"Healing has always been intimately connected with Spirit. Traditionally, healing fell to the priests/priestesses and/or the shamans who were uniquely positioned to guide the patient back into right relationship with the Divine. In the shamanic world view, all illness and disease are seen as having its root cause in a disrupted or imbalanced relationship with Spirit. In Jungian/Depth psychology we would frame this as the conscious/ego self-being disconnected, disrupted, or out of balance with the Unconscious/Self.
Whether we call it Spirit, or the deep Unconscious, these realms of experience transcend the individual ego and expand into our karmic past and ultimately into timeless eternity, home to both our Soul and Spirit levels of being. We need to be able to traverse and connect with those levels in order to achieve deep healing and to continue to expand into our potential, wholeness, and destiny rather than to continue to cycle in and out of repetitive imbalance with limited growth and diminished capacity for joy.
We are in a time in which we are all being 'called' to heal ourselves and our World, by addressing our own wounds and the wounds inflicted on the Mother Planet Earth that we are intimately dependent on for our sustenance. Therefore, we are all being asked to learn to be our own shaman, to be shaman to others, and to live shamanically in an ecologically sane, sustainable and balanced way."
Those Great words were by the licensed esoteric psychologist and Kabbalistic priestess, Shelly West who I have the pleasure of interviewing in this episode of the Gnostic Warrior Radio Show and Podcast. Shelly is a practicing clinician, educator, and clinical supervisor since 1988. Her post-graduate and continuing education studies focus in the areas of jungian/depth psychotherapy, dreams, astrology, kabbalah, the western mystery traditions, shamanic healing, intuitive and energy medicine practices.
In this podcast, Shelly discusses the use of the Kabbalah in her work as a transpersonal psychotherapist and how she blends it with blend the traditions Astrology with modern Depth Psychology to assist her clients. She explains how Carl Jung's teachings played an important role in her education and how Jung's dream work was incorporated into her own life and practice.
Shelly tells is how the Tree of Life and Jacob's Ladder function as symbolic Maps of the Psyche. We also discuss the main branches of Kabbalistic knowledge, how the Kabbalah can practically assist in everyday life.
Visit Shelly West's website @ EsotericPsychoTherapy.org