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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Ancestors and Descendants: Working with Helping Spirits

Why would I want a working relationship with my ancestors when I can’t stand my own relations? Fair question when so much addiction, depression, social pressure, and sexual dysfunction gets handed down generation to generation. What we fail to understand is that our break with our Ancestral Helping Spirits is in large part why we experience such illness and abuse of power in our family lines. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores how we cultivate a strong working relationship with true ancestral helping spirits, avoid ghosts, use our relationship with our ancestors to mend our feelings of alienation, isolation, and loneliness. As we learn from those who have gone before us we can properly reach to the descendants to learn to ask for more from life and more from our selves.

**This show originally aired on May 23, 2016.**

Tuesday, May 29, 2018 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Esoterica

A controversial study has a new spin on the otherworldliness of the octopus

Octopuses are strange, smart creatures that certainly seem alien—what with the tentacles, camouflage, and shape-shifting skills. Still, the idea that they actually came from outer space would seem to fall strictly into the realm of sci-fi; an update of HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu, say.

But in these interesting times, real life reads like fiction. Recently, a group of 33 scientists worldwide—including molecular immunologist Edward Steele and astrobiologist Chandra Wickramasinghe—published a paper suggesting, in all seriousness, that octopuses may indeed be aliens.

The paper, published in the March issue of the the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, is controversial, obviously, and the vast majority of scientists would disagree. But the paper is still worthy of discussion—for one, as a thought exercise, because outlandish ideas are often initially rejected. And in provoking us with seemingly bizarre theories, it forces us to acknowledge that there are aspects of life on Earth for which classic evolutionary theory as yet has no explanation.

. . .

The transformative genes leading from the consensus ancestral nautilus to the common cuttlefish to squid to the common octopus can’t be found in any pre-existing life form, the authors say.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Working with Helping Spirits in the Age of Entitlement

Direct communication with our helping spirits is one of the greatest gifts in the reintroduction of shamanism into contemporary life. Yet in this age of social media and everyday twitter fights, people have all but lost the art of honorable, sincere, and heart-felt communication. Your helping spirits can’t hear your whining, don’t care how many people are following you, and see dishonor in the entitlement you take for granted. How do we cultivate a strong working relationship with our helping spirits when we don’t even know how to communicate with each other without our Smart phones. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the simplicity of working with our helping spirits, ways to cultivate a strong working relationship with spirit in everyday, “normal” life, and how learning to discern with your helping spirits can restore your trust in the path of your heart.

**This show originally aired on May 17, 2016.**

Tuesday, May 22, 2018 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

What Does Shamanic Practice Look Like?

Contemporary shamanic practice looks different depending on the tradition, cosmology, or beliefs that guide your practice. The variations in authentic shamanic practice are a rich and complex field of good work being done today. At the same time there is a line for most practitioners when their early experimentation and uncertain dabbling became a way of living that they could not back out of. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she responds to multiple questions from listeners about what contemporary shamanic practice can look like. How do we hold space at work or in our unwieldy extended families? How do we practice without community? How do we practice in a community that doesn’t? How do we maintain balance sufficient to practice when contemporary life seems determined to distract, deny, and disillusion? How do we deepen our practice with all the demands on our time to become the practitioners needed by our time?

**This show originally aired on May 10, 2016.**

Tuesday, May 15, 2018 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Esoterica

Did the dystopian ‘Matrix’ movies predict the rise of Trump?

“Welcome to the desert of the real,” Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) ostentatiously tells Neo (Keanu Reeves) in an important scene not quite halfway through “The Matrix,” the groundbreaking 1999 science fiction film written and directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski. (Who were then known, let us note, as Andy and Larry, the “Wachowski Brothers.”) Neo has of course taken the “red pill” and discovered that what he took to be reality is actually a computer simulation, used by a malignant machine intelligence to enslave the human race.

As most fans of the “Matrix” movies surely know, Morpheus’ expression has both a prehistory and a long-tail legacy. My point here, however, is that “The Matrix” and the currents of postmodern theory and dystopian sci-fi that informed it didn’t just predict the future but also seemingly shaped it.

We’re all lost in the desert of the real now. We all believe we took the red pill — but how can we be sure it wasn’t a placebo? Many of us, like the treacherous rebel played by Joe Pantoliano in the movie, long to climb back inside the Matrix, where we can live within the comforting illusions of yesteryear. But there’s no door that leads there, and no there on the other side of the nonexistent door.

That phrase comes from an extended metaphor in Jean Baudrillard’s “Simulacra and Simulation,” an influential (if borderline unreadable) work of critical theory that was partly an inspiration for “The Matrix” and partly just a prop. Neo has a copy on his bookshelf early in the film, or at least he appears to: In a joke Baudrillard may or may not have appreciated, the book has actually been hollowed out and used to conceal a disk of illicit data. For that matter, it only exists inside the Matrix — it’s a fake book in a fake universe.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

The Body Deva with Mary Shutan

Our bodies hold the inherent knowledge of how to heal. We can access this knowledge through the body deva, or the spiritual consciousness of the body. Author, teacher, and healer, Mary Mueller Shutan, joins us this week to share her new book, “The Body Deva,” a healing system that arises from decades of study and practice in healing. Shutan explains, “Spirituality should bring us closer to our bodies, closer to our lives. We should be able to become healthier…and more embodied if we are engaged on a spiritual path. Learning to work with the spiritual consciousness of your body, the body deva, will allow you to do so.”

This week's guest:
Mary Shutan

Mary Mueller Shutan is a Spiritual Healer who focuses on helping others work with their spiritual awakenings, spiritual callings, and psychic abilities. She is a painter and the author of The Spiritual Awakening Guide: Kundalini, Psychic Abilities, and The Conditioned Layers of Reality from Findhorn Press. Her focus in all of her work is on the understanding that the spiritual is part of our daily lives, that we are meant to have emotions as well as physical bodies, and that we can have deep compassion and love for even the darkest aspects of ourselves.

Since she was a child Mary has been highly sensitive and creative, with the ability to see, sense, and interact with the spiritual realms. Over a ten year period she focused a tremendous amount energy into finding out how to work with her sensitivities and abilities. This led her through four years of Chinese Medicine school and certifications in Upledger-style and Biodynamic CranioSacral therapy, Asian Body Therapy, Massage Therapy, Zero Balancing, Reiki and Energy Work, Rootwork, and Meditation. Mary also has intensive education in different forms of bodywork, energy work, folk magic, occult practices, and shamanic/spiritual healing.

Mary is particularly known for her distance healing work. Her focus is on Dark or Middle World work– trauma and emotional release, spiritual clearing and protection, spirit release, past life and ancestral healing. She also teaches individuals who are called to this type of work to become safe, effective, and powerful practitioners.

Mary runs a personal blog (www.maryshutan.com/blog) that covers a variety of thought-provoking spiritual subjects and offers email based programs and individual consultations worldwide to people experiencing Kundalini, Spiritual Awakenings, Psychic Abilities, Shamanic callings, and other spiritual experiences to learn how to understand and navigate their experiences and abilities.

Tuesday, May 8, 2018 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Accessing Your Four Wisdom Bodies

Shamanic skills allow us to engage with the world around us, each other, and ourselves in a nonordinary way that integrates intelligence and intimacy, vision and practicality. Shamanic skills are unique in that to use them is to engage all of our four wisdom bodies: the mind, the heart, the spirit, and the body simultaneously. There are many diverse and powerful modalities to practice and most don't allow you access to all four wisdom bodies, except at the highest levels of mastery. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores not only how we can access all the wisdom available to us, but why it is so important to see ourselves, our world, and our shamanism through something more than our mind's eye. As one of our greatest minds said, "Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them."

**This show originally aired February 2, 2016.**

Tuesday, May 1, 2018 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Esoterica

Yoga's Culture of Sexual Abuse: Nine Women Tell Their Stories

Modern yoga has been fraught with stories of charismatic male yoga teachers who promoted their teachings as spiritually pure and later abused, or otherwise took advantage of, students who believed their mentors were gurus or saints. In 1910, an eccentric American yogi named Pierre Bernard (a.k.a. “The Omnipotent Oom”) was tried for having “inveigled and enticed” one woman into sexual relations—the charges were later dropped, and the incident ultimately brought him infamy. Decades later, in 1983, Swami Muktananda was the subject of an article that chronicled sexual activities he was alleged to have had with young female students; a New Yorker story later reported that at least 100 people believed the allegations to be true but were afraid of being ostracized by the community. That same decade, Yogi Bhajan’s 3HO Foundation, commonly called the “Happy, Healthy, and Holy Organization,” settled several assault lawsuits against its leader, including one case of rape and confinement brought by a woman who entered his circle at age eleven.

In 1991, Swami Satchidananda, who opened Woodstock by leading the crowd in a chant of “Hari Om,” was the focus of protest after allegations of sexual misconduct against female students surfaced; he was never charged and died a decade after the allegations were brought forward. In 1994, “Meditation in Motion” innovator Amrit Desai was removed as spiritual director of the Kripalu Center in western Massachusetts over allegations of abuse of authority and sexual misconduct. That same year, a student sued another prominent yoga guru, Swami Rama, for sexual misconduct; after his death, a jury awarded her almost $2 million, in 1997.

It goes on. In 2012, John Friend, who is a student of both Swami Muktananda and [Krishna Pattabhi] Jois’s main rival, B. K. S. Iyengar, stepped down from his All-American Anusara Yoga brand after allegations surfaced that he had been sleeping with his female students—renewing a conversation within the yoga community about power dynamics and ethical guidelines. In 2016, “hot yoga” pioneer Bikram Choudhury abandoned a fleet of luxury cars and fled his home in California, facing $6.5 million in damages owed in a sexual-harassment lawsuit; a judge later issued a warrant. Separately, Choudhury is facing six lawsuits alleging sexual assault and sexual harassment. (His current whereabouts are unknown, and there is still a warrant out for his arrest.)

Smallville Star Arrested for Role in Branding Cult

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Allison Mack Gazes at Keith Raniere in Deeply Weird Video

Keith Raniere may be discovering that there's a downside to following the Scientology model of recruiting celebrities into your cult. For whatever credibility and popularity they may initially bring to your organization, if things go pear-shaped, fame becomes infamy. A few weeks ago, the NXIVM founder was extradited from Mexico on sex trafficking and other charges. There was a flurry of news coverage, as noted here. But when "Smallville" star Allison Mack was arrested on Friday, a media firestorm ensued.

This is not the first time Raniere's cultivation of the rich and famous has backfired. It may be what put him on the road to ruin. India Oxenberg, an aspiring actress from a royal bloodline, must have seemed like a real get, until her much more famous mother Catherine Oxenberg went public. Her plea for her daughter's safety was covered by the New York Times, People, Megyn Kelly TODAY, and 20/20. And suddenly that "branding cult" was water cooler talk.

The unflinching, in-depth coverage in the media also forced New York authorities to begin taking complaints seriously, that they had previously dismissed as "consensual." Roughly six months later, NXIVM's most famous member is facing 15 years to life and so is Keith Raniere.

Previous to this graphic, public outing, Raniere's organization had been chugging along pretty quietly in Albany, making millions, and silencing former members with lawsuits and intimidation tactics, thanks to the very deep pockets of Seagram's heiresses Clare and Sara Bronfman. Although their wealth and social position had also brought him a spate of bad press. But suing your victims into silence and bankruptcy is a less effective tactic when some of them are famous and well-heeled, something Scientology is learning the hard way with its futile attacks on Leah Remini.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Peace, Justice, and Shamanic Activism

Traditionally shamans are activists. It is the role of the shaman to see where the people have lapsed in their ways for living well. Working with spirit the shaman proactively guides the necessary learning-from-mistakes and collective movement of the people forward to re-establish good relationship with all living things. Shamanic work has always been this work of transformation and rebalancing. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores this responsibility and challenge for contemporary practitioners. It remains our role and our responsibility to take action to manifest needed changes for the good of all living things, but how do we do that in our real world, real time?

Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Getting Unstuck: Finding the Vein of Gold, Part Three

We all experience stuckness at some point in life and there is an art to getting out of it. It begins with changing our chemistry, literally so that we can step out of our habit of being who we are. The next step is to have the courage and cunning to identify that thing we are doing that is too "normal" or "ordinary" to bother to see anymore. In the deeper "why" of that particular blindness is the vein of gold. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, this week as she explores how we find that vein of gold, the untapped resource that allows us to unfold the origami of our particular stuckness. In the resulting intimacy with self, we become the person who can access the latent power in our mess and redirect it into living our deeper purpose.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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