One aspect that distinguishes shamanic healing from many of the other methods of spiritual healing is the partnership between the practitioner or shaman and the compassionate helping spirits. One of ways a shaman accesses the spirit world is through taking a journey, also known as soul flight, to engage their helping spirits for healing, information or problem solving. With the aid of a monotonous drum beat or rhythm of a rattle, brainwave activity slows down inducing what Michael Harner has coined a “shamanic state of consciousness” where we have access to non-ordinary reality, the spirit realm.
You don’t have to be a healer or called to become a shamanic practitioner to learn how to journey. It’s a self-empowering skill that can be learned by anyone and enjoyed for personal healing and enrichment.
Some of the benefits of journeying include:
- Enhanced relaxation
- Physical and emotional healing
- Personal empowerment
- Problem solving and information gathering
- Richer life
- Way to work with dreams
- Making connection with our spirit helpers
- Help us feel less isolated
Research has found that listening to drumming enhances the immune system, and the frequency of drumming (7-14 cycles/second) is similar to the frequency of the Earth (7.8-12 cycles/second).