Shamanica Institute

11/24/2025

Exiting the Labyrinth of the Mind

The Labyrinth is one of the most important archetypes of inner transformation and it perfectly mirrors the structure of the mind we are trying to exit. This week we explore how different traditions understand the Labyrinth, and how each one provides tools for finding the way out.

The Psychological Labyrinth
- From a psychological perspective, the Labyrinth is the mind: a place of looping thoughts, emotional patterns, attachment wounds, and shadow dynamics.
- The corridors represent unconscious patterns we keep wandering through.
- The Minotaur symbolizes the parts of ourselves we fear: rage, abandonment, inadequacy.
- Ariadne’s thread becomes the tools of healing: therapy, memory reconsolidation, somatic awareness.

To exit the Labyrinth is not to bypass it, but to navigate it consciously, confront its traps, reclaim our inner resources and emerge with an integrated self.

The Shamanic Labyrinth
- In shamanism, the Labyrinth becomes an experiential realm encountered in altered states.
- Initiation often begins with getting lost: confusion, symbolic death, ego fragmentation.
- The Minotaur becomes a spirit guardian — an ally, not the enemy.
- Ariadne’s thread appears as: icaros, ancestral spirits, plant teachers, rituals.
- The center of the Labyrinth is where the shaman retrieves lost soul parts, releases intrusive energies, and restores balance.

For the shaman, exiting the Labyrinth means returning to the community with clarity, power, and medicine.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1147426513789249/

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11/17/2025

In this meetup we will explore how shamanic traditions understand the ego through the lens of Karl Popper’s Three Worlds model.

Instead of treating the ego as something to eliminate, shamanic systems approach it as a dynamic structure that can fragment, inflate, dissolve, or align — depending on the relationship between matter (World 1), experience (World 2), and symbolic knowledge (World 3).

This presentation is an invitation to see the ego as shamanism sees it: a fluid bridge between visible reality, inner consciousness, and the mythic frameworks that shape healing and evolution.

We will explore four major shamanic ego models, each across the three worlds.
1. The Fragmented Self (Soul Loss)
2. The Inflated Self (Ego Expansion)
3. The Hollow Bone (Ego Transparency)
4. The Balanced Self (Integrated Ego)

Popper’s framework reveals how symbolic teachings (World 3), inner experience (World 2), and ritual technologies (World 1) work together to reshape the ego — not by eliminating it, but by transforming its structure and function.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2024152888380964/

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11/07/2025

This week we will discuss a few concepts that are important to understand in our spiritual journey. We will do so from the Hermetic, Gnostic or Psychological perspective and also from the Shamanic standpoint.

We will go over Karl Popper's three-world structure to describe different levels of reality:
World 1- The Physical World - consists of material objects and physical phenomena.
World 2 - The Psychological World - represents subjective experiences, thoughts, emotions, and includes feelings, perceptions, and inner mental states.
World 3 - The World of Objective Knowledge - value systems, moral systems, ethical theories, and philosophical concepts that become part of the collective knowledge, evolving across cultures and time. This world includes all human systems of knowledge, values, meanings, and cosmologies that exist independently of any single person’s mind once they are articulated.

Further, we will discuss this framework from the shamanic perspective.
World 3 in a shamanic frame becomes the Living Library of Spirit — the realm where all human knowledge, myths, and archetypes dwell as beings or energetic forms.

The shaman, through altered states of consciousness (World 2) and embodied ritual (World 1), enters the World 3 field — not to think knowledge, but to meet it.

Popper saw World 3 as objective but non-living — a realm of ideas and structures. In shamanism, however, this world is alive.
The entities of World 3 — ideas, symbols, archetypes — are ensouled. They appear as gods, spirits, ancestors, or animals carrying wisdom. Each mythic form is a living vessel of meaning.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1343514090587712/

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11/03/2025

This week we will explore how to recognize when spiritual guidance is truly aligned with growth, truth, and love.

As we open to intuition, synchronicity, and expanded states of consciousness, we step into subtle realms where our awareness connects with transpersonal energies — archetypes, guides, and influences that move through us. In these moments, we are not just receiving insights; we are also channeling and expressing these forces into the world.

But in that same spiritual ecosystem, alongside benevolent guidance, there are also influences that can mislead, confuse, or drain our energy. So the essential question becomes:
How do we discern who or what we are truly listening to?

We will explore The Five Signs of Alignment — practical indicators that guidance is coming from a source that supports your highest wellbeing:
-The Fruit Test
Aligned guidance nourishes love, clarity, compassion, and meaningful change. If the “fruit” is confusion, ego inflation, or fear, it’s not aligned.
- Direction of the Will
True guidance supports integrity, healing, and connection. Anything that urges manipulation, egocentric behavior, or self-importance is a red flag.
- The Body as a Truth-Sensor
Real guidance lands as grounding, warmth, and calm presence.
Misaligned influence creates pressure, panic, or dissociation.
- Truth Resonance
True guidance reinforces ethical behavior, discipline and long-term wellbeing, rather than impulsive or ego-driven rewards.
- Community Reflection
Wisdom supports self-reflection and accountability. If a message insists on isolation, it is not of the highest frequency.

True guidance brings coherence, clarity and harmony. False guidance inflates ego, isolates, and brings chaos. Join us as we learn to trust what moves us toward wholeness and recognize what pulls us away from it.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1780295259340489/

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10/27/2025

We will continue last week's discussion about spirit guides and astral beings.

We will explore in detail:
-How spirit guides and hierarchies of beings appear in different spiritual traditions
-The subtle realms of consciousness where these encounters often occur
-The coexistence of benevolent and malevolent forces in spiritual realities
-Discernment, protection, and spiritual hygiene as essential practices on the path

As we open to the mystery of unseen worlds, it is good to remember that the true temple is not above us, but within us.
Every realm we may encounter, from the densest to the most luminous, mirrors a dimension of our own being.
The angels and the daemons, the helpers and the challengers, all serve the same sacred purpose: to awaken consciousness, to refine the soul, and to lead us home to the center of our own heart.

It is through humility, sincerity, and love that we remain oriented toward the Divine. When the heart is peaceful and clear, guidance becomes simple — it's not an explosive revelation, but a quiet knowing that arises from within.
In that stillness, the boundary between the human and the divine dissolves.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1372324257832147/

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10/20/2025

This week we will talk about spirit guides. The phenomenology of spirit guides is cross-cultural - from ancient Sumeria through Judaism, Christianity and Islam there is a hierarchy of angelic beings, some serving functions close to the Divine, and some helping humanity and every creature on Earth and elsewhere in the Cosmos. In Buddhism these are known as Buddhalands, and more recently as part of the Buddhaverse.

In shamanism these transpersonal beings are often referred to as helpers, power animals, spirit guides, guardians, naguals, and so on. They each have differing functions in helping, inspiring, healing or guiding humanity.

In transpersonal psychology, these kinds of encounters are often understood within states of consciousness beyond the ordinary rational ego — moving through psychic, low subtle, high subtle, and causal (formless) levels of awareness.

Yet at all levels of consciousness, duality is present. Alongside angels, guardians, and benevolent guides, there also exist deceptive and darker forces: called demons in Christianity, jinn in Islam, asuras in Hindu and Buddhist cosmology, and tricksters or shadow beings in many shamanic traditions. These forces can influence perception, distort guidance, or test one’s spiritual maturity.

For this reason, authentic spiritual paths emphasize inner purification, grounding, and discernment. When we do not tend to our own shadow and unconscious material, we can become more susceptible to confusion and projection in these subtle realms. But when we are anchored in gratitude, humbleness, and integrity, the luminous guides reveal themselves more clearly, and true guidance can flow.

https://www.facebook.com/events/796032160071513/

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10/19/2025

When the human heart is wide open, it reveals itself as the Divine Heart —vast, pure awareness, creative and loving. And it takes familiar forms as a way of guiding you further within.

When a guide or messenger appears in a dream or vision in angelic or animal form, do not ask whether it is real or symbolic. Ask instead what tone of love or awareness it brings up in your heart. That vibration is its truth.

The image will eventually dissolve into its Source, but the vibration remains—it is the same radiance that is pure Awareness, and that Henry Corbin calls the Angel of your being.

Art: ‘Jacob and the Angel’ by John Van D**e

10/19/2025

10/13/2025

This week we will explore the Collective Unconscious — not as an abstract concept, but as a living field that reveals itself when we begin to look within.

When we begin to witness our own unconscious, we start to touch something greater than our personal story. As we peel the layers of the psyche, the Personal Unconscious opens into the Collective Unconscious — a living web of archetypal forces, symbols, and shared human experience. This field has been known by many names: the Dreamtime, the Akashic field, the noosphere — a realm where the boundaries between self and collective begin to blur.

But accessing this space isn’t without risk. As John C. Lilly noted, “the state you bring in is the state you will meet.” If we enter this field with unintegrated shadow material, we don’t just encounter the collective — we meet our own unconscious amplified through it. Unresolved fear and trauma can distort perception, making the navigation confusing, overwhelming or even destabilizing.

This is why “cleaning up” — shadow work, trauma integration, emotional maturity — must come before “waking up.” Shadow work gives us the inner clarity, stability, integrity and discernment to navigate collective spaces without losing ourselves in them. It’s not about avoiding the depths — It’s about lighting your lantern before stepping into the unknown.

When the personal is integrated, the collective becomes not a labyrinth, but a living library — a field of wisdom we can move through with clarity, integrity, and respect.

https://www.facebook.com/events/785566097585706/

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10/06/2025

We will continue to explore healing through both the Jungian and the Shamanic lens.

In each, symptoms are seen as messages pointing toward what has been forgotten or split off. Healing arises through integration and reconnection — to the Self (Jung) or to Spirit and community (Shamanic). Both approaches invite participation and responsibility from the seeker: the courage to face what was exiled, and the discipline and commitment to embody new insights in daily life.

From a Jungian perspective, healing means bringing unconscious material into consciousness — reclaiming projections, integrating and cleaning the shadow, and living more from the Self than from the ego. This is the movement toward psychological wholeness and individuation.

From a Shamanic perspective, illness is seen as a loss of connection or purpose. Each of us carries a unique role, embedded in our heart and DNA. When life drifts away from this calling, symptoms arise as healthy reactions to unhealthy situations. The imbalance between what we are meant to be and what we think we should be creates disharmony and disease. Through practices of reconnection, cleaning up, soul-retrieval and grounded integration, we restore our original vitality and path.

Both traditions invite us to listen to the quiet voice of the soul and to bring its wisdom into everyday action and service.

https://www.facebook.com/events/771209625723070/

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09/27/2025