The Making of a Shaman

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1981 The Academic

The academic was enjoying the workshop. Having studied yoga and esoteric spirituality for seven years, he was enjoying listening to Dr Stan.

He had listened to Stan at an International Conference on Transpersonal Psychology only 10 days ago, and now here he was at an "experiential workshop".

For the last day and a half he and two friends along with 20 or so other eager seekers of spiritual truth had listened as the learned man had outlined his 25 years of research in altered states of consciousness. Initially utilising LSD25, once it became illegal to use for research purposes, the researcher had found ways of using the breath, sound, bodywork and art to enable people to explore the outer/inner reaches of consciousness.

The academic was no stranger to exploring breath. For the last eight years he had done pranayama-yogic exercises designed to clear the subtle energy channels of the body. Initially under the guidance of Margrit Segesman (?) the first yoga teacher in Australia, and then under the tutelage of Christopher Hills. The academic felt privileged to be a student of these teachers, particularly Hills, for not only was Hills a yogi acharya, but he had two PhDs.

The time had come to get down to business - basically he was to hyperventilate for up to one and a half hours with an agreement with his "sitter" that should he stop breathing then the sitter would tap his chest, in order to remind him to breathe.

And so he began.

In, out, in, out. Soon the body began to tremble as energy built up in it. Ripples of sensual energy moved along his spine, his body gave spontaneous jerks, as surface and deeper tensions released.

From time to time images of events from the past filtered through his mind, snatches of conversations, feelings of hurt, anger, need, desire moved from one to the other as the body let go of some of its past. And always the relentless rasping of the breath, the mouth and throat becoming dry, tears from the eyes, snot from the nose, tissues and breath, hands clenched in rage and the breath, remorselessly in and out, pain in the body, the fingers and hands cramping and unable to move and the music, loud, fiery, evocative, intense rocketing into the body, distributing feelings, provoking memories leading higher.

Snatches of memories from other times, images of other places, cultures, religions, art, designs, sounds of other participants, laughing, crying, screaming, raging, breathing, choking and always the music, familiar, foreign, classic, voices, orchestral, solitary, unison, switching into being part of everything that was happening in the room, being in the body, out of the body, the music heading higher and higher, further and further, deeper and deeper, more and more longing, building, extending, reaching, climbing, journeying, then suddenly a change and Pachelbel's Canon in D began to caress his soul, touch his heart, bless him with love and ............................he .............................. exploded ......................................... into .............................................. God.

He was in the living presence of God, light, all knowledge, wisdom, compassion, beauty, longing, fulfillment, all happening simultaneously, although this time not with another but with the All. And there was Christ and angels and healing power was coming into and through his hands and he was to become/is a healer. And knowledge was directly available to him, he could sell his academic books-he didn't need them anymore. He and the All were One and whatever he needed to know could come to him directly. He was loved, blessed, accepted, healed and transformed. This was his path.

Information as energy was cascading into his body, his cells were being reprogrammed, his possible futures were being rewritten, transformation was happening now-he would leave academia-his destiny was calling.

>> The Conciousness Researcher