Visionseeker: Shared Wisdom from the Place of Refuge

The Human Spirit

Several years ago, I was approached by a student who had attended one of my college anthropology classes focusing on religion and magic in the lives of traditional peoples. This young woman knew of my interest in shamanism and proceeded to tell me a very strange story. For the best part of a year, she had been waking up terrified in her bed in the middle of the night, aware that there were three entities in the room with her. She couldn't see them, but she could hear what they were saying, and she could feel their hands upon her. And virtually every night, the moment they saw she was awake, they would hold her down and molest her in the most unsavory ways for extended periods of time.

As she told me her story, I shifted into a light trance state, and as my awareness expanded in response, I looked her over. I saw before me a young woman who had deep circles under her eyes and whose face was very pale and waxy. Her clothes were wrinkled and disheveled, and she looked exhausted. By the time her story was told, she was trembling, and there were tears streaming down her face. She was obviously terrified by what was happening to her. From the shamanic perspective, it was apparent to me that she lacked protection.

I am not a psychologist, but I was aware that there could have been any number of psychological explanations for this woman's distress. For starters, she could have been suffering from the onset of what Western medicine defines as mental illness. There could also have been molestation issues in her past, but it wouldn't have been ethical for me to ask, nor was I interested in probing into her personal life or in pathologizing her behavior. I could feel her fear with my ku [subconscious mind], however, and it was obvious to me in those moments that she needed immediate relief. As a student of shamanism, I had a clear sense of how to proceed, but spiritual ethics required that she ask. When she didn't, I decided to prompt her.

I looked into her drawn face and asked her if she remembered the part of the class in which I had discussed the interesting relationship between traditional shamans and their spiritual allies. "That's why I came to you," she said. "I sensed that you had gone beyond scholarly research into direct, personal contact with your subject matter. You've spent a lot of your life with traditional people. That's what made your class so interesting." A glimmer of hope crept into her tired eyes. "Do you think you could help me?"

That's what I was waiting to hear. I smiled and rubbed my hands together. "Yes, I will help you. I know exactly how to take care of this problem." I could see in her posture and demeanor the immediate relief that she experienced in response to my words. I looked at my watch, then turned to her and asked, "Can you go home to your house in the next half hour?" She nodded. "Good. Two of the amazing things about the ancient shamanic method are first, that it works, and second, that it can be done long distance. We don't have to be in the same room together for me to help you."

I continued, "I want you to go home and go into your bedroom. It would be good to light a candle, close the door and take the phone off the hook, then lie down on your bed. Try to set yourself on "receive mode" at precisely 1:30 P.M. That's your part of the ritual.

"My part is a little more complicated. I'm going to go home to my house, where I'll use my rattle to induce a trance similar to the one in which traditional shamans do their work. Then I'm going to put out the call to my most powerful spirit helper. We're going to put up a perimeter of protection around you, and when it's in place, your problems will be over. As of 1:35, they won't be able to touch you again."

The young woman looked more and more relieved as she listened to this statement of intent, and she smiled for the first time. Then her smile faded, and her fear returned. "What if it doesn't work? What if they come back?" she asked plaintively. She was really shaken and obviously needed something extra to reassure her. I decided to put out a call to my aumakua [personal ancestral spiritual aspect] for additional information.

The answer appeared in my mind immediately. It came in the form of a memory of something Sandra Ingerman had told me at Westerbeke Ranch years ago. If I recall the incident correctly, Sandra had apparently been talking with a Chumash medicine woman at some time in the past and had asked her a similar question. The Indian woman had smiled and described what she did when she felt that she was under psychic attack. She simply used the power of her creative imagination to build an image in her mind of a blue egg. Then she visualized herself getting inside the egg. When she was in the blue egg, nothing could touch her. She was protected.

I shook my head with wonder as I received this information. This was strong medicine because it suggested a way in which this frightened woman could act on her own behalf and protect herself whenever the need arose. As I shared the story of the blue egg with her, she seemed satisfied and then went home, promising that she would do as I had asked.

When I got to my house, Jill was at work and the children were at school, so at 1:25 sharp, I got out my Hopi gourd rattle, which has a nice, dry sound, and propped myself in a chair in front of a large oil painting that I had made of the leopard man while I was still living in Hawai'i. I remembered what Tehura had told me about being able to see through Gauguin's painting into the gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and decided to try it in reverse. I looked into my spirit helper's eyes, then started to shake the rattle. When I felt my ku shift down into the shamanic state of consciousness, I used the painting as a window to go to my spirit ally. I simply looked into the leopard's green gaze and put forward my request.

I explained the nature of the problem and asked the spirit to extend his defense to this unprotected woman so that whoever was molesting her would be unable to find her or get to her in any way, shape, or form. I also asked that this protection be extended to me and to my wife and daughters, a most important part of the ritual, because the last thing I wanted was for these entities to find their way into my dreaming or that of my family through my connection to the girl. I finished by asking that the leopard man not hurt the offenders in any way, but to simply isolate and neutralize them. I mention this because I, like Nainoa, had learned a powerful lesson from the Paleko incident.

The altered state suddenly deepened, and the blood started to hiss in my ears. To my amazement, I saw those green eyes close, then open again, then close, conveying reassurance and good intentions. There was no doubt in my mind that I was in connection with my ally in those moments. Once again, I saw those eyes close and open, close and open. My request had been received. The perimeter of protection was in place. The ritual was complete. I stopped rattling, and my consciousness shifted. The painting was once again a painting. It was 1:35 exactly. I put down the rattle and went to pick up my children at school.

Several days later, the woman rushed up to me at one of the colleges where I teach. She looked good. The circles were gone, and there was color in her skin and light in her eyes. Her clothes were pressed, and her hair looked great. She was even wearing makeup. "It worked, Dr. Wesselman, it worked!" she proclaimed effusively, and then went on to tell me that she had had four uninterrupted nights' sleep in a row, the first in a year, and that the "boogeymen" had not returned since the ritual had been done.

This excerpt is taken from the new book Visionseeker: Shared Wisdom from the Place of Refuge by Hank Wesselman, Ph.D. It is published by Hay House and is available at all bookstores, by phone (800-654-5126) or via the Internet at www.hayhouse.com.

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