Modern Shamanism 1, Phil Hine
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Walking Between The Worlds
TECHNIQUES OF MODERN SHAMANISM VOL.1
PHIL HINE
WALKING BETWEEN THE WORLDS
Techniques of Modern Shamanism Volume One
© Phil Hine 1986
First released by Pagan News Publications 1986
This on-line version December 1998
If you should find this booklet useful, feedback &
comments would be much appreciated. I can be
contacted via:
a5e@ndirect.co.uk
or
BM Coyote, London WC1N 3XX, UK
The techniques offered in this book are by no means definitive -
just a beginning. There’s much more to be said on this subject, but
you will find other works to help you. Probably the best way to use
this book is to find some friends who are interested and try and
explore the techniques together. You don’t need any fancy trappings,
as your BodyMind is all that is needed at this stage. With other
people helping you, you’ll learn faster and have more fun too.
Contents
Introduction .................................................................................. 4
The Shamanic Survival ................................................................. 5
Further Reading
Basic Exercises ............................................................................. 9
Shamanic Voices, Joan Halifax
The Black Goddess & the Sixth Sense, Peter Redgrove
The Way of the Shaman, Michael Harner
Dreaming the Dark, Starhawk
Psychonaut, Pete Carroll
The British Magical Herbal, Paul Bennett
Weaving the Web, Moonshine Publications
The Search for Abraxas, Neville Drury
Wizard of the Pigeons, Megan Lindholm
Sight Exercises ........................................................................... 12
Sound Exercises .......................................................................... 15
Smell Exercises .......................................................................... 17
Space Exercises .......................................................................... 19
Speech Exercises ........................................................................ 21
Touch Exercises .......................................................................... 23
Status Shifts ................................................................................ 25
Jack Your Body... ........................................................................ 29
Chemical Aids ............................................................................ 40
Going Down ............................................................................... 42
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believe in utopias, perfection, or ‘True Selves’ which are eternally
bathed in bliss. The striving is the important bit.
INTRODUCTION
This book is a collection of practical exercises, the aim of which is
to enhance awareness of the world around us. The first part of this
book deals with basic sensory exercises, while the second half deals
with trance states, and some of the basic group dynamics involved
in helping other people into them. Using these techniques will not
make you a ‘shaman/shamanka’, but they are drawing on the
shamanic outlook - which depends from an enhanced awareness of
our environment, and the ability to mediate between the everyday,
and the sacred aspects of our experience. “Walking between the
Worlds” requires that we learn to extend our perceptions from the
ordinary, to see the extra-ordinary which lies within it. Many of the
techniques require group exploration, since it is impossible to grow
in total isolation from others.
Many of the exercises were originally part of the Shamanic
Development Course run by Sheila Broun and myself in 1987. I am
particularly indebted to Sheila, whose continuing work is a spur
towards my own efforts. Also, to the course participants, who gave
much in the way of enthusiasm, criticism, and their own experience,
so that the course far surpassed our own hopes for its success. Also,
I would like to thank Rich Westwood for supporting this project,
and just about everyone to whom I’ve ever written to or talked with
on this subject.
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the ritual stuff is unnecessary - though many people find ritual a
useful (and fun!) way of dramatising the inner/outer process. Sure,
you can be initiated into the belief system of a particular group or
cult, but the deepest level of initiation is into yourself. Someone
else can act as a guide or helper, but they can’t do it for you.
To pass between the worlds usually involves some kind of
catharsis; an upheaval, trial or test. The necessary disruption seems
to be the ‘trigger’ for the plunge. This can happen as a result of
your own developmental exercises, as a ‘coincidental’ event, or it
can be induced by someone else. This last means is perhaps the
most difficult and rewarding part of the role of initiator - knowing
when to apply the light touch so that the awareness of the initiation
cycle is triggered. Touch, and then let go - because once someone
begins an active initiation, there’s not a lot else you can do. Except
maybe listen, or not, depending on the necessities of the situation.
Hopefully that person will do the same for you, one day.
In some ways, initiation is a feint at death. A lot of the attachments
you previously held on to will most likely have to go out the window.
It tends to lower your self-esteem, realising what a stupid bugger
you’ve been. It tends to give rise to the feeling of being an ‘outsider’,
which, if clung to, can rapidly turn into feelings of being ‘one of the
elect’, a ‘Magus’, or a ‘rebel’ - whatever pose seems the most
attractive. The choice is yours alone - either stay there in the void,
or reach out your hand to someone else.
We see the initiation cycle in terms of the larger-than-life images
of the Mythic world. The initiatory journey is told the world over in
faery tales, plays, campfire stories to Science Fiction. Two of my
own favourites are The Tale of Jumping Mouse, and Apocalypse
Now. The Journey tends to go like this: summons to departure, the
riverboat, journey into chaos, meeting friends and temporary allies,
trials and obstacles, the final encounter with an agent of Change,
the return to the surface, and the return to the community as ...?
This is of course, the journey portrayed in the major arcana of the
Tarot, but it is an eternal journey that reaches into all of us; the
Fool, Luke Skywalker, me, you - everyone. It never ends; - I don’t
THE SHAMANIC SURVIVAL
The Shaman is one of the most ancient and one of the most enduring
figures in human evolution. Shamanism is the source of both Magic
and Religion, and as Mircea Eliade put it, is “an archaic technique
of ecstasy”. Its structural elements can be traced well back into the
Upper Palaeolithic era, and these elements are essentially similar
throughout many different cultures, in different frames of time. Even
though the surface details of the shamanic world-view tends to differ
even within particular cultures, the underlying principles remain
similar, supplying some elemental requirement of the human psyche
which has remained constant over a period of hundreds of thousands
of years.
Shamanism shows a remarkable survival, and there are many
examples of shamans co-existing with other religious or magical
systems in a given culture. Most of the world’s healers are shamans,
for example. As societies evolve into more complex forms than that
of the hunter-gatherer, the roles that the shaman fulfils is taken up
by others. From shamanism arises theatre, religion, magic, art, dance,
music and perhaps even writing and language. traces of shamanism
remain, in folklore, customs and myth - deference to those who can
manipulate the hidden forces of the world as tricksters and healers.
Westerners are increasingly turning to shamanism in a search to
revitalise and reintegrate themselves into a world-view which is
beyond that offered by our culture.
Until fairly recently, interest in shamanism was limited to those
researching into ethnology and anthropology; and psychoanalysts
such as Carl Gustav Jung. Now it seems that shamanism is suddenly
very popular. Business managers are sent on weekend courses that
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