman and the Cuyamungue Institute in New Mexico, and continue to offer workshops on ecstatic trance, one avenue into this dreamtime world. If interested, I have written a number of books, beginning with the book The Power of Ecstatic Trance, a shamanic form of trance, and continue to write about and value these journeys into the world of the spirits.

The Shamanic Nature of Genesis

Understanding the Shamanic Nature of Genesis
When one realizes that the Biblical Book of Genesis was recorded during the shamanic era of myths, and that earlier it was passed down orally, it thus can be considered shamanic in nature. It was written in the early times of the transition from those who were hunter-gathers to the agriculturists and recorded in the metaphoric language of myths. This realization changes greatly what most contemporary people believe, i.e. these stories of antiquity are literally or historically true. They do not recognize their mythic/metaphoric nature that takes us to a much deeper level of meaning and understanding.
With this new understanding, when Adam (meaning mankind) and Eve (meaning living) were expelled from the garden for eating of the forbidden fruit, they began to see the world differently in terms of good and evil. They moved from the paradise of the hunter-gatherer who valued all that was of the Earth to the world of the farmer who worked to control, to use, and take advantage of all that is of the Earth. When Cain’s sacrifice of what he grew was rejected in favor Abel’s sacrifice of the blood of an animal of his flock, even back then it was recognized that living with the Earth rather than living by controlling the Earth was seen as preferable. As a result Cain in his jealousy killed Abel so had to leave the land and become a wanderer.
Then came the time of great corruption, violence and decadence that brought about the great flood, and only Noah and his family who rescued the animals in the ark survived, Noah who showed appreciation for all life as opposite those decadent people who worked and took advantage or abused the land for they own gains. This sounds so much like what we are experiencing today with global climate change.
In this journey through the Book of Genesis we next meet Abraham, then Isaac, Jacob and finally Joseph. Abraham and his wife Sarah had to let go of their desire to have children before Sarah conceived and gave birth to Isaac. Isaac had had to pray before his wife Rebekah was able to conceive. And Jacob of the next generation found his strength in grabbing on to his visions, as evident when he returned from exile to his homeland and grabbed onto a supernatural being, refusing to let go until he was blessed by the being. Finally Joseph found strength to rise above the struggles of life with his ability to interpret dreams. These four stories show a return to the shamanic ability to listen to God or to the spirits to learn how to live upon the Earth, listening by letting go of one’s rational conscious as in the use of hypnosis, or grabbing on with intent as in the use of ecstatic trance, and interpreting and understanding these visions and dreams. Prayer has become just jabbering to God and not listening.
This very brief journey through these stories tell me two things, first for us to survive the effects of global warming we need to return to valuing the interdependence of that is of the Earth and second, we need to relearn the ways of the hunter-gatherers who listened to the spirits of all that is of the Earth, i.e. a return to the Garden of Eden. This journey can be facilitated with the use of ecstatic trance and seven ecstatic postures, first the Lady of Cholula, followed in order by: an underworld posture, the Bear Spirit, the Feathered Serpent, Calling the Spirits, Jama Coaque Metamorphosis, and finally an upper world posture.
This is an extremely abbreviated journey through Genesis, whereas there is much more to these seven stories that provides much broader and deeper understanding as told by Matthew Wood in his book, Seven Herbs: Plants as Teachers (see my review of the book) and his forthcoming book, Seven Guidepost on a Spiritual Path: The Shamanic Story in Genesis.

Listening to Plants

The Invisible Healing of Plants
So often I hear the question, “What plant do I need to use to relieve me from ---?” To find the answer most important is to listen to Nature, to listen to the plants. The plants know more about us and what we need than we know. A plant has many ways to heal, to manufacture the substances we need at the moment and/or the needed healing spiritual energy without the need to ingest any of the plant.
But how do we listen, how can we hear what we might call the hidden or metaphoric language of plants and Nature as a whole, of Gaia? This language is a language our distant ancestors knew, a language we have lost, lost to our consciousness that we call rationality. To regain this ability to listen takes attentive focus and patience. We experience this language in our nighttime dreams, dreams that come to us spontaneously, but we can listen with intent initially in a state of trance consciousness, whether hypnotic or ecstatic. Once we get into the habit of listening it becomes more automatic. It takes listening with our whole self, with our soul, our heart, our spirit self and with our entire body, parts of us that have been lost to rationality. When I learned to use ecstatic trance as taught by Felicitas Goodman and the Cuyamungue Institute, these parts came alive through my belief and faith that the ecstatic experience is real and meaningful, and that Nature has things important to tell us as we call upon the spirits of each direction. We need to quiet our rational mind that tends to block our listening, quieting it by focusing on our breath. Listening is directed by the body postures we use. The posture communicates the intent to our entire self in how to listen. In addition stimulating our nervous system by drumming or rattling continues to distract our rational mind, stimulation that helps us side-step the interference of our rational mind. Listening with our total self opens us to the world of the spirits of Nature, a world that takes care of us physically and emotionally if we open ourselves to it as it did our hunting and gathering ancestors.

Facing Our Fears

Facing our Fears
In a recent conversation a person expressed appreciation for my blogs but also expressed a fear of going into ecstatic trance nor does she follow or face her nighttime dreams. What is there to fear? A common fear is having to face in trance or dreams some trauma in the person’s earlier life. Such traumas are often repressed and not remembered for many years, but when the person finds the strength in their life to face the trauma it begins to arise first in dreams and trance experiences then in the conscious mind, but it is often still hidden in the language of metaphor. Remembering and facing such a trauma is healing, healthy and self-actualizing.
I like the way Robert Rogers expresses this growth towards self-actualization. From his book Mushroom Essences throughout life we often find ourselves struggling with our shadow, the shadow that blocks us on our journey in reaching our soul. Our shadow is that part of us that we deny or do not want to face, and with such denial we are not aware of our shadow yet it exists in our unconscious. But the struggles in life that are caused by our shadow block the path to our soul. In the words used by Thomas Moore, our soul is the quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves that bring to it genuineness, depth, value, relatedness, heart and personal substance. A major goal in life in the journey to our soul is to open ourselves to our shadow, and often in our shadow we find glimmers of gold.
In our ecstatic trance and dream experiences we often experience our death, but this death is of some unhealthy part of ourselves that needs to die and is followed by the birth of a new healthier way of being or the rebirth of innocence, a positive and freeing experience. If a past trauma does arise, sometimes it is such that you might not want anyone else to know about it. In our ecstatic trance groups the trauma does not need to be shared. Yet, what does come up in the group is confidential and once a person gets to know the others in the group confiding in the group such trauma is generally a very liberating experience.
After the innocence of our creation, being thrown out of the Garden of Eden and gain the knowledge of good and evil, a world of free will, we find ourselves in a struggle of opposites, good and evil. In this struggle we generally suppress what we think of as evil in ourselves, thus putting up a barrier to living a full life. An initial and important step in become a full person is to embrace our shadow, i.e. our opposite. Grabbing onto our fears and shadow, being a spiritual warrior, is an important step in gaining spirituality.
With these thoughts in mind, I feel there is really nothing to fear.

Ecstatic Trance to Overcome Racism

Introducing Ecstatic Trance to Overcome Racism
Someone recently asked me if ecstatic trance can bring a person out of the world of bigotry and racism. When a person begins to value personal growth and discovers the power of ecstatic trance as an opening to this personal growth the person cannot deny the origins of ecstatic trance in the hunting-gathering cultures of the world. With this realization the ways of the hunter-gatherer becomes valued and in valuing these cultures the person opens to themselves to what can be learned from other cultures and begins to value this cultural diversity. Bigotry and racism comes from feeling threatened or afraid of any diversity. Though the person who is open to experimenting with ecstatic trance is likely already open to this diversity.
In my book “Ecstatic Soul Retrieval: Shamanism and Psychotherapy” I explore how ecstatic trance can be introduced into a psychotherapy session such that the expectations held by the client of a traditional psychotherapy session are met. I find that three postures, the Lady of Cholula, the Jivaro Underworld Posture and the Feathered Serpent Posture can be used in a therapy session in a way acceptable to the new client, though I would not initially use these names. The Lady of Cholula is sitting in an attentive posture of waiting for an answer from a trance experience. In the Jivaro Posture the person is laying on the couch as in psychoanalysis to journey into ones unconscious mind, and the Feathered Serpent is standing with hands on the waist in a posture of determination for giving up some old habit in favor of a healthier new habit. Sitting, laying or standing in the posture and discussing the feeling the posture expresses can make sense in the therapy session. Drumming played softly in the back ground can be explained as a distraction from interfering thoughts thus facilitating going into a trance, and discussing the images that come forth from these trance experiences as spirit guides are ways of introducing these elements of ecstatic trance into a traditional therapy session. With this introduction and with the client experiencing the power of these postures in bringing new insights, the origin of these techniques from the shamanic ways of their ancestral hunter-gatherers can eventually be described and acceptable to the client. With this approach those who have lived in a narrower world of racist thinking are opened to a experiencing a world of greater diversity, thus adding a new layer of life beyond just the resolution of the problem that brought the person to therapy and their possible racist thinking.

Benefits of Practicing Ecstatic Trance

Benefits of Practicing Ecstatic Trance
Initially the benefits of practicing ecstatic trance are for personal healing and spiritual growth. The various shamanic postures as described by Felicitas Goodman and the Cuyamungue Institute are postures found in the art of ancient and contemporary hunter-gathering peoples, postures that have specific influences upon the nature of the ecstatic trance experience. Some postures are for bring into the body a healing and strengthening energy. Other postures are for divination, for finding answers to specific questions. Then there are the postures for metamorphosis or shape shifting that bring alive within us the powers of our spirit guides, guides needed to provide us with direction in our healing and spiritual growth. Some of the postures that Felicitas found take us on spirit journeys, some into the underworld, the worlds of our unconscious mind and the spirit world beyond our personal unconscious. Other postures take us on journeys into the world we experience daily, sometime into the past and sometimes into the future. Some postures carry us into the upper world, journeys that provide us with experiences of higher spirituality. Then there are those initiation or death-rebirth postures that provide us with experiences of when some limiting aspect of us dies, allowing the birth of a more healthy way of experience the world. Stories of this healing and personal growth can be found in my book “The Power of Ecstatic Trance: Practices for Healing, Spiritual Growth, and Accessing the Universal Mind.”
But beyond these experiences of personal growth, a soul retrieval sequence of postures for recovering aspects of ourselves that have been lost because of faulty teachings of our parents, teachers or other authority figures take us to new levels of personal growth. Many of these stories of soul retrieval I describe in my book: “Ecstatic Soul Retrieval: Shamanism and Psychotherapy.”
Then I have found personally that after a number of years of regular practice with ecstatic trance new trance experiences have taken me back in time to visit or commune with my ancestors, experiences that have led me to better understand myself and provide me with teachings that have been forgotten over the centuries, stories that I retell in my book “Baldr’s Magic: the Power of Norse Shamanism and Ecstatic Trance.” While journeying to the homes of these ancestors I also discovered that the spirits of these places, spirits of the land, have something to teach me as I retell in my book “Beowulf’s Ecstatic Trance Magic: Accessing the Archaic Powers of the Universal Mind.”
Global Climate Change is a great concern to me and I have found that ecstatic trance gives new insights for providing solutions to this concern. These solutions need to come from more than just what we can do but from ways in which we need to change personally, way in which we live and relate to the Earth, our Great Earth Mother. These basic changes in the way we live come from learning to understand and value the ways our hunter-gathering ancestors whose lives were at one in experiencing and venerating the Earth. The stories of the ways we need relate differently to the Earth, stories that take us beyond the belief that we have dominion over the Earth, a belief that has led us in our greedy to abuse the Earth, are told in my book: “Trance Journeys of the Hunter-Gatherers: Ecstatic Practices to Reconnect with the Great Mother and Heal the Earth.”

The Ways of Ecstatic Trance

The Range of the Ways of Ecstatic Trance
There are many shamanic ways for healing and seeing into the beyond, the world of the spirits, ways that are being taught around the world. With our move to New York I am finding that there are many people using and teaching various shamanic ways here in the Hudson Valley, probably as many different ways as there are practitioners of these shamanic ways. Each of these ways that originated with the ancient and contemporary hunter-gathering cultures is meaningful and valid, each offering something to learn that bring us back to living at one with and healing our Great Mother Earth. The shamans of the past and those of the hunter-gathering societies of the present each had/have their individual ways for seeing and healing, some relying upon or using vision quests, other using various other ways of inducing trance.
From my training as an instructor of ecstatic trance from the Cuyamungue Institute and the research of Felicitas Goodman I learned that ecstatic trance is trance induced with rapid stimulation to the nervous system, and specifically with the shaking of a rattle or beating of a drum at approximately 210 beats per minute. For some of the world’s shaman this trance is attained through rapid dancing to the beat of a drum until falling in trance. From my many years of experience first with hypnosis and for the last 12 years with ecstatic trance, with practice, trance can be induced in 15 minutes or even less and that any of us can enter and benefit from such trance, not just the shaman of the community.
I believe that the earliest peoples knew this and even lived in the dreamlike world of trance, but as time went by and consciousness evolved into a more rational state, the use of trance became the specialty of the shaman, and for the shamans’ powers to be recognized by the community they needed to make a show of their ability, thus other ways to entering trance such as by rapid dancing, isolating themselves from others such as being tied up or bound while being held in a special sacred space, or going on a vision quest often for several days became their way.
I believe that what Goodman has especially added to understanding these shamanic ways is the meaningfulness of the postures used by the shamans. Each shaman probably had only one and a very limited number of specific postures used and probably specialized in one or a couple forms of trance, whether divination, healing, metamorphosis, journeying into the underworld, initiation, etc. From Felicitas Goodman’s research and the ritual she taught, we now realize the power of the posture and that we have the ability to experience a broader range of journeying experiences, thus adding greatly to the ways of the shaman as being taught today.

Plant Spirit Guides

After a couple weeks of travel I return to writing another ecstatic trance blog. I hope that many of you have missed my blogs.
Since the 1980’s I have come to greatly value my spirit guides. My very first spirit guides came to me from a workshop I attended with the American Association for the Study of Mental Imagery where I was led through guided imagery to experience spirit guides coming from each of my chakra. I first found myself comfortably riding on the back of a buffalo, then moving up through the chakra I found myself contently watching a deer in a meadow, before I was guided to sitting in an alley with a mouse before me asking for my permission to rummage in a garbage can. Finally I found myself listening to a squirrel that was asking me to climb a tree with it. In my struggle to understand the meaning of these experiences, relating them to the chakra did not provide me an answer, but I found the answer in considering them as medicine wheel spirit guides, the buffalo and deer being animals of the spiritual north and the mouse and squirrel from the south, the direction of early childhood development. These experiences showed me that I felt content in my spirituality, but child-self lacked self-confidence and was rummaging in garbage while I should be climbing to a higher level in the tree of life.
Over the years since them I have found my east and west spirit guides as the far-sighted eagle and the nurturing and strong bear, though I have a number of other spirit guides including the challenging coyote of the west and the elusive wood thrush of the east. Each guide has taught and continues to teach me about life such that I see them as my teachers and cannot consider them lesser forms of life. Thus, these experiences have returned me to my rightful place in the evolution of life with the interdependence of all life as created by our Great Mother Earth. I can no longer consider myself as having dominion over all that is of the Earth.
Over the last twelve years new spirit guides have come to me through my practice of ecstatic trance and the ecstatic postures. I have recently found a sequence of postures that brings the spirit guide especially alive with me. I think of the sequence as the development of my relationship with the guide that begins with becoming acquainted before falling in live to eventually moving into marriage. I have been using this sequence to discover of the power of the spirit guides of medicinal herbs that leads me to becoming one with the herb in marriage. This sequence though is an important avenue for learning from any spirit guide. It begins by using a divination posture, asking the diviner to show me a spirit guide that I may need and find value from at the moment. In this way I first become acquainted with the guide. Next, by using a healing posture, the Chiltan Spirits with my hand resting over my heart, I find myself falling in love with the guide. Then in using a metamorphosis posture of become one with the guide in marriage.

Heading into the Future

Heading into the Future
By far my biggest concern about the future is global climate change, the loss of so many species of life upon which we depend, and the rising waters of our one and only Earth. The main thought for a solution is to end the use of fossil fuels and the flow of CO2 into the atmosphere. These actions are definitely important for our survival, but first and foremost we need to change our attitude, not for just what we can do, but to look at the world around us in a different way; not with the belief that we have dominion over the Earth and can take whatever we want from it but with the belief that we are just one species of life, no better than any of the other species and dependent upon all that is of the Earth. We need to return to our rightful place among all these, our brothers and sisters. Our attitude that we have dominion over all is what has led us to this point of near demise. We need to return to the attitude of our hunter-gathering ancestors, the attitude that we need to give back as much if not more than we take from the Earth to protect and cherish it. The Earth provides and we need to demonstrate our appreciation by cherishing all that we receive from our Great Mother Earth.
We need to listen from our heart to all species and hear what they have to say, not just what they have to offer us, but what they too need. This listening takes again another change in our attitude or consciousness, i.e. we need to alter our consciousness to hear what they have to say. This change in consciousness takes learning and practice, of learning to go into a dreamlike state of trance, a state that opens us to a new relationship of all that is of the Earth. This is why I feel such a strong need to teach others the ways of Ecstatic Trance, one avenue of opening ourselves to all that is of the Earth. I have been teaching the Cuyamungue Method of Ecstatic Trance for about twelve years and I am continually astounded as to what I experience in this way of listening. I know I still have so much to learn, but it continues to change my life. I know that the Cuyamungue Method is not the only way and that other ways are as important, but I have found this method effective, and I continue to be excited about teaching it when and where ever I can.