My acquaintance with the return of the soul happened quite unexpectedly. Many years ago, when I was in Inari, in Finnish Lapland, a Sami woman asked me, “My soul has been stolen. Can you return it to me?"
By this time, I was already working with a loss of strength, but so far I have not received the task of finding a soul either from people or from my spirit assistants. And although shamans have been doing this work since the beginning of time, it was the first time for me.
What is Soul?
We are all born with the strength we need to live. Some of this power is in the form of a soul. And although we all hear about the concept of "soul" since childhood, many people do not know what a soul is, and even doubt its very existence. I think of the soul as our life spark, our essence, life energy.
From the point of view of animism, everything that exists has a soul and is alive by definition. The shaman knows this very well and, having changed the state of his consciousness, is able to come into contact with the essential part of the force, with the soul. Communicating with spirits, a shaman can learn a lot, as well as receive help from spirits in the very process of learning.
Most indigenous peoples believe that both animals and humans have at least two souls. One of these is the “fixed soul,” the soul that belongs to the physical body and takes care of the normal functioning of the body, such as growth, breathing, digestion, circulation, and all other natural bodily processes.
The second soul is often called a "free soul" or spirit, it has feelings and emotions, it leaves the body at night during dreams or during a shamanic journey. Some nationalities believe that each part of the body has its own soul, and the Evenki, whose language gave us the very word "shaman", believe that a person has seven souls, each of which has its own function.
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What is soul loss?
Soul loss is when part of this life force, part of our essence, a free soul leaves our body, depriving us of much of our strength and energy. Soul loss can be seen as a natural defense mechanism for survival.
It is known that many wild animals, such as foxes and wolves, are able to gnaw off their paws to get out of the trap. The human psyche does the same. If life is too hard, then the part of the soul that is most affected in this situation leaves us.
The main part of the body survives, while the lost part of the soul flies farther and farther. If we're lucky, she'll be back soon, if not, we may never meet again. This is soul loss.
How does soul loss happen?
In my experience with people, most of the time, soul loss is due to the fact that we ourselves give it away. As already mentioned, we are all born with enough strength and energy that we need to live, but different things happen in the process of education and socialization.
We are taught how to "fit" into the box, and our teachers, be they our parents and relatives or school teachers, or peers, or even pets, they all teach us how the world works. They teach us the way they themselves see and understand its structure.
Some are really good teachers and consider, as much as possible, who we already are. Others simply try to control and shape us according to their own desires. At a very early age, we understand that if we react to our environment in a certain way, then most likely we will get certain results, both positive and negative.
In many cases, this all leads to healthy developmental patterns and interpersonal interactions, as long as the people who are raising us are well balanced and mindful. However, in other cases, the desire to please can lead to the fact that we begin to lie to ourselves.
In early childhood, many children give their power to parents who have forgotten or never heard the words of Kalil Gibran: "Your children are not your children." If the parents themselves are not very well balanced, or if they have their own deep problems, then the young child has to find balance in the home himself.
Sometimes this is simply not possible, sometimes in order to meet the expectations of others, as we understand them, we cannot remain ourselves. In such conditions, the part of the soul that we ignore or suppress leaves. Soul loss occurs.
In school, for example, the desire to be accepted by our peers makes us sometimes do things that are unnatural to our nature. The desire to be accepted often turns into fear of rejection. Later in life, in order to keep a lover or friend, we ignore ourselves and our feelings in an attempt to maintain the relationship.
After all, we know from childhood that by remaining honest with ourselves, we risk losing our relationship. We suffer in silence, thus pouring water on our own fire. What then happens to our fire and heat? This is also a loss of soul.
I once worked with a woman whose father died when she was still a little girl. Such a situation in itself often leads to the loss of the soul, but in this case the problem was compounded by the fact that the mother's grief turned into alcoholism. The daughter, trying to somehow restore security in the family, tried to take the place of her father.
And although her heart was broken with grief, she never expressed it for fear that her mother would not stand it, break down and then take away those little crumbs of the family structure that still remained. As she grew up, she continued to help other people in her usual way, ignoring her own needs. Modern psychologists call this co-dependent behavior. The shaman calls it soul loss.
Farewell to the soul
Soul loss often occurs in a desperate attempt to maintain contact with someone who is leaving or has already left, such as when a loved one dies. There are stories when people threw themselves into open graves at the funerals of loved ones, crying that they too wanted to leave.
And this often happened: a part of their soul left with the deceased. This is exactly what happened to one woman I worked with. When she was still a teenager, she put her photo in her late father's jacket pocket as he lay in his coffin at the funeral, wanting to always be with him.
We all experienced the sadness of parting with our loved ones, knowing that maybe we would not be destined to see each other again. And trying to ease the pain, we say, "A part of me will always be with you." And we are serious about this. We give our loved ones a part of our soul.
But the sad part of the story is that our loved ones cannot use the soul that was given to them. On the contrary, it can add pain or even lead to illness. And we have less strength left to survive the pain of parting, as well as many other situations that await us in the future.
And while heart implants work, soul implants don't exist. A much wiser and more loving way to part is to give back the parts of your soul that you could have taken from each other. Thus, when we say goodbye to another, we say hello to ourselves.
Traumatic soul loss
Soul loss can also occur due to traumatic experiences, such as accidents (both as a victim and as a bystander), surgery, situations of physical or emotional abuse, incest, and extreme pain. Domestic violence is often the cause of soul loss, as well as prolonged periods of intense anxiety.
Many people have out-of-body experiences, especially during traumatic experiences. Details come back to mind when the soul returns. If the soul has not returned, then there are no memories of pain, there is only a vague feeling that something happened, if at all there are any memories.
While many of the actions of one person can lead to the loss of the soul of another, deliberate soul theft is rare, albeit possible. These kinds of actions are usually performed by people whose souls are so destroyed and torn apart that the only way they know to receive energy is to take it from others. Such people often die at a young age, however, before that they manage to cause a lot of harm to others.
Military events
War is perhaps the most common cause of soul loss on a global scale. Everyone loses in war. Civilians caught in the crossfire, their families and loved ones, not to mention the soldiers themselves and their loved ones.
Even the soldiers who returned home "with victory" have serious problems in adapting to social life. They often try to fill the void in the soul with alcohol and drugs, sometimes they return to aggressive behavior again due to constant dissatisfaction and frustration.
The Navajo Indians have a special ceremony, the Path of the Enemy, for returning warriors. This ceremony is designed to cleanse the warrior from his military experience and reunite his spirit with his body so that he can restore balance and return to his place in the community.
There are other reasons as well. There are many common phrases that describe situations of soul loss, for example, the death of a loved one (“When my husband died, part of me died with him”), an accident (“I was scared to death”), a failed project (“I put my soul into this work”), physical or psychological abuse (“My spirit was broken”), divorce or the end of an important relationship (“She stole my soul”).
Even a violent quarrel can lead to loss of soul (“I lost my temper with anger”). In fact, life in modern society in overcrowded cities with incompetent politicians and indifferent bureaucrats, insane technology and global pollution is overflowing with opportunities for soul loss.
Survival and adaptation
Why does soul loss occur? As Sandra Ingerman writes in her book The Return of the Soul, soul loss usually occurs as a result of trying to survive or somehow adapt to the situation. Each of us has limits to what we can endure. But what happens when we reach our limits, when we have nowhere to retreat? It's time to act. But sometimes it just isn't possible to act in the right way. Sometimes there is no strength for this.
“If I try to do something, he will leave me. And then what will happen to me? " Or: “If I say anything, I’ll be fired! And then what?" In situations like this, the part of the soul that reacts the most knows it's time to find a safer place. And she leaves in order to survive on her own and to allow the body as a whole to survive.
A great example of this happened in my own life when I was drafted into the army in 1964. I tried my best to avoid being drafted into the army for two years, but in the end I gave up. To my surprise, I adapted to the army relatively easily. Twenty years later, when my soul returned to me, I understood why.
The day I became a soldier, I lost an important part of my soul, the part that could not survive in uniform. For twenty years I have not had this part of my soul, but I could use its energy.
Soul loss symptoms
The most extreme and dramatic manifestation of soul loss is coma. In other cases, the symptoms may be less obvious. Loss of contact with one's environment is often among the first symptoms. Then there is a feeling of loss of contact with oneself, with one's own body, a feeling of emptiness, numbness or the absence of any sensations when life passes by, like a movie in which someone else is filmed.
Usually, when people come to me for the first time, they express this phenomenon quite clearly: “I don’t know what the matter is, but I cannot feel myself, feel as if I have no connection with myself”. And if so, then the matter is quite serious, tk. this means a loss of connection with their inner resources, hopes, dreams, values, moral and ethical principles, loss of self-confidence.
It is often difficult for people who have lost their souls to be honest with themselves; they blame others where the solution to the issue depends entirely on their actions. Wandering in the clouds, being disconnected from the earth is often an indicator of soul loss.
Memory loss is another important symptom. Once a woman told me: "The only thing that I remember from the last two years of my marriage is the signing of divorce papers." Repetitive negative behavioral patterns, such as entering into relationships with the same type of partner with destructive consequences, often indicate a serious loss of soul.
People with a lost soul are often attracted to strong and powerful people. They hope that they can get a small piece of alien power and fill the voids, instead of looking for ways to reunite with their own power.
Also, a normal reaction to the loss of a large part of the soul for many is to try to take the soul from someone else. This often happens in the form of a series of falls in love, trying to find a new life, or at least new energy, to continue the old life. Failure to find joy in life is one of the major indicators of soul loss.
People who constantly find reasons not to do what they want, whose path is always blocked, who feel fear instead of love, as a rule, suffer from soul loss. Lost souls are often looking for substitutes in life. Careers, drugs, internet, sex, role-playing, alcohol and other addictions are often used in an attempt to fill the void left by the soul's departure.
Constantly trying to find a quick solution or get away from a problem is another indicator, as well as the exact opposite - apathy. We all know perfectly well that such behavior rarely really solves anything, and, usually, only worsens the situation.
Shamanic soul return
And although all the described symptoms sound like a normal work situation for a modern psychologist or psychotherapist, shamans have worked with similar cases for many generations and are gradually returning to these tasks in our society. However, the way a shaman works is very different from that of a modern therapist. The shaman does not attempt to use his knowledge, skill, ability, or power to help the client.
The shaman relies on his spirits as assistants and guides in order to receive power (energy) from the spirit world and reunite it with the spiritual power (energy) of the client himself, to return it back to the body. This means that the shaman must know the paths in the land of the spirits and have a well-established working relationship with the spirit helpers. This requires experience and trust.
After the shaman has made contact with his spirit helpers, he tells them about his mission and then follows their instructions. In the end, if all goes well, the shaman finds the lost soul piece and brings it back. Thus, the soul returns home.
This may all sound too simple, but it is not, and there are various complications and pitfalls. One of the most important things for a shaman is to always follow the instructions of his helper spirits. A classic case of a soul return that failed due to a violation of instructions is the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Interestingly enough, a completely identical history was well known in various American Indian tribes even before the arrival of European culture.
Sometimes travel events can be strange and confusing for the shaman. I once did a soul return for a friend of mine in Denmark. He complained of a significant loss of childhood memories. Everything he knew about this period of his life was told by other people. On a journey for him, my perfume led me to a burning house. They took me to a room where there was a little boy trapped in a fire.
When we finally got him out, he obviously wanted to show us something. And we followed him to the top of a mound nearby. And then my spirits said that I should bring this child-soul back home, my friend. I did so, although I didn't really understand what was happening.
When I explained what had happened, my friend was shocked. “When I was little, I didn't really like being in the house. I had a favorite place where I used to play and it was a Stone Age mound that was on my father's land. I always ran there. And when I was six, my mother accidentally set the house on fire.
I was saved at the very last moment. After the return of his soul, he went to hang the house of his childhood. Strangers lived there, but he needed a mound, and standing on it, he felt whole, well and confidently standing on the ground. And from that moment he began to remember.
Several years ago, a woman who was at my introductory seminar asked me to go on a journey for her soul. I agreed, when she came to the meeting, we had a long conversation. It turned out that although she had long been an adult woman, she still had a difficult relationship with her mother, and she was sure that her mother took part of her soul.
When I went on a journey into the spirit world, I was sent to a place sometimes called the Void, which can be described as a black hole in the universe of the spirit world. I found a soul there, floating in this black hole in a dreamlike state. Together with the spirit helpers, we brought her to consciousness. She seemed young, in her twenties, and it seemed she was happy with the place where she was and did not want to return at all. “No one here can hurt me,” she said.
In a conversation with my spirits, I realized that my client fell in love and quickly got married at a very young age in order to escape from home, but got out of the fire and into the fire, and her savior very quickly imprisoned her in a new prison. To survive, an important part of her soul was gone. In the end, I managed to convince the young soul to return to its no longer so young body.
My client was very surprised when I told her what had happened. “How could you find out about this? Yes, it was awful, but I thought I had dealt with all this long ago. It really changed my life. Since then, I have never had a long-term relationship, and I always blamed my mother and her 'annoying' for it."
My spirits helpers told me that she should return two more parts of her soul, which we did within a year. It turned out that her mother really had a part of her soul, and she herself had a part of her mother's soul. The last part I found in another reality of the middle world on the street where she lived, she was looking for her home.
There were several lessons for me here. The first one was that you do not always find exactly what you are looking for, and sometimes something else altogether. Often people come and ask for a particular part of the soul to be returned. Returning the soul is not a commissioned job. Spirits decide.
Sometimes I felt that the person who came to me really needed the return of the soul, but my teachers in the spirit world made me understand that it was not time yet, that first I needed to do other work. Another lesson was that sometimes the one who comes for the return of his soul carries with him parts of the soul of other people.
This is useless baggage to be returned to its true owners! Finally, people who have received healing, be it soul return or other successful spiritual work, often begin to lead more conscious lives. And as a result, their spirit begins to "call home" the still missing parts of the soul.
Request for help
When people hear about the return of the soul, for many it immediately resonates inside. And almost always the question arises: "Can I do it myself (a)?" I think this attitude reflects one of the main diseases of our time: the illusion that we exist in a vacuum, independent of other people, the world and the universe.
It is this attitude that leads to the fact that rare forests are cut down for profit, without even thinking about the environmental consequences. The shaman works by asking for help. A person suffering from soul loss should also ask for help.
Spontaneous soul return, such as in a dream or on a shamanic journey, is possible, but in most cases it is quite difficult to intentionally return a soul on your own. Perhaps because the so-called ego readily intervenes and gets in the way.
One client came to me complaining of fears and unnatural timidity. She was sure that she had lost a piece of her soul in a recent car accident. She made a shamanic journey to the crash site and saw herself in snatches, but contact was impossible.
When I went to this place, I found her sitting in a tree, into which her car crashed, she was sitting on a branch and swinging her legs. The soul complained to me that her mistress was reckless, that she was in the habit of taking unnecessary risks, and refused to return. Nevertheless, by promising on behalf of the client that the situation would change, I was able to persuade the soul to return.
Caring for the returned soul
The most amazing aspect of soul return is how powerful it works. In most cases, the returned soul brings with it the energy of the situation that caused it to leave, and this energy must be accepted. This means that the client will have to deal with the questions and problems of the initial situation after the return of the soul, and this needs to be communicated to people before the actual work is done.
For the same reason, it is necessary to find out if the person seeking help has a support system, be it friends, family, or a therapist. If there is no such support system, then it may be better to apply some other form of treatment.
Once I returned my soul to a client of a psychotherapist friend. This woman and her sister were victims of incest for six years, from eight to fourteen. In the end, she told her mother everything. The case went to trial, and the stepfather was found guilty.
Both the therapist and the woman herself felt that they were stuck in their work and that they needed to go deeper. The therapist suggested shamanic soul return. I managed to recover the eight-year-old soul of this woman, which her stepfather had held, a vital innocent part of herself that she had lost during his first invasion.
Later, the therapist told me: “It felt like we had to start from the very beginning. And although she had talked about it thousands of times, the depth of living it all over again with the realization of an eight-year-old was at times more than excruciating. It was hard, but worth it, and the work went much faster thanks to the returned strength of the eight-year-old.”
Fortunately, most people who come to me do not have such horrible stories, but every time I am amazed that people can take it. Unfortunately, the cost of such survival is soul loss, and survival is very different from a fulfilling life. To live a full life, we must be whole, our soul needs all its parts.
In order for the returned soul parts to remain, it is important that they are welcome and that the issues that arise as a result of their return are addressed in a positive way. It’s great if a person whose soul has returned can go on a shamanic journey in order to get to know her better. If this is not possible, then a shamanistic practitioner or therapist with knowledge of shamanism can help with integration.
In my own case, after the return of my soul, I began to dream of war again. For almost a decade after returning from Vietnam, I often woke up with nightmares associated with my military experience. I could not then cope with these dreams, and, finally, I stopped dreaming of them.
But after the return of my soul, they returned, and soon events that I had not thought about for a long time began to surface in my memory. This time, the difference was that with the help of my wife and the returned part of my soul, I was able to look at these dreams and, twenty years later, understand the lessons they were trying to tell me about.
The series of these dreams culminated after eight months (that is how long I was in the war) in a key dream that opened the door to a new chapter in my life.
What does the soul teach?
One of the main things that returning souls teach people is how precious the gift of life is, no matter how difficult this life may be. People understand that they no longer have to settle for surrogates. One woman told me, half in jest, “This is really awful! Now it's much more difficult for me to lie to myself.
I'm afraid she will leave me again if I do it. Many find that the returning soul is not going to put up with the violence to which they were previously accustomed. Suddenly, people have the power to look at their lives realistically and make the changes necessary to enjoy life.
Another important lesson that I have often observed is what I call "a step beyond forgiveness." The realization that what has been causing so much pain, perhaps for years, no longer matters. The most important thing is that people begin to understand what is happening and see how their actions are connected not only with the immediate environment, but also with the entire Universe.
Soul return, for all its power, is not a magic pill. And does not give automatic answers to all problematic questions. Many of the symptoms of soul loss can be symptoms of something else. Perhaps the main idea of shamanic soul return is the task of reuniting people with their spiritual power and thus reuniting them with the power of the universe.
However, do not think that after the return of your soul, there will be no more problems in your life. Just after the return of your soul, you will have the necessary resource in order to cope with everything that arises. Recently, one man told me, a month after the return of my soul: “I feel that I am here for a reason, there is some reason. I don’t know which one, and maybe I’ll never know. But I am no longer running from trying to find out."
Jonathan Horwitz. Translation by Angela Sergeeva