Cave and Cosmos: Shamanic Encounters with Another Reality

When Michael Harner began to read selections from his new book, "Cave and Cosmos" at the most recent Foundation for Shamanic Studies (FSS) Council meeting, I saw spirits surrounding him, supporting him as he read. You can understand why I was excited to read this book - as if waiting for years for it to come out wasn't enough! The spirits were here to celebrate the moment, and to continue to support him in his work. Perhaps seeing those supporting spirits so clearly was just a message for me, this was truly someone embraced by the spirits! Cave and Cosmos was written with everyone in mind, not just experienced practitioners like those of us at that meeting. It offers a generous invitation to all who crack its pages to rediscover the extraordinary spiritual practices shamanism has to offer. Every chapter and paragraph hold nuggets for neophytes as well as experienced practitioners. While its subject is astounding in its breadth and significance, the material always feels comfortably accessible. Of course this book would feel this way, because Michael writes as he teaches, from his humanity. That allows him to take transformative experiences, a deep understanding of cultures and their histories, and communicate the relevant lessons directly to our hearts. Doubters be warned - this book is rife with common sense and grounded wisdom! There is so much to report on in this book for posterities sake - I won't even bother to try. I think reviews like mine are useful to the extent they are honest and personal. So please consider my notes here within my perspective as a student of Michaels and as a faculty member of the FSS. In short when they served the Kool-Aide, I asked for seconds and thirds (this is metaphor of course, we use Sonic Driving). I loved getting more of a feeling of Michaels personal journey into shamanic work. He contextualizes not only the loss of shamanism in the West, but the explosive energy of the 60's that invited it back in (to his life and subsequently the lives of so many of us). For those of us who have sat in circle with Michael, we'll find the other piece to stories we've heard, the puns (if you will) to his notorious jokes. From the mystery of two dimes to almost bumping into Alan Ginsburg while in the Amazon, the personal anecdotes are many and delightful. Its through these personal notes that we really get a tangible sense of the passion that drives Michael. He sees the extraordinary gifts the spirits have to offer us all regardless of culture or ethnicity, and understands them within the potential of our age. His passion for the gifts of the spirits saturates this book. While reading, I came to understand that the work of the FSS and of core shamanism has really just begun. Many of us who have trained with the FSS tend to see its work as complete and encompassing so much of what we need in our modern world. Through Michaels eyes I understood his work to be the ignition point of a cultural transformation, a wildfire, that has yet to fully take off. You can see this in the recorded journeys of various Western students, which are such an integral part of this book. Its so startling to realize that though their experiences, individually are extraordinarily profound, they are only the archival remains of a handful of journeys. Imagine each transformation echoed and reverberating millions of times over. That is our work and that of future, shamanically inspired generations. When you participate in this work, thats one of the things that never gets old, the joy of witnessing the profound experiences of your fellow travelers. I was struck by the strength of each persons voice, the uniqueness and depth of their experience. Through each recorded journey I was called back to sit in circle, I was called to embody more fully my own practice. As a full time parent, bread winner, teacher and shamanic practitioner, I rarely have time to read anything longer than the latest kindergarden class bulletin. The stack of books I absolutely HAVE to read is almost taller than me. Yet I know I will read this book again and again. These stories need to soak into my bones, to feed each cell. I know that each time I read this book, something magical will happen, just like it did this time: my circle will get much bigger. As faculty for the FSS I have the privilege of sitting with teachers from many countries, just as we students often get to train alongside peers from around the world. Yet the circle of people and spirits I'm now connected to has grown exponentially. I am connected across time and space to all those people that fed Michaels work and all of those many thousands of people it has touched. We are reminded of our place in the now, and how it connects us to everything. I will always cherish the memory of Michael standing there, wrapped in spirits as he (with some obvious excitement) read aloud from a small stack of manuscript pages. It was such an honest, tender moment, yet monumentally historical for many of us. May we all be held so lovingly as we work with the spirits.I'll leave you with Michaels invitation from page 218:"Yet these have only been words. Its up to you, the reader, to enter the hidden reality of spirits and encounter the real thing."

I devoured this entire book in a single sitting. Like Harner's previous masterpiece, The Way of the Shaman, Cave and Cosmos is an instant classic. Harner's writing is clear and easy to read, yet immensely intelligent. His knowledge of shamanism and how it is practiced in a variety of cultures around the world is immense.But that's not the best part of the book.The Way of the Shaman offers many accounts of journeys to the Lower World, yet Upper World experiences are nowhere to be found. Cave and Cosmos picks up where Way of the Shaman left off in this regard. And the accounts of Westerner's journeys to the Upper World are... extraordinary. Sure, there are heavenly realms complete with clouds, crystals, and deities, but there's more.It has become fashionable to consider the formless and nondual experiences cultivated by disciplines in the East as more "evolved" or superior to shamanic experiences. Several accounts in Cave and Cosmos indicate that this is incorrect. I will let the accounts speak for themselves here:"I travel away, fast, upwards I go. I am nothing but a speck of consciousness in a vast Universe. Like a particle of stellar dust, I travel through infinity... I sense that perhaps I can stay in the "nothingness" or return to near Earth and assist with the great white rings of light. But no, I must go through an opening in the vastness in which I encounter myself... I enter and, once again, I become Light. Incredible warmth and peacefulness fulfill my senses, my body, and my mind. Now I experience pure joy! I see a Buddha. Earth is the first chakra within Buddha. There are other Buddhas within the first Buddha, just like a babushka doll. The joy and laughter of the Buddha within a thousand Buddhas fills eternity...""I heard flutes, other music, and singing. Light was streaming past. I lost my sense of self-- was dispersed with what seemed to be the Life Force, heard hmmmm, thunder, and more hmmmm...""I began to feel like there was no more "me" in the sense I was accustomed to. How curious this was... I would hear babies crying, people talking, and I felt like I was part of everything. I felt like animals, plants, people, air, dirt, and God. I was everything. I was bubbling in and out of myself, bubbling from within myself out into myself. I felt like a huge ball on top of another ball. I said, "Where am I?" I heard in my mind, "The one mind, the one all..." Then I saw the Great One..."These experiences hit my like a lightning bolt, and this is only a small sample of some of the most mind-blowing experience reports. People have been meditating for years to have experiences like this, and these people had them in half an hour. In fact, an entire chapter is devoted to cosmic union and dismemberment experiences (Buddhist no-self interpreted through shamanic paradigms??), which are considered lofty goals in many spiritual disciplines. Yet it is all in a day's work for a sky shaman.Union with the Beloved (Christ), becoming one with the Universe, the Sufi dissolving in Allah, becoming nothing yet everything, having the entire universe contained in one's being, cosmic dismemberment, psychospiritual death and rebirth, and even meeting with deceased loved ones... it's all here. It's all been done for thousands of years.Cave and Cosmos shows that shamanic practices are just as "sophisticated" as the disciplines of the East.My only criticism of Harner's approach is that it seems to center around inducing light altered states through drumming. Why not cultivate more vivid visions through hypnagogia like Jung? Or induce out-of-body experiences like Robert Monroe? Maybe some lucid dreaming or Tibetan dream yoga would be a worthy addition to core shamanic practice. There's nothing wrong with daydream-like experiences, but I suspect stronger altered states may be more effective. And of course, you don't need psychedelics or weeks of fasting to have stronger experiences. Fred Aardema's Explorations in Consciousness is recommended for those interested in full-blown OBEs.That said, this book has changed my spiritual practice. Up until yesterday I believed that I would have to meditate for years to experience cosmic union or no-self. It's not true! Consciousness isn't "evolving," shamans have been doing it for 50,000 years.Thank you, Michael Harner.

a great book .Michael Harner blazed the trail to the worldwide revival of shaminsm and he was a great shaman himself, a must to have if you are interested in shamanism.I am glad I bought it.

Must read for someone learning to journey

Explications très précises et très claires pour bien se préparer avant de voyager dans le monde du bas ou dans le monde du haut. Le livre est bien pensé, on peut le lire dans l'ordre qui nous convient le mieux. Pour ma part, je n'ai lu les témoignages qu'après avoir voyager moi-même afin de ne pas être influencée. Je l'ai nettement préféré à "La voie du chamane" qui traite du monde du bas.

Harner provides a study of interest to both the anthropologist and the theologian. The development of initiatory rites has a profound reflection upon the development of the human mind. There is sufficient evidence here to suggest a direct link between the adrenal surge which accompanies such initiatory experiences of native Americans with those that suggest a death and rebirth in the Khemetic mysteries. Read this in conjunction with the work of Leary, Hancock and of Strassman on DMT and the potential for a link between such experience and the surge of DMT in the mind to alter consciousness is tangible.Harner's style is informative and entertaining. A great work and significant too.

Western society with it emphasis on materialism has all but lost its connection with spirit. Our planetary home is no longer regarded as sacred, merely a resource to be exploited. Modern humanity needs to rediscover the lost wisdom of its past and integrate that with the genuine advances we have made. Michael has made the wisdom and practices of indigenous people once again available to twenty first century westerners. Well done, a great and enthralling read.