RE: Shamanic healing...
Dear Elisabeth and Bernard ,
In answer to your questions...
1/
>Can you explain how to set up a "protection" as you did it and how to help
>someone else to do it? Do the person's beliefs affect this?
The circle of protection is a basic magical technique. It is a self-generated
energy field which separates the inner and outer worlds. Magic has nothing
to do
with religious belief, but works much better if the practitioner believes in
it.
Magic is in essence the art of making change by the power of will, so if you
don't believe that it will work it's hard to summon up sufficient will to make
it so.
Normally magical work is done within a circle (actually it's a sphere, but
it is
drawn as a circle). Starting (usually) in the East, the practitioner draws a
circle clockwise either with a staff, knife (athame), or their hand. As the
circle is drawn an invocation is spoken and the practitioner
visualises/causes a
barrier of energy to form at the perimiter of the circle. This often manifests
physically as a dampening of external sound and/or a change in temperature.
The circle has two purposes, to keep the magical energy generated by the
working
inside the circle, and to prevent external energies from interfering with the
magical working. It's analogous to the "clean" and "dirty" parts of an
operating
room -- we separate the two to prevent contamination in either direction.
As to how to do it -- practice until you are able to feel the energies
moving at
your direction. A simple but effective invocation is: "In the name of <select a
god(dess)> I cast this circle." Magic doesn't have to be complex <grin>
To take down the circle, begin in the same place and moving anticlockwise, say
"In the name ov <god(dess)> this circle is open. Collect up the energy used to
form the circle and when you get back to the starting place, point your
staff/hand/knife at the ground and release the energy into the earth.
2/
>Would you be more precise about "rewiring the circuit board"? Is it only a
>metaphorous induction or does the process need to be very precise? Would you
>expand on what you do really see, hear, feel, during the process, what kind of
>representations or strategies are involved ? (if you can answer of
course...;-))
Yes, it was a metaphor, but it was also the process. Somehow or other one
has to
visualise what one is doing. I'm enough of a technician to make that metaphor
work. I could have used the metaphor of redrawing a map. What I saw during the
process was my consciousness spread out like a circuit board with the faulty or
addictive connections glowing with a black light. I then set out to disconnect
those connections and reroute the neural pathways round them. As each one got
disconnected, it's light went out. They're still in there, but they're not
connected to anything anymore.
This is a completely different metaphor from the one I used to rebuild a
memory.
Different job, different metaphor, but same overall process.
3/
>There is an issue we would like to find a solution: What is the shortest way
>from denial to the wanton desire of eliminating the compulsion?
>Would you tell us how you did it ?
Now if I knew the answer to that & could market it..... <grin>
For me it was a process of coming to terms with who I am and becoming congruent
with myself. As best I can explain, first I had to realize that what I was
doing
was not in my best interests, then I had to reach a place of sufficient
self-knowledge that the compulsion could be viewed as "not-me". When I got to
that point, getting rid of the compulsion was a piece of cake
(comparatively). I
was by that time 8 years clean & sober and had put in about 18 months in
therapy. It would be nice to be able to make this a quicker process.
4/
>Elisabeth made the hypothesis that to become able to be socialized, we all had
>experienced a strong feeling of being separated from the "Original Unity".
Most
>of us had forgotten this Unity and we are all living as it had never existed.
>It could be that the addicts who are most of the time more sensitive, would be
>more lucid and would suffer toughly from this feeling of separation. So the
>substance abuse would be the way to be connected again to the "Original Unity".
>What do you think of that ?
That sounds a pretty accurate hypothesis for some of us. I know for me it was
the realization that I had lost my spiritual life that brought me into
recovery.
However -- I may well be a heretic here -- I don't think one single hypothesis
covers all addicts. Just as there are many causes and forms of heart disease
(for example) which share similar symptoms and effects, I believe there are
many
different conditions that currently are lumped under the single heading of
"addiction". So what works for one may not work for another.
>Postscript: have you heard of the "Shamanic Application Revieaw": us review
of >therapeutical modern shamanism ?
Yes, it's a very interesting publication. I hope to be able to contribute to it
soon.
I hope all this helps.
Blessings,
Jenni