The Holy War Against Pop Culture Pagans

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

A trio of pretty, karate trained teens are battling demons around the world. Charmed? No. Worse. Brynne Larson, Tess Scherkenback, and Savannah Scherkenback are evangelical Christian exorcists who have been touring impoverished mining towns in Ukraine armed with nothing but crosses, holy water... and Larson's preacher father. Their efforts at saving these lost souls from the tortures of hell have received mixed reviews... from the director of their documentary.

[Charlet] Duboc said: ‘The way they come across on camera is just the way they were when we turned off the camera, they never stopped the vacant smiling,’ the British film-maker said.

They weren’t horrid, they weren’t unpleasant, they were just a bit creepy. It was a bit like talking to the Stepford Wives, I was like “where are the humans behind this?”’

The girls will be taking their glazed expressions and vapid smiles to the heart of the dragon, which is to say Potterworld, which is to say London. Someone has to protect unwitting entertainment seekers from demonic possession!

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

How to Begin Shamanic Journeying

Shamanic Journeying is not an "out of body experience." When this particular alternate state is achieved the journeyer has "a foot in both worlds." The senses in the physical body and the dreaming body are fully engaged and drawing in the multi-dimensional communication from the invisible world. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores this common misunderstanding along with other misconceptions and expectations that inhibit beginning journeyers. Shamanic journeying is not a mental construct to be understood by the rational mind. Journeying is an embodied practice that requires surrender to the basic discipline. The discipline then frees the mind from ordinary thought allowing the senses, ordinary and extraordinary, to engage with the formless powers and heart felt meaning of the invisible world. The world of the shamanic journey is not here on the surface with the safe and familiar, but requires diving deeper into the realms of dreams, hearts, and the Unknown.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Bertone Out

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Pope Francis is continuing to remake the Church in his image, replacing the divisive Tarcisio Bertone with more of a people person who reportedly shares his preference for frugality.

Pope Francis on Saturday appointed a senior Vatican diplomat as his new Secretary of State, ousting divisive cardinal Tarcisio Bertone as he looks to overhaul the Church's scandal-ridden administration.

His replacement for the "number two" position at the Vatican, Italian cleric Pietro Parolin, is currently the Catholic Church's envoy to Venezuela and has worked on improving ties with communist China.

"The Holy Father has accepted... the resignation of His Eminence Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone," the Vatican said in a widely-expected announcement, adding that the changeover would formally take place on October 15.

There have been rumblings about Bertone for a while. He's been badly tainted by the sheer volume of scandal that has consumed the Vatican.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

The Shaman's Power

Where does the shaman's power come from? In cultures all over the world shamans heal what our medical system can't heal and transform decades of dysfunction through a ritual and ceremony. What is this power and how does the shaman access it? In part this comes from the shaman's cultivation of a strong working relationship with spirit help, explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt. This is common knowledge in our contemporary understanding. But the piece we disregard is the internal action of initiation. The initiated shaman's access to power is not moderated by an immature ego's struggle between a crippling scarcity of self worth and an excess of externally defined self-esteem. Join us this week as we explore how we can change the old ways we understand power and learn to discern our own abuse and misuse of power from right action. We are here now in the transition time from old world into a new world. If we are to pick up the responsibility to make the new world better than before, then we must change.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Encountering Evil with Betsy Bergstrom

How can we acknowledge the existence of evil, work effectively with it and still live our lives from a deep experiential knowing that we are One with All Things? To write a new Story for the People of the New World we must explore new ways and deeper ways to understand evil that leave behind antagonistic dualism. Can we find an understanding that allows us to come from a place of Oneness and work effectively with evil as it presents in our lives and our shamanic healing work. This week shamanic healer, Betsy Bergstrom, joins host, Christina Pratt, to discuss her experiences encountering evil, how she works with it, how she understands it, and how her understanding has changed over the years. Betsy is our next guest for the Society of Shamanic Practitioners sponsored interview series. In this series we explore how contemporary shamans are meeting the challenge of their world where the relations of things are profoundly out of balance. It is the ancient role of the shaman in all cultures to tend the balance of things. How are we meeting this extraordinary need today?

This week's guest:
Betsy Bergstrom

Betsy Bergstrom is a full-time Shamanic Practitioner who has studied with shamans and healers from many cultures. She is a graduate of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies 3-Year Program. She has been trained by a number of indigenous shamans and healers who have encouraged her and shared with her their wonderful teachings. She has worked in various fields of Alternative Healing for nearly 20 years. Her calling is to work in partnership with the Helping Spirits, to help the living and with the dead. She says, "...the feedback from my classes has been that the teaching (of Heart Centered Shamanic Depossession) defused much of the fear that some people felt in approaching the work of clearing and depossession."


Tuesday, August 20, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Art and Living Shamanism with Mark Wagner

"Creativity is a magical and sacred process. The process transforms the artist and the product transforms the world," explains artist Mark Wagner of Hearts and Bones. Mark is an internationally known digital and traditional artist, teacher, and street painter whose work moves so deeply in shamanic realms that it has empowered the covers works like Michael Harner's classic, The Way of the Shaman, and countless Shaman's Drum magazine issues. This week Mark joins host and shaman, Christina Pratt, in this final episode of the WSN series, Art and Shamanism. There isn't a reason in the world to stop making art because it grounds our creativity in our bodies where it can then change the world. It feeds our souls, takes us on a journey, and connects us to the sacred. Join us as we explore the job and the power of art to move the people and in that act to shape a new story for the new world.

This week's guest:
Mark Wagner

Mark Wagner is a digital and traditional artist and teacher. He has worked as a Concept Artist in the film and game industry, creating art through Pixar for the Disney feature film - John Carter, and for fantasy and sci-fi films including Terminator 3 and Hallmark Entertainment's DreamKeeper. He has also worked as Art Director, Production Designer, Creativity Consultant, and Matte Painter.

With a Masters Degree in "Arts and Consciousness," Wagner specializes in visionary art, and has an in-depth understanding in the psychology of visual arts, symbolism, mythology, shamanism, and storytelling. Recent clients include the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History.

Wagner is an internationally known street painter / chalk drawing artist. He created the nonprofit Drawing on Earth, which inspires art and creativity in youth and communities around the world. Their first event set a Guinness World Record for the largest pavement art in the world. Recent clients include Genentech, SpaceX, and CBS Interactive. He lectures at the University of San Francisco (LAZER) and Stanford University. More recently Wagner has worked as a scenic painter and designer at DaVinci Fusion, an events production company in Northern CA.


Tuesday, August 13, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Yoga's Terribly, Horribly, Awfully Negative Year

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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All I could think when I read this was "here we go again." Yet another man in a position of spiritual leadership turns out to have been abusing his power by exploiting women and just generally being a dick.

The guru behind a popular style of yoga currently facing allegations of rape and sexual assault inspired fear in his employees and runs his company "like a cult," a lawyer for a former employee told The Huffington Post Monday.

Carla Minnard, a civil rights attorney, says her client was one of the few to stand up to Bikram Choudhury, the man at the center of the Bikram yoga empire. In return, she says, the company threatened to have her client and her 8-year-old daughter deported.

“There’s a great desire to keep Bikram’s conduct in the dark,” Minnard said. “It shows an inability by anyone to restrain an individual who is a dangerous person.”

Minakshi Jaffa-Bodden, Minnard's client, is a former legal advisor at Bikram’s Yoga College of India, a Los Angeles-based yoga school. Jaffa-Bodden is the sole plaintiff named in an explosive but little-reported June 13 lawsuit against Choudhury, which accuses him of rape and sexual assault of employees and students. The suit additionally claims the yogi promoted a work environment inside his school that was rife with misogyny, homophobia, racism, sexual harassment and threats of violence.

The Flipping Sun

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The sun is getting ready to reverse its polarity, which will put us at the midway point of solar maximum. It has been an unusually quiescent solar maximum, which has gone some way to calming concerns about a potential Carrington Event. Of course it only takes one. A report that we just barely avoided one a couple of weeks ago has been the subject of some dispute. (If this link redirects you, find August 2, 2013)

A little before the one minute mark, there's an image of the Wilcox Solar Observatory at Stanford. I can't help noticing that it strongly resembles a pyramid with a sun at the apex.

DJI Phantom - Wilcox Solar Observatory, Stanford University from Rd on Vimeo.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Sacred Dance: Art and Shamanism

True power can be accessed through the spirit of dance in a freeform atmosphere. Anyone can access his or her power anytime. You don't need to know how to dance to touch the sacred through dance. When we dance we can access the power to reconcile our inner conflicts, transform toxic stress into energy, and reshape the story that defines our path in the world. So why don't we dance? Or why don't we dance with the focus and intention required to enter sacred space and embody the Spirit of Dance? This week host and shaman, Christina Pratt, continues in this third episode of the new Why Shamanism Now series, Art and Shamanism. She explores the many ways sacred dance is used in her shamanic teachings to create personal sovereignty and allow the True Self to manifest your life from the inside out. In the wise words of Gabriel Roth, "Only when you truly inhabit your body can you begin the healing journey... (and) dance from the inside out, not the outside in."

Tuesday, August 6 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Pat Robertson Takes an Odd Break from The Crazy

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Is this whole Christian leaders not judging people becoming a trend? I don't know. Maybe.

The 83-year-old televangelist [Pat Robertson] sat down on Sunday for the "Bring It Online" advice portion of his Christian Broadcasting Network show, "The 700 Club." A viewer named David wrote in asking how he should refer to two transgender females who work in his office and have legally changed their genders. Instead of criticizing the trans individuals, Robertson approached the situation in a seemingly level-headed manner.

"I think there are men who are in a woman's body," he said. "It's very rare. But it's true -- or women that are in men's bodies -- and that they want a sex change. That is a very permanent thing, believe me, when you have certain body parts amputated and when you have shot up with various kinds of hormones. It's a radical procedure. I don't think there's any sin associated with that. I don't condemn somebody for doing that."

. . .

When his co-host said the viewer doesn't know the intentions or medical history of his co-workers, Robertson rebutted, "It's not for you to decide or to judge."

It seems a strange exception to his usual judge, condemn, and blame everybody rule.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Sacred Song: Art and Shamanism with Lauri Shainsky

Sacred sounds resonate with the original blueprint for life and for your life. Sacred song can be a direct path by which the shaman restores your resonance with your original self in your body in the moment, regardless of the stories your mind spins or the fears you believe in. Shamanic sound healing can be offered to others or practiced with the intention of self-healing, but either way you do not need to know how to sing. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, in this second episode of the new WSN series, Art and Shamanism, when our guest is shamanic sound healer and teacher, Lauri Shainsky, PhD. Lauri currently has a thriving practice in shamanic sound healing at Hidden Lake Retreat, outside of Portland Oregon. There she works with individuals and groups to rediscover sacred sound and how we can sing with the song the universe is singing of all life.

This week's guest:
Lauri Shainsky

Lauri currently has a thriving practice in shamanic sound healing at Hidden Lake Retreat, outside of Portland Oregon, which she co-owns and runs with her partner. Lauri has been practicing shamanism since 1998, and shamanic sound healing since 2005. Her primary teachers Jan Engels-Smith, Michael and Sandra Harner, Tom Kenyon, Tom Cowan and Betsy Bergstrom.

Before studying shamanism and sound healing, she was a faculty member in the Center for Science Education and the Graduate School of Education at Portland State University. She founded and was Executive Director of Wolftree, a nonprofit dedicated to science education in the outdoors for young people and she wrote grants and served as a consultant for environmental education non-profit organizations.

She teaches shamanic sound healing for Lightsong School of Shamanic Studies and is on the council for the School, serving as mentor, Associate Teacher and Healer. She is a ceremonial singer and sweat lodge water pourer. She is deeply committed to the Earth and the Earth's animals. Her mission is to serve others and earth through transformative experience with Spirit and Nature.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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