[sentient]

Originally Posted by sentient

But all that pattern of learning accompanied by the imagery made deep impressions into the collective and personal subconscious …

To illustrate:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FQ5__dwi3dw

Shamanic ramblings ....

With mindfulness meditation we gain insights into our own thought, emotional and behavioral patterns, like taking a stock in a non-judgmental way of “What Is”.
The insights gained aren’t always pretty, but one learns to trust the process, because what one doesn’t acknowledge one cannot change and/or heal …

In the past the persecutions of our shamans and the proclamations that all our beliefs were evil, of satan and how we therefore were/are condemned for generations to come left in its wake a transgenerational trauma.
I don’t know about all the others, but this was the reason why I needed to revive “shamanism” in my own life - in a non-judgmental way take a cold hard look of “What Is” and face the music.

The New Age Harner shamanism – I think – teaches that:

According to shamanic cosmology, there are three inner planes of consciousness [1*]: the Upper, Middle and Lower Worlds. The three realms are linked together by a vertical axis that is commonly referred to as the World Tree or Axis Mundi. This central axis (spinal column)[2*] exists within each of us”.

Well, ok – but this [1*] is only a half-truth told imo.
When you get a telepathic message from a friend; - when you ‘distance view’, get a premonition vision or when you directly know within (but don’t know how) who is calling and why they are calling before the phone rings – that is the “Middle World” in my books.

When a departed pays you a visit, telling you they have passed, showing you their freshly dug grave, that is the “Lower World”.
Both - the still living (Middle World) and the departed (the Lower world) person’s energy fields can attach themselves to your Aura influencing your thoughts and emotions. Here if one is mindful (knowing one’s own mind) the sudden change to odd thought patterns or emotions is noted.
Like for example staying at home in a cruisy ‘alpha brainwave’ neutrality; - when all of a sudden, a deep, deep depression overcomes you. WT! About ½ an hour later, your friend arrives unannounced in a deep, deep depression because xyz had happened to him and he now wants to unburden it all onto you.
When feeling an energy-field attachment – the feeling is quite similar be it a person still living or departed, so here one needs to pay attention to the subtle differences of the Middle and Lower World “energy signatures”.

The Upper World spiritual guidance is quite miraculous, highly synchronistic aimed at teaching you a lesson which will enable you to move forward on your spiritual path.

Still, It Is All Energy, just different wavelength vibrations one learns to discern where they are coming from and as energy fields, - “What Is” - is that we are both receivers and transmitters of energy.
In multidimensionality we are already participants in all the levels of creation, but not always consciously aware participants.

Axis Mundi as spinal column – well …. yes and no because this [2*] is also only a ½ truth told.
Axis Mundi is more like seeing your reality as a Mandala set up: "a center and a fringe."
I have used this example before I think ….. As a hunter-gatherer you enter into a forest. At the ‘boundary’ - you empty your mind of the local “I am” notion and enter/tune into the presence of the Totality of the forest.
Whenever we tune into Totality – our minds, our awareness naturally creates a Center within that Totality. Yes – No?

I loved this Buddhist description which I see similar to shamanic Axis Mundi:

The Tibetan word for mandala is "kyilkor," which means "center and fringe." Therefore we're talking about a circle, a center and circumference, which establishes a complete world. At the center of the mandala is always a central deity. This deity is the buddha principle, i.e., it stands for nothing, the emptiness that pervades the mandala. It says, in effect, nothing is at the center, and this then is the central gateway into the absolute buddha mind.

I call that ‘Central Deity’ of Totality – “Spirit”.
So, there is no Axis Mundi in a physical sense, but it teaches us how to orient ourselves in “The Sacred Space of Totality” we all are, everything is but a part of.

The Axis Mundi as a spinal collum – well, sort of …
Image from “Riding Windhorses” (a book of Mongolian shamanism) by Sarangerel:
https://i.ibb.co/ThL3B8K/3-souls.png

When we do attune/align with our personal link with Spirit, at one point our Crown Chakra pops open in a conscious way:
https://i.ibb.co/8xJGzY7/Gotland1.jpg

& Why the ‘Fire’ at the centre of the tipi was considered Sacred and the smoke hole above it as Sacred.

*

I am not against “shamanic journeying” as such, it like mindfulness shows insights into ourselves, but journeying shows more the stuff we have stored in our subconscious. The problem though is that subconscious is also a rubbish dump and the New Age seems to ignore the whole picture Mythology paints, which is seeing Spirit and Matter in union in our awake daily lives.
It is as if Harner, as an outsider to Shamanism took the “inner journeys” (similar to taking drugs) to mean “shamanic spirituality”, then called it “core shamanism” – yet ignoring the actual core, where the nonduality of the Axis Mundi transcends both this and that, brings union to inside and outside, ‘emptiness and form’ as Buddhists might say … Spirit and Matter for us to witness and participate in irl.

Still, I am really curious what ‘visions’ shamanic journeys bring to people who do come from shamanic backgrounds like Saami or Karelians …
Yet imagery such as “riding the white reindeer to a world tree from where one enters the crystal palace of the holy mountain” … leaves me scratching my head wondering how it connects/relates to the “Sanity of Earth - the real life of the Middle World”.
Isn't this Christian duality again, where this world and another are seen as being separate ...