Soul Loss and Soul Retrieval

BooBoo · Soul Loss and Soul Retrieval

This concept is all brand new to me. I believe Mia(?) brought the subject of Soul Loss up briefly on another page.......And then the other day it came up again on another Chat Board I visit.

One of the two moderators, Dino, practices Shamanism and had some interesting insight on the subject. (He's also written a wonderful book called "Into The Mystic", a great read.)

Anyway I thought I'd cut and paste some info that was shared....

_____________________________________________________________

Dino,

I'm quoting what you said earlier on this thread about SOUL LOSS:

"soul retrieval is a whole other thing and involves locating a part of the soul that has disassociated from the soul of the person here in ordinary reality, and gone off to reside in nonordinary reality (the upper world, lower world, or middle world of dream). once located, the soul can be brought back, IF the soul part is ready to return and the person is ready to receive it back."

Would you clarify? Where does the soul go? What is the upper world, lower world, or middle world? Does this perhaps explain why so many of us who experience traumatic grief go into a sort of a daze for a time and often don't remember certain things for awhile?

Ma---

maryann,

in shamanic terms, the upper world, lower world, and middle world of dream are all parts of the spiritworld.
the upper world is where angels, ascended masters, and other highly developed spirits reside.
the lower world is the realm of animal spirits, plant spirits, and elemental spirits.
the middle world is considered the dreaming aspect of this (our everyday) world.
for full discussions of these worlds and shamanism in general, i would highly recommend hank wesselman's work. my very favorite and easy to read books on these subjects are hank's "journey to the sacred garden" and "spirit medicine" (with co-author jill kuykendall, hank's wife). both books include cd's and directions on how to journey to these spiritworlds.

on the web, you can view many of hank's teachings for free at www.themetaarts.com.

re: "Does this [soul loss] perhaps explain why so many of us who experience traumatic grief go into a sort of a daze for a time and often don't remember certain things for awhile?" yes, it can. a classic example would be the central park jogger.

soul loss is discussed by hank wesselman here:
http://www.themetaarts.com/2006march/hankwesselman.html where hank says as follows:

"Soul loss is regarded among the indigenous peoples as the major cause of serious illness and premature death, yet curiously, it is not even mentioned in our Western medical textbooks.

Soul loss implies damage to our personal supernatural essence of who and what we are, and it usually occurs in response to some sort of serious trauma. My wife Jill Kuykendall wrote the chapter on soul loss in our book on Spirit Medicine. Here are some examples:

A child comes into the world and perceives that they are not wanted or welcome. Perhaps they came in as a girl and the family was hoping for a boy—and the whole family turns away. This rejection can be perceived by a newborn and it can be devastating to the incoming soul causing damage that may create life-long issues.

Soul loss can happen to a child who goes to school and is teased, bullied or ridiculed by their peer group – day after day. Soul loss is what happens to a child who is molested by those who are supposed to be caring for them. Soul loss happens when someone is abused.

Soul loss is what results in response to a rape experience. Very often, the soul, traumatized by what has happened to the individual, will dissociate from the physical body during the time the act is actually going on. Often if the horror and the terror are severe enough, the soul fragments and the parts of it will dissociate and leave – not to return. This can be a life coping mechanism as in the case of someone who has been terribly brutalized and could not psychologically withstand the memory of what happened to them, resulting in a syndrome known as blocked memory.

Soul loss is what happens in response to a serious surgery or a terrible accident. I can’t tell you how many people have approached me over the years and said that they were in a terrible car accident years ago and have never been the same. It’s like part of them is missing. When I ask them to tell me about the accident, they tell me that they don’t remember it. They don’t remember the pain, the trauma, but they do remember waking up in the ICU. That’s usually a dead give away that a person has had soul loss. When someone has blocked memory and cannot recall anything from certain parts of their life, this is usually an indication of soul loss.

Soul loss can occur in response to an acrimonious divorce, a traumatic abortion experience or a miscarriage for a woman. My wife Jill, who has a full-time private practice as a soul retrieval practitioner, is often startled at how many experience soul loss on the day that they get married. Often one person gives up their life or their dreams so that their partner can live theirs. They let go of all of their gifts, qualities, and abilities that they had to offer the world.

Soul loss is what happened to all our men and women who were sent to Viet Nam, Korea, Kuwait, Desert Storm and now Iraq. Post-traumatic stress syndrome is soul loss. These young people come home as the walking wounded in response to the terrible damage that their soul has sustained. Unfortunately, our mainstream medical people have very little to offer them because they haven’t been trained in what to do when a person has lost a part of their soul.

Soul loss is very easy to recognize if you know what you’re looking for, and all of this is laid out very nicely in Spirit Medicine. A classic symptom of soul loss is a feeling of being fragmented – the sense that you are not all there. Another is being unable to feel love or receive love from another person. Having a relationship with someone like that can be devastating because the love you have to offer can never be received, nor do they have any love to offer you in return. Such people are often described as emotionally remote.

Other examples might include: a sudden onset of apathy or listlessness or a chronic lack of joy. Sometimes I ask people when the last time was that they experienced real joy. They get a funny look on their face and confess that they really cannot remember the last time that they felt joy.

An inability to make decisions or discriminate, the presence of addictions or suicidal tendencies, chronic negativity (when a person is always down) are other indicators of soul loss.

This brings up the classic symptom of soul loss--depression.

An enormous number of Americans suffer from depression. About ten years ago there was a cover story in Time Magazine on depression in America. I think it was titled “Prozac: The Breakfast of Champions.” As I recall, the article revealed that about 60 million people – roughly a third of all Americans at that time– were taking anti-depressant drugs to control their moods on a daily basis. That’s a shocking statistic--one that reveals the depth of the damage that has been experienced both individually as well as in our “National Psyche.”

Now—we have mentioned that all true shamans are able to go into deep trance states in which they can dissociate their own conscious awareness away from their physical body and journey into an alternate reality that they call the spirit world. The shaman is the master healer in the imaginal realms – the one who is able to work with spirits to help alleviate pain and suffering in humans.

The shaman is the individual who uses their own mind and body as the bridge between the transpersonal realms of spirit and the ordinary physical realm in which we live, eat, breathe, have jobs and so forth. When the bridge is formed, the spirits are able to come into our world and help us, and this is when miracles often happen. The missing link in healing is, in my opinion, spirit medicine."

hank discusses soul retrieval here:
http://www.themetaarts.com/2006april/hankwesselman.html where he writes as follows:

"The final stage of healing involves restoring the fabric of the person’s soul--a process called soul retrieval.

In this healing modality, the shamanic practitioner hooks up with their spirit helpers and healing masters, and working as a team, they travel together into the spirit worlds, searching for the dissociated parts of the self that have been lost. Usually, these soul-aspects have taken up residence there, trying to find something that they lacked in life.

Often this “something” is protection, and the soul parts may be found in the company of a power animal in the lower worlds, with an ancestor in the middle worlds, or in the presence of an angelic being in the upper worlds.

The soul retrieval specialist serves as the bridge, finding, connecting with, and retrieving those dissociated soul parts that are ready, willing, and able to return and be of service to their original owner. In the process, the fabric of the soul cluster of the client is restored and re-invasion of intrusive elements is prevented.

Soul retrieval is a necessary stage in healing because from the shamanic perspective, the primary problem is not the cancer, the lupus, the HIV or hepatitis. The primary problem is the loss of power or the damage to the soul that let these illness intrusions internalize and take up residence in the first place. That’s the problem and this is where the shamanic practitioner does their best work.

Among many traditional cultures, shamans who specialize in soul retrieval work are often called “soul catchers.” Not all shamans are good at this work, but those who are, are generally recognized as being in a league of their own as shamanic healers."

for more info, see hank's website at www.sharedwisdom.com

hope this helps,
--d