Any traumatizing event after which one might say, "I was never the same after that happened," is a possible cause of soul loss. These might include combat, rape, divorce, death of a loved one, car wrecks, surgery, beatings, serious accidents, experiences of deep humiliation, robbery, abortions, and so forth. Psychologists often refer to this phenomenon as dissociation. Soul Retrieval is a shamanic practice, in which the soul "part" which ran away to avoid the trauma, is retrieved. It is then healed by the shaman, and brought back to the person who experienced the trauma. What returns to our life are the positive attributes which were lost during the trauma in question, such as trust, innocence, self-confidence, belief in one's own lovability, courage, the ability to initiate action, or take risks, have self-confidence in a variety of situations, and so on.
Memories which are helpful to one may come back; ones that do not serve us will not. Soul Retrieval is about making us whole again, about mending the fragmented self. It is a shamanic practice which dates back over 40,000 years according to anthropologists. Shamanism is a spiritual discipline which is practiced all over the globe in similar fashion. From Siberia to South America to Tibet to Australia to Ireland to North America, shamanism has flourished among indigenous peoples all over the globe. Lois studied global shamanism with Sandra Ingermann, author of "Soul Retrieval" and "Welcome Home," and Educational Director of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, which was founded by anthropologist Michael Harner. Lois has been successfully practicing shamanism since 1990. Lois can perform Soul Retrievals in person or at a distance.
More about shamanism:
Shamanism is the practice of spiritual healing, which dates back tens of thousands of years. Indigenous people all over the planet have practiced shamanism, and in surprisingly similar ways. The shaman has a regular job, but does healing work for compensation for members of his community as needed on an individual basis. He or she has usually had some kind of experience to set the stage for shamanic training such as a near death experience or a serious illness, including depression or schizophrenia. Some persons are simply born shamans. It seems necessary in many people for the ego to have a shock out of the ordinary experience of reality in order to know about the existence of other realities. This kind of experience seems to make it easier for most people to go into altered states of consciousness at will. It is almost always necessary to have a "vehicle" to get there, such as the use of a slow, steady drum beat as used by North American Indians. The drumbeat seems to help the shamanic practitioner to alter the brain wave pattern in order to enter the trance-state in order to "journey" to non-ordinary reality. Many people these days can be trained to do a shamanic journey since many of us have had deep, consciousness altering experiences. (The use of ethnobotanicals to achieve the altered state is common in many indigenous cultures as well.)
During a soul retrieval, the shaman and his/her power animal travel into non-ordinary reality and view in amazing detail events which have occurred in the other person's past and which have caused soul loss. These are almost exclusively events which the shaman has absolutely no way of knowing about prior to the journey. When the shaman relates what she/he has seen the client often remembers the event exactly as seen in the soul retrieval with the details corroborated even to the clothing worn by the parties involved. Sometimes the client remembers up to two months after the soul retrieval. If the client was too young or too traumatized at the time of the incident, it is possible that there will be no memory of it ever. At times the shaman will only see fragments of the situation, but will know the age of the client and the significance of the event. The memory is not crucial to the soul retrieval process, but usually of interest to both the shaman and the client. During the soul retrieval process, usually several soul parts are ready to come back and help the client in her/his life. Yet sometimes there is only one soul part ready at the time, if the trauma was particularly profound.
Clients who have had soul retrievals report very significant positive changes in their personalities and their lives in general. Many times a soul retrieval can be life-changing.
Lois was trained in shamanism in 1989 and in 1990 to do Soul Retrievals by Sandra Ingermann, Educational Director of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, and author of several books on soul retrieval, including "Coming Home."
