JOSE AIID LENA STEVENS 97Exercise #4: The Steps- Relax and close your eyes.
- Choose a wished-for talent or desired condition.
- Commence drumming.
- Imagine cave entrance and meet your guardian
spirit. Make your request. - Journey to recover lost knowledge.
- Return and thank your guide.
- Recall details and reproduce one in your everyday
reality.
Journeying to the past is not only a method of retrieving
lost knowledge, but a way of actually working with history so
that the present turns out differently. In Queta's case, the
villagers were saved because he was able to bring ancient
knowledge to bear on the current crisis. However, as you
shall see in the next story, shamans can also enter into the
past to alter the events there in such a fashion as to shift their
current reactions. They need not feel trapped by a problem
because they can literally intercede into the past to change
the present reality ever so slightly. They call this changing or
erasing personal history.
John Lager was an excellent sales representative. For
three years running, he had been the top water-filter
salesperson in his company. Then his company decided
to send him to a rural area that showed great promise.
His sales plummeted. The problem was dogs. No one but
John himself knew that he had a desperate fear of dogs.
In the city he could screen the homes with dogs, but out
here in the suburbs every house and yard had a dog.
Even with a sure sale, he couldn't bring himself to pass
by that dog at the gate.
John knew he had to get some help with his problem
so he asked for a referral to a local counselor who had a
reputation for handling such fears.
Unbeknownst to John, Fred Crane used shamanic
techniques in his work with phobias. When John asked
him what he could do for him, Fred explained that he
used some unconventional techniques that were very ef-
fective with problems of this sort. Fred outfitted John with