Archetypal Shamanism is a synthesis of shamanism and archetypal psychology.

In Archetypal Shamanism we utilize universal shamanic techniques like chanting and drumming to invoke the archetypal shamanic journey but interpret and work with the contents of the experience psychologically using approaches developed by Carl Jung, James Hillman and others.

A core practice of Archetypal Shamanism is a form of Active Imagination we call the Soul Journey.

In addition, Archetypal Shamanism draws on a number of complementary practices to support healing, growth and transformation including yogic breathwork, dreamwork, inner dialogue, altar building, ritual, art, music, dance and movement.

I offer two ways to experience a Soul Journey: community circles and private journeys for groups and individuals. Community circles and private group journeys are held in the Greater Victoria Area. Private individual journeys can be conducted online via Zoom.

FAQ

Because Archetypal Shamanism is a living, breathing practice and community, no answers are final or written in stone. That said, here are some placeholder answers to the questions that come up most frequently.

What is an Archetype?

Archetypes are the primal energetic patterns active at the deepest levels of the world and the individual psyche.

They get expressed on the level of human culture as mythological characters and patterns, such as the Hero and the Hero’s Journey.

On a personal level, the archetypes express themselves as the inner figures that show up in dreams and visions. We experience the archetypal energies most intimately as instincts, moods, emotions and modes of being and perceiving.

“Every form you see has its archetype in the placeless world; If the form perished, no matter, since its original is everlasting.”
— Rumi

What is Shamanism?

Shamanism is a term coined by anthropologists to describe a broad range of practices across global cultures.

The term itself comes from the Tungus word samán which roughly means “person of knowledge.” Generally speaking, shamanism is the practice of entering into an altered state of consciousness to obtain special knowledge for the purpose of divination or healing.

Forms of shamanism have been practiced by every culture around the world.

While shamanism is often considered by scholars to be a so-called “primitive” form of religion practiced by pre-modern, non-Western peoples, we can find examples of shamanic practice throughout the history of Western culture dating back to the Asclepian dream healing of ancient Greece, to the Renaissance magicians like Marsilio Ficino, all the way up to the neo-shamanic tradition popularized by American anthropologist Michael Harner in the 1980s.

What is Archetypal Shamanism?

Archetypal Shamanism is a blending of shamanic concepts and practice with Jungian psychological theory.

We call it Archetypal Shamanism because we utilize universal shamanic techniques like chanting and drumming to invoke the archetypal shamanic journey but interpret and work with the contents of the experience psychologically.

What Archetypal Psychology offers Shamanism
Archetypal Psychology is a school of psychology founded by post-Jungian writer and philosopher James Hillman. Because of the emphasis and value it places on dreams, imagination and images, Archetypal Psychology is especially well-suited to working with shamanic visions.

This post-modern development of Carl Jung’s work offers the Western shamanic practitioner a psychological framework in which to ground their experience and provides helpful suggestions for working with the images and inner figures they encounter.

What Shamanism offers Archetypal Psychology
Shamanism offers Archetypal Psychology practical tools and ritual forms to facilitate what Jung called Active Imagination. Famed Jungian analyst Robert Johnson describes Active Imagination as “a dialogue that you enter into with the different parts of yourself that live in the unconscious. In some ways it is similar to dreaming, except that you are fully awake and conscious during the experience.”(1)

Practices

A core practice of Archetypal Shamanism is a form of Active Imagination we call the Soul Journey. In addition, Archetypal Shamanism utilizes a number of complementary practices to support healing, growth and transformation including yoga, dreamwork, inner dialogue, altar building, music and movement. Every Soul Journey facilitator has the opportunity to bring a different set of tools to their circles depending on their unique interests and talents.

1. Robert Johnson, Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth

How is the Soul Journey different from Active Imagination?

The Soul Journey differs from Active Imagination in a few key ways.

The first is that we aren’t “fully awake” during the experience. We utilize universal shamanic techniques of singing and chanting along with repetitive rhythms created by drum or rattle to induce a light trance state, which quiets the rational mind and opens us to engagement with the inner world of imagination and archetypes.

The second key difference is that the Soul Journey can be practiced in a group setting. This not only makes Jungian-style psychotherapy accessible to a wider group of people, it offers us the much needed opportunity to restore communal ritual and cultivate spiritual community.

The third difference is that the Soul Journey happens in a circle. There is no hierarchy of “client & therapist” or “patient & healer.” There is a journey guide and the journeyers. The guide’s role is to set up a container for the work, provide the drumming, and facilitate the sharing at the end of the session.

Soul Journey circles aren’t workshops or classes. We believe in the inner wisdom and healing capacity of each individual and the power of the collective to support our personal journey of healing, growth and transformation.

What is a Soul Journey?

The Soul Journey is a ritual that invokes the timeless archetypal pattern of transformation which Joseph Campbell referred to as the Hero’s Journey.

Thinking of ourselves as a “hero” can lead to an inflated sense of self, so we prefer to think of it as participating in the journey to simply becoming more fully human, and more precisely, the particular unique expression of humanness that we are — the Archetype of You. Still, Joe’s model is helpful as a map that more-or-less describes the journey.

He summarizes the archetypal pattern in the book Myths to Live By:

“The usual pattern is, first, of a break away or departure from the local social order and context; next, a long, deep retreat inward … deep into the psyche; encounters of a centering kind, fulfilling, harmonizing, giving new courage; and then finally, in such fortunate cases, a return journey of rebirth to life.”

Elsewhere he says:

“The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to you and say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.’ And so it starts.”

The “guide” can be our own suffering (quest for healing), our sense that there must be more to life (quest for meaning) or that we’re not living the life we’re meant to live (quest for purpose).

The Soul Journey is a descent into the depths of the psyche, the realm of the archetypal imagination, in order to retrieve some new insight or inspiration and return with a bit of your wholeness restored. This is what’s meant when shamanic practitioners talk about a “soul retrieval”. 

The idea is that during a traumatic experience a part of our wholeness will sometimes “split off” so that we’re not completely overwhelmed. There will come a time in our life where we experience that split or “soul loss” more acutely in the form of depression, lack of vitality or deep anxiety. When our suffering gets bad enough, it can act as a wake up call to transformation. 

The acceptance of that call will lead us on our journey of healing, growth and transformation. Refusing the call often leads to further numbing out to avoid the pain, and in some cases, madness or suicide.

What is a Soul Journey Circle like?

Typically, a Soul Journey circle begins with a welcoming song to open the space followed by some sort of grounding and centering practice like group chanting or toning, breathwork or simple yoga movements.

This is followed by group check-ins and introductions, where we talk about what’s happening in the collective and our personal lives. This is a time for connection and intention setting.

Next comes the heart of the practice: the Soul Journey. The group will lie down while the facilitator provides drumming (and sometimes chanting) for 20 minutes or so.

Following the journey there is time for sharing our experiences. The facilitator might give tips on how to work with the images and inner figures encountered during the journey, and offer some deeper archetypal insight by pointing to myths, stories and other associations.

How did Archetypal Shamanism begin?

Archetypal Shamanism grew out of my personal experiences with plant medicines and neo-shamanic practice. In my quest to understand and integrate these experiences in a way that was non-appropriative of indigenous cosmologies and worldviews, I found in Archetypal Psychology an approach that felt authentic to my western background.

Archetypal Psychology is one of the few (if only) western approaches that honours the profundity of the transpersonal visionary experience and helps us to relate to it in a deeply personal way that supports psychological healing and growth.

What most depth psychologies lack are practices and rituals that allow us to work with archetypal energies in an embodied and communal way. The founder of Archetypal Psychology James Hillman recognized the limits of clinical or theoretical psychology to effect change beyond the merely personal and towards the end of his life put more emphasis on the collective and repairing the soul of the world (anima mundi). Archetypal Shamanism takes up this challenge by bringing depth psychology out of the consulting room and into the world.

Who is Archetypal Shamanism for?

Archetypal Shamanism is for anyone seeking a practice and community that is grounded in western depth psychology and rooted in earth-honouring spirituality.

Because of its integrative approach, Archetypal Shamanism can be both a complement and alternative to working with psychedelics. People who have used psychedelics find in Archetypal Shamanism a framework for understanding their experience and a practice for integrating it. For people who can’t or don’t want to take psychedelics, Archetypal Shamanism offers a safe and accessible alternative.