Announcer 0:28

Hello and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher and now here's john

John Moore 0:45

hello everybody I wish you a good morning or whatever time of day it is when you listen to this it is the morning where I am it is as I am talking to you kind of in the beat we're in the beginning of October which is a month that I enjoy a lot I where I live in the northeastern part of the United States this is you know we entered fall in autumn or fall in September. But really this is when the leaves change colors it's amazingly beautiful here and the leaves fall off the trees and the trees are bear until spring eventually usually not till later in October but the end of October is Halloween is otherwise known as Samhain we get into all souls Eve Day of the Dead all those kinds of things. Some people know this as Season of the Witch it's a transition time right as all seasons are but here it is especially true we experience significant changes in the environment changes in temperature you know it's not unheard of to have snow here but before the end of the month. Depending on where you live that might be shocking. But I remember a few years back when my children were small and you know if you're not in the US you might not practice this but you probably are aware that we do something called trick or treating with children which is on Halloween night kids dress up and go from house to house and people give them candy. And gosh that is a favorite day of so many kids as you might imagine getting a bag full of candy once a year from strangers I know it sounds might sound weird if you're not used to that tradition but it certainly was my I think one of my favorite one of my favorite holidays growing up as a child and certainly was for my kids but I remember going out one year and there was snow on the ground and the kids had to wear boots and coats over their costumes which is kind of a bummer you want people to see your costumes but the dressing up part is really cool. And of course this you know this goes back a long long time to Celtic traditions having to do with selling and you know lighting jacker lanterns to scare off evil spirits and dressing up as ghosts and goblins and going from house to house. And you know there were other other traditions including a meal to honor the your ancestors to honor the dead because it was thought and I believe this to be true that this is a time where the veil between the worlds is thinner the ancestors and spirits are able to come back and visit more readily make their presence known. And you're able to interact with them more easily. And I think this is something I have experienced and it's something that exists in many cultures. You know, the Mexican Day of the Dead tradition is is in my opinion a beautiful one. And you know recognizes this as well. If you have not, if you have not seen the Disney movie, Coco it is it's one of my favorites. It's a Pixar animated movie that is about the Mexican Mexican Day of the Dead and it is whatever your feeling about mass media is it is a beautiful Full film, full of heart and full of love and respect for ancestors, and it's funny, and it's entertaining. And anyway, it's a good, it's a good thing. So, today's topic, I'm going to talk about death today because we're entering, you know, we're entering that season, and I'm going to talk about death and the dead and what happens and the cyclical nature of things. changes and seasons remind us of the cycles of,

you know, the cycles of nature, and we're a part of that where no, so many times people think he, as human beings, we consider ourselves separate from nature. And that is not a that is not reality, we are a part of nature, yes, we have removed ourselves in many ways. Most of us live inside buildings, and work and drive cars, and use plastic things and, you know, participate in things that are not what someone might consider natural. But we are organic, our bodies are organic, excuse me. Again, if you've never listened to this, I don't really edit this. So if I have a little if I have a little cough or clear my throat or whatever, I don't edit it out. I'm you know, I don't want people to think that I'm not a human being and make errors in my podcast or whatever, what have you so excuse me, if that comes up, I don't like to. I also like this to have a flow and don't interrupt my train of thought as I'm talking about stuff. So we're a part of nature and we experience cycles. And this can be seen in a lot of ways. A lot of people when the weather gets colder, tend to nest hibernate, rest more we eat differently. Not always, I mean nowadays, with the way we import food and that sort of thing, we can eat a lot of offseason food. But I you know, I for 1am a fan of eating seasonally, as much as I can. You know, that being said, I will enjoy a banana or an orange which are non native Here are a few things that are shipped in but this time of year where I live, it's Apple harvesting season and its pumpkin harvesting season. And there are a lot of root vegetables around so we you know, I love that stuff, this time of year, stews and things that warm me up and you know, it helps me helps my body anyway, be more in tune with the cycles that we're going through. So, as parts of nature, we are affected by the cycles of nature, the cycles of life, obviously, you know, we are born into a body we go through childhood, adolescence, puberty, we, you know, become adults, we hopefully live into old age and become elders and you know, eventually, our bodies die. And I'm going to say it that way our bodies die because I do believe in an afterlife. I have witnessed enough in my career as a shamanic practitioner, and I'll talk about that I'll talk about the demonic view or a shamanic view. I can't speak for every shamanic practitioner in the world, but I will speak from my perspective, having practiced shamanism for many years now. What the experience of death is like from that perspective, my hope is that I can demystify it a lot, because a lot of people are afraid of death. At least in the Western world here. We're so you know, in the US, especially, we're so removed from death in the dying process. You know, there's a whole funeral industry here where, you know, when somebody dies, the body is quickly removed and taken and cleaned up, and then you might see it for a visitation, and then it's quickly buried. And that's it. And you go through the grieving process. And it costs 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of dollars. You know, and I think having witnessed some other cultural traditions, around what happens when people die, I'm You know, I feel like that's a little disconnected. And we're a little disconnected from death. And it makes us It makes us more fearful of death because there's this unknown part of death, we don't know what's going to happen. The other aspect is, you know, you've grown up in

Christian society, you know, you whether or not you practice Christianity, you most likely have some sort of reservation or fear of hellfire. Right? eternal torture. I'm gonna say right off the bat that, you know, and I, and I don't normally like to conflict with people's belief systems, you are welcomed to believe as you wish, and I will respect that. However, I will say that this concept of Hell is, you know, and pardon my French is bullshit. And it was invented to control people. And I and, you know, I understand why, you know, historically, when the, you know, when religion in the government was the same thing, and we didn't really have police forces, and ways to control people's behavior in society, we had to make people afraid of what would happen to them in the afterlife, because there wasn't necessarily punishment for crimes or, you know, what was considered blasphemy or, you know, any other offenses. And that's very plain, if you read that in any of the, the Abrahamic religions, right? There are lots of things, you know, for example, lots of dietary prescriptions, right, they wanted to keep people from getting sick, don't eat pork, and shellfish, because there was no refrigeration or testing of, you know, testing of food or anything like that. So those things were, could make people really ill. And, you know, there are a lot of things you know, that didn't necessarily that made a lot of sense, you know, five or 6000 years ago or 2000 years ago, and you know, what have you I and again, if you're a person who keeps kosher or or halaal or you know, what, what have you I'm totally fine, you know, that I'm not arguing against that, you know, it's part of your faith and I don't I don't hold that against anybody or say that's wrong or anything like that. I'm just saying the concept of hell was meant to keep people in line. And in my experience with death, and I'll describe what that's like in a bit. That just isn't it isn't a thing. Except for there there's there is a little bit of an exception to that. And and I'll talk about that as well. And and so of course, the Christian you know, concept of hell is that it's down below it's the underworld, it's even the word hell. Right. So what they what happened was, you know, when Christianity came into areas that were predominantly pagan, the turned pagan gods, they turned pagan beliefs. As I said, this, a giant Hawk just flew through my yard. Very interesting. They turned pagan beliefs in the afterlife, in the underworld, into things that were demonic of the devil. If you think about the devil as being horned and having cloven hooves and you think about the god Pan, you know from Greek paganism. That is, they are identical. They took these gods and turn them into demons or they turn them into saints or you know, whatever, they co opted them. They co opted holidays. You know, they put Christmas to meet Christmas in end of December to eclipse Saturnalia and other pagan holidays around you know, around the winter solstice. You know, when most likely that wasn't close to the date If you believe the story of the birth of Jesus, you know it was probably in the springtime sometime because of the way it's described of the shepherds out in the field sleeping out in the fields with their flocks anyway I'm not a biblical scholar, but

it is what it is. And you know, the word hell comes from, you know, comes from Norse belief actually and you know, hell was the underworld where most people go when they die if you weren't killed in battle and went to Valhalla, or you know, you didn't go with Freya to her Hall. I don't remember the name of that at this point. But if you didn't go to one of those places, because you didn't die in battle, you went to hell. And hell was not eternal torture, it was sort of this consider this place that was like fall It was like eternal autumn You know, it was not eternal torture. You know, that kind of thing. And of course, the Greeks believed in in an underworld, right. And the Romans and all of these pagan and they believe that's where you went when when you died. And in shamanism, we go to the lower world and we go to the upper world and they aren't really heaven or hell. So as far as the concepts around this, you know, and culturally This is totally reinforced, you know, we have even the TV show that I enjoy Lucifer about the Devil You Know, and I'll maybe I'll do a podcast about the devil at some point. And the, the, you know, the, the changing ideas about who the devil is and what the devil is and demons and all of that sort of thing, even though we're demon, right? Even the word demon is it comes from the Greek and it just means spirit. And in Greek, there were helpful spirits and harmful spirits and spirits of the house and they were all demons. But when Christianity came in and took over demons became denizens of hell and you know, the doers of the work of Satan. So gosh, you can't have these household spirits anymore. That's devil worship. Everything became devil worship. Um, so you know, I I don't like to, you know, I don't like to quibble too much over personal beliefs. And again, I try my best to respect everybody's personal beliefs. But this is, you know, this is this is what happened. You can't there is no denying that this is what what happened. This is empirically, historically true. So, anyway, the concept of hell meant to control people not really a thing. So, as you probably know, I'm a shamanic practitioner, I practice shamanism. I do not say the phrase, I am a shaman that is not in my tradition, one does not call oneself a shaman. So I use the term shamanic practitioner because it describes what I do I practice shamanism. And I do so for myself and for clients. It is healing work that I do and other types of work that I do for clients, but it's also on my spiritual path. And in shamanism, there is the concept of psychopomp. Right? psycho pump is again, it's a Greek term. And it means basically, spirit guide, a guide of spirits, and it holds the connotation of a person who or spirit a person who guides spirits after death. Right? It's not just like a spirit guide, like, you talk to a spirit and they give you guidance. This is specifically like, you know, we the pump part of psychopomp is where we get like pomp and circumstance, it's like, believe it means like, tour, someone who gives, you know, like a tour guide, right? And psycho, where we get the words psychology and psychiatry and all of those things meaning mind actually is a Greek word for spirit. It's a Greek word for spirit, right?

There's more than one. And I'll get into that a little bit too, because there are, you know, you might think of our as your of your spirit as one thing. But it is, it can be divided up into numerous things. You can think of a human being as a whole system of systems which includes mind, body and many spiritual components. But we are made up of very complicated parts, right? Think about our nervous system and our circulatory system just on the body level. And if you think about the mind level, you have your conscious mind and your unconscious mind and you have habits and beliefs and values, all of these things living sort of in the mental plane, and the spiritual plane is no less complex. And there are many types theoretic and astral and noetic and causal and all this stuff. And they're ultimately just labels for things for phenomenon that are parts of the human experience. So anyway, back to I am Mr. digression. If you've listened to other episodes of this podcast, you'll learn that I like to go off on tangents, but it's all relevant, I promise. So, the concept of the psycho pump is somebody who helps people after they die. And in shamanism, you might actually help people through the dying death and dying process. You know, there there are, you know, people out there today who are considered like death, doulas, who helped people sort of physically through physically and mentally through the dyeing process. And people who practice shamanism it's part of their job and has been so for a long long time. So I have you done it's not my primary thing. But I have done a fair amount of psychopomp work I have worked with people who have died recently I have worked with spirits who died many years ago but we're stuck. We you might call them ghosts or you know, spirits that you encounter on the sort of the plane that we exist on which shamans consider the middle world. Right, it's where we get mid guard or Middle Earth from mid guard being the Norse realm for where we live and Middle Earth being the JRR Tolkien version and The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series. Right so and you know, same same concept, it's the spiritual overlay of the world that we live in. Again, it you know, we're there all these layers to us and all these layers to the world that we live in, and the beings that we encounter here. So, sometimes spirits get stuck, we might call them ghosts in you know, shamanic, thinking, or at least in my tradition, we do not, like, exorcise ghosts, like kick them out, bottle them up, trap them do things to them, because they're suffering beings, they don't have a body anymore. So they're not suffering from pain. But they're, they're spiritually suffering if they're stuck, even if they don't know that they're stuck You know, they're suffering from the perspective that their existence could be much more pleasant if they went to where they were supposed to go. So what happens after we die is that a conscious part of us our soul body separates or from our THEARC body and from other parts of us and this is the part that you know is is sort of may consider it an astral body. If you want to get really technical I'm not going to go too far down the metaphysical bodies path because that could be there many volumes of many books written about all of that stuff, and I could only very briefly touch on that topic. But it is you know, that that would be a very huge tangent. And I'm also not you know, I'm also not the the expert on that either, but I do know that you know, parts of you separate from your physical body, the body, the body dies, the etheric body separates the astral body separates from from the body.

There is a deeper connection. There's a deeper connection to divinity that exists. That is sort of the true self that is the spark of divine light that's within us that is an unborn, undying, incorruptible. That part goes on as it is in because That part is so formless, we can sort of visualize it as a spot of bright light. But it really is formless. It sort of exists outside of time and space. And so while we might think of it as being inside the body for, for the easy sake of getting in touch with it, and visualizing and that sort of thing, it doesn't really exist inside the body, so it doesn't need to separate from the body at the, at the point of death. So sometimes what happens if somebody, somebody is going through the dyeing process, will say, let's say somebody is sick, and they're in hospital, and maybe they're coming in and out of consciousness, or they're in a coma, or, you know, that sort of thing, very frequently, loved ones will experience visitations, we'll see that loved one who is in the hospital and not quite dead yet. Or you know, that that person will reach out or what have you, and what's going what's going on there is that the astral body really is starting to separate person is in the dying process, the astral body is trying to separate or starting not trying, it is starting to separate, it's happening, slowly sort of happening at the pace at which the body is shutting down. And this is not you know, this is not, it's not painful, it's not you know, anything, it's just it is what it is, it's it's what, you know, it's part of the dying process. So when people have near death experiences, and come back, they frequently report being outside of their bodies, sometimes, you know, they somebody ties on an operating table, they they can, you know, look down and see surgeons working on them and hear the conversations that are going on, even though the body is under heavy anesthesia, and maybe even technically dead. So, so the astral at the, at the time of death, or even as a person is dying, the astral body really loses touch with the body because the astral body is going to survive and go on to where it's supposed to go. So this happens, and these visitations happen, and they very frequently happen right after death, even if death is sudden, you know, or you know, for a period of time, lots of people have you know, have come to me that they're seeing loved ones who just recently died passing on information, either in dreams or they're seeing them or they're smelling something that reminds them of the person or whatever. These are not always just tricks of the mind of the grieving mind. Sometimes these are actual visitations. Very frequently they happen in dreams because we're much more open in our dreams, and this is when the spirits can, can contact us. So in my experience, very often, in fact, most of the time when people die, this the, what you might call the spirit, the astral body sticks around for a number of days, checking in on loved ones, and going about perhaps some unfinished business, but primarily, I see this happening with people checking in on loved ones. And then most of the time, they cross over to some kind of afterlife. And that's not healthy. Because I have worked with people who were murderers, people who were in the Italian Mafia, who had murdered people and were relatives of the person I had as a client and I helped them cross over and they did not wind up going to hell Hmm So like I said, in my experience, and my firsthand experience that that isn't the thing. So the you know, the astral part of us this, you know, this, which is really really conscious part of us, crosses over

to another side. And again, there there are multiple parts that make up our spiritual body and they kind of go in different directions and this was recognized by many, many cultures over time, the multiple parts of the body right the you know, the spirit and you know, the energy body. You know, the, the soul body, all of these things. And so again, I'm not going to go down the metaphysics path. about what happens to all of these different parts, you know, you can look at the ancient Egyptian beliefs for example, that this part went here and this part did this and this part did this. So yeah, there's you know, there's a separation that happens, there's a separation of, you know, astral and physical and mental and all of these things. But your astral holds memories of what, what you went through in life, it can hold on to wounding all kinds of stuff. And so you go, you go to an afterlife. So here's the part about the afterlife. So what the afterlife is like, depends significantly on your personal and cultural beliefs. So if you think that heaven is or the afterlife or whatever is up, you tend to go up, and you'll see clouds and you'll see loved ones. And you'll see this and you'll see that you'll see all you'll experience all kinds of things. Because the reality is that spirit and these realms, they're non physical, so they don't have time, space and form other than what we give to them. And so we can experience them as anything. So there's work that's done if you go ever go through a an apprenticeship in shamanism and you do death and dying work, where you actually crossover and you have you have to do that you have to see what it's like you have to experience it. And I can tell you, having been there numerous times, and having taught people how to go there and having lead people there, that it is warm and welcoming and inviting and beautiful, and there is no pain and there's no suffering. And there's no anxiety and there's no stress. There is joy, and there is there is peace and there is what you would want to experience there. So I'm going to give you I will give you I'm going to give you an example and I will because I don't talk about you know I hold client work very confidential I'm going to anonymize the way I describe this and you know, give some details will be a little bit vague. So I was working with somebody who asked me to go check in on a beloved aunt who had passed away a number of years ago. And I didn't have any details other than this person's name. And about in I believe, you know, the year and the location of their death. And so I journeyed shamanic journey is like, like a very visual meditation where, you know, shamanic practitioner actually splits off part of their consciousness and it can travel to other realms. And so you know, I traveled to this person's art and I don't you know, I don't take for granted that I'm seeing objective truth right like I'm seeing something on a spiritual plane and my mind is making some sense out of it by you know, painting pictures and letting me have a conversation with somebody so when I got there there was this woman an older woman who I could physically describe and she was standing on you know, cliff overlooking the sea and there was a sunset and she was painting just painting a beautiful picture of the sunset and I had a conversation with her briefly and she said you know, the afterlife is really amazing I can

you know, I can I've always wanted to paint sunsets but there was happened too fast but here I can, you know, just think I want to paint a sunset and the sunset lasts as long as I need it to and I can paint a picture so there's really no painting sunsets and she could keep a sunset going for, you know, her experience of ours. You know, time works really differently there. But you know what, what we would experience as ours, she could keep the sunset sort of still campaigns and have a beautiful experience. And she relayed to me that she was you know, visiting another relative frequently But they were playing card games together in this other relatives kitchen and all these things. So okay, you know, came back from the journey. And I relayed this information to the client and said, you know, your aunt's very happy. She's painting pictures. And she said to me, oh, yeah, my aunt was a painter, which is not something I knew before I went. And I said, Well, you know, she's visiting her sister, and they're playing cards in her kitchen. And she said, Yes, that's my grandmother who passed before she did and before that happened, they used to play cards in her kitchen all the time. And that was one of their favorite activities. So you know, in the afterlife, you can visit loved ones who have passed and and loved ones do make trips back they do visit us they do have visitations, you know, that I get consulted about that very frequently to to look in on us. So that happens as well. So let me talk about reincarnation a little bit. So reincarnation is something I absolutely 100% believe in. I have experienced what are called past life returns, which is information coming back to me from past lives that I had no way of knowing otherwise. And this is common, you'll see it in sort of Tibetan Buddhism where they pick new Lamas like the Dalai Lama or whatever and you know when they have candidates that are trying to figure out who this next incarnation is, they will you know, present certain tests to these candidates and the candidates will be able to pick out belongings from the person who were there are reincarnating from Um, so how you know, if we go into the afterlife and we you know, we hang out there and we do what we're doing and and what have you. How on earth do we reincarnate? Like, why how could there be anybody in the afterlife? And if we reincarnate So the answer to that is relatively complex and too complex to again, get into the metaphysical details. But I will say this, that my understanding and my experience is that it is a part of you, that reincarnates It's a part of your soul body, and a part of your aesthetic makeup and a part of you that comes into a new body. So the you are basically a spiritual ancestor to your next incarnation, it is sort of like, My children, I pass my I pass my DNA, or, you know, they get half of their DNA for me, I pass that on to them, but I also don't cease to exist. And that's probably the best way I can describe it.

You know, your, your entire consciousness does not reincarnate. Because the Did you would be born remembering everything. And that doesn't, that doesn't exactly happen. But you can, you can get in touch with memories, and you can have experiences because you are connected. you're connected on this, this sort of chain that goes back to the beginning of time. So you are your own ancestor, and your own descendant and all of those things. You know, and in the future, I'll do a whole I'll do a whole podcast about reincarnation. And I know there are different beliefs from different places about reincarnation, and some people don't believe in it at all. And to be honest, I'm not exactly sure what happens with people who don't believe in reincarnation at all if they reincarnate. My feeling is they do because you know, for a number. I believe that for a number of reasons. One because there are still lessons to learn. Which is kind of the reason we ran reincarnate into bodies like you can think of, you know, physical birth as like we're we're starting school over again. We Got a bunch of stuff we've got to learn here we've got to experience. And the way to do that is through incarnating into a physical body. And yes, that includes trauma and pain and all kinds of things that we think of as not so nice, not so pleasant, not wonderful. And that makes things kind of complicated when we see if you, you know, view, God in the universe in really black and white terms and good and evil. Everything that happens to us that's good comes from God, and everything that happens to us that's bad comes from the devil. You know, that having that sort of black and white binary vision of reality is not particularly helpful. It's not, and it's really, really leads a lot of people astray. You know, because the universe, the universes, and reality, are much more complicated and much, much, much more complicated than that. So to give, like, a sort of silly example, right? Let's say a bear kills me and eats me, I'm walking through the woods, and a bear eats me for dinner. Well, that would be a terrible thing from my perspective, right? But would we say that bear is evil? is an evil bear that bear just malicious and evil? Does that bear have evil intent? pre, you know, pre plan killing me for revenge? Or because it hates the, you know, the color of my skin? or what have you any anything, anything that we attribute to people being evil? Or? or what have you? You know, and I think most people would say, No, a bear is just doing what a bear does. Right? So and, you know, while that would be tragic for the people who loves me, you know, bears do kill other animals, and sometimes people and for food, and so do tigers, and so do you know, other animals. And as parts of, you know, as, as human animals, we are not always at the top of the food chain. We have technology that helps us do that, but not always. And, and so, you know, the world is much more complicated the world as we experience it is much more complicated than just dividing everything into good and evil. Good things are good and bad things are evil, and, and there's no in between. And so that, you know, that the things that happen to us can be tragic, they can be traumatic, they can be painful,

you know, can sometimes feel like the universe is punishing us. All of that. And I understand that, and I get that. And dying can seem very tragic. And certainly the people who grieve, who grieve for you can't experience your death is traumatic or, or what have you. But again, that's putting sort of human middle world values on things. It's just a, it's a perspective, right? I'm not saying grief is a perspective. Grief is an you know, grief is a natural process that human beings go through. And it's important, it's an important process. It's not comfortable grieving is not comfortable. It's not happy. It's not Oh, how, how joyous I am that I grieve a loss. But it appears to be very important to our minds and spirits to to grieve loss. To go through that process in problems, because problems occur when the grief process is interrupted or stunted or repressed. Right. And people grieve for a lot of different reasons, right? They can grieve. We don't just grieve other people dying, we grieve the end of relationships. we grieve the loss of a job sometimes or anything that is a loss, we can go through a grief period. Well, death is a much more sort of final grief, but the ends of marriages bring grief the ends of, you know, friendships, the end of a job, the end of you know, I remember feeling a little lost when I graduated from high school and then again when I graduated from college, right? My life changed significantly, both of those both of those times. And feeling some grief about that, and, you know, in relationships that broke up feeling grief after that, even when it was mutual decision, you know, an amicable or it was my decision for my mental health to break up with somebody you know, there's still grieving process and that is natural. Everybody, everybody does it, everybody who's not a sociopath, I would think, in some way. And, and so that grieving appears to be healthy. And it's important part for us to come to grips with, with death and dying. So kind of recap a little bit to bring it back around. You know, when you have an understanding that death is part of the net natural cycle, you know, we're born, we go through the light life stages, and we die, our body dies. And it happens to everybody and has happened to everybody, throughout time. You know, it happened to Jesus and Buddha and yes, you can believe that Jesus was resurrected. And yes, you can believe that, you know, Buddha's spirit went on to a different realm. But their bodies died at some point. So it doesn't matter how enlightened you are or what have you. You know, and yes, there are there are belief systems that believe in physical immortality, I know there are, you know, suppose did Taoist practices that make people immortal you know, physically immortal. You know, and alchemy and alchemy. You know, in western alchemy, for example, there people are looking for the Philosopher's Stone, which grants immortality. And the real secret to that is that it is a spiritual process. And, yes, there are physical practices. But back, you know, when people were practicing alchemy in the, you know, in the Renaissance era, and stuff like that, spiritual and physical experimentation, were not separate things, right. So Isaac Newton, for example, believed that the mechanistic,

you know, clockwork way that the physical universe worked Newtonian, you know, inventor of Newtonian physics and inventor of calculus and the way that, you know, planets moved and all of this stuff, he believed that that was proof of proof of God, proof of spiritual reality. And he had Isaac Newton had copies of numerous spiritual texts, including the Emerald tablet, which is, you know, a famous hermetic document outlining, you know, spiritual laws. So, again, back then these were not separate pursuits. And yes, people were doing things like trying to turn lead into gold. And you know, a lot of that a lot of that stuff you can take two viewpoints of like one is a lot of alchemical writing was, was, was just that it was people who were doing spiritual, physical experimentation. And those things were not separate, they were looking for the essence of the material world of spiritual aspects behind that. Another part of that is that there is pure spiritual alchemy, and that some of the physical stuff that they wrote about, like the essence of salt in this and that, and these processes of, you know, you know, Solvay and coagula, and all of these things. These were allegorical, and we're meant to hide the spiritual work that they were going that they were doing because it could have been repressed by religious figures or You know, they meant to hide it from people. You know, a lot of spiritual doctrines were were hidden. The word mystery comes from, you know, these schools that were teaching hidden spiritual Mystery Schools were schools that were teaching hidden spiritual realities and techniques and processes and things like that. And these Mystery Schools existed, there are Mystery Schools today, but not like there were, you know, 1000s of years ago, the eleusinian mysteries, for example, in Greece lasted, it was a place you could go and take psychoactive chemicals in communion with the gods lasted for well over 1000 years. And you know, 10s of 1000s, you know, huge complex and 10s of 1000s of people a year would go through whatever it is we went through, but we don't know a lot of it because it was a mystery. But we do know that they drank this beer. I think it was called Chi con and it was basically psychoactive beer it had ergot in it, which is today, what we know as LSD same kind of chemical you know, LSD comes from Oregon, which is a parasitic fungus that lives on certain types of grain. And it is hallucinogenic. And people were probably using psychoactive stuff to basically do shamanic work right to basically do these journeys and visit the afterlife and you know, commune with the gods and goddesses and people who have written about going through these processes. Talk about them is life changing and entheogenic right, embodying embodying the gods so so these you know, these processes these alchemical processes are spiritual and meant to develop the spirit in ways that

you know, the afterlife might be a little bit might be a little bit different, you might have some control over how you reincarnate or you might go on to a place a plane, an existence where you are, you know, more angelic so to speak, although I think angels are actually different species of spirit, but you know, where you have more abilities to help out mankind you have more knowledge, you have evolved more through spiritual knowledge. And I think honestly, that's what most immortality practices that were genuine were about, not about making the physical body immortal, although certainly you know, if you talk about Taoism from China, you know, the some of the practices were very health inducing, right, so they, you know, there are chicoine which are the energy practices, you might be familiar with Tai Chi and you know, the, you know, lots of other practices, energy work that are meant to meant to heal the body and meant to keep the body healthy. And that stuff, you know, that stuff works really well. I've seen, you know, I used to live in Boston. And sometimes I would walk through the park in the morning, through the, you know, through the common which is the, you know, a pretty big park in the middle of Boston. On my way to work. I worked in downtown Boston, and I would see people from the Chinatown community older like really old like maybe 80s 90 year old people from the Chinatown community Chinese elders out in the park exercising and these people were limber energetic, flexible. Healthy you know, I'd see you know, an 80 or 90 year old man like doing pull ups from a tree or you know, using playground equipment or older woman like pick up a stick and doing these acrobatic sword forms with it that sort of thing. Sir, the you know, these are these exercise practices. You know, were meant to keep the body young and healthy. And they should do I mean, gosh, I mean, there's, you know, that proof positive there, but there's plenty of research about Chee Gong and Tai Chi and meditation and all these things about the health giving benefits, but do people physically live forever? And my answer to that is like my answer. To a lot of things, I have not personally ever met somebody who has lived longer than say, the oldest person I've, the oldest person I know is my grandmother who just turned 105. And that's pretty darn old. And I cannot remember meaning somebody older than that. So are there people who have been alive for 200 400 years? And are they people? Are they physical? People? I have not experienced that. Is it a possibility? Or probability? So in an infinite and expanding universe, anything is technically possible? Could there be physical human beings, people in bodies who have lived for hundreds of years? Maybe I just I haven't experienced it. So I'm not going to believe it or disbelieve it at this point. That's what we call healthy skepticism. Right? Until, until there is some at least secondhand knowledge, not just stories or myths or what have you. You know, I'm, I'm not going to buy into that now. Or not that I don't buy into it, it's I'm just going to reserve my judgment about whether I buy into that. Um, there are, there are lots of stories in different systems of belief about immortal beings.

You know, that are gods and goddesses or specially enlightened beings, or what have you, taking physical form. And, you know, My take is that there, you know, the spirit, your spirit is immortal. And these are, you know, if people have encountered these beings, they're probably spiritual, and they may be powerful enough to affect physical reality. Because, you know, I know for a fact that sometimes even just normal human spirits can, can appear physically. I have seen it, I have witnessed spirits, I have met many, many people. If you don't believe in ghosts, that's fine. You haven't experienced one. And the way that I and many people have I have had chilling experiences with spirits. And I know many, many people with a chilling experience with deceased human beings. Witnessing firsthand seeing with physical eyes. So sometimes that can happen. So if you have somebody who is really, really developed again, they've developed this spiritual immortality, this level where they can affect physical reality from a purely spiritual plane. I believe that that's possible. And it's something Yeah, it's something I believe is possible. I haven't. Have I witnessed that, you know, again, I've witnessed some paranormal stuff. I have witnessed some non human spiritual entities that I have seen with my physical eyes that other people I was with saw with their physical eyes. And these could not be humans or projections, or what have you of any kind. And we were not on drugs, I promise you that. But there were a lot of us who saw, you know, been out in the desert and seen huge beings. Where the aliens were they gods were they spiritual creatures? I, you know, I don't know. I think they were spiritual creatures. And I've participated in some Native American ceremonies where there have been spirits present that other people have seen physically as well. So they're, you know, these things are real to me, but I don't think human physical bodies are designed to live forever and can be coaxed with current, technical or spiritual know how into living forever. Very long time. Yes, my grandmother's 105. And who knows how long she will keep going. Maybe she'll be 130. Who knows. But people are living longer and longer. Technology is approaching places where we're understanding we're unlocking a lot of things. Now there are animals on earth that live a very long time. There are sharks and turtles, for example that are hundreds of years old. There are other types of have animals that don't appear to have physical death built into their systems, the way that humans do. The other part of immortality is, you know, if humans could say easily become physically immortal, with the way that we reproduce and use up resources of this planet, we would very quickly have run into an ecological disaster that could have made this a very unpleasant place to live. Imagine being immortal, in a place where you are, you know, you were you lived forever, but you were sick all the time, because the air was so polluted, or there wasn't enough food or there, you know, the water was polluted or there were massive wars over food and resources. You know, because we have seen that in the history of mankind, where there has been where there have been, you know, fights over resources and and, you know, genocides have taken place, you know, wars, all kinds of stuff. So, you know, if it is possible for physical immortality, maybe it's not such a great idea. And again, a lot of the drive towards that is a fear of death.

What I will say is that, you know, being, you know, dying to chew early, like because you live in unhealthy life or an accident happens is a bit tragic, because, you know, you've got more to accomplish here, right? And so the, the healthier you can be, and the longer you can extend your life. As long as you are evolving spiritually and learning the lessons you're supposed to learn. That's probably a good thing. So this has been a very long and 10 gentle, tangent filled conversation while one way conversation talk about death, dying, immortality, the cycles of life. I hope this has been interesting to you. I don't want to run too long. On this episode, I will tackle things like reincarnation and immortality in more depth in future podcasts. If there's something you would like for me to talk about from a shamanic perspective, or a guest you'd like me to try to talk to, I would like to have some more guests. please reach out on my website. The details of that are in the closing. Have you know the the outro of this episode. I love you all. I hope you're staying healthy and well. And I hope this has been useful and given you some things to think about.

Announcer 1:03:43

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john, go to MaineShaman.com that's ma i n e s ah am a n.com