Soul Retrieval
If a shaman diagnoses soul loss, his role in that healing is to seek, find, heal and return that lost aspect safely to the client. This is a complex process. The shaman may need to travel in time and space to find the lost soul. She may need the guidance or assistance of her allies, but once the piece of soul is found, there needs to be some healing. The soul piece may require lengthy conversation with the shaman about the situation, about what happened, about its feelings, fears, grief, etc. The lost piece needs treating just as the shaman would treat the physical aspect of his client. Healing is paramount. The lost piece needs to be healed, needs to desire to come back. It can’t be made to come back, otherwise it could just break off again. When both the shaman and the lost piece feel it is time, the shaman gently guides it back to its home, back to its place of origin, back to the soul that awaits it. On arrival back at the physical body, there can be reluctance to return, as the lost soul remembers again the pain, the heartache. If there is reluctance, the shaman must work on the lost soul piece and the client to bring healing. The client may need to ask for forgiveness from the lost piece for what could seem to the lost piece as a failure to keep me safe. The relationship must be rebuilt. This is paramount in order for the lost piece to feel secure, to feel safe, to feel confident about returning, knowing that the soul’s home will keep it safe from future trauma as best it can. This can be envisaged as a relationship between a parent and a child; the child ran away because it didn’t feel safe and was scared, and now the parent needs to reassure it that all will be okay.
Soul retrieval is not a mind-thought application. It isn’t a placebo effect or a make believe occurrence. It is real, it is powerful, it is the coming together of soul, spirit and a lost part. It is ultimately the road back home, the road back to healing and wholeness.
Most shamanic traditions believe that the soul piece needs to be blown through the crown chakra and the heart. Mia’s experience was that it went straight in through the crown chakra of its own accord. She never felt anything to do with the heart until the next day. She wasn’t aware of anything entering her heart chakra but she was aware of its return, as in the heart she was now endowed with feelings of joy and love.
Not everyone needs soul retrieval and not everyone will be willing to undertake a soul retrieval, but one important clue that shows the shaman that soul retrieval is necessary is when the client speaks of the trauma and states, ‘I have never felt the same since,’ or when they experience a piece of them as missing or a deep numbness. This was exactly how Mia had felt. She felt at the time of loss, the time of grief, that she had lost something critical to her existence, her words were, ‘I have never felt the same since,’ and had never felt the same until that lost piece was retrieved.
Technically, someone who has died has complete soul loss, as their entire soul has left their body and crossed over into the spirit realm. It has been said that in the past, shamans have chased after the soul, venturing into the land of the dead in order to find the soul and return it! This raises many questions about ethics, about whether that is right, about whether we all have a time to go and whether it is a case of when it arrives it arrives. One such story was in relation to a young boy who had died and the shaman travelled to the other side, the spiritual realm and apparently found him playing with other boy spirits and had a hard time persuading him to go back with him!
Like all doctors, shamans are expected to heal and help or even save lives, and I guess each case would merit its own investigation and conclusion on whether it would be ethical to bring back a soul from the dead or whether it is okay to bring back anyone from the dead. Personal choice, quality of life, these are the types of things that would perhaps require looking at; but I guess we would have to trust the shaman and trust as to whether or not his/her allies have said for him to bring them back. As with all things, this seems to be a very grey area. One thing we need to remember also is that in many soul retrievals the journey itself is metaphorical as opposed to literal. Mia’s case was different. Her lost soul aspect revealed itself not metaphorically but literally as a spirit.
Soul retrieval can have a major effect upon the physical, psychological and emotional aspects of the individual. This profound effect is what brings shamanic healing and psychology together. Although the two are definitely two extremes and come from two very different places, there are some commonalities such as the belief that those who have suffered a severe crisis require a holistic package of care, and the recognition that the anguish felt is far deeper than just in the physical body. Psychology today has a much deeper understanding of the psyche and how it reacts or responds to pain and trauma. Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist who founded Analytical Psychology, also known as Jungian Psychology or Jungian Analysis, speaks about the unconscious, with him defining the individual or personal unconsciousness as complex mental activity which happens without the person being aware of it. Jung also coined the term collective unconscious, a term introduced to represent a non-personal form of the unconscious where parts of the mind, although containing memories and impulses of which the individual is not aware of, belongs to all of mankind as a whole. Jung believed that the collective unconscious is very much distinct from the personal unconscious which arises from the experiences of the individual, whereas the collective unconscious also contains archetypes, or universal primordial images and ideas.
With this in mind, we can see the relevance of ministering healing on all levels. Soul retrieval and other shamanic healing works to bring the personal unconscious activity into consciousness; by doing this, the shaman can work with the individual to bring healing. When the personal unconscious receives healing through conscious connectivity, it helps to heal the whole, not just the whole being, but the whole of the universe. It helps to bring healing to the collective unconscious. When we start to look at our being as a whole being we can then start to address the issues that would otherwise not be noticed.
Both shamanism and psychology agree that a person’s psyche responds to severe pain, and here we are not necessarily talking about physical pain. We are talking about trauma which includes emotional and psychological trauma. It is agreed that it responds to pain by avoidance, by separation. In shamanism we call it soul loss, in psychology it is called disassociation.
Transpersonal psychology or therapy is another branch of psychology which blends very well with and has many similar if not the same techniques as shamanism, albeit under a different name. Transpersonal therapy explores states of consciousness, transcendence of the individual, transpersonal experiences in regards to the spirit realm, calling on the deeper levels of the patient’s mind and soul and pulling them together to bring about change and transformation. Having trained in psychiatry many years ago and as a trained integrative counselor, as well as having two decades in the healing field, predominantly the shamanic field, I can understand the need to blend the distinct paths in order to offer a full comprehensive package to healing and balance. All parts of our being must work in synchronicity in order for us to be the best we can be at any given time. Once we drop the illusion of being one dimensional beings and realize just how deep we run and the magnitude to our existence, then and only then can we even hope for, least of all perform, a holistic healing that is not only mind-spirit-body altering, but offers a healing so deep it changes the being for ever.
We are The Quantum Warrior, The Master Architect of our life – Braveheart
