Imagination.

Our developmental definition of the Imagination is that it is some aspect of mind that deals with the unreal or with concepts not present to the senses.

In shamanism, however, the Imagination takes on an incredible new meaning. Here, the imagination is the gateway to the magical worlds between which the shaman travels.

The more I read about shamanic journeying, the more I conclude that this could be my way of visiting the realms of super-reality experienced by mystics, artists, yogis and other ecstatics. Employing the 40,000 year old methods of traveling between the shamanic worlds, I could eliminate the need to use hallucinogens, which frankly have always spooked me.

I could also eliminate practicing meditation for an unknown number of years before possibly reaching a mystical state. As a 21st century Westerner, I simply don't have the time...or the inclination.

So perhaps shamanism is the way to travel. Granted, many shamans throughout history have utilized hallucinogenic or entheogenic plants to assist them into the other worlds, but many more have not.

So I gradually decided that the concept of Core Shamanism as introduced and taught by Michael Harner the past forty years or so seemed to fit best with my background and personality.

On the other hand, maybe shamanism is simply calling me.

Over the past year, I've visited a large number of websites that exist on the Internet about shamanism. I read book after book about and by shamans. Many of these are Western shamans, but include indigenous shamans from cultures as diverse as Hawaiian, African, Toltec, Peruvian, Celtic and Asiatic.

Some of these books were written by students of Michael Harner like Tom Cowan, Sandra Ingerman and others. Books by the latter two are about the practice of shamanic journeying and the primary purpose of shamanism: healing by performing soul retrievals.

This is where my own personal conflicts began to crystallize and where I currently find myself.

I return again to the Imagination.

One of the things I can't recall experiencing as a child is the child's imaginary world; one that is inhabited by special friends and fanciful environments. Yet, I saw it with my oldest child, who spent her first three and a half years as the only child.

One incident stand out. She was reading a children's book to one of her two "invisible" friends in a babble-language that was all "their" own. I decided to audiotape her as she read the book out loud which she invariably did.

Sometime later, I asked her to read the book again, and as I listened to the tape, I was flabbergasted to hear her recite the book exactly as she'd read it earlier on tape in her own babble-language; word-for-word.

While I, too, was the oldest child, I don't recall magical moments like this. Nor was I told of any by my parents. One big difference between my daughter and myself was that my brother was born a mere thirteen months later than me, so that I wasn't the only child for very long.

I've also written about my first memory of how powerful the imagination can be . I've often wondered since then if the trauma of this first meeting made me wary of the potential monster that lived inside my head; one that could create frightening creatures out of nothing...and make them disappear just as fast.

One of my biggest regrets over the years is my general lack of creativity. When I wanted to create art, my paintings and drawings were merely derivative representations of what I saw outside of me, not inside of me. During college, I wrote poetry that I look back fondly upon, but much of that was a product of the loneliness I experienced at that time; a loneliness, I assume, from which I was able to tap into my unused Imagination. Since then, I've written a great deal; journals, political essays, movie and television scripts and now blogs; but like in college, these endeavors have generally come from a place created by emotional turmoil.

It is, in fact, only in the past year that the tenor of my writing has changed from that born of rage and despair to that of hope and the desire to discover the world beyond that which caused my anger.

The more I study shamanism, the more evident it becomes that the gateway to the other shamanic worlds lies with the Imagination. If this is so, then Imagination cannot be about something unreal. It is more than just the wellspring from which the great artists find their muse. Many scientists like Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, Mani Bhaumik and Amit Goswami believe that imagination is the manifestation--or the product--of quantum consciousness, and that it is perhaps just one step away from the ground of being--what many call God...or the Divine.

The whole subject of quantum consciousness is one that I might write about at another time, but the briefest overview of this phenomenon is that the unbelievably paradoxical world of quantum mechanics leads to the view by many that everything we perceive as reality exists only when we get around to observing it, and that before we observe it, it doesn't exist as material reality at all, but only has the potential of being material reality.

If you can get your head around that (unfortunately, this is impossible to do with our 4 dimension-based brains), then you will understand that consciousness becomes integral and primary to all that we experience as human beings.

(This idea leads me to wonder if reality is different for every different species of life. Do dogs view the world differently? How about flies? And what about trees? But those questions, too, are for another time. )

Taking this whole idea a step further along the path, we approach the world of philosophers and mystics who have been telling us for millennia that we create our reality; each of us.

This means that the habits and attitudes and outlook we've developed throughout each of our lives go into creating the next moment...and the next...and the next.

Yet this also means that it is within our grasp to create that next moment of our own reality in a way that's completely different than our past would seem to dictate.

I don't think I've ever read anything on my journey towards Knowledge that doesn't have this simple--yet seemingly nonsensical--idea at its core.

So if Imagination does manifest from quantum consciousness, and if it really is the key to the invisible worlds, then Imagination must be discovered (or rediscovered), encouraged and nurtured.

The books on shamanic journeying I've read all start by telling the journeyer to imagine or visualize a physical entry point to an underground or lower world. This entry point could be a cave, a hole in a tree, a spring or anything else that could represent the idea of leaving this earthly plane and descending to another plane of existence.

The books also relate the experience new journeyers have when they begin. Most successfully make their first journey and are able to visit the world beyond their entry point.

Yet, the (admittedly) few times I've tried this using shamanic drumming tapes to guide me on my journey, I've not met my power animal...or helping spirits. I've barely been able to visualize a cave.

Naturally, I wonder, if this is a result of an atrophied Imagination. Or is it because of my many decades of well-developed cynicism towards anything I've considered to be false, naive or merely tricks employed by charlatans and exploiters of man's many superstitions?

As I read many of the books along my journey, I am constantly weighing the relative truthfulness and sincerity of the writer and occasionally feel that all-too-familiar twinge of cynicism and outright disbelief in what they are saying.

A book I am currently reading, Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversations With Contemporary Shamans by Hillary Webb, is a wonderful book of intelligent, intriguing and inspiring conversations with a number of shamans.

As I read through each discussion, however, I am occasionally overtaken by the thought that what they are saying is so much like all the other New Age claptrap that exists out there.

Yet just below these ideas that make me cringe, I know that there is something that captures the truth and sincerity that I seek. And frankly, this surprises me.

For example, take shaman/brujo Ken Eagle Feather. Here is a man from Brooklyn, New York who followed Carlos Casteneda's controversial--and perhaps fictional--trail to find don Juan, the sorcerer who made Casteneda his student. After reading and enjoying many of Casteneda's book in the 70's, I began to read a number of critical accounts of Casteneda's "journey". These critics maintain that Casteneda manufactured his books from an extensive knowledge of cultural anthropology; which was his area of academic study at UCLA in the 60's.

Yet it seems fairly apparent to me that Ken Eagle Feather did find in Mexico--from don Juan--the Knowledge that Casteneda wrote about. What he spoke of during his conversation with Ms Webb doesn't seem like it could have come from a charlatan or fraud.

Yet, isn't this what so much of this is about: the paradoxes, the unbelievability, the craziness of it all?

Perhaps my first and most important goal, then, is to unblock that sense of wonder we all begin life with, and learn to suspend my automatic disbelief of things spiritual and unscientific.

I think, therefore I am. Yet I imagine and therefore I can become.