Shamanism for the Age of Science: Awakening the Energy Body - Kenneth Smith 2018
Books
Shamanism for the Age of Science
As part of our age, books are a dominant form of expression for information, education, and entertainment. They are projections of consciousness formed by energy bodies, with the type of book reflecting the nature of energy being presented. You can tell a book is a book just by looking at the shape, and you know the contents have been shaped in such a way as to convey some form of intelligence, just like energy bodies. Books communicate truths and distortions, all depending on the craftsmanship that goes into their formation, just like energy bodies. By focusing thought, feeling, and behavior books reflect as well as build realities large and small and for good or ill, just like energy bodies. And as comprehensive and accurate as any single book or even collection of books might be, they can’t provide all that is known about any given subject; again, just like energy bodies. Yet books, just like energy bodies, can connect you with infinity.
This book stems from a synthesis of Toltec philosophy with a variety of scientific and academic fields, simultaneously revealing the structure and functions of the energy body and offering a context for a greater understanding of perception and personal growth. These new perspectives of imagination, intelligence, and memory don’t obviate what is known. They augment awareness in the same manner that innovative technologies stimulate new concepts, behaviors, and products. The overarching theme of this effort is that what goes on within the energy body is the principal determinant in all that we see, feel, think, or otherwise perceive. While this discussion is informed by the strength, vitality, and value of the ancient Toltec tradition, the added references to various fields of inquiry support and guide the basic premise into modern context.
The requirements of this undertaking necessitate a technical rendering aptly reflecting the mechanics of the energy body and corresponding research. This method has purpose, as it is required to present the logic of how the energy body works, and how to usher it to its potential. If you don’t grasp the intricate details, it won’t hold you back from awakening your energy body. What comes first is having a sense of the matter and for this you just need to know your options.
In principle the options are no different from those arising from examining the various systems that comprise the physical body. For example, you’ll find that dynamics of the nervous system and of the energy body reflect each other. Historical and modern research intersects, revealing more than what was thought to exist, while enriching the possibilities. That energy body processes can be related to a range of fields supports the premise that conditions within the energy body determine perception. The flipside is that these areas of study originate from the energy body as it focuses and generates perception. To examine this idea, each chapter forms a stepping-stone leading to an appreciation of our natural heritage, and how to develop proficiency in the care and management of your energy body.
From this approach, a few of the topics covered herein are the intricacies of projection, the interplay of learning and imagination, the basis of fundamentalism, the role of altered states of consciousness, and how to groom present-centeredness. Supportive procedures and exercises are sprinkled throughout the text and clustered in chapters ten and eleven. For additional perspectives and exercises, especially on the Toltec Way itself, you may find value in two of my other books, penned as Ken Eagle Feather, On the Toltec Path and Toltec Dreaming.
Lessons and Logic
This chapter is not simply an introduction to a book, perhaps something to be gently glossed over. Each chapter, including this one, is an integral component of the entire undertaking. As you will discover, when dealing with energy bodies, all influences, within and without, are essential. In this manner, each chapter and each section should be viewed as a part of understanding and using your energy body. At any one point in your life, you will reference a piece or a chunk of your knowledge as you develop consciousness. There is no linear time line for this; there is no standard for what must occur first or last. Each of the segments of this book is, however, connected by the intertwining thread of infinity.
Here we have set a tone, a guiding signal to carry us forward along a specific path to journey’s end. Yet it is also a template reflecting and determining what is to come. For instance, in the next chapter, “A World of Energy,” you survey an arena where science and metaphysics blend, where a shift in what we perceive as reality is occurring, and that provides context to further the legitimacy of the existence and influence of the energy body.
“Anatomy of the Energy Body” then outlines the components and perceptual abilities of our extended self. It also provides an overview of the mechanics of how thoughts create the bits and pieces of the reality of daily life and how feelings hold this tapestry together. Applied to an individual, group, or society, these reference points can help guide one and all to freedom or can unmercifully constrain us. To enable you to comprehend and command this process, “The Formation of Reality” offers insights into how models of reality are dynamically developed, encapsulating our view of the world and thereby giving us a world to view. In such a manner, this chapter reveals how reality forms out of infinity. “Expanding the Boundaries” details energy body processes in such a way as to bring to bear various ways to adventure into states of consciousness beyond group consensus, thereby extending the zone of accepted reality.
You may find that your beliefs are challenged every step of the way. Suspension of belief is at the heart of the scientific method, Eastern mysticism where the world is seen as illusion, and of Western Toltec thought where the world (any world) is considered to be just one of many real possibilities. This perceptual shift is the soul of objectivity. By learning to manage your beliefs, you can conceive of and even construct new orders of reality. In and of itself, this renews and invigorates your life, which is why “Stockroom of a Thousand Mirrors” delves more deeply into reality construction.
Some of the stultifying effects on learning produced by our ideas of reality are then examined in “Closing in on Fundamentalism.” No one has immunity from fundamentalist behavior and this chapter should not be overlooked. In it, you will find that the formation of reality is always an active process, whether or not you subscribe to the existence of free will. “Building a Creative Life” then provides perspectives to help you enhance your energy and consciously form your reality, as well as gain understanding of the stages of growth you can anticipate and their intrinsic barriers to increasing awareness.
“Living the Unfolding Moment” looks at the overall result of developing the energy body. It deals with the immediacy of life, where personal consciousness intersects infinity. While this connection is ever-present, we are generally not conscious of it. Living this ongoing moment reflects quintessential human intelligence—ontological intelligence—and is usually described as the state of being, a state of fulfillment, awareness, and grace. The difference between the ability to talk about and intellectually understand a skill, for instance, and the ability to do, to experience, to perform that skill signifies the difference between academic and ontological knowledge. It is my sense that all of the classic mysticisms address being and, in so doing, focus on the natural human condition. What varies among them is their style of bringing this to light.
By now, the tone of this book will have become an understanding. “Energy Management Skills,” then places more tools at your disposal that permit exploring your energy body. You may share features of the resulting experiences with others or they may be completely subjective. Either way, the material in the earlier chapters gives you the ability to make sense of them in a larger format of stimulating your attention, adventuring in imagination, and accelerating your learning. “The Heartbeat of Learning” closes off this exploration by examining central components of learning—memory, intelligence, objectivity, self-guidance—and finishes up with a learning posture to keep you attentive no matter the time, place, or circumstance. Learning, after all, is what awakening your energy body is really all about.
Purpose and Path
All said and done, the purpose of this book is to provide you the context and means to enhance your skills of awareness so that you may time and again revitalize your life, adding immeasurably to what that means for both individuals and groups. Imagination and learning provide the means for this, and context supplies the navigational reference. Fully realizing this quest rests on finding the energized moment of an energized reality; it means to fully awaken, to be. This is the point from which you access infinity.