Facilitating a Group Shamanic Journey

A group shamanic journey is a little different from an individual journey. The journey technique is similar, but ecstatic trance takes on an increased potency in a group. By journeying together, we deepen our individual connection to spirit and we also deepen our connections to each other. There's something magical about group sacred space, particularly when it's created with the intention to facilitate and support shamanic journeying. A group shamanic journey basically involves one person drumming a repetitive rhythm while the others relax and journey into the non-ordinary reality of the spirits. The journey itself may typically last fifteen to twenty minutes. A pre-agreed call back rhythm will signal that the group journey should end and the journeyers return to ordinary reality. I like to signal a call back with four strong beats, followed by a short period of slow heartbeat drumming to assist each journeyer in refocusing their awareness back to their physical body.
 

For your first group journey, I recommend traveling to the Lower World using the technique taught by the late Michael Harner. In his book, The Way of the Shaman, Harner suggests that you visualize an opening into the Earth that you remember from sometime in your life--from childhood, or yesterday. Any entry into the ground will do--an animal burrow, hollow tree stump, cave and so on. When the journey begins, you'll go down the hole and a tunnel will appear. Enter the tunnel and you will emerge into the Lower World--the realm of power animals, spirit guides and ancestral spirits. It is a beautiful, Earth-like dimension, where we can find lost power, retrieve lost souls and connect with animal and plant spirits.
 

The Journey Process
 

The basic steps for a group journey to the Lower World are as follows:
 

1. Smudge to create a purified space, and then open sacred space by calling in the benevolent powers of the seven directions: East, South, West, North, Up, Down and Within.
 

2. Having established sacred space, it is important to form the group's collective intention or objective for the journey. It is best to have only one inquiry or question per journey. It is important to focus on the issue that you want to know more about. Focusing on an issue develops a receptive state of mind and helps you clarify what it is you are truly seeking.
 

3. After clarifying the intended objective, a designated drummer should play a repetitive rhythm that begins slowly and then gradually builds in intensity to a steady tempo of three to four beats per second. As the drumming begins, each person should close their eyes and focus a moment on the inquiry free of any distractions, emotions or attachments that could distort the response.
 

4. Next, each person should clear their mind of everything. Focused intent, to be effective, should be followed by complete surrender and detachment. Focus your attention on the sound of the drum, thereby stilling the chatter in your mind. Allow the drum to empty you. Become one with the drum.
 

5. At this point, you may find it helpful to imagine with all your senses the entrance to a cave, an opening in the Earth, or a hollow tree trunk that you have seen or visited. Use an image that you are comfortable with and one that you can clearly visualize. Clear your mind of everything but this image.
 

6. Approach the entrance or opening and enter it. Typically, you will meet an entity here that will act as your spirit guide. It may appear to you as an animal, a person, a light, a voice, or have no discernible form at all. If you are uncomfortable or put off by whatever appears, ask it to take another form. It is important that you see, feel, hear, or in some way sense the presence of an ally that you trust and feel at ease with before proceeding with your first journey. If you do not, then return through the entrance and journey another time.
 

7. Pose your query to the guide. Your spirit guide may simply answer your question, but most likely will lead you on a journey. It may ask you to ride on its back or to accompany it. Follow your guide's instructions implicitly. If asked to leave, do so at once. Typically, you will proceed down a tunnel at a rapid pace. If you encounter an obstacle, just go around it or look for an opening through it.
 

8. When you emerge from the passage, you will find yourself in the Lower World. You may be led to a helping spirit that can answer your question. You may go through different landscapes and experience different situations. The possibilities are endless. Just go with the flow and observe whatever happens without trying to analyze or conceptualize the experience.
 

9. When you hear the pre-agreed call back signal, it is time to return. If for any reason you want to come back before the call back, just retrace your steps back. To achieve this simply do your journey in reverse. There is no need to rush and it is not critical that you retrace your route precisely. The reason for retracing your steps is to help you remember the route so that in subsequent journeys you will be able to travel to and from the Lower World with greater ease and efficiency. Upon your return to the entrance, thank your guide, emerge from the opening, and return to your body.
 

10. Once you have returned to ordinary reality, sit quietly for a few moments, refocusing your awareness back to your physical body. Take a deep breath, and then open your eyes.
 

Upon completion, bring everyone back to the present by letting everyone share their journey experience. It is not unusual for group journeyers to have similar trance experiences. These insights are shared without analysis, interpretation or judgment. Sharing our journeys allows us to see ourselves in other people, and to see that they are much like us. We begin to understand at a very deep level that we are all truly One.

Peyote and Tribal Sovereignty

by Darren Thompson
Director of Media Relations
Lakota People's Law Project
 

On Friday, April 12, the Native American Church of North America (NACNA) hosted a summit in Farmington, New Mexico focused on protecting peyote, a cactus medicine sacred to Native Peoples across Turtle Island. The one-day summit brought leaders from Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma together with church delegates to discuss next steps for the largest American Indian religious organization in the country.
 

Leaders say development near peyote's natural habitat, which in the U.S. only grows naturally on private lands in four counties in southern Texas, has decreased the supply of the plant. A growing community comprised mainly of non-Natives wants to bring psychedelic drugs into mainstream society and tout research that psychedelics aid in improving mental health.
 

Under the 1994 Amendment, only enrolled members of federally recognized tribes are permitted under federal law to possess, transport and ingest peyote in bonafide traditional ceremonies. However, the plant, and ceremonies that are centered around its traditional use are threatened by non-Native interests, including Big Pharma.
 

Official efforts to decriminalize mescaline, the active ingredient in peyote, have succeeded in places like Oakland and San Francisco, and others want to follow their lead. In February, California State Senator Scott Wiener introduced California Senate Bill 1012 — The Regulated Psychedelic-assisted Therapy Act and the Regulated Psychedelic Substances Control Act — which aims to decriminalize mescaline and other psychedelics.
 

If passed, the bill would authorize the establishment of a regulatory system that would control regulated psychedelic substances for use with regulated psychedelic-assisted therapy. While the bill mentions the respect for Indigenous cultures and their use of "psychedelic substances," it would also legalize mescaline, which the federal government classifies as the active hallucinogenic ingredient in peyote.
 

"Mescaline is mescaline, whether it is peyote or other cacti," says Justin Jones, Diné and General Counsel for the Native American Church of North America. "California cannot decriminalize mescaline in other cacti and say that peyote is exempt, because mescaline is mescaline, no matter what cactus you have."
 

Protecting peyote use and habitat, church leaders point out, is an issue of tribal sovereignty. Only enrolled members of federally recognized tribes have rights protected under AIRFA, and in this way, the federal government has acknowledged the inherent sovereignty that tribes possess. Leaders of the Native American Church have traveled across Indian Country and even to Capitol Hill with the message that opening an avenue for legalized mescaline threatens one of the legal cornerstones of tribal sovereignty. They're asking for strengthened enforcement of AIRFA, which was drafted to protect intrusions on traditional American Indian cultures and religions.
 

Over the past several years, non-Native individuals promoting the benefits of peyote have encouraged direct violations of the law. Mainstream interests want to extract the core of one of the last protected plants for American Indian people and profit off it. Over the next several months, the Lakota People's Law Project will document and support leaders advocating for enforcement of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act's 1994 amendment. While the possession, transportation, and use of peyote is protected, its natural environment is not. If Big Pharma achieves its goal of decriminalizing mescaline, peyote and its natural environment will surely be put at risk.
 

It's also notable that efforts to incorporate psychedelics into organized religions are gaining steam, also challenging the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. While it is not our responsibility to challenge people and their prayers, it is our duty to fight for tribal sovereignty and protect sacred spaces of American Indian culture for our next generations.