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From the January 2008 Newsletter

Reporting on Ecstatic Trance Experiences
by Nick Brink, Ph.D.  

In the stories of Aesit and Vanir, the gods and goddesses of the North, there is magic everywhere. It is this magic of the ancient people of the world that contemporary shamans try to recapture, often effectively, and it is available to us today. Odin could see great distances from his high seat Hlidskjalf. Idunn was able to heal with her golden apples. Loki and several of the other gods and giants were able to shape-shift to various animals. Odin and the other gods were able to foresee the future by consulting the three Norns. The gods were able to face death in journeys into Niflheim, the underworld. They were also able to fly through the air on various modes of transportation, a chariot pulled by goats, golden pigs, cats, etc.

Felicitas Goodman's research shows us how we can see long distances in spirit journeys, heal ourselves and others, shape-shift, see into the future, face death and travel through the air in trance or dream state experiences. I've had the chance to replicate her work using shamanic postures at a dream conference in Sonoma, California, and now a group of us in rural Pennsylvania are getting together each Monday evening to recapture the power of her research in shamanic postures.

The first posture used was The Bear Spirit Posture, found all over the world. Just last week I visited the new Native American museum in Washington, D.C. In one display that covered a large wall were several hundred small figures found throughout the Americas. This healing posture was one of the most numerous among them. From both the California workshop and the workshop at home, 21 participants have tried this postures blind, not knowing what to expect. Though several of the participants experienced traveling outside their body and several experienced shape shifting, all had an experience within their bodies, generally of an energy flow.

One experience was: "A raccoon comes. Its face becomes mine. It pulls off my head and takes it to the sky. A raccoon and a girl hold hands and dance around my head then they give my head back. They put it down my throat so that my head is in my belly. They dance around it, then light it on fire. I become the raccoon. Its skin is draped over my head and back. I am dancing around a fire. I am Native American. I think I have liquid in my mouth. I spray it over the audience that sits to one side of the fire. It takes me over a waterfall. The raccoon dives into my intestines and pulls out a growth. I cough it out and then he replaces it with an emerald. I become a tree. Animals come to protect me and help me breathe."

Another experience from the workshop at home: "Circling a campfire clockwise to the rhythm. After a while the circle goes counter clockwise and there is a group circling in that direction. Personal energy circles clockwise. Collective energy circles counterclockwise. Energy is raised - the fire is burning. The circle moves to a bigger field and the energy begins to pick up even more. It starts moving in a spiral motion. It is harder to envision the dancing to the drum moving in a spiral but it moves this way. This then shifts into the energy circling around someone who is lying in the field and the spiral goes around them. This leads back to one energy circling clockwise again, this time as if the energy is circling around itself - self healing. After this rhythm continues the collective energy then goes around it counterclockwise, while the individual continues circling around itself clockwise. Then the energy moves in two waves towards each direction. The energy builds so intensely that the earth starts reverberating energy back up . The healing is then able to be directed to someone who needs it; the power of the rhythm is able to travel to someone in need from toe to head, building the healing energy through their chakra."

In The Olmec Prince Posture, my own experience was powerful in being totally in the moment, much more immediately in the moment than all my struggles using Zen meditation and Tai Chi. "My round black nose was twitching - felt somewhat more separate from my face than my human nose, and my ears stood out round and fuzzy scanning for sounds. My head and shoulders were swaying back and forth exploring - taking in my surroundings using all my senses. I approached a tree and stood up exploring the tree. Then my mouth opened and my tongue hung out taking in more senses/smells. A separate part of me identified myself as a bear." In this posture, almost every participant experienced some different animal, snake, even plant, or human but a different form.

While I have not yet used The Chiltan Spirits Posture at home, in the California workshop most participants had powerful experiences. For example, "I felt tremendous heat in my stomach, like a small sun in my belly, radiating outwards and inwards. Images of seeds, impressions of fertility, growth, energy of warmth moving upwards."

In using The Realm of the Dead Posture, one person experienced, "I'm androgynous energy - standing behind me slightly to the right is the sense of 'truth.' The energy became a large bird of prey (bald eagle) that wrapped its wings around me, not to comfort but to infuse me with the ability to know truth. Felt my head turn slightly to the left and saw a large yellow eye. I am curious why it was only one eye, however I feel the ability to sense the 'bottom life truth' along with a memory of the return of the bird tribes.

The posture of facing death and the divination posture produced more abstract or metaphoric experiences that I now realize will take more interpretative work to find meaning. I have changed the format of the home group to spend the first part of the session looking deeper into the person's experience from the previous week after having had time to reflect on it, and then use the second half of the session to experience and record a new posture.

View more from the January 2008 Newsletter

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Healing Postures for Spirit Journeys
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