Shamanic healing meditation is not a passive practice of observing the breath or bodily sensations; it is an active, goal-oriented technique known as the shamanic journey. This is a method of applied consciousness. The shaman intentionally enters a trance state to travel to non-ordinary reality, or the spirit worlds, to interact with guides, retrieve information, and facilitate spiritual healing.
Shamanic Journey vs. Passive Meditation
The fundamental difference between shamanic meditation and other systems, like mindfulness or Vipassana, lies in intent and action.
- Passive Meditation: The goal is often stillness, awareness, and non-attachment. The practitioner is an observer, watching thoughts and sensations without engaging.
- Shamanic Meditation (Journey): The goal is interaction. The practitioner is an active traveler. They are not trying to empty their mind; they are using their mind as a vehicle to journey to a specific destination with a clear purpose, such as finding a spirit guide or retrieving lost power.
The Mechanism: Drumming and the Trance State
The vehicle for the shamanic journey is the trance state. This is not a state of being unconscious but rather a state of focused consciousness. The most common tool for achieving this is a steady, monotonous sonic driver, typically a drum or rattle.
This is a practical technology. The repetitive rhythm, usually played at 4-7 beats per second, has a specific effect on the human brain. It physically shifts brainwaves from the everyday Beta state (alert, analytical) into the deeper Alpha (relaxed) and Theta (trance) states. This Theta state is the shamanic trance, the doorway that allows the practitioner’s consciousness to access non-ordinary reality.
Beginner Meditation: Power Animal Journey
For a beginner, the foundational shamanic journey is to the Lower World to connect with a power animal. This spirit ally provides protection, wisdom, and personal power.
The Lower World Path
- Preparation and Intention: Lie down in a dark, quiet room where you will not be disturbed. Use a shamanic drumming track (easily found on YouTube) with headphones. Set a clear, focused intention: “I intend to journey to the Lower World to meet my power animal.”
- Find Your Entrance: Begin the drumming. With your eyes closed, visualize the axis mundi, an opening into the earth that you know from ordinary reality. This can be a specific cave, a hole at the base of a tree, a well, or even a manhole.
- Travel the Tunnel: Ride the drumbeat. Allow your consciousness to move into your chosen entrance. You will perceive a tunnel or passageway leading down. Continue to follow it, trusting the sound of the drum.
- Emerge in the Lower World: The tunnel will open up into a landscape. This is the Lower World, which is always a realm of nature (jungles, deserts, forests, crystal caves).
- State Your Purpose: Once you have arrived, state your intention again, either aloud or in your mind: “I am here to meet my power animal. I ask my power animal to show itself to me.”
- Wait and Observe: Be patient. Look for an animal that acts in an unusual way—one that appears multiple times or that you can see through. Do not “invent” this animal; wait for it to present itself to you clearly. This is your guide.
- The Return: The drumming track will eventually change its tempo, often speeding up. This is the call-back signal. Thank your power animal and immediately return the exact same way you came—back through the landscape, into your tunnel, and up into the room.
- Ground Yourself: Once you feel you are fully back in your body, sit up. Touch the floor, open your eyes, and drink some water. It is vital to write down everything you experienced, as this helps to ground the journey in this reality.
Advanced Meditations: The Upper World and Healing Work
Once you have mastered the journey to the Lower World and established a strong relationship with at least one power animal, you can begin to explore advanced shamanic meditation. These practices require more focus and a clear, stable connection to your helping spirits.
A Journey to the Upper World
This journey follows the same core process as the Lower World path—using a sonic driver (drum or rattle) to enter a trance state—but the intention and direction are different. The purpose of this journey is to ascend to the celestial realms to meet spiritual guides or teachers, ancestors, or divine beings to ask for higher-level wisdom and guidance.
Practical Steps for an Upper World Journey:
- Set Your Intention: Your purpose must be clear. A good beginner’s intention is, “I intend to journey to the Upper World to meet a compassionate spiritual guide for my highest good.”
- Find Your Entrance: Instead of an opening into the earth, you will visualize an access point leading up. Common entrances include:
- A giant, ancient tree to be climbed.
- A beam of light extending from your crown chakra.
- The top of a sacred mountain.
- A column of smoke (if you are working with fire).
- Travel the Path: As the drumming begins, ride the sound. Feel your consciousness move toward your chosen entrance and begin your ascent. You may perceive this as climbing, floating, or flying.
- Emerge in the Upper World: This realm is often experienced as ethereal, celestial, or geometric. It may be made of clouds, light, crystal cities, or sacred patterns. It typically lacks the earthy, natural feel of the Lower World.
- Seek Your Guide: Once you arrive, state your intention again. “I am here to meet a spirit guide.” Wait for a being to present itself. This may be an ancestor, an angelic or light being, or a mythological figure. Your power animal may accompany you on this journey as a guide.
- Interact: You can ask your teacher a question. The answers may come as words, symbols, a telepathic transfer of knowing, or an emotional feeling.
- The Return: When you hear the call-back drumbeat, thank your teacher. Return the same way you came—down the tree, the beam of light, or the mountain.
- Grounding: Once back in your body, sit up, touch the floor, and drink water. Write down your experience in detail to anchor it in this reality.
Shamanic Self-Extraction
An extraction is the removal of displaced energy that does not belong to you. This intrusive energy can be the result of an argument, being in a toxic environment, or taking on someone else’s pain.
How to diagnose it? You may feel a sharp, localized pain that has no medical cause; a sudden, foreign emotion (like a burst of rage that feels simply not yours); or a general sense of heaviness or stickiness in your aura.
A Practical Self-Clearing Technique:
- Call in your power animal for protection and assistance.
- Use a rattle or your hands to comb or scan your own energy field, a few inches from your body.
- When you find a spot that feels heavy, cold, sticky, or static-y, you have found the intrusion.
- Firmly pull this energy out with your hands, as if you are pulling taffy.
- Forcefully throw or blow this energy into a bowl of salt water or visualize sending it deep into the earth to be neutralized.
- Shake your hands afterward to clear them. This is an energetic hygiene practice.
Self-Soul Retrieval
Self-soul retrieval is an advanced shamanic journey you can perform on yourself to find and reintegrate fragmented parts of your vital essence that were lost during past traumas. The goal is to find these parts, which are often stuck in the past, and lovingly bring them back to your present-day self to restore your wholeness and personal power.
- Set Your Intention: Before you begin, set a clear and compassionate intention. A strong intention is: “I intend to journey to the Lower World to find a soul part that is ready and willing to return to me for my highest healing.”
- Begin Your Journey: Lie down in a safe, dark, and undisturbed space. Use a steady shamanic drumming track (with headphones) to enter the trance state.
- Travel to the Lower World: Visualize your known entrance into the earth (a cave, a hole in a tree, etc.) and travel down the tunnel, riding the drumbeat until you emerge into your Lower World landscape.
- Call Your Guides: Immediately call upon your power animal(s) to guide and protect you on this specific mission.
- Seek the Soul Part: With your power animals as guides, begin to look for the part of you that is lost. This part may appear as a younger version of yourself, often at the age the trauma occurred. You may find this part of yourself hiding, scared, or re-living the traumatic event.
- Heal and Convince: Do not rush or grab the soul part. Approach it with immense compassion. Explain to this younger self that the trauma is over, that you are here, and that it is safe to come home now. Show it the love and safety you can provide in the present and get its permission.
- Bring It Home: Once the soul part agrees to return, gently bring it into your energetic center. Many practitioners visualize placing this younger self (e.g. as a ball of light) into their heart chakra.
- The Return Journey: Thank your power animals and immediately return by the same path you came. Travel back up your tunnel, and feel your consciousness fully return to your physical body in the room.
- Post-Integration: After your journey, actively welcome home this returned part. Speak to it (internally or out loud) a few to several times until it feels reintegrated. Promise to love and protect it, and actively listen to what it needs (play, rest, creativity, etc.) to feel safe and fully integrated.
Summary and Further Considerations
Shamanic meditation is a practical, active journey of consciousness, not a passive, observational one. It uses a sonic driver—typically a drum or rattle—to shift the brain into a Theta-state trance. From this state, the practitioner can intentionally travel to non-ordinary reality: the Lower World to retrieve a power animal, or the Upper World to consult with spiritual teachers. The techniques outlined, including self-extraction and self-soul retrieval, form a foundation for this applied spiritual work.
This is, however, a starting point. A full practice also requires navigating the Middle World—the spirit aspect of our physical reality. We have not detailed essential troubleshooting, such as what to do if you “go blank” or how to interpret symbolic messages. Most importantly, all shamanic healing work is governed by two unbending principles: ethics (one shall not journey for another person without their explicit consent) and spiritual protection. As a spiritual healer who has practiced these techniques, I must state that journeying without first establishing a strong relationship with your spirit allies and learning protection protocols is ill-advised.
