THE JOURNEY TO THE SACRED GARDEN
by Hank Wesselman, Ph.D.

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In his latest book Wesselman tells us how to have the experience of shamanic travel to our own Sacred Garden

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My work as an anthropologist over the past several decades has led me to suspect that there are countless numbers of evolutionary sleepers out there in the mainstream of humanity, each containing within themselves an extraordinary biological-energetic program.

I've come to believe that this program is on our DNA, part of our genetic "hard drive," so to speak, and it's been my personal experience that when this program is "double-clicked," higher functions coded into the personal mind-body matrix may be awakened.

Our conscious awareness may expand dramatically in response, allowing us to have the direct, transpersonal connection with the sacred realms that defines the mystic. Needless to say, this is an experience that has transformed me utterly.

We live in interesting times. In addition to everything else going on in the Western world, there's a spiritual awakening quietly taking place, and right at its heart lies the discovery of that program within us--a program that when experienced directly, has the potential to precipitate undreamed-of levels of personal transformation.

In response, increasing numbers of modern scholars and spiritual seekers alike are reconsidering who we are as human beings and where we came from. And in doing so, we're rediscovering the ancient, time-tested methods for expanding consciousness that were pioneered tens of millennia ago by the shamans and mystics of the traditional peoples--techniques that are now known to be a form of technology--a technology of the sacred.

The growing literature on hallucinogens reveals striking cross-cultural similarities in the reported effects of these natural substances on human consciousness. These include the capacity to channel the energy of the universe, to discover the most profound secrets of nature, and to acquire wisdom that may be used for magical, medical, and religious purposes.

But equally powerful and far more widespread are the psychological and physiological methods developed by the traditional peoples for altering consciousness and repatterning it in specific ways--techniques such as fasting, sleep deprivation, physical exhaustion, hyperventilation, or even the experiencing of temperature extremes during rituals of purification such as the sweat lodge.

It's also generally known that the intensely physical stimulus of monotonous drumming and rattling, combined with culturally meaningful ritual and ceremony, prayer and chant, and singing and dancing, can enable the shifting of consciousness into visionary modes of perception. Not surprisingly, the use of drums and rattles by sacred practitioners around the world is almost universal.

Until relatively recently, Westerners have tended to regard the whole issue of altered-state experiences as mysterious, paranormal, even pathological--and some of us, in ignorance, still respond to the idea of expanded awareness and connection with spirits with fear and rejection.

By contrast, in a traditional society, each girl and boy grows up in relationship with elder ceremonial leaders and mystics who are able to access expanded states intentionally for the benefit of themselves and for others, or even for the entire community. The traditionals know that virtually everyone can learn how to access sacred states of consciousness to some extent, and that each of us is a potential holy person. They also know that some of us are real naturals at it.

With the double-clicking of the program, we become aware of our ability to perceive in an expanded way. And once activated, this ability improves and deepens with practice, allowing us to ascend toward the luminous horizon of our personal and collective destiny in a completely new way.

The traditional people also know a great secret: Any human activity or endeavor can be enormously enhanced through utilizing and eventually mastering this sacred technology. Another secret: If we go back far enough, we're all descended from indigenous tribal ancestors, Westerners and non-Westerners alike.

So let us now consider the tribal mystic in a bit more detail, for in doing so, we may learn something interesting about ourselves, as well as where we're headed.

When Westerners hear the word shaman, most of us tend to conjure up an image of a masked and costumed tribal person, dancing around a fire in the dark, involved in some mysterious ritual, accompanied by drumbeats. Yet within that cultural shell of mask, costume, and ritual, there's a woman or man who possesses a set of very real skills.

All true shamans utilize aspects of sacred technology to double-click their program and expand their conscious awareness, allowing them to engage in visionary journeys into the inner dimensions of reality known as the Other World, the Spirit World, the Dreamtime, or simply, the Sacred.

Shamans are masters of trance. They dissociate aspects of their soul and literally "spiritwalk" into levels of the inner worlds where they encounter spirits--for example, the spirits of nature, the higher gods and goddesses, the spirits of their deceased ancestors, the ascended spiritual masters and angelic forces, or even those higher spirits beyond planetary and solar development. Based on their own direct experiences, shamans affirm with absolute confidence that these realities, as well as the spirits that they encounter within them, are real.

The ability to engage in visionary experience may be part of the hereditary birthright of all human beings everywhere, both traditionals and nontribal moderns alike. Seen from this perspective, the evolutionary sleepers among us are simply those who are unaware of the spiritwalker program's existence within them because they haven't experienced it yet.

I was one such sleeper until something double-clicked the program on my own inner hard drive, initiating a life-changing series of events that is recorded in my Spiritwalker trilogy.6

Through personal experience with the program, spiritwalkers become mystics, and through training, mystics can become shamans.

Several strongly held "knowns" can be found among virtually all shamans and spiritwalkers of the world, among them: (1) We can all draw upon mysterious, compassionate forces in the inner spiritual realms who are willing to help us in various ways; and (2) these sympathetic spirits are not all powerful—they need our help in opening up a bridge or channel between their reality and ours in order for them to be of service to us.7

Shamans are thus revealed as the visionary explorers and spiritual activists who can connect with the spirits, as well as with the power and wisdom that the spirits possess. Shamans are holy people who serve their communities as the bridge between the worlds, allowing them to bring the power back into our everyday reality in order to manifest various things.

Accomplished shamans do healing work on various levels, and interestingly, all agree that it is the spirits who do what is required, not themselves. These compassionate forces work with the shaman to help restore power to those who have lost it, for example, or they may help the shaman access concealed information of personal importance, a practice known as divination. The spirits may perform healing work on the physical, mental-emotional, and spiritual levels of being, restoring balance and harmony within a sufferer, and helping to repair the holes torn in the fabric of their soul.

Some shamans are accomplished at linking up with their team of spirits to recover soul parts lost through accident, trauma, or sometimes outright theft by "soul-stealers." Soul loss is recognizable as apathy, an absence of joy, an inability to feel love or receive it, suicidal tendencies, addictions, chronic despair, and depression. The shaman, in partnership with their spiritual allies, tracks the lost soul parts, finds them, and returns them to their original owners, a talent generally known as soul retrieval. Some shamans become specialists in helping to convey the souls of the dead to where they're supposed to go in the afterlife, a skill called psychopomp work.

Proficiency in skills such as these sets the shaman apart from other kinds of religious practitioners, revealing them as medicinemakers and spiritual healers in whose capable hands both the physical and metaphysical equilibrium of their communities rest. When the bridge is formed, the miraculous happens. And this is true magic.

There are several important points here:

• Shamanism is not a religion.

• It’s a spiritual method consisting of a body of techniques that allows us to activate the spiritwalker program within ourselves so that we, too, can travel into the spiritual realms where we may connect with our inner sources of power and wisdom.

Shamanism is not an exclusive tradition that can be known and practiced only by indigenous natives.

As has been observed, all Westerners are descended from indigenous tribal peoples if we go back far enough, and those people had great shamans.

The Druids, as well as the wizards and witches of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon tribal peoples of Europe and the British Isles, were the last holders of the ancient shamanic wisdom tradition that predated the arrival of Christianity at the end of the Roman era. Scholars have affirmed that the word witch was originally a term of respect associated with superior knowledge and learning, as well as with "uncommon but not unlawful skills."9 From the scant literature that survives from the medieval period, there's no evidence that witches were anything but powerful and effective healers.

Unfortunately, as the politically motivated priesthoods of the early Christian churches rose to power in the towns and cities of Europe and Britain during the Middle Ages (and later in the Americas), the democratic, individualist practices of the shamans of the countryside were suppressed, often ruthlessly. These rural "wise women of the woods" and the "men of power and knowledge" were the losers in a political battle over who had jurisdiction over the human soul--claimed by the church--and the human body, claimed by the newly incorporated guild of physicans and surgeons in 1518.

Hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of shamans were massacred in the ensuing holocaust of the great witch hunt that reached its peak between 1500 and1650. Recorded history reveals that this event actually began in the 12th century, and that the religious intolerance that fed this shameful debacle survives to this day in various guises. Not surprisingly, those who possess shamanic abilities in the West have tended to keep a low profile until relatively recently.

Many of us discovered as children that we had the program through our relationships with imaginary friends or with the fairies of the woods and waterways of the wild places. But many may also stumble into it through enduring a life crisis—for example, a serious illness or trauma that may precipitate visions. Others may be drawn toward training workshops where their gifts may become apparent under the guidance of an accomplished teacher.

My many years of involvement with shamanic training workshops have revealed that the program can easily be reactivated in nontribal Westerners, even after a thousand years of dormancy. The anthropologist Michael Harner agrees. He and his colleagues have successfully trained tens of thousands in the shamanic method over the past several decades. He has suggested that about 90 percent of us possess shamanic abilities to some extent, with around 50 percent being real naturals at it.10

Interestingly, modern "shamanic work" does not necessitate a retreat into archaic traditions, nor are Western people, on the whole, interested in "playing Indian" or becoming "born-again aboriginals." While some are strongly drawn toward the psychospiritual worldview and symbology of this indigenous tradition or that, I suspect that something entirely new is actually coming into being.

And in the process, Western spirituality is being revitalized on an ever-increasing scale.

It is of interest that the current spiritual reawakening is mainly happening outside the carefully patrolled borders of our organized religions. It appears to be cutting across socioeconomic levels of achievement and status, and is transcending cultural, political, and ethnic boundaries as well.11 It's not surprising, therefore, that this widespread movement includes a growing revival of interest in shamanism.

By using the shamanic method, each person is gifted with their freedom, their sovereignty, and their right to develop spiritually. In doing so, each of us becomes our own teacher, our own priestess or priest, our own prophet, enabling us to receive spiritual revelations directly from the highest sources—ourselves.

This is an appealing proposition to Westerners, and virtually everyone in the transformational community knows that it's possible to connect with the dimensional realities where all the mysteries, great and small, become known.

This is the direct path of the mystic at its absolute best. This is the sacred way that leads each of us into the experience of self-empowerment and self-perception, without the need for any particular organized religious or spiritual structure to do it for us.

In the same breath, let me put in that it helps to have some structural foundation in the beginning, and most of us find one that fits—whether Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain.

The exploration of the nature of reality, as well as the mystery of who we are and what we're doing here, is the substrate of the quest. It's not about clearing up these mysteries. It's about making these mysteries clear.

When we experience the mysteries directly, we make them our own. And although it's possible to do this in the church or the temple, the zendo or the mosque, the real path is to accomplish it out in the world at large—in the supermarket or the bank, the law office or the fast-food joint, in our families, in our friendships, and in our alliances. It is in this manner that we bring the mysteries into our everyday lives, and by association, into our relationships with everyone, everywhere, and forever.

At its inception, this inquiry into the mystery is intensely personal. Yet as it progresses, it leads the seeker inevitably toward a universal and ultimately altruistic perspective, one that takes us straight into the irreversible vortex of spiritual enlightenment. This progression, once begun, changes us profoundly and forever because it conveys to each of us the experience of authentic initiation.

This small book, with its accompanying compact disc (CD), may provide you with the key to opening your own inner portal into the sacred realms. Needless to say, it's not designed to replace the years of disciplined practice engaged in by traditional shamans in indigenous societies. But it may serve as a catalyst, as a bridge, helping you to embark upon your spiritual adventure, assisting you by double-clicking your spiritwalker program so that you may find your personal place of power and healing in the inner worlds.

How to Use the Compact Disc

When I first began to visit the spiritual worlds in a structured, goal-oriented way, I utilized the sound of a rattle or drum to double-click my program and expand my awareness, allowing me greater ease in accessing the visionary levels that are so familiar to traditional shamans.

With practice, I discovered that I could settle into a gentle wrist action to rattle or drum for myself, but it was much easier, especially in the beginning, to use a CD or audiocassette of rhythmic, repetitive percussion. I found that I could access the visionary mode most easily while I was physically relaxed, while lying down, preferably. But I could also do it while sitting up comfortably in a chair at home or in an airport, or propped against a tree in the woods or even in my own backyard.

The CD that accompanies this booklet includes two 30-minute tracks of monotonous rhythm, one involving drumming, the other rattling. Some of us respond more strongly to the drum; others prefer the rattle. Each track includes about a half hour of steady rhythm, played at the rate of four to five beats or shakes per second.

This frequency corresponds to what neurophysiologists call the theta brain-wave rhythm, in which the human brain fires impulses at four to seven cycles per second. These slow, regular brain waves have been recorded in yogic practitioners and zen masters while in deep meditation. They're also the brain waves that have been recorded in some shamans while visioning, revealing that this vibrational tone of sound may be the "mouse" that double-clicks your program.

When I utilize the CD, I select either the rattling or drumming track, then I lie down on a blanket on the floor and close or cover my eyes with a bandanna or eye pillow. I listen to the sound, using either earphones or the "big set," then I focus my attention fully on my goals for the journey. These will be discussed shortly. ``

I then relax my physical body with a few clearing breaths, releasing any held tension. I settle into the sound of the rattle or the drum and instruct my subconscious mind, or what the Hawaiians might call the "lower soul," to open the inner doorway located within it. This is where the portal into the spirit worlds is to be found. It's right there, within you, and it always has been.

A Western-trained psychologist might affirm with confidence that such a personal, inner doorway is only there if you believe that it is. A traditional shaman might say with equal authority that the portal is already there, and it always has been, waiting for you to open it and travel through it into the inner worlds. I discovered its existence within myself quite by accident, so I tend to lean toward the indigenous view. Now, I simply listen to the drum or rattle and shift the primary focus of my conscious awareness from "here" to "there," wherever there happens to be. In response, the door obligingly opens, and off I go.

Allow me to put in here that the shaman, while in the visionary state, is always aware, to some degree, of what is going on around their physical body. This implies that you'll be able to hear the drum or rattle throughout your journey. This sound will carry you to your destination, and it will bring you back again. It will connect you to the spiritual realms as well as to your physical body. As long as you can hear the sound, you'll never get lost.

At the end of the journey, you'll hear a shift in tempo from the slower, steady monotonous beat into several minutes of more rapid percussion. You can use this shift in rythym as a cue to return the primary focus of your consciousness to your physical body. Accordingly, when you hear "the return," simply take leave of the visionary realms and intentionally shift your awareness back to your body in ordinary reality.

Remember, the sound of the drum, the rattle, not only double-clicks your program, but it's also a link between your "here" and your "there."

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