The Day I met A Shaman Called Lia

Most of us live our lives thinking, feeling and experiencing what we receive and perceive through our five senses.  If we can see it, hear it, smell it, taste it or touch it, then we perceive that as being our entire reality.  What most of us are not aware of is that there are other realms, or realities that the average man in the street doesn’t, or can’t perceive.  There are some, among us, that have extra sensory perceptions.  Those people can see, hear, feel, smell, and even taste another reality that is beyond the rest of us.

Today I had an amazing experience.  I had the profound privilege of meeting a lovely lady by the name of Lia.  Lia is not a “normal” human being, she is a divine being gifted with the ability to experience a world, or a reality that is beyond the rest of us.  You see, Lia is a Shaman.  A Shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters into a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing.

I first heard about Lia a few months ago through my partner Effie.  Effie is a Reiki practitioner.  She works with energies in an effort to help heal people.  Reiki is a healing technique based on the principle that the therapist can channel energy into the patient by means of touch, to activate the natural healing processes of the patient’s body and restore physical and emotional well-being.  Reiki can also allow the practitioner to align her patients’ Chakras.

In some Indian religions, a chakra (Sanskrit cakra, “wheel”) is thought to be an energy point or node in the subtle body. Chakras are believed to be part of the subtle body, not the physical body, and as such, are the meeting points of the subtle (non-physical) energy channels called nadi. Nadi are believed to be channels in the subtle body through which the life force (prana) (non-physical) or vital energy (non-physical) moves. Various scriptural texts and teachings present a different number of chakras. It’s believed that there are many chakras in the subtle human body, according to the tantric texts, but there are seven chakras that are considered to be the most important ones.  Reiki puts those energies back into alignment and thus it restores health to the body.

Through her practice of Reiki Effie met this lovely lady called Lia.  The girls met and formed a friendship.  A few months after having met, Effie asked Lia if she could do her thing on her, Effie felt that she needed the kind of help that only someone like Lia could give her.  They agreed on a time and Lia performed the ritual on Effie.

At first, the first few days, Effie felt a little strange.  Apparently it is to be expected after the ritual.  Apparently it can take a few days or a couple of weeks for the recipient to feel normal again as the cleansing process can be somewhat daunting, depending on how much cleansing is needed.

I have been feeling a little out-of-sorts lately so I asked Effie to organise a time for me to meet with Lia so that I too can benefit from her special abilities.  Today was that day.  I felt no apprehension as we drove to Lia’s house.  We are in the middle of Spring in Australia at the moment so the weather has been very mild for a few weeks now.  A little warm and sunny.  Today it rained heavily as we made our way to Lia’s house, which is only a half hour drive.

As Lia opened the door I noticed that she looked like an average person.  I don’t know what I was expecting to see, in fact, I didn’t even think about it until that moment.  There she was, an every day looking human being, like many others.  She greeted us with a shy smile and a warm hug as she invited us in to her home.

Again, her home was like any other Australian home.  It looked lived in.  But one thing stood out immediately to us as we entered her home.  There was a statue of an angel at least three feet tall (or one metre).  As we turned the corner, another angel kneeling down.  Again, I was surprised by this.  I don’t know why I was surprised.  I really didn’t know what to expect, nor had I even thought about what to expect.  Lia is a normal, every-day human being living her life.  And yet she isn’t.  She is very special.

Let me start by explaining a little more about what a Shaman is so that you can better understand why I think this lady is so special.  The below I have swiped straight out of Wikipedia for you.

Shamans

Shamanism is a practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with a spirit world and channel these transcendental energies into this world.   A shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters into a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing.

The word “shaman” probably originates from the Tungusic Evenki language of North Asia. The Evenki word is probably ultimately borrowed from Pali from Sanskrit (śramaṇá, “ascetic, monk, devotee”). According to ethnolinguist Juha Janhunen, “the word is attested in all of the Tungusic idioms” such as Negidal, Lamut, Udehe/Orochi, Nanai, Ilcha, Orok, Manchu and Ulcha, and “nothing seems to contradict the assumption that the meaning ‘shaman’ also derives from Proto-Tungusic” and may have roots that extend back in time at least two millennia. 

The term was introduced to the west after Russian forces conquered the shamanistic Khanate of Kazan in 1552. The term “shamanism” was first applied by western anthropologists to the ancient religion of the Turks and Mongols, as well as those of the neighboring Tungusic and Samoyedic-speaking peoples. Upon learning more about religious traditions across the world, some anthropologists began to also use the term to describe unrelated magico-religious practices found within the ethnic religions of other parts of Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas, as they believed these practices to be similar to one another.

Mircea Eliade writes, “A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = ‘technique of religious ecstasy’.” Shamanism encompasses the premise that shamans are intermediaries or messengers between the human world and the spirit worlds. Shamans are said to treat ailments/illness by mending the soul. Alleviating traumas affecting the soul/spirit restores the physical body of the individual to balance and wholeness. The shaman also enters supernatural realms or dimensions to obtain solutions to problems afflicting the community. Shamans may visit other worlds/dimensions to bring guidance to misguided souls and to ameliorate illnesses of the human soul caused by foreign elements. The shaman operates primarily within the spiritual world, which in turn affects the human world. The restoration of balance results in the elimination of the ailment.

Shamanic beliefs and practices have attracted the interest of scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, including anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, religious studies scholars, and psychologists. Hundreds of books and academic papers on the subject have been produced, with a peer-reviewed academic journal being devoted to the study of shamanism. In the 20th century, many westerners involved in the counter-cultural movement have created modern magico-religious practices influenced by their ideas of indigenous religions from across the world, creating what has been termed neoshamanism or the neoshamanic movement, and it has affected the development of many neopagan practices.

Shamans are normally “called” by dreams or signs which require lengthy training. However, shamanic powers may be “inherited”.

Turner and colleagues mention a phenomenon called shamanistic initiatory crisis, a rite of passage for shamans-to-be, commonly involving physical illness and/or psychological crisis. The significant role of initiatory illnesses in the calling of a shaman can be found in the detailed case history of Chuonnasuan, the last master shaman among the Tungus peoples in Northeast China.

The wounded healer is an archetype for a shamanic trail and journey. This process is important to the young shaman. S/he undergoes a type of sickness that pushes her or him to the brink of death. This happens for two reasons:

1. The shaman crosses over to the underworld. This happens so the shaman can venture to its depths to bring back vital information for the sick, and the tribe.
2. The shaman must become sick to understand sickness. When the shaman overcomes his or her own sickness s/he will hold the cure to heal all that suffer. This is the uncanny mark of the wounded healer.

Shamans claim to gain knowledge and the power to heal by entering into the spiritual world or dimension. Most shamans have dreams or visions that convey certain messages. The shaman may have or acquire many spirit guides, who often guide and direct the shaman in his/her travels in the spirit world. These spirit guides are always present within the shaman although others only encounter them when the shaman is in a trance. The spirit guide energizes the shaman, enabling him/her to enter the spiritual dimension. The shaman heals within the spiritual dimension by returning ‘lost’ parts of the human soul from wherever they have gone. The shaman also cleanses excess negative energies which confuse or pollute the soul.

Shamans act as mediators in their culture. The shaman communicates with the spirits on behalf of the community, including the spirits of the deceased. The shaman communicates with both living and dead to alleviate unrest, unsettled issues, and to deliver gifts to the spirits.

Shamans assist in soul retrieval. In shamanism it is believed that part of the human soul is free to leave the body. Because a portion of the soul is free to leave the body it will do so when dreaming, or it will leave the body to protect itself from potentially damaging situations, be they emotional or physical. In situations of trauma the soul piece may not return to the body on its own, and a shaman must intervene and return the soul essence.

There are many variations of shamanism throughout the world, but several common beliefs are shared by all forms of shamanism. Common beliefs identified by Eliade (1972) are the following:

1. Spirits exist and they play important roles both in individual lives and in human society.
2. The shaman can communicate with the spirit world.
3. Spirits can be benevolent or malevolent.
4. The shaman can treat sickness caused by malevolent spirits.
5. The shaman can employ trance inducing techniques to incite visionary ecstasy and go on vision quests.
6. The shaman’s spirit can leave the body to enter the supernatural world to search for answers.
7. The shaman evokes animal images as spirit guides, omens, and message-bearers.
8. The shaman can perform other varied forms of divination, scry, throw bones/runes, and sometimes foretell of future events.

Shamanism is based on the premise that the visible world is pervaded by invisible forces or spirits which affect the lives of the living. Although the causes of disease lie in the spiritual realm, inspired by malicious spirits, both spiritual and physical methods are used to heal. Commonly, a shaman “enters the body” of the patient to confront the spiritual infirmity and heals by banishing the infectious spirit.

Many shamans have expert knowledge of medicinal plants native to their area, and an herbal treatment is often prescribed. In many places shamans learn directly from the plants, harnessing their effects and healing properties, after obtaining permission from the indwelling or patron spirits. In the Peruvian Amazon Basin, shamans and curanderos use medicine songs called icaros to evoke spirits. Before a spirit can be summoned it must teach the shaman its song. The use of totemic items such as rocks with special powers and an animating spirit is common.

Such practices are presumably very ancient. Plato wrote in his Phaedrus that the “first prophecies were the words of an oak”, and that those who lived at that time found it rewarding enough to “listen to an oak or a stone, so long as it was telling the truth”.

Belief in witchcraft and sorcery, known as brujería in Latin America, exists in many societies. Other societies assert all shamans have the power to both cure and kill. Those with shamanic knowledge usually enjoy great power and prestige in the community, but they may also be regarded suspiciously or fearfully as potentially harmful to others.

By engaging in their work, a shaman is exposed to significant personal risk, from the spirit world, from enemy shamans, or from the means employed to alter the shaman’s state of consciousness.

So now that you have a better idea of what a Shaman is, how they come about, and what they can do, you might just begin to understand, or imagine, what an experience it was for me to meet this lovely lady called Lia.

My Experience With Lia

Lia walked us into her special room.  It was a little dark, with soft Indian, or meditative, spiritual, new age kind of music.  It was quite soothing and relaxing.  I won’t go into the details of what she did because I’m not sure if I should or not, so out of respect for Lia, I won’t.

Six months ago I moved into an apartment by the beach and within a couple of weeks in the new apartment I began to feel a lot of body pains.  Not just any pain though, it has been real, excruciating pain on a daily basis.  The peculiar thing is that the pains seem to move around my body.  It was my right knee at first, then my left kidney and spleen, then my lower back, then my shoulders, then my joints, then my left ankle and so on.  There have been days where all these parts have hurt at the same time and for no apparent reason.

I had heard of psychic attacks so I discussed this with Effie and we agreed that perhaps this was the reason for all my pains, after all, I haven’t injured myself in any way.  I had a feeling that perhaps I was tethered to someone that wasn’t a good spirit, and through this “chord” between us, I was receiving their negative thoughts, vibes and energies, which were manifesting in my body as tremendous pain.  I had a few more chats to Effie about this and we agreed that this had to be the reason for my pains.

Take my right knee for instance.  One time the pain was on the inside of the knee, another time it was on the outside of the knee.  There were days where the pain came from above or below the knee and other times, on the bad days, the pain came from behind my knee cap.  This was particularly painful as it felt like a skewer was stabbing my leg through the knee cap and into my knee.

The more I thought about all these pains, the more I was convinced that there was no way that I could possibly be suffering from so many things that were causing me pain in so many different parts of my body.  At some point I felt that the pain was being caused energetically and/or spiritually, and I knew that I had to cut these connections to either other people or malevolent spirits that, for some reason, had attached themselves to me on an energetic or spiritual level.

Lia asked me a whole bunch of questions in order to get an idea of what I wanted and needed.  I told her what I felt, what I thought and what I was experiencing and based on that, she went to work on me.  During the session Lia told me that there was a very dark and very powerful entity attached to me.  She told me that it was very powerful, so it was the first thing to go.  She also confirmed my suspicions that a particular person was also tethered to me and then she proceeded to cut that chord.

There were things that Lia saw that I hadn’t mentioned to her.  Yet she knew and was relating those things back to me as the session progressed.  One by one she removed the obstacles, the connections and the negative energies that were attached to me.  At some point she told me that she saw a group of people that were standing on the side lines as if on standby.  She asked me if I knew about my guides.  I told her that I did and that I had spoken to them and had seen them through meditation.  She told me they were back and were very happy to be able to come in to my energy field as they hadn’t been able to in recent times because of the blockages.  I hadn’t told Lia that I haven’t been able to connect with my guides in a few years, yet she knew and she saw them being happy now.

A few very interesting new revelations came out of this session with Lia.  Apart from telling me about my group of guides, and describing them in the same way that I had seen them in my meditation, she also told me about a female, sword wielding angel that was also part of my “crew”.  She said this angel was very powerful.  Apart from that angel she also saw my other angel, one I am fully aware of, one I call Sasha and she also told me that I have a golden, fire breathing dragon, with orange and red tones on its skin/scales.  This was a very cool thing for me because I love dragons.

Here is the most interesting thing Lia told me about me.  She said that I was not an old soul, but an ancient soul.  She said I was what is called a sky walker and that I came here by crossing over from another dimension.  I found this to be extremely cool as well.  So if I came here from another dimension, what dimension did I come from?  The Pleiades.  There is so much on the internet about the Pleiades so I won’t include it here.

I don’t know much about the Pleiades but from time to time I see people posting messages that apparently come from beings from the Pleiades, which is apparently from where my soul comes.

After my encounter with the lovely Lia, I can’t begin to describe how much better I feel.  Of course my body feels tired and heavy but I’m told this will pass in a few days.  I guess you can’t rip old ties from your energy field without creating some minor pains, which pass soon enough.  For me this is great because I’ve been living with extreme pains for six months now.

I am very happy to know that my “crew” are back, that the blockages have been removed, that I have a beautiful female, sword wielding warrior angel looking after me, as well as my other angel that I call Sasha, AND a golden , fire breathing dragon protecting me.

I suspect my life will now change for the better in the short term future as it did the last time when the Oracle helped me get rid of the band of demons in the spirit world.  But more on that another day.

All rights reserved.  © 2015 Tony Jarrah