The Path to Contemporary Shamanism

The article was first published in the Supernal Magazine Australia (https://www.supernalmagazineaustralia.com.au).
To see the original article visit article online here.

The practice of Traditional shamanism dates back at least 10,000 years and has always been intrinsically associated with indigenous and tribal societies. Shamans were carefully selected from “shaman families” to assist their community, communicate with spirits, heal the sick and escort souls to the afterlife.

 In recent years there has been a resurgence in shamanistic practices and many people with non-indigenous backgrounds are being “called” to this work through profound personal experiences. One of these people is Kristy Allan who has shared her story with us and gives us an insight into how she incorporates shamanistic healing practices into her work as a healer.

As soon as we begin to speak, I feel a connection to Kristy and the beautiful earthly energy that she emanates. I automatically feel comfortable and calm in her workspace, which is meticulously ornamented with her collection of feathers, animal antlers, small pelts, shells, crystals and the smell of freshly burnt sage which perfectly reflect the nature of her work.

My curiosity is piqued, and I am interested to know how someone is “called” to work shamanically. Kristy explains, “I resonate with the definition of a shaman as being someone who is Chosen by the Spirits. The shaman then forges a healing relationship with the initiating Spirit and other Helping Spirits which puts them in a specifically divined role within the community, which for me, is healing the fragmentation that occurs within the psyche and soul.”

She went on to say, “A shaman is a bridge between the physical and spiritual realms, the conscious and unconscious, light and dark, one who can walk with a foot in each realm and most importantly bring back information and healing that can assist their community. The true power comes from our relationship with the Spirit World. That is where all knowledge and healing comes from. I have found the shamanic path consists of an ongoing function of death and rebirth through confrontations within the psyche and soul. Where we are required to go through initiatory experiences and transformative rites of passage, which can be highly chaotic, yet serve with the aim of transformation and renewal. Collectively it is evident we are experiencing the resurgence of the shamanic archetype, tapping into its wisdom and allowing its impulse to inform, inspire, integrate and heal in order for us to come back into the wholeness of our true nature feature Kristy Allan: A Path To Contemporary Shamanism by Anthony Kilner and Christina Watt The practice of traditional Shamanism dates back at least 10,000 years and has always been intrinsically associated with indigenous and tribal societies. Shamans were carefully selected from “shaman families” to assist their community, commune with spirits, heal the sick and escort souls to the afterlife. In recent years there has been a resurgence in shamanistic practices and many people with non-indigenous backgrounds are being “called” to this work through profound personal experiences. One of these people is Kristy Allan, who has shared her story with us and gives us an insight into how she incorporates shamanistic healing practices into her work as a healer. and our relationship with the natural world.”

I began to wonder just how Kristy’s calling was presented to her. She explains, “I had been working as a Kinesiologist and healer for a number of years, mostly working with the subconscious and subtle bodies (also known as the auric field) to facilitate my clients towards healing. This changed quite profoundly as my Helping Spirits re-awoke my shamanic skills and abilities from previous lifetimes. My initiation came in the form of a dream where I had a merging with my power animal – the jaguar – which was a call from the ancestors. It was from that moment that my work seemed to shapeshift in a different direction and my own psyche became engaged in a much deeper psychological process of death and renewal with very clear and often frightening shamanic themes.” This brought me to consider how such a shift may have changed how Kristy works with her clients. She said, “Instead of relying on getting biofeedback from the subconscious and subtle body as you do in Kinesiology, I entered into a much more trance induced state of consciousness to divine information and bring forth healing from the Spirit World. My work became spirit led.

A typical example to explain this is Spirit’s prophetic vision of being able to see a client’s likelihood to develop liver cancer in 5-10 years and remove the causal factor from which the disease would manifest. Often our issues can be entrenched at a much deeper level, involving the soulful and spiritual realms which modern day psychology and medicine do not incorporate into their model of care. A shaman assists in healing the psychospiritual dis-ease of that which afflicts the soul and remedies it from a place of Spirit.”

This type of work is both sensitive and challenging and requires a certain level of awareness and understanding. It would make sense to assume that someone with such a capability for empathy may have experienced some level of trauma of their own. Kristy replied, “I think in order to become a healer one must be wounded in some way as to embody the woundedhealer archetype.

I believe this is how genuine empathy and compassion are formed. My history includes severe and on-going childhood trauma, this trauma was what I would term my first shamanic initiation and without it I probably would not be doing the work I am doing. Because of the nature of the abuse I endured and my inability to escape it, I learnt how to dissociate as a way to separate and protect myself.”

“It was from this wounding that I first developed a relationship to Spirit. My trauma became a doorway as did my own shamanic descent into the underworld to heal and reclaim the lost and broken parts of myself.

Now, instead of dissociating as a coping mechanism, in my therapeutic work I can purposely dissociate into a trance state to immediately commune, retrieve and heal the split off parts of the psyche and soul of my clients or to dialogue with the spirit realm for divination and healing.”

Much of Kristy’s work is based around Soul retrieval. I was curious to understand what that actually entails. Kristy explained, “I feel the human soul is the agent for spirit and is timeless and eternal. It seems to be linked to both the spiritual and human aspects of our nature. The aspect of the soul that I work with most is the part of the soul that is suffering and causing my client to be in soul-sickness. This can be from past life wounding or events that have caused us to be in soul-loss in this lifetime. The soul appears to be magnetic in nature, drawing to us the situations, events, people, places etc. for our evolution, growth and learning.”

“To me the notion of soul retrieval is where parts of ourselves get fragmented, disassociated separated, walled off and isolated and are not under the conscious control of the psyche and soul energy. All kinds of trauma and situations can disconnect you from your soul or cause soul-loss. The cure lies in healing separation so one so one can be restored to one’s original nature. I have seen that even the deepest and darkest wounds cannot permanently taint the true nature of the soul – that nothing is beyond healing.”