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

A Natural Energy Field
Closing in on Fundamentalism

It is important for individuals to give their best to others and to life. This can’t be done in a fundamentalist context. When you cut yourself off from infinity, you diminish your relationship to life. Your best comes from new relationships based on opening to potential, collapsing that new awareness into a practical framework, and then making the collective more conscious. At the level of being—an effect of a natural field—your awareness paradoxically remains open, yet is sufficiently closed to enable you to lead an orderly life. Even grocery shopping requires order and therefore a degree of closure. But when the stream of consciousness closes too tightly, growth constricts.

From the perspective of energetic anatomy, all of this is quite natural. Humans have biologic closed electrical circuits. These are needed for the body to function. Humans also have open bioenergetic circuits that not only nourish the physical body but also connect us with other spheres of energy. From a quantum view, all energy connects at some level and therefore even closed circuitry is open and in some way influences and is influenced by other energies. The electrical circuitry in your home, for example, emits an electromagnetic field that in some way affects your environment and can be affected by the environment as during an electrical storm.

Fundamentalism may take hold at any stage of growth. Whether you are an apprentice or craftsperson, your energy field is conditional. It isn’t until you break into the artisan stage that the influence of this type of energy is reduced. And even if you have groomed a natural energy field, you still need to beware of losing yourself in your personal thoughts about the world. A natural field permits extended participation with infinity; it doesn’t guarantee it.

An example of achieving the correct balance of openness and structure can be seen in Maslow’s attitude toward the term ontopsychology, which was coined to signify a new area of investigation relating to being. He expressed his hope that the new field was a true expansion of psychology, not an “ism” that would eventually turn into anti-science.⁷ By that time in his life, he had grown beyond the field of humanistic psychology he fathered. He had become more interested in the spiritual dimension of human existence, spiritual in the sense of participation with creation and not necessarily having religious connotations.

The shift to a natural field represents an activation of will whereby the orientation to and sensing of life is more full-bodied. En route to this, new experience builds pressure within the energy body. This represents the potential for new conditions, new cohesions, and the possibility of integrating the new experiences. As these tumblers fall into place, as you integrate new awareness, revelations about the new cohesion come to a conscious level. You need to continue measuring these insights in terms of core value. Assessment should not bring in superficial or grandiose concerns, both reflecting self-importance. In this manner, you continue awakening your energy body directly toward achieving the complete baseline of a natural field.

Figure 7.1.

A fundamentalist cohesion blocks awareness of the environment and inhibits learning. A natural field represents the balance and flow associated with being.