For ten years I taught Astral Healing at The Barbara Brennan School of Healing (BBSH), helping to develop skills that evolved from basic Shamanic spirit release work into an appreciation of the wisdom and power inherent in our human connections to non-physical beings. Like many healers I have experienced both high-level and low-level entities in the spirit words, and have learned to both recognize – and work with - each category. But there is a third type of astral being I encountered: the ambivalent astral entity. These beings exist beyond our simplistic black/white categorizing and appear to trade the interaction with humans – where they gain prana – with an opportunity to speed up the human host’s personal growth. They provide opportunities for us to go deeper into the human learning journey.
An example of ambivalents are the many types of astral beings that I have seen attached to humans that both feed and stimulate an addiction. Classical Shamanic energy healing usually works towards removing such entities using the same paradigm as Western medicine: if it appears bad for you, pull it out or block it. But if we apply a more Eastern approach to addictive entities we can see them as possessing great potential in assisting humans to expand their life experience. The trick is, of course, to know when enough is enough. Two glass of wine shared with an old friend is a warm, delightful time of human connection. Drinking an entire bottle alone may be symptomatic of depression, or alcohol dependency. Ambivalent astral beings will be attracted to the energy of both situations: feeding on the delight of the higher and the dark pleasure of the lower, in effect straddling human moral systems. Where experiencing life fully in order to transcend a polarity’s illusory grip is always the goal of personal growth, we often find any astral entity involved in the struggle of healing an addiction to be the gatekeeper of higher wisdom. It may be a symbolic “Dragon” guarding the pearl of great price… our transformation to higher consciousness.
Metaphysics is one thing; effecting real change in an energy healing is quite another. On the practical side of my astral work with clients I utilize a major gateway to the spirit world known as Talu chakra, a tiny psychic center located in the human brain stem. It is this primitive doorway to other realms that is brings together both the gift and the curse of the astral realms: it opens up our consciousness to experience alternate life forms, but it is deeply embedded in the Reptilian (ie, pre-Mammalian) part of our physical brain’s evolutionary development. As such, we tend to react to the astral with the emotional wiring of our early ancestors: with either disarming awe, or paranoid distrust. These reactions (rather than our reasoned adult responses) downgrade our options in any meeting we may have with denizens of the spirit world. Unless a certain amount of conscious awareness has developed in us we will remain in a cartoonish relationship with the spirit realms, and unable to meet with them as co-equal inhabitants of a shared and evolving universe.
So, the next time you come across an astral entity in your healing work, maybe take pause. Are you reacting towards it according to your Reptilian brain? Either through fear, or with awe? Overly positive or overwhelmingly negative? Or can you meet it as a co-equal sentient being, as a potential ally? I encourage you to take a chance to befriend that which your biology fears, and reach towards a new world of understanding.
© 2013 by Dean Ramsden. All rights reserved.
Yes, they can teach you a lot and significantly speed up your process, as well as their own. In looking and listening to cause and effect in relations between the astral and physical worlds the lessons that these ambivalent beings teach are the lessons that they indirectly – or possibly directly -choose to take on themselves.
Very interesting article, Dean. I can see now that I have tended to react to astral beings with one of the two emotional reactions you mention, and it’s usually the paranoid reaction! Often I have experienced great fear even when I knew the being meant me no harm. And when it comes to creepy-crawly things, or powerfully dark things -just forget about it.
It is helpful to understand why there might be a biological component to this irrational fear, and it’s never occurred to me to regard astral entities as a “co-equal sentient being in an evolving universe”, as you say. I’m glad your article has put this concept into my head! We’ll see if I can remember it, next time…
Hi Dean, I like this information and thank you for sharing it with us. I have found that I often park the relevant unknown entities on one side and away from the client, in the astral, until I can ascertain their relevance. But yes, more often than not the unknowns are disgarded. I will remember to always discern their relevance in future. Much appreciated