The purpose of the Shamanic Journey that I did for today’s Show, was To Travel to the Spirit Realm and request guidance around the questions:  how can human greed be reduced and managed?

 

Listen to Neil’s Spirit Report from The Schapera Show broadcast on July 9, 2023

I start on the mountain platform that I often use to start my ascent to the Upper World
I see the beam that I use to travel up

I gently grasp it and give myself little pulls

I’m not actually climbing the beam – the beam is providing an anti-gravity force that takes me up.

I go up and up and up

All the while I’m putting out my intention to the Spirits that they meet me in the Upper World, and that they bring their wisdom, knowledge, guidance, compassion and love, and give guidance that I can present on the radio show about how can human greed be reduced and managed.

I see pink-white marble steps that on previous Shamanic Journeys have been an entry way to the Upper World.

I walk up the steps. I ask the Spirits to please come and be with me, to give guidance on this question which seems hugely important.

I was lead to this question earlier, when thinking about conservation and the decimation of animal species, and animal habitat, and the tragic loss of species diversity. And this includes everything – mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, fish, and their habitat, And it seemed to me that underlying the reasons for what humans are doing to the animal and plant kingdom, is the greed of humans, of people.

I get an understanding from the Spirits that there are various aspects to this.
There is the psychology of humans, their emotional state, their beliefs, their fears, their desires. There is also their physical state, like their hunger, the deprivation they might be experiencing.

There is also the background that people have: The influence of their parents, their education, and their culture.
There are the laws that are created in human societies, and the power to enforce them, and have the population respect and obey them.

These are all key parts of the mix that affects human greed
I call on the spirits of the Upper World to show themselves, and be with me, and give me guidance.

I’m shown an image of a gorilla, This is not a Spirit Teacher of mine in the Upper World,
or a Spirit Helper of mine in the Lower World, that I have ever met, but I’m shown this gorilla and shown that in the natural world, the gorilla can do what it likes – it has this power, no other animal is going to interfere with the gorilla. The gorilla is being shown to me as a force, that lays down the law

The message here is that human societies need laws which are enforced in the same ways as a gorilla might enforce its wishes, where nobody dare go against a gorilla

( in fact the gorilla doesn’t need to do any “enforcing” as the other animals know they just have to comply with the gorillas “laws” ). The implication is that humans need to respect the laws that control the manifestation of greed.

And of course there is the question of do all the laws that are needed to protect all of Nature against human greed, exist in the first place?

And there is still the huge question of how to manage the human inclination to be greedy?

The Spirits say that this question sums up the whole human predicament,

There are of course other questions like how do we deal with humans inclination to be violent, but the inclination to be greedy is one of the core expressions of humanities problems.

The Spirits say that greed can be found in people who are in very privileged situations

People who’ve had a good education, people who’ve been brought up well by their parents and their teachers, and yet they display greed.
How is it that the influence of education doesn’t help with some people to reduce their greed?

The Spirits say that even a seemingly good, privileged upbringing, and a seemingly good education has not prevented some people from being destructively greedy.

So we have to look elsewhere for the solution,
Something is missing from peoples backgrounds – in their families, in their societies, in their cultures, in their communities and in the schools and colleges.

Something is missing that hasn’t addressed their greed.

How do we manage this?

The Spirits say this is a fundamental question about human evolution.

I find myself sitting in an open nature scene. I’m sitting on a rock and surrounded by fields and valleys. Its very pleasant and peaceful.
A message comes to me that this fundamental question also has to do with human contentment, or rather, human discontent. And the discontent that is so prevalent even in people who are seemingly enjoying very a privileged life, a life of comfort and material well-being.

There is still a discontent, and one of the manifestations of discontent, is greed.

Now I see one of my Spirit Teachers of the Upper World, who unusually for the Upper World, manifests in an Animal form. The majority of Spirits in the Upper World usually manifest in a human-like form. And the majority of Spirits in the Lower World usually manifest in an Animal-like form.

This is an Upper World Spirit that I am very familiar with, that manifests in an Animal form.
And I’m on its back, and it says to me, it actually makes a reference to a book by Sigmund Freud, called “Civilization and its Discontents”. The Spirit is implying that this would be useful to read. A summary of the book could be that Freud states that civilization itself is a problem, and it makes us unhappy because it constrains the fundamental aggressiveness of humans. Freud felt humans were aggressive creatures by nature, that we delight in exercising our aggression and hurting one another. He claimed that civilization, with its laws and mores, prevents us from gratifying that aggressiveness, but results in frustration and discontent.

The Spirit communicates that there is an absence of honoring, and serious appreciation of the natural world, of animals and plants and fish and birds and landscape in our lives.

Its not built into our culture as a fundamental, to honor and cherish the natural world.

Indigenous cultures, especially cultures that had a shamanic dynamic within them, had this very strongly. An honoring, an appreciating the natural world. In fact it was more than that – the natural world was regarded as sacred. And we were gifted plants to eat and use, and animals to hunt and eat.

This is the key message: that we do not, but should, regard the Natural World as Sacred.

This kind of foundational notion is very absent in our culture.

The Spirits say we could be, or should be horrified by what has been lost. The extinction of species, the decimation of animal, insect, bird populations, the reduction in habitat, the pollution of habitat – we should be horror struck by it. And not just because there are the implications of how humanity will suffer because of that in the future, but because sacrilege has occurred.
We’ve turned against God.
We’ve been disconnected from understanding that God is manifest in the natural world around us, and that by destroying the natural kingdom we have turned against God. We have turned against the Holy, the Sacred.

I ask the Spirits what can we do?

The Spirits say parents and teachers who have some sensitivity to this topic of regarding animals and nature etc. as an expression of the sacred, could and should tell their children, teach their children, be examples to their children.

It should be made a fundamental priority. Not the only priority, but a very fundamental one in our educational system, and in our religious institutions. Priests and Rabbis and Imams etc. have got this so called “bully pulpit” where they can introduce the notions. People need to have it as part of their fundamental feelings and beliefs about the world (just as is the case in a Shamanic culture) – that the natural kingdom is sacred.

The drums call me back at this point.
I return back down to the Middle World, to ordinary reality.

I thank the Spirits for this profound Journey.