A White African Shaman - Sangoma

Planet Earth is moving rapidly into a global culture. Cell phones, Coca-Cola and CNN are everywhere. The process seems to be an inescapable part of evolution. Yet along with this homogenizing there are those who move in the other direction - men and women who seek out the ancient ways, not to study them at a scholarly distance but to join in a living tradition that encompasses knowledge lacking in the western world.

These days shamans from many cultures are revealing some of their secrets, a sign that numbers of people are ready to receive them. Long under-represented in this opening is Africa. Perhaps the task of cross-cultural understanding is more difficult, but also perhaps the rewards are greater. Many scholars believe the human race evolved in Africa and it would not be all that surprising if wisdom, if not history, from that remote time is preserved among the native peoples of Africa.

An American, James Hall, endured difficult training to become a Sangoma, a traditional healer in Swaziland. For two years he ate herbs that made him retch, bathed in goat blood and attended long nights of drumming. This was the ancient pathway to communication with his lidloti. Generally translated as "ancestors", the lidloti are spirits that agree to help the healer in his work, usually through a oracle of cast bones, but sometimes by taking over the body of the Sangoma directly.

An American Sangoma, it seems, would have American lidloti, among those of other cultures. Hall's lidloti included Harry, an advertising executive who died in the 1950's from the product he publicized - cigarettes. Harry said he allied himself with Hall to compensate for the damage caused by encouraging people to smoke.

In a dramatic scene from James Hall's book, Harry speaks to the local Swazi prince: "'You're in the same fix as I was. Only you've got a different poison. Shall we take a look?' ... (Prince) Vovo, who had been drinking, was slow to react when the spirit (in Hall's body) approached on its knees ... 'Well, your liver is peeling away like an onion. Kidney's going. Bile is building up, prince, which can lead to gout, and will. I won't presume to touch the royal head, but I can tell you the brain cells are falling away like snowflakes. They can't be replaced, you know.'" from "Sangoma" by James Hall, page 77.

The information (from the book it appears to have been accurate), might be a description of many alcoholics, but Harry's flamboyant delivery appears to have gotten through to the prince. In other instances the information given is not at all obvious and the cures that proceed from it are impressive.

Hall's training was a practical one. Unlike the apprenticeship of Carlos Castaneda, Hall was preparing for a specific task - that of healer. While he mentions the value of uncovering the core truths that enable the Sangoma to do his work, in this first book he has not yet found them. It is enough that he was the first white man to learn this ancient art from these teachers and that, partly through his efforts, this knowledge will continue.

"The Sangomas knew about life, how it was lived and what it was for, how the pieces fit together to balance people and nature, mortal and immortal, the physical and spiritual." "Sangoma" page 220.

Important knowledge, that.

during his training James Hall repeatedly
dreamed of zebras.

What is ShaktiNode?

Shakti is the Sanskrit word for the basic primordial Energy of the Universe. It is the unified field which science is seeking, the common identity of all that exists.

A node, in the terms of British ley research, is a pool, a gathering of this energy. So ShaktiNode is a cross-cultural gathering of spiritual energy.

Here is a dot painting from central Australia of a node:



Aborigine dot paintings are maps of the countryside as seen from above. These designs were traditionally carved on sacred boards or in drawn in sand during ceremonies. They show the texture of the energy of a specific place and thus were deeply secret. An enemy, with the information contained on a sacred board, could damage the energy flow in the place the board holder was responsible for, harming both the place and the person.

Songlines are the "rivers" of energy that flow throughout Australia. They are comparable with the ley lines of England and are known to many cultures. I interpret this painting to show a songline flowing diagonally from the bottom left (there is no "top" or "bottom" to these designs actually). This line intersects a mountain ridge at the center. The large concentric group of circles is the node formed, and the smaller circles are lesser power points caused by this intersection, both on the ridgeline and the songline. As you can see, the aura or energy field from these nodes extends for some distance.


The name "songlines" refers to the practice of the Aborigines singing or reciting the legends of a place as they walked through it. This added to and healed the energy of the place and connected the Aborigine to the land. By maintaining the energy balance the Aborigine assured that there would be ample food and water and that the land and people would thrive.

The study of Shakti is not only of spiritual benefit, but can bring harmony into our daily lives.

We humans are Shakti nodes, gathering points of spiritual energy.



ShaktiNode Directory is an effort to bring together many views of this universal energy. It is the companion website to this blog with commentary and links to other sites that extend this concept:Shaktinode.com


Ascending Passage Directory is an open minded but informed exploration of alternative views of ancient Egypt AscendingPassage.com.


There are signs of unknown advanced civilization all over the world. Make up your own mind if some of the sites listed in this directory contain evidence of Atlantis AncientMystery.info.


Interesting Ethnic jewelry is available at wholesale prices at: JewelryTibet.com. Tibetan and Nepalese jewelry is also for sale to wholesale and retail buyers at: AccentNepal.com - which is part of Ebay hosted stores and features set prices, not auctions.

Haight-Ashbury permanently stoned

The Haight district in San Francisco is holy ground. The magic that was generated there in the sixties still ferments in its' streets.

Here LSD met the youth of America, and for a short time goddesses and wizards walked the streets. It was a fierce fire of initiation, some people soared, others burned. A few are still soaring on magical wings today. The world would be poorer in spirit without the courage of those pioneers, for the paths they blazed have become a part of everyone's lives.


I have visited the Haight only a few times. Once, in the mid 70's, I found a lonely street sign in a dull and pointless low rent area. When I returned in the 90's the hippys were back, with color, music and friendly faces. The place had a good feeling - nowhere as intense as in the day, but magic was afoot.

I walked the street enchanted, my intention of selling jewelry to the local shops forgotten. I even got turned on.


City work crews were patching the sidewalk that day, leaving small areas of fresh concrete - an inviting canvas for graffiti artists and poets who moved in as soon as the city workers moved on.

Clearly, here was my opportunity to make my mark on the Haight. But what to say? Every thought that came into my mind seemed unbelievably trivial compared to the setting. Finally I latched on to something, a Dylan quote perhaps. I wasn't very impressed with it but I wanted to be a part of the place.


I decided that the next section I saw would be mine, gathered my wits and bent down. Others had been there before me, but some open space remained.

As I surveyed the plot I noticed that the workers had left a small tip of concrete at one corner projecting a quarter inch above the surface. I pressed it down, leaving a smooth sidewalk for all those beautiful barefoot hippies,

And
I
Felt
The
Whole
Universe
Shift.



The most well known history of the Haight's glory years is "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe. Two other excellent but lesser known books about the Haight street hippie era are "Storming Heaven - LSD and the American Dream" by Jay Stevens" and "Amazing Dope Tales & Haight Street Flashbacks" by Stephen Gaskin.



Hippietao.com is one view of the story of the hippies, the mud and the magic: Hippietao.com


The Eden Hashish Centre, located in Kathmandu, provided necessities to the hippies in the late '60s and early'70s. This store printed calendars announcing their wares, featuring some truly impressive Asian art, reprinted here: EdenHash.com


ShaktiNode.com is a directory of websites about spiritual energy - Shakti - which includes about everything. It is the counterpart of this blog. Touch the sky with quotes, commentary, and some great Australian Aborigine paintings. Shakti Node Directory


See handmade jewellery of Tibet and Nepal: AccentNepal.com - hosted by eBay stores (with fixed prices, not auctions), and also: JewelryTibet.com


Whycat.com is a wide ranging directory of the unusual. A lot of hippie websites are linked, and ancient mysteries, unconventional science, and a whole lot more are all mixed together for your exploration. WhyCat Directory

Of Pendulums, Meditation and Science

All is vibration.

Mystics from around the world have often repeated that, and modern quantum physics would agree.


If you put two pendulum clocks on a wall the pendulums will soon swing back and forth in harmony. Put a third clock on the same wall and it will match the rhythm of the others more quickly. Science calls this synchronization of movement rhythm entrainment. Entrainment can be observed in atoms in a crystal and planets in space.


We humans vibrate in a rhythm of about 7 beats a second, a function of our heart pushing blood through our veins. Our brains produce waves (vibrations) of several types, and deep meditative states have been shown to alter these waves, reducing some wavelengths and increasing others.

The presence of an enlightened person can affect those around him by this property of rhythm entrainment.


In his book "Stalking the Wild Pendulum" Itzhak Bentov notes that an oscillator (vibrating object such as an atom, pendulum or human) will have a velocity of zero for an instant at each end of its' motion. By Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (not generally considered to apply to things larger than the atomic level), if velocity is zero then position becomes indefinite. The potential position of the object is anywhere or everywhere.

Bentov then uses this gap in "solid" reality to postulate that this expansion into infinity at the end points of oscillation indeed takes place and that each and every bit of matter expands to join the infinite universe in a pulsation on the atomic level occuring many trillions of times each second. The same concept, seen from the opposite angle, would have the entire universe flashing into each bit of matter at the same rate.


There is a universal sound, vibration, known to mystics as Om (Aum, Ohm). In Bentov's terms this absolute oscillation is the basic harmony that spiritual seekers attempt to entrain with.

To attain cosmic consciousness
..... or to have cosmic consciousness attain them.



ShaktiNode.com, the companion to this blog, is a brief directory of websites that in one way or another expand the concept of spiritual energy - Shakti. There are commentary, quotes, and ideas that might get you thinking. Shakti Node Directory



XSVS.com is a selected directory of websites by and about scientists who have refused to remove the spiritual from their studies. The result is a more whole approach to science, and a more whole view of humanity. Spirit Science directory


Beautiful handcrafted jewelry of Nepal and Tibet can be found at: AccentNepal.com - which is a part of eBay hosted stores, and also at: JewelryTibet.com - an online jewelry store with wholesale lots, open to the public.

Daisy Bates and Australian Aborigine Wisdom

Many modern anthropologists never see beyond their own cultural prejudices. Early man had vast knowledge of nature and the universe, knowledge of realms unknown and inconceivable to modern science. Anthropology discards the clues to this knowledge when they are encountered, not realizing their significance or, sometimes, afraid of where they might lead. We should treasure these faint glimpses, flashes of insight into a human consciousness far different than our own, yet ultimately available to us.

The Aborigines of Australia are one of the oldest cultures on earth, claiming to possess oral history going back at least 40,000 years (most of which is not shared with outsiders). They have a technology of the mind and spirit awesome in it's breadth.

Daisy Bates was an Irish woman who, in the first half of the twentieth century, spent about 35 years with the Aborigine people who at the time appeared to be in a death spiral. She cared for the remnants of many tribes in southern Australia, all the while recording their languages, lives and legends. Her work documented much that would have otherwise been lost, although it appears that in order to sell her writings to the media (her only income) she invented some small, but sensational, portions of her material.

Here is an excerpt from her autobiography:

"The dying man reclined upon a little slope, and I sat beside him, with the group chanting in low tones. From a bundle beside him he brought out a package of emu feathers and human hair, from which he drew a magic bamburu of fine yellow acacia wood, exquisitely carved and etched, with the crude form of a woman its centrepiece.

He pointed to the figure and said "That is you, kabbarli, dhoogor kabbarli (woman of the dream-time)."

I replied quietly, "I know that boggali (grandson)," and handed it back.

"I am old," said Ngargala. "I give you my magic and you will keep it with your bamburu."

As he said these words, he placed his hands upon my breast, and I placed mine on his. Then he placed the bamburu between us, with its blunted ends pressed against our bodies, and with his black hands gathered the magic of his heart and stomach, drew it slowly and firmly along the bamburu with one closed hand at the other end to catch it and impregnate it into my breast.

At last I said, "That is all, boggali Now I have your magic and mine. We are strong for all time. This bamburu will never leave me. It will sit down with me daytime and night-time."

..... I never saw Ngargala again, but those of the groups who were then present would always know me, and many a time have repeated softly by way of greeting and recognition the chant that they sang during the transfer of the old man's magic bamburu." from "The Passing of the Aborigines" by Daisy Bates, page 96-7

:::Deep sigh:::


"Emu Dreaming",
by Cole Archer, Central Australia.


ShaktiNode.com is about energy - the basic life force in the Universe. There are many ways to touch Shakti, the website and this blog provide a good place to explore. Shaktinode.com has links to selected sites with commentary and discussion.
Shakti Node Directory


Healweb.com is an invitation to alternate methods of seeing the planet and how we humans affect the web of life that we are part of.
Healweb.com


Beautiful hand-crafted jewelry of Nepal and Tibet is available for sale:
AccentNepal.com - an eBay hosted store, and also:
JewelryTibet.com - an independent wholesale site which is open to everyone.

Castaneda's Tales of Power

In the early 1960's Carlos Castaneda was an anthropology graduate student at UCLA doing field work on medicinal plants used by the Native American of the South West. A friend introduced him to Juan Matus as a man knowledgeable in plant medicine.

This chance meeting began 14 years of difficult training in an ancient spiritual path. Carlos had to abandon his academic preconceptions as the training progressed, each assumption of his science and culture was blasted by the sheer magnitude of the world view exposed to him by this shaman, addressed by Carlos as Don Juan, and his small group of practitioners.

The understanding of the world taught by Don Juan forces a reassessment of the entire experience of one's life. We are potentially immensely powerful magical beings. Our true nature is restricted and held in ignorance by the habits of our daily life which dissipate our energy and by our mind which defines the world based on what we already believe it to be.

We construct the world as we know it by placing words on everything, according to Don Juan. By creating words we can manipulate the things in our lives, but words also hide the full nature of those things, giving us a false sense that we know more than we do.

"Don Juan explained that the passageway to the world of sorcerers opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off the internal dialog" "Tales of Power" page 22. This, of course is similar to many forms of meditation, but Don Juan went further, defining a second, greater, center of perception that becomes available to consciousness once the mind is silent. He named this second center will and said that through the will, the adept could experience the unimaginable universe directly. This possibility is the true birthright of all humans but is accomplished by only a very few.

Once we can see beyond words, beyond what the mind imagines the world to be, we are confronted with awesome power and mystery. The potential of each of us becomes far greater than we can now imagine.


The raindrop cannot comprehend the ocean, but it can experience it. The value of Castaneda's work is the detailed structure of this ocean of power, Shakti, that he provides, building on the work of sorcerers of his lineage. It is clearly an incomplete picture - reading the entire series of books will leave many more questions than answers, but the base upon which those questions are drawn will be far more vast.

Carlos Castaneda wrote twelve books detailing his apprenticeship to the world of sorcery. All of them press the limits of consciousness. I would recommend the reader begin with his third book, "Journey to Ixtlan". In the first two books Carlos had his anthropologist hat on too tightly to understand much of what Don Juan was saying. Most of the later books would best be read after becoming familiar with the first three.

"Magical Passes" is a book of simple exercises taught by the shamans of Don Juan's lineage. It is these exercises, along with simple, conscious living, that enable the redeployment of one's personal energy, allowing access to the shaman's world. I am not aware of anything more powerfully healing than the Magical Passes.




ShaktiNode.com is a web site about energy - the unseen (by most people) life force that is the deeper basis of the Universe. This is the edge of our experience - where the human touches the divine. The website companion to this blog, Shaktinode.com has links to selected sites with commentary and discussion.
Shakti Node Directory

Capo Blanco on the coast of Lebanon
Etching by David Roberts, 1838

Tibet is a most dramatic place to travel. TravelinTibet.com is a thoughtful tale of my own journey there. Many stunning black and white photographs from the American expedition to Tibet in 1942-3 are also posted here.

Travelin Tibet

Beautiful hand crafted jewelry of Nepal and Tibet is available for sale:
AccentNepal.com - which is an eBay hosted store, and also:
JewelryTibet.com- an independent wholesale site which is open to the public.


Tibetanjewelry.net is a brief look at some of the more common Tibetan symbols, with pictures and descriptions.
TibetanJewelry.net


If you enjoyed this look into alternative ideas you may also like my other websites. The central Directory is WhyCat.com. The paranormal, mysterious, sacred, and unconventional are explored in Whycat. It is all listed together alphabetically so you never know what is next. WhyCat.com Directory


Ancient Egypt is a good place to seek our lost understanding. Far more than any other ancient land, the Sahara desert of Egypt has preserved much of what was once the greatest civilization of its' time. The website Ascendingpassage.com touches, a little, the amazing insight into the true nature of the Universe once known to the people of the Nile.
Ascending Passage Directory

There is evidence all over the world of astounding knowledge in ancient times, knowledge of a different kind than that of today. We have only hints of what has happened on this Earth in ages past. AncientMystery.info reveals a few of the secrets that most historians neglect.
AncientMystery.info Directory.


XSVS.com is a directory of scientists who have broken out of the box of convention. Button sorters are not included. These researches bring spirit into science and scientific understanding into spiritual practice. The intellect can be an important tool on the spiritual path
SpiritScience.info Directory


Domain Names are a must for anyone building their own website. The .com space is now so full that many webmasters are turning to alternative extensions for Domains. TLDV.com is a guide to Domain Names. tldv.com Domain Name guide.

The Earth's web of life is battered and torn these days - a clear reminder of how unconscious acts can cause lasting damage. Healweb.com looks at some possible answers.

HealWeb.com Directory