Shamanism for the Age of Science: Awakening the Energy Body - Kenneth Smith 2018

Types of Cohesion
Anatomy of the Energy Body

Cohesion can take the form of conditional or natural energy fields: the energy of form or unbounded potential. Conditional energy forms from the stipulations humans place on themselves and the world. These hard and fast rules intertwine to develop cohesion. Reality then unfolds from what we have conditioned ourselves to perceive, an inventory to which we consistently refer. Based on our education, perception is usually restricted to what we believe we are entitled to perceive.

Any given reality is a conditional field. Accordingly, for good or ill, reality by any measure is contrived. The underlying conditions of a reality establish the boundaries of possibility; they form a blueprint for a complete sequence of events. But unless we participate with the conditions forming a reality, it remains in the realm of potential. Only by behaving in accordance with it, says don Juan, does it become realized.²² For Toltec shamans, the energy body is a fixture of their reality, while it doesn’t even exist in other realities. Yet this shamanic knowledge has no effect at all unless behavior incorporates it.

How we relate to mind serves as an example. Don Juan defines mind as our inventory, the sum of what we hold to be true and how that is expressed. Moods, for instance, are frames of mind. Blackmore points out that the prevailing scientific consensus regards mind as the personalized form of brain functions. And philosophers may define mind as either the individual self, which feels, reasons, believes, imagines, and so forth, or a general nonmaterial, metaphysical substance, which pervades all individual minds.²³ No matter the scope of the definition, it still boils down to inventory: what we call to our attention and how we do it. If we include the energy body, we enlarge our inventory and expand our mind.

Most often, we have accepted the condition that the world is made of material, concrete objects. And from there we build aircraft and automobiles to enable our energy bodies to travel. In a different version of reality, we might learn to travel by actualizing potentials of imagination. Learning to transport their bodies through time and space solely by using innate resources, without a material vehicle, was one of the ancient Toltecs’ great discoveries. They were able to do this because they not only accepted an expanded reality; they acted in line with that worldview.²⁴

Another type of cohesion, available to us all, is the natural energy field. This is energy that has no form and yet contains form. Put another way, this energy can form in myriad ways. As we realize its potential we keep growing beyond the conditions that we encounter at each stage of growth. Evolving to a natural state means that we have grown beyond all form particular to any reality. We can be without the context and guidance of a worldview. Having a natural field means we are fully connected to, and are in harmony with, source energy: the quintessential natural field.

A natural field results from awakening the complete energy body. The further we extend the first field, the closer we are to achieving a natural field. From a different angle, the more we blend the first and second fields, the more we cultivate a natural field. The activation of core is equivalent with having developed a natural field. As mentioned earlier, this is consistent with Maslow’s concept of self-actualization and Jung’s thoughts on individuation.

Figure 3.7.

The diagram on the left symbolizes how a conditional energy field blocks perception from the external world. A natural energy field supports harmony between self and the world.

A conditional field may or may not resonate with a natural field. One conditional field may cause poor coherence within the energy body while another strengthens coherence. One value of the classic metaphysical systems is that they provide conditional fields that resonate with the natural field, allowing an awakening and integration of natural field cohesion. By pointing the way to individuation, they employ a cosmology and means that provide a foundation to step outside the cosmology and method employed. For this to fully occur, at some point we must leave even the most helpful system behind. Otherwise, the conditional field remains in place rather than acting as a stepping-stone to a natural field.