Ellen Winner, JD, CSC
It did seem to work. Healings occurred and divinations proved correct — not repeatably and reliably as the scientific method requires — but often enough that I could no longer be satisfied with the old mechanistic model of reality.
According to this shamanic worldview, we exist with the stuff of the Universe in shared awareness. Consciousness is primary (not a side-effect of interacting physical objects), and we can relate directly with beings of infinite love, intelligence and power who are not physically present to our ordinary senses.
After taking advanced Foundation workshops in extraction, divination, death and dying, soul retrieval, and others, in 1988 I had a chance to study in Nepal with Rai shamans, Mohan Rai and Jebi Bhandari, and Tamang shaman, Maile Lama. It was fascinating to discover differences and similarities between their Himalayan shamanic practices and core shamanism. Without having studied first with the Foundation, it would have been almost impossible to separate the important teachings from embellishments ancestral shamans had added over the centuries.
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My further training with the Foundation includes the Three-year Program, the Two-Week Intensive, and Harner Shamanic Counseling. I've also learned from other wise teachers of this reality, including Claude and Noelle Poncelet, Sandra Ingerman, and most of all, from my own spirit teachers and power animals.
In ordinary reality, I live in Boulder, Colorado with my husband, Joe O'Laughlin, practice patent law, and host a weekly drumming group. Core shamanism remains the basis of my shamanic practice and teaching.