Articles on Shamanism
and Healing



Imagination, Belief, Intellect and Knowledge

A wise man once said that “Imagination is more important than knowledge”.  Clearly however, most of our contemporary culture does not view it as such. Read More...

 



Monsters or Madness?

Over the past year or so, I have noticed an ever increasingtendency of people wanting to discuss with me, a very serious and "dark" subject. Read More...

Rethinking the "Nature" of evil

Most of us believe we have a good idea of what "evil" is. It is the opposite of all that is good and wholesome. It is the antagonist, the "bad guys" in the perennial Good vs. Evil epic myths, that are described over and over, in the stories that we were raised on. Read More...

 


 

Monsters or Madness?

Over the past year or so, I have noticed an ever increasing tendency of people wanting to discuss with me, a very serious and "dark"subject". With greater and greater regularity, I find myself in heavy conversations with clients, friends, fellow "seekers" and even complete strangers on the topic of conspiracies. I can usually recognize when one of these discussions is coming. There will generally be a noticeable change in the behavior of the person who is broaching this content with me. Very often there will be a cursory check of the surroundings to make sure no one else is within listening distance, other times a sudden increase in both seriousness and intensity occurs, some will get a little closer to me and speak in a lower and more hushed voice. After any one or more of these signs, I will invariably be informed of various insidious plots, master minded by very powerful and secret organizations, directed against the largely unsuspecting and innocent general population.

Although this may sound like a scene from some dark futuristic sci-fi flick, for the people who speak to me on these matters, this certainly is no Hollywood fantasy. Disclosed to meare horrible descriptions of very powerful new world orders bent on world domination.These covert organizations poison the masses with fluoride in the water supply for the purpose of keeping us "dumbed down" and submissive to their evil agenda. I am told that the white streaks that crisscross our skies from jet airplanes are actually a form of chemical warfare that is sickening our population. A friend of mine fills me in on the massive HIV conspiracy that was orchestrated to wipeout "undesirable" segments of the population. The list goes on.

The latest conspiracy that I have been hearing of, from multiple people, is "quite a doozy" and is the reason that I decided it was time I write this article. The "hellish" scenario being circulated of late goes something like this: There is an evil,shape shifting, reptilian race which require the periodic ingestion of human blood to maintain its abilities. These "cold blooded" aliens are working with"secret societies" of corrupted humans, who have sold out their own species to satisfy their own greed. This association has created incredibly powerful organizations that control everything on our planet; politics, economies, food, oil,commodities, war, the media etc. All the most powerful politicians, business moguls, religious heads, military leaders and top scientists are actually reptilian aliens who have shape shifted into human form and are "pulling all the strings."

Can there be a worse possible scenario? What is really going on here? Is it true that life on planet earth is being manipulated by an evil and alien race? Can it be that humanity is essentially born into a form of bondage,controlled by a heartless reptilian species with almost supernatural abilities?Or alternatively, is it more likely that the people who describe and subscribe to these ideas are simply that segment of our population that has gone "mad"? Are they merely delusional, paranoid, schizophrenic"nut jobs" who have lost their grip on reality? Are they just those unfortunate souls who have lost their minds and need to be heavily tranquilized and perhaps thrown into the rubber room?

The answers to all these questions is no. No, there is not some massive reptilian/secret society conspiracy that is manipulating the human population for its own evil agenda. And no, the people who believe there is,are not unfortunate souls who have lost their minds and need to be tranquilized and committed to insane asylums. The people who are "seeing" these conspiracies are in the midst of a natural process of inner development and are experiencing the equivalent of physical "growing pains." Unfortunately however, our modern western culture does not see it as such and thus hinders this development and exasperates the pain by making these people feel like they are "cracking up." I can assure you that the people who are coming to me with these "concerns" are very intelligent, educated and "good"people. How do I know this? I know this because most of these people I have known for some time and they are people who have crossed my path due to common"spiritual" interests, passions and/or goals. I know this also, because it takes one to know one! I too am familiar with the "world" of conspiracy and I have "lived" in that terrifying reality. What it took me a while to figure out though, was that I was mixing the "inner"reality with the "outer" reality. Being on the "spiritual" path, I was uncovering "old" traumas repressed deep down in my subconscious. I was feeling the pain and fear that comes with them being excavated (being made conscious) and rather than recognizing that they were from the past, I "felt" them as current threats and "projected" them onto the current time and current physical reality. This took the form of very powerful organizations that didn't like me and were out to get me. This is classic paranoid projection that creates the conspiracy theories.

Being a "wounded healer", I have definitely had my share of painful experiences. I have been to "places" of almost unimaginable pain, fear and suffering, that at the time, I thought I would never return from. These are the "foreign" lands filled with hellish demons, hideous monsters, countless pitfalls and seemingly uncrossable abyss's that are described over and over in the world's great mythologies. These foreign lands and dark places do exist,but not in the physical reality. Although the world's great myths describe these adventures in physical terms, they are actually metaphorically describing an inner journey adventure. The demons and monsters that need to be slayed, the pitfalls that need to be avoided and the abyss needing to be crossed all lie within our own individual psyches. These universal stories, such as The Search for the Holy Grail, are examples of what the great mythologist Joseph Camp bell called the "Hero's Journey". The Heroes Journey is fundamentally the same story told by all cultures throughout recorded history even including modern tales such as Star Wars and The Matrix. The hero is any one of us who answers a "higher" calling to go on an adventure "inward" for the purpose of self understanding, growth and ultimately the evolution of humanity. It is the wisdom that is written on the fore court of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi:"Know Thyself". It is the real process that the alchemists were referring to in their "coded" instructions on turning base metals into gold. This inner journey is no less than the path towards enlightenment.

As the trailblazing psychologist Carl G Jung wisely observed however, "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." What Jung is referring to is coming to terms with our own "shadow". We cannot grow spiritually by simply identifying with only our perceived "good" attributes, but rather we can only evolve by looking a tour selves in our entirety which includes our dark aspects as well. He calls these "dark aspects" shadows as they are blind to us because they are denied by our conscious egos and thus forced into the subconscious. The work lies is in recognizing this denial, coming to terms with it and ultimately integrating these aspects into our consciousness. Once we do this, we then no longer "project" our denied "darkness" onto the outside world. We no longer imagine horrible monsters under our beds, in distant foreign lands or even from other planets.