The upper world is the world of spirit guides. Spirit guides are beings that look more
like people and are more familiar to most individuals. It is in the upper world that
people meet their guardian angels. The help from spirit guides tends to be more gen-
eral and philosophical in comparison to the practical help from the lower world.
These worlds are complementary and equal, and neither is superior to the other.
Power animals and spirit guides teach people how to be empowered, improve their
lives, and even heal themselves. One does not have to be a shaman to make contact
with one’s personal power animal and spirit guide. The most traditional method of
accessing this nonordinary reality is the shamanic journey.The Shamanic View of Health and Illness
The ability to maintain good health is a matter of power in the shamanic world
view. If the body is power-filled, it resists the intrusion of external, harmful forces.
No room is available for disease and illness in a power-filled body. Being power-full
is like having a protective force field surrounding the body. Possession of guardian
spirit power is also fundamental to health. From a shamanic point of view, illnesses
usually are intrusions that break the force field of power-fullness. In some ways this
concept is not too different from the biomedical concept of infection. Serious illness
and other misfortunes are usually only possible when people are disspirited, mean-
ing they have lost their power and their guardian spirits. This loss results in an
inability to fight off unwanted intrusions. Illness is viewed as a separation from
one’s power, from one’s guardians, from nature, from community, and from the
Great Spirit. Even Western everyday language reflects this view when people say,
“I’m having a low-energy day,” or “I wasn’t myself last night.”
Severe trauma can result in soul loss, a natural survival mechanism. It is believed
that a part of one’s self or soul goes into hiding to ensure that the individual will
survive the extreme stress. Western psychiatrists refer to this phenomenon as dissoci-
ation. Sometimes people’s souls remain lost until they go through a process of soul
retrieval. Symptoms of soul loss are an inability to focus and concentrate, a lack of
connection to one’s emotions, a feeling of being “spaced out” and not really present,
a feeling of being an observer of life rather than a participant, or chronic depres-
sion. Soul retrieval brings buried memories and emotions back to the surface, much
like the process of psychotherapy.264 ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TOALTERNATIVE MEDICINE