Before I finish this work with a discussion on Myth, Religion, and the Intent of the Sacred ("the Sacred" being another term that can be used to refer to The Great Power) I must discuss the realities of shamanic work, including the famous "journey" of the shaman, in light of The Great Power.
Many famous and core works on shamanic practices in the modern day deal with the theme of the "shamanic journey". We know that in living shamanic cultures, and in shamanic cultures from the past, shamanic workers were able to access the Unseen world through "journeys" which sometimes are depicted as full "out of body" experiences in which the shaman left their bodies and moved in a spiritual form into the otherworld. One can take this as a literal description of what was occurring, or one can see this as language used to describe the feeling and experience of a transition into, and total immersion in, the condition of shamanic cognition.
Anyone who is totally immersed in shamanic cognition will certainly feel that they have been "separated" from the world they knew. The visions and experiences that follow will feel completely realistic (and indeed, they are every bit as "real" as any other experience that one might have operating in ordinary cognition) and many times they will feel like a lucid dream. The shaman's journey through the landscapes and strange realities of the unseen world is often depicted with surreal features, showing that while the shaman was "moving in power", the world they experienced there revealed its non-ordinary character to them in much the same way dreams do.
Most of the modern works that describe "journeying" in a shamanic context suggest that the shamanic practitioner lie down and close their eyes while a rapid, steady drumbeat is provided. They are told to visualize openings in the ground or sky, and visualize themselves walking or flying through these openings, into tunnels of various kinds, until they reach "other" worlds, at which time they are told to explore the landscapes beyond.
Such a technique can sometimes have the affect of inducing a non-ordinary state of cognition, and even may allow an experience of the unseen world, but it is a comparatively weak technique if it is done precisely as described. The reason why is because the act of closing the eyes and visualizing things is not a non-ordinary state of cognition; it is a common and ordinary thing for every human being to visualize things and even to dream.
In such a state of visualization, a person is incapable of "generating" anything which is not under their willed control, so any "beings" met in such a visualized journey are not separate beings at all, but aspects of the mind of the person visualizing. This would be the easy explanation for why most modern surface-level practitioners of shamanism often end up seeing and hearing precisely what they want to see and hear during their "visions" and "journeys".
The notes and criteria I have given in this work regarding the induction of trance should be brought into play if a person wants to achieve the needed state of cognition to escape the traps of wishful thinking while working in a shamanic context. In much the same manner that a person recognizes all sights and sounds as things that they become "separated" from in a sense during the entry into the Otherness, a person must also extend that understanding to their own thoughts and desires. To experience your earthly surroundings in terms of "surface level appearances" of a great underlying mystery is only the beginning of the path- to realize that your own thoughts and dreams are likewise arisen from The Great Power allows you to put things into the deepest perspective.
The act of true "journeying" is a matter of "moving in power". While it can include visualization on the part of the person journeying, it is not a simple "ordinary" visualization; it is a "power-visualization". There are differences between a person who engages an ordinary visualization and a person who engages in power-visualization. The person engaging the power-visualization is already near to or within the boundaries of shamanic cognition, and they realize and understand that the vision that they are willing to arise in their head is itself a manifestation of The Great Power, an event (like every other energetic event) that is arising from The Great Power
This is a very important point. Understanding your own visualizations in this way allows you to "use" the visualization and the power that is "behind" it in a way that you could not if you were not aware of this. What occurs here is a matter of empowered intent- your intention to summon forth a visual image in your awareness is part of a system of forces that creates a powerful event. When you are able to "feel" and "see" the dark or mysterious presence of The Great Power moving in the vision you are holding in your head, and when you are totally aware of The Great Power's presence underlying your thoughts, ideas, feelings, and your inner relationship to the visualized scene you are creating, then you have fully engaged power and can move through it. You can move with it, and move as it.
With this special awareness, you no longer can claim full and isolated "ownership" of the vision in your head, or for that matter the ideas that you call "yourself", "your intentions", and the like.
This brings us to an important question and point. What is the relationship between human intent and the intent of The Great Power? Clearly humans- and all aspects of humanity, including what we call our "intent", are sprung from The Great Power which is our source. We are aware that The Great Power has its own mysterious intent, which manifests itself in the very motions and appearances of nature itself, in the same way that a human's intent may manifest in how they dress or act. But what is the relationship between this macrocosmic intent and the microcosmic intent of the "parts" of the whole?
The answer to this question goes towards the resolution of the debates regarding the conflict of fate versus free will. Some people will think that human beings are left "alone" inside the system of reality, with the ability to will or intend whatever they choose, outside of too much (if any) influence from greater forces. Others will think that human intending cannot be separated from the intentions of The Great Power.
The latter position is more coherent, considering nothing- and that means no aspect of humankind- can be "separate" enough from The Great Power to be truly "self-guided" and "self-sovereign" in the manner required for something like "free will" to exist. All the same, it is clear that all people do feel as though they have some measure of freedom- the question becomes "does that feeling correspond to some reality? Or is it just that- a feeling?"
The real answer to this debate lies in the individual, and nowhere else. Whether or not humans are mysteriously "free" in some manner, or whether humanity's perception of their capacity for choosing and intending is part of a greater necessity means little from the perspective of everyday life; regardless of which you choose to believe today, you will still feel and engage intention just like you did the day before.
This point is relevant here because "journeying", like the work of entering into shamanic cognition, requires seeming intention on the part of the person performing the work. You have to will yourself to enter these states; you have to intend to trance, intend to journey. But in the strangest, greatest manner, it would seem that our actions and intentions are not simply "ours"- they are also the actions and intentions of the universe itself.
Do you go and journey to find help for others simply because they need help, you can journey, and they approach you and ask you, and you go and do it out of a sense of wanting to help? Or could the picture be larger?
Could The Great Power intend for human beings to engage in more subtle forms of cognition, and therefore extend its power in such ways and combinations that events occur necessitating humans to seek the Unseen world, so that it can share in this experience? These questions will be examined in the next section.
Whatever is happening, from the "smaller picture" to the "bigger picture", an unavoidable conclusion is reached: all acts are sacred. All acts include the participation of The Great Power; all acts are of universal importance, no matter how much we have convinced ourselves that "some things are trivial". Nothing is trivial. No life is insignificant, and no life can be treated such, or have its well-being neglected for some notion of "convenience". To be aware of the sacredness and importance of things, and to act accordingly in your life, is what is commonly referred to as "living in a sacred manner".
The act of journeying is sacred, but if you treat it like some isolated event that "you" are going off to do, and if you do not realize the intimate participation of The Sacred Power in all that you do, including your journeying, you will miss the secret which allows for an ordinary intention to become a power-intention. When you understand the reality behind all events that occur, whether they seem to occur "inside" you or "outside" you, you enter into a sacred dimension of cognition in which "you" no longer act alone. You and your intentions consciously become a part of a sacred reality that has its own great power and motion. It is in this new awareness that true "journeys" are possible, for you are now able to open yourself and surrender the great effort that ego makes to "do" things on its own. In this manner, you begin to "do without doing"- that is, you begin to move in power.
When you are in the state of shamanic cognition, and you call forth a visualization of a "place" like a cave-mouth or a hollow tree intending to use this "entrance" to reach the world below, you will not be able to do this without understanding that you are not merely "seeing this in your head"- you are seeing it in power. The Great Power is behind all this. You must realize that you are "moving in power" and believe this with all your mind and heart. You have to burn with this certainty and with belief in the reality of The Great Power. Then shamanic work truly begins.
