Book Overview
SOUL MATTERS: Modern Science Confirming Ancient Wisdom
This book is the result of my doctoral/PhD research into the mechanics of the shamanic soul retrieval (and soul restoration) procedure. Of course, at the energy level of shamanic healing modalities – in the realm of spirits, of consciousness – we do not find operational mechanics influencing physical parts. Mechanics refers to the Newtonian world of matter, where things bump into each other and where happenings follow a one-dimensional trajectory on the timeline from past to present to future: phenomena we encounter on the macro level of existence. In the quantum world of existence, on the level of consciousness (where the present can influence the past, the future can alter the present, and the past can be affected by the future, all being contained in the ever now), next to our whole-brain faculties, the mental powers of imagination, intention, and decree become operative. These mental powers also guide the shaman’s operational thrust and the aiming force of purposive intervention on behalf of a fellow human being. On this level, we find quantum relationships, and the shaman understands (and takes into account) that everything is relational and behaves that relationally.
Because they were so intimately connected with the surrounding ecosystem, indigenous shamans, seers, and wise ones intuitively sensed that life is interactive and interconnected, that it is a production of seen and unseen forces; of possibilities and actualities; of intent, of desire, and creation, all geared towards manifestation for the sake of expression from thought to form. They understood that physical life is not only infused with spirit, but that it has been engendered by spirit. These millennia-old insights (also detailed in the Indian Vedas) are now corroborated by modern science, expressed so eloquently nearly a century ago by the English physicist and mathematician Sir James Jeans:
The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought to rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual.
Of course, there is the existential conundrum: the physical body is quite resilient, yet it is also rather fragile. The dual make-up of our suchness – spirit housed in flesh; transcendence cloaked in immanence; the monad (God) expressed in the dyad (matter) – carries the risk of breaking apart: body failing, spirit leaving. Meaning that the soul, our indwelling spiritual component, which leaves its physical residence at death, can even partially move out at the chance of the body being maimed and potentially dying.
Shamans, as the original doctors and psychologists, had to come up with methods to remedy such incidents. Returning an injured body to physical health was, and is, always the first order of intervention; bringing back the possibly lost soul parts, the second. Only then can a person continue to live the life of a fully restored being. The shamans understood that.