Shamanism & Medicine for the Earth

By Kate Durda

Sandra Ingerman teaches workshops on shamanism around the world and is recognized for bridging ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern day culture addressing the needs of our times. She is the author of numerous books including Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self; Shamanic Journeying; and others.

Sandra’s latest book, Medicine for the Earth: How to Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins, evolved from her early interest in a career in science, focused on reversing environmental pollution. She instead changed paths, and earned her masters degree in counseling psychology. Once she was introduced to Shamanism in 1980, it became a lifelong practice, and she renewed her interest in fighting environmental pollution, now from a spiritual perspective through her shamanic journeys. She deeply researched the literature on miracles: old shamanic stories, the Kabbala, the Bible, and Egyptian, Yogic, Taoist and alchemical texts. Sandra writes “There were many stories about mystics and saints taking poisons into their systems and transmuting it, and I believe that if one mystic could do this, it means we all can do it, too.”

In her search for spiritual methods to combat personal and environmental toxins, she realized how important it was to recognize, practice, and actually embody the truth that we are Divine, that we are spiritual souls in these temporary bodies. One core truth in this work is the realization that we are not separate, “that there is a field of energy to which we are all connected” and that we are all made of this light and energy.

This led to the understanding of the spiritual practice of “transfiguration’ which she has explored and practiced—the embodiment of light, or the practice of transfiguring into light. When we embody the Divine within ourselves, and radiate the light of that divinity, our divine state of being can call forth the divine perfection of those people and things around us. In fact, the keystone truth of her work, she states as, “It is who we become that changes the world, not what we do.” The old adage, “As within—so without” applies here.

In Medicine for the Earth, Sandra goes into fascinating detail about her research, underlying spiritual premises, and the nature of each of the elements needed for transmutation (which she defines as the ability to change the nature of a substance) to occur. The spiritual formula is: Transmutation= intention + love + focus + concentration + harmony + imagination.

After she wrote her book, Sandra scientifically tested these practices in order to objectively show the effect of ‘transmutation’ of toxins. She works predominantly with ammonium hydroxide, as it allows for easy and instantaneous measurement of resulting change. She intentionally pollutes deionized water (pure water with no minerals in it) with ammonium hydroxide to a pH of 11 or 12 (lethal dose if drunk), and she incorporates an experimental control of a 2nd bowl of equally contaminated water. Through the practice of the community ceremony of transmutation presented in her book, and in her trainings, the contaminated water has consistently been lowered by a pH of 1-3 points toward neutral, down to drinkable water!

From a scientific point of view, this is currently inexplicable. No known theories can account for this truly miraculous change. She has replicated this with many groups. The change in water has also been accompanied by some dramatic and miraculous changes in people that have requested healing, both present as well as long-distance. These findings of personal health changes have been supported by personal physician’s reports of changes, as well as self-report. Sandra writes, “Today, we are starting to see more bridging of shamanism with traditional psychotherapy and traditional medicine.” Along these lines, Sandra, in collaboration with the University of Michigan Medical School, will undertake a longitudinal pilot study of the healing effects of her work with those individuals who have experienced an initial heart attack.

Sandra’s work involves community ceremony, not only an individual practitioner. She offered her thoughts on this in an interview an with Alternative Therapies (Nov/Dec 2003, Vol. 9, No. 6). “… I’d like to say that I really believe that the myth of the one hero or heroine who saves the community is not what our descendants are going to read in the future. I think the new myth is going to be a community of people gathered together to change the world.”

For more information about Sandra and her work, please see www.medicinefortheearth.com or www.shamanicvisions.com/ingerman.html. Sandra will be speaking in Lansing on August 18 at Sparrow Hospital.

Kate A. Durda, M.A., is a developmental psychologist, shamanic practitioner, and esoteric healer. For further info on her work or workshops see www.Spiritweavers.net or call (517) 543-6754 for info