Breathwork & Shamanism

Add a Comment

Comment by Rosalyn Lee on November 4, 2009 at 4:43am

Allen, you are very funny "like swimming in molasses" and "slog through". I know when I have to slog through a book it means that I'm not ready to process the information in it.

Me and my experience? Then the realization it's not about the ego and then suddenly it's not about me, me, me. I get what you're trying to convey. I tried to describe it once to a group of meditators and I failed. I phrased it to the effect that I get detached and realize it's not about me but that it's about all of us. Well that didn't sound right either!

I think the poem, What's Inside You, by Renn Butler in the poetry section says it quite eloquently:
http://holotropicbreathwork.ning.com/group/poetryinspiredbyholotropicexperiences/forum/topics/whats-inside-you-and-shes

I agree it's fun this thread :)

Comment by Elisa Sawyer on November 3, 2009 at 7:55pm

I like that--the Great Mystery.

I remember reading about an ancient Roman altar to "the unknowable." With the many human-like gods and goddesses in their Pantheon, there was still. for them, literally, room for great mystery. :-)

Comment by Oliver Williams on November 3, 2009 at 7:50pm

To Lenny's point about avoiding "neuropsychological materialism", I would like to recommend the book, "Mind Before Matter", co-edited by the late John Mack, MD, in which a wide range of scholarly authors discuss the primacy of consciousness.

The first people of Turtle Island were content to refer to that which was beyond their powers of comprehension as The Great Mystery.

Best - Oliver

Comment by Elisa Sawyer on November 3, 2009 at 7:29pm

I am in touch with practicing healers and shamans who think of the process of healing as something in which they participate prayerfully, but that the process is greater than themselves. Likewise I observe that many who participate in the practice of Holotropic Breathwork allow for an opening to healing forces that go far beyond what any individual involved could possibly arrange.

A good healer, like a good teacher, is open to learning from those who come to them for assistance.

I am reminded of the experience of parenting. I learned a great deal from my son as he was under my care. It is not that he directly taught me. It is that through my focus on meeting his needs, I received many lessons in trust in powers greater than myself.

So, trust in "inner healer" is for me like trust in "inner knowing." Using the simple rituals of HB we are given the opportunity to open ourselves to experiences of greater wholeness.

In reviewing my one negative experience with HB, and it was quite negative indeed, I am struck by the fact that it was also the single HB event that I have attended in which no facilitator present bothered to create an altar.

Just as I understand that there are shamans, priests and medicine people who in their explorations of healing can become distracted, I am now aware that without a focused intention on the part of the facilitators on moving toward wholeness, the rituals of HB can be derailed from their stated purpose.

This is not at all complicated.

Comment by Roland (Lenny) Gibson on November 3, 2009 at 4:50pm

Even greater than the problem of conceiving inner healer as an entity is conceiving consciousness as an entity. Rather follow the suggestion of William James, the first transpersonal psychologist, that consciousness is a function or quality of experience. Conceiving consciousness as an entity is at the heart of the Cartesian problem and the beginning of a slippery slide into neuropsychological materialism.

Comment by Allen Howell on November 3, 2009 at 2:50pm

I was recently trying to slog through Jorge Ferrer's "Revisioning Transpersonal Theory" (with slow-moving efforts ... like swimming in molasses) and I came across his statement that we ought to learn to see transpersonal phenomena not as intrapersonal (i.e. interior personal) experiences but rather from the perspective that our consciousness interacts with a transpersonal event as it is happening or unfolding. In other words, we participate in the event rather than it being something that we can possess internally. Seen this way, or so as he states, we can avoid having our egos co-opt the experience and end up as spiritual narcissists making it all about "me and my experience." What does that mean for an inner healer? Maybe seeing the inner healer as a purely interior personal aspect of ourselves, belonging just me and working for just me, might also help that narcissism take hold? Maybe the inner healer isnt really so inner afterall but more like some natural universal drive of Consciousness itself moving towards wholeness, or the Tao as Rosalyn described it, or Essence as Byron mentioned?

Jung used the term "transcendant function" to describe the natural drive towards individuation, but it sounds too mechanical, too much like a computer program for my likes. That's why I've been begining to think that both "inner" (as something purely interior to the individual) and "healer" (as an adjective for some little person inside me who fixes things for me) are somehow fundamentally misleading. I do like the term "inner wisdom, but even then here comes that inner thing again boosting my ego (its all about me me me yada yada yada).

Stan is a brilliant man and made the term an intergral part of the Holotropic practice for a reason. It is clearly mentioned specifically in the "principals" given out to all facilitators, but I am really enjoying this conversation of just what the heck it is and what, if any, better terminology might develop.

Comment by Rosalyn Lee on November 3, 2009 at 1:33pm

I just found this thread and was very appreciative of the dialogue around "inner healer".

I like the "the Tao which cannot be named" and Byron's explanation on the function of Essence. It validates my view and my explanation to my son when he declared he disliked life because he didn't want to die.

I do agree it's a universal mystery. How do we describe inner healer when each of our Essence is dynamic? I don't think words can really communicate the feeling.

Comment by José Luis Franzini (cacha) on November 2, 2009 at 7:29pm

Hi Friends, first of all, sorry for my english.
I agree we the objection about situations in which facilitators pose as "inner healer police."
The inneer healer simply it is who guide the process and I agree too, with the flexible interpretation, but for me, must be clear that is something totally internal and of the interpretation flexibility there.
It is not that represents different things frequently or to each person. it is simply our innate wisdom for the self cures and not something external which we can see it in differents ways.
In any case, without doubts, it is the universal mystery

Comment by Jimmy Eyerman on November 2, 2009 at 6:40pm

Hi Eliza,

I agree totally. The whole process is a mystery. It defies full definition.

Comment by Elisa Sawyer on November 2, 2009 at 5:52pm

I just noticed this discussion of the "inner Healer" and am really encouraged to see this. Because my grandmother studied with Jung (she followed her bliss after my great uncle Rowland Gibson Hazard III finally had a spiritual experience and began recovering from his alcoholism--the rest is AA history) I found the insistence on a personification of Inner Healer as sort of a separate internal entity to be disturbing. Wait, I thought my inner healer could look different from yours! Do I *have* to genuflect now?

At least there are some people in the HB community who accept a flexible interpretation of what "Inner Healer" might mean. I think that, like Hindu gods and goddesses, the "Inner Healer" can mean something different, even to the same person, at different times.

I strongly object to situations in which facilitators pose as "inner healer police."

• First
• Previous
• Next
• Last