The Making of a Shaman

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1983 The Consciousness Researcher

The consciousness researcher was lying on a mat on the ground reflecting on some of his experiences. His mind drifted through some of his inner journeys since he had done Dr Stan’s workshop.

His partner had left him to go and live with his best friend, and he was now godfather to their child at whose birth he had been present.

The second session with Dr Stan, utilising hyperventilation, had taken him into another part of the cosmic game — the realm of the cosmic joke. The joke is that eventually nothing matters. All is One and All is an Illusion. His cherished beliefs, struggles, yearnings, philosophical theories had all dissolved into the illusion that they were, and he laughed uproariously, continuously, his whole body in paroxysms of humour, rolling around on the floor, clutching his belly, tears streaming from his eyes, possessed by the insight of the Gods — in the end none of this matters, this realm is Maya, the play of light and energy, the theatre of the Divine, the Thoughts in the mind of God, the dreaming of the Source. We are the One and the Many, we are not separate, this is a mistake of the mind. We are all One — and around he rolled, continuing peals of laughter ripping through him as his body learnt this new truth.

For over an hour this heavenly divine humour of the delicious absurdity of limited human insight rocked his body. Old limitations released, new insights solidified, adjustments were made to the navigational map of his life and all the time laughter, full bodied, total — the great joke of it all had finally been revealed.

* * *

In the intervening years he had set up a breath therapy centre in Melbourne and with a psychologist friend had started taking others through the breath process. Profound healing had occurred as the breath had carried them on journeys through time and space. Past lives, ancestors, replays of mystic dramas, recapitulations and release of birth trauma, journeys to the end of time—all had happened in the lounge room of an inner city terrace.

The consciousness researcher and the psychologist had begun serious mapping of inner space, adding powerful psychedelics into their armamentum. Guided ritual use of sacred initiatry substances became their cartographic tool.

Within a year the researcher was living in a simple abode in the country, alone with the earth, the wind, clouds, trees and stars. As day turned to night he would pour out his loneliness in prayer to the Spirit of Life. He offered his life to be of service, to heal, to bring wholeness. He took a vow of celibacy until and unless a new tantric partner emerged, and he experienced the dropping away of the past — old connections, meaning, places, comforts.

A simple corrugated shed — no water, power or lights, took him to simplicity. His only companions were half a dozen chooks, although two days a week he would go to the city to teach, sleeping on the floor at his office overnight, showering in the gym — a slight glint of the god possessed in his eyes—strung out, changing, not knowing where life was taking him, trusting, exploring, pushing the edges of his psyche.

Sometimes he would go into the forest to cut a fence post with a bow saw. In the silence of the trees and the wind the world would begin to change. He would step out of the flow of linear time into synchronic time where everything was connected and the subtle flow of spirit could be divined in the wind. The rustle of the leaves of trees, in the calls of the birds and the movement of animals. Gradually he started to learn the language of nature and could hear the advice that trees had to give. His questions to Spirit would be answered by the gentle caress of the wind that would blow its inspiration into his brain and form up the answer to his request. He was learning to read the hidden order, that ebb and flow of information that surrounds us when we are quiet and available in nature.

And all the time he was changing.

One ritual journey in particular stood out in his mind. As his consciousness altered and started to move towards the speed of light he began to relive his life. He went through every event, thought, activity that had composed his life up till then. "My God”, he thought, drawing on his research on the dying process, "I’m dying”, as his consciousness began to speed away from the earth. With his connections to his three children as his only link to others, he checked out with them, sensed that they could continue without him, and so he went. Into the realm of the dying and the dead. He passed a realm of disembodied beings whose bodies are in the back wards of pyschiatric institutes—barely mobile as if there is no-one there. He heard their prayers and songs to spirit—rapturous songs of praise and realised that they had chosen not to go back to their bodies but to continue to shower the earth with praise. He realised that they were modern saints and instead of being incarcerated in wheelchairs they should be surrounded with devotion and veneration.

And on he journeyed. Through the mythic realms — the archetypal images that humans live and finally exploding into light. He was in the place known as eternity. Outside of the flow of time every moment is the eternal present — no past, no future, only the ecstatic moment of now, forever, and always. This was heaven.

As well as the eternal present there was the eternal presence — forever and all ways. The eternal presence of beingness, eternal praise, eternal love. He had died, left his body and he was home. Hallelujah!

Several hours later he had come back into his body, lying on the floor of his simple shed. He was back, he was still alive, and he was pissed off. He wanted to go back home.

* * *

These were the memories of the consciousness researcher as he settled into the current journey.

Easter Sunday, he believed, was filled with a current of spiritual energy that washed the earth as Christians celebrated the resurrected Christ. He was going to rise on those currents as an eagle soars on the wing.

Soon the energetic currents lifted his spirit and he soared into unknown parts of interstellar space. Moving past meteors, comets, stars, constellations, he was drawn to a point which he did not know. Shifting into warp speed his consciousness moved into turbocharged travelling, and he rocketed through space. Luke Skywalker eat your heart out.

After some time out of time, he sensed an enormous energetic presence in the distance, and as he came closer to it was filled with immense feelings of love.

His speed slowed down and he sensed an enormous space flotilla, gigantic, travelling together—a whole civilisation mobile in space—everything that was needed for life was carried on these enormous ships that travelled in the subtle realms of space.

The closer he came the stronger was the energy field which he entered. There was a presence in the centre of the flotilla that he was drawn to. It was the most profound presence of creative love — over and above what could ever be imagined or even talked about. As the body of his consciousness came close, he was filled with this profound presence that reorganised the very nature of his consciousness.

There were force fields emanating from the central presence and each one closer to the centre was stronger. In order to enter the next force field, aspects of identity, the past, plans for the future, all had to be surrendered.

At the same time, each force field was an increase in energy that echoed through all parts of the consciousness researcher’s being, even back to the body lying under an apple tree on the earth. The consciousness researcher’s awareness was able to monitor the increasing energy manifesting in the physical body and see it beginning to undulate as he sought to go closer to this mystery of powerful love.

Every vestige of personal identity, desire, wish, plan, possibility, history, dropped away until finally there was pure being in the presence of the most amazing love that would ever be possible. Surrender, profound, total, forever and always was offered. "Here am I Lord, use me”, was echoed across time and space to the being at the centre of the flotilla that took on the form of a three-foot high robot. With the surrender total, energetic transmission and merging took place.

The body back on earth was now beginning to overheat. The researcher did everything he knew to offload the energetic increase that was happening. Anchoring it onto the earth, sending it to friends didn’t fully cope with the intensity that now was causing energetic paroxysms in the body.

Checking the state of the body systems the researcher could see that the body was rapidly approaching stroke and melt down conditions. He visualised a control panel in the body’s brain and turned the appropriate switches to off.

Immediately everything stopped. The researcher was back on earth in a totally ordinary state of mind, and the body was absolutely fine. As he lay, sombrely reflecting on what had happened, the researcher realised he had surrendered his life to the being that is often identified as the Coming Christ. That gave him great joy and was always an immense source of inspiration in the challenging times of the years that followed.

He had totally surrendered his life to enable that love to come onto earth.