The 3 Worlds of Shamanic Journeying

As we begin to work with our guides and helper spirits, it's helpful to be able to somewhat conceptualize the worlds our divine guidance come from!

Throughout human history, a pattern has emerged from all cultures, philosophies, religions, and traditions: we are not alone.

We are physical beings only temporarily, but our soul continues on infinitely.

Some aspects of certain souls exist on different levels of reality - nonphysical beings, teachers, and guides being some of these souls.

As human, physical beings, we have access to these guides - we each have our own team of light that can guide us, assist us, advise us, and protect us while we roam on this physical plane.

According to Shamanic journeyer and mentor Sandra Ingerman, there are 3 planes of existence in which our helper spirits might dwell.

The existence of different planes of reality and different dimensions coincides with what I have seen in my own plant medicine journeys, way before learning anything from Ingerman or knowing anything about shamanic journeying.

On one journey I took, I visited a fantastic, colorful spirit world.

In this world, I met many benevolent and neutral beings that acted as my teachers.

These teachers, during this specific journey, taught me about the immense power of our words...a power so potent, that some ancient tribes chose to not speak, and instead communicated through symbolism and metaphor rather than casting spells haphazardly.

I saw the importance of everything that we say to one another, to ourselves, and about the world.

We are co-creating this reality, moment by moment, through our speech, our thoughts, and our emotions.

I saw this world, and it felt like it was parallel to this world in which we currently reside.

Through Sandra's teachings, I was able to conceptualize one of these worlds, and I believe I accessed the "Lower World" - or the "Underworld" - which has NOTHING to do with our understanding of "lower vibration" or even "hell." It's just another plane of reality and of existence - it is not evil or negative in ANY way.

In fact, many teachers who were human at one point have one aspect of their souls in the Lower World, where current humans can access them as non-physical, astral teachers.

Other names for these 3 "hidden worlds" include the Celtic people's "The Other World" and the Australian native's "Dream Time worlds."

So now, let's get into the 3 worlds of Shamanic Journeying!

BTW - If you want to take Sandra's shamanic journeying course (which I am currently taking) you can do so right here: Shamanic Journeying with Sandra Ingerman

The 3 Worlds of Shamanic Journeying

The Lower World

In this world, we can come across animals, human teachers, angels, and fairies that want to help us and guide us.

This is the world I visited when I was taught about the immense creative powers of our words. Every word we speak, write, or think creates universes...it all has a reaction and it ALL matters. It's all connected.

What you tell yourself, if you do so for long enough, will manifest in the physical human world.

The guides that exist here are our helper spirits - they are happy to assist with manifestations as small as finding a parking spot, and to give advice for huge life decisions.

Middle World

The middle world is basically an overlay of our physical human world.

It is a timeless place, a dimension in which time is no longer, in which we have access to nature.

In this world, the land, sun, and moon can communicate with us.

This is the easiest realm to access and most people have, at one point in their lives, accessed the Middle World.

Many people have come back from entheogenic plant medicine journeys with a loud message from the earth: Mother Earth needs our help. She loves us SO much, and we are abusing her. She will love us regardless and forever, but please, start to treat her right. Please, remember that you are one with the earth - and we are not here just to pillage our way through all our resources.

Mother Earth speaks to us through the middle world, in which many people end up while journeying, and reminds us that we come from her and shall return to her - so we must be better to her and to all her creations.

The Upper World

Most often described as "ethereal," the Upper World is formless, yet somehow, still reminds us of forms of nature.

It is astoundingly beautiful and so very natural. Here, too, we can access our animal spirits, teachers in human form, and especially our ancestors.

The gurus and mystics of the world before have aspects of their souls in the Upper World, and we are able to access their knowledge and guidance forever from this place.

Angels and goddesses also exist in the Upper World.

We can have helper spirits from one world, and teachers from another world - we can have guides from all 3 worlds. That is why we each have a unique team of light.

For example, Goddess Venus has strongly made her presence known as a part of my team. For Sandra Ingerman, Goddess Isis has been with her for 40 years.

Beings from different dimensions have different perspectives and can give us different resources and advice, so having a team with beings from all 3 worlds is spectacular.

There are many ways to access these dimensions - we go into these realms through deep meditation, hypnosis, plant medicines, NDEs, regression therapies, drumming, rattling, fasting, dancing for days, sweat lodges, and so many more methods from around the world...

No matter the way you get there, they all take us to the same places...

The ones that have been talked about for thousands of years, as old as mankind.

Stay tuned for more information on how to ACCESS these worlds as we take on Shamanic Journeying together! :)

A Peak Behind the Curtain

A knowing that cannot be Unknown.

Many years ago, I experienced, on two separate occasions, a peak “behind the curtain.” I have struggled with how to name this experience and, as many know, have been searching for an explanation for it every day since it happened. The two moments are a little mixed up for me, but the basis is that the first event happened as I was leaving my house, reaching for the doorknob of my front door… And the second happened in the early hours of the morning while I was in a dream-like, half-awake, half-asleep state (most likely the hypnopompic state). In both instances, I felt an expansion of perspective – I saw the entire world in front of me, and the entire universe. I saw everything happening at once – it was all going on simultaneously. Time did not divide anything. It all just was. Everything added up. There was an answer to all disease, all famine, all poverty, all violence – and I saw the answer laid out in front of me…which, unfortunately, just cannot be comprehended by my limited human brain outside of this experience… (But it does reduce to something that we CAN understand, which will be explained in #2 below). On one instance, I laughed my head off for quite some time after – it was all so perfect! In the other, I burst out in deep sobs, crying from the beauty and the mysticism of what I had just experienced. Both experiences showed me the same thing: we are all connected. Every single thing in this world is connected to another. A man in Turkey is connected to a baby being born in New York. An old woman in Germany is connected to a tree in California. We are ALL connected, deeply intermingled, and we persist. We are never born, and we never die. By far the most important understandings and revelations, however, were that: 1. Everything is going according to plan. It is all perfect, no matter how it looks like from our perspective and from Earth. There is a loving, benevolent plan at hand, and despite the chaos we endure on Earth, it’s all meant to be happening…and we all go on. We don’t leave here and disappear. We continue.

2. The only thing that matters is pure, unconditional love. I felt a strong sense of love for every single thing, every single person, every event. I believe that to have been God’s unconditional love for Earthlings and all creatures of the universe. I felt it so potently and it was telling me, “Look. This is all that there is. Everything else is an illusion.” Ever since experiencing this split second of expanded awareness, knowing of the Divine, understanding of the Great Plan… I’ve wanted to remember to embody it. It changed my life and set me firmly on the path of spirituality. But at the time, I simply did not have any resources to understand what had happened to me. No one in my life understood. I didn’t have the right books, until several years later I started to read books about spirituality… And started receiving the answer, again and again. The first time I found some solace in what had happened to me was in Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth,” in which he explained expanded consciousness and awareness, seeing the big plan. I would go on to learn that what I had experienced is what yogis and meditators sit in silence, for years, contemplating God in order to see it. Knowing that made me realize that we are all the same – there is no better or worse. At 20 years old, a drinker, on anti-depressants and anti-anxieties, I had still been blessed with this transformative, transcendent experience. I hadn’t sat down to meditate once in my life at this point. I studied and studied, and found that what I experienced doesn’t only happen in a religious, or even spiritual, context. The 19th-century poet Tennyson had “peculiar experiences of a vision of ecstasy which was the foundation of his deepest beliefs of the ‘unity of all things, the reality of the unseen, and the persistence of life.’” Sounds quite similar, doesn’t it? I have found that many who have nearly died and come back to earth express their experiences quite similarly, as well – Anita Moorjani’s “Dying to Be Me” gave me the deepest comfort and relief, as I realized that what I had experienced is something that has happened to many others.

The reason I talk about this today is because I never want to forget. I do often forget it – that expanded state of awareness, knowing that I am LOVE, I come from love and return to it, that I am connected to each person and thing in my life, and that it’s all really beautiful – no matter how we see it here on Earth. I want to remember because it will make me more patient. It will help me to be more loving. It will comfort me if the news gets darker and darker, and if people get meaner. It is a knowing that cannot be Unknown, but that can be Forgotten, and I don’t want to forget. I know I’m not the only one who has experienced this, now, and I want us all to talk about it more often. So that we can remember each other, and unconditional love, and the way we are meant to be to each other. And so, with this understanding, know that I am able to tell you that I love you and mean it wholeheartedly. It is never something that I just say. It is something that I fully feel, experience, and embody – my love for you and for humanity. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Working with Non-Physical Teachers and Guides

Author of Seat of the Soul, Gary Zukav encourages​​​​ us to evolve through responsible choice of and with the assistance and guidance of non-physical guides and teachers.

For about two days now, the Goddess Venus has been making herself known to me...reaching out to me in a sense...

Let me explain.

I believe in God. No, forget believe! 

I KNOW God.

I do not, however, subscribe to the notion that​​​​ God is a white man in the clouds, looking down on us and judging.

​​That was never my belief or view - and while I know it's the way a lot of people experience Godliness, it's just not something I resonate with.

​​Through experiencing slivers of samadhi and something akin to a near-death experience, I have found that God is pure, unconditional love, that exists within us, outside of us, and in every corner of the universe. 

​​My personal view on God is that there is One Universal Mind, a Source, the Primordial Father AND Mother, an All That Is that created everything.​​ The alpha and omega. 

I believe that this Source is expressed through all the realms we often talk about, through all different types of beings and entities, and through each one of us.

ONE such expression of God can be found in our myths - with concepts such as the archetypes and the Roman and Greek Gods. 

These nonphysical energies are simply aspects of God and aspects of humanity and the collective unconscious. They come to us as teachers, guides, and healers. They are here to help us in the Earth School. ​​​ When a deity such as the Roman Goddess Venus comes to us, they are offering to help us to embody characteristics that they represent.

They might be assisting us in bringing about healing in some aspect of our life, pointing out to you what the future will hold, providing you with the resources to get what you desire, or simply aligning to the frequency you've been putting out.

You might be asking, just how did Venus come to you?

She first came to me in a dream two nights ago.​​​​ In the dream, my brother was talking to me about her, almost introducing me to her.

She then guided me (still in the dream) to find a book about her ​... showing me that she wants me to study her.

The next day, the word "Venus" came up in regular conversation TWICE, brought up by the person I was speaking with and not by me.

That same night, I visited the Griffith Observatory. I walked past a room where the Tesla Coil was being admired, ​​​​into a room with a giant pendulum.

The pendulum was magnificent, but what really caught my eye was on the ceiling - Venus, laying in her feminine glory, interacting with the Four Seasons​​.

​​This was the Griffith Observatory's Ballin Ceiling Mural, created in 1934 - something I had never seen before, but which took my breath away. 

We already know not to believe in coincidences.

These, to me, are very obvious communications from an intelligent being.  ​ Lately, I have been immersing myself with the concept of prosperity and abundance - hint hint, new course :D. ​​​​ 

So of course, when I sat down to figure out what to do about this new communication, I was ecstatic to find out that Venus is the goddess of love, beauty, sexuality, abundance, fertility, and finances.

​​​​I was focusing and tapping into a certain energy, and the Goddess found me.

She is also the Goddess of sexual healing, something I consistently work on within myself, so to me this was a sign that I'm in the right direction - my healing is still ongoing and underway.

How do you work with a deity when they come to you?

If you have a meditation altar where you sit to journal and meditate (I have a little box in my room that holds my sage, palo santo, Florida water, essential oils, mala and crystals. In front of it is my meditation pillow. It's my mini altar!) ​​​​​, adding "gifts" or "offerings" to the nonphysical energy that you want to work with is really powerful.

For example, Venus loves roses, pearls, milk, and honey. To honor her, I will get some roses to put on my altar and borrow an old pearl necklace from my mom to place on the altar. 

Studying the symbols of the deity and sitting in meditation with those things on our mind is an easy and effective method of connecting with them.

Throughout your day, you will feel subtle guidance from this energy, assisting you in making wise decisions based on whatever aspect of the world they rule, and you will feel protected from the Divine.

At night, this same energy will work its magic on you, performing healing as you sleep.

Author of Seat of the Soul, Gary Zukav encourages​​​​ us to evolve through responsible choice of and with the assistance and guidance of non-physical guides and teachers.

Without this guidance, we are purely physical beings, destined to only learn through physical, and often painful​, challenges.

Working with these teachers makes the Earth School much more enjoyable.

I will update you on my work with Venus...for now, tell me, have you worked with a non-physical teacher before?