THE REUNION OF THE SOUL AND THE BODY

The Reunion of the Soul and the Body is the name of William Blake's etching (below). It vividly portrays the beauty and ecstasy and sensuality that can be experienced, for example, in so-called Trance Dance, when the Spirits embody us.

The separation of Body and Soul began in ancient Greek times, and Medieval Christianity furthered this process They banned dancing in churches, because it gave people their own connection to Spirit, it gave them too much of their own power. The Body and its desires became demonised. The Body is at best 'lesser', a mere vehicle for something more important.

This is why Blake created this etching. And it is why Shamanism, with its foundation in our belonging to the natural world, and belonging therefore to the Body, is exactly the kind of cultural remedy needed for this ancestral soul-loss. Or could be.

The methods of Core Shamanism go half-way there, inasmuch as we are introduced to animal helpers. That is a major shot across the bows of our historical religious conditioning, which we are part of, whether ot not we believe in it. But it doesn't go far enough. It doesn't go in for the kill. Remember it was created by an American academic, and the body was safely excluded.

There may have been some wisdom in that at the time, because many people really are afraid of that animal, out-of-control power of the body. It can seem like a dark, primitive thing, instead of the path to Spirit that it truly is. It can seem threatening, and that is because it is indeed threatening, to the safe, civilised personality that is an inevitable part of being part of a large society: let's not diss it too much, many people would have a psychological breakdown without it. It is where we start.

I am also talking about the return of the Dionysian element. We need both the rationality and control of the Apollonian, and the raw, bodily surrender of the Dionysian. I think we have an odd relationship with the Dionysian in our Shamanism: we can over-value it, at the expense of the Apollonian, and yet not take it far enough, not dare fully surrender to it.

The Dionysian is there when Shamans in Siberia dance their encounters with the Spiritworld. It is only partially there, for the most part, when we do our lying down journeys. That does not mean a lot of value does not occur. But that full-on spirit encounter via the body needs reclaiming. I don't entirely know how. For some, it is easy. For others, it is incremental. Myself and Emma Edgington will be exploring this at our event in Snowdonia in June: http://shamanicfreestate.blogspot.com/2021/12/embodying-spirits.html