An introduction to religious and spiritual experience

Shamanic Healing
As a result of practices of initiation, which often replicate death and res-
urrection, shamans gain extraordinary powers of healing and communi-
cation between the living and the dead. Although usually associated with 
primal cultures, the phenomenon has not disappeared as the following 
experience involving modern technology shows.
Soul Retrieval Via The Internet
One of the numerous roles that the shaman has always been required 
to perform, in both indigenous and now in neo-shamanism, is as the 
person who is called upon when emergency strikes – physical or 

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spiritual. Indeed, certain alternative practitioners would even go so far 
as to suggest that the former is in any case nothing more than a symp-
tom of the latter. Take the case of my partner, Keti, for example, a non-
believer in shamanism and a devout Orthodox Christian, who had an 
aneurism while in transit at Vienna airport and who was rushed by 
ambulance to hospital. There she was operated on immediately and by 
the time I had flown in from London to be by her side, she had already 
been placed in an induced coma to protect her from any further com-
plications and was lying in an intensive care unit. As for her chances of 
recovery, I was told by the surgeon who had operated on her that real-
istically they were extremely low.
. . . In desperation (and by e-mail as this was my only means of con-
tacting him at the time), I turned to the shamanic practitioner (and my 
teacher) Jonathan Horwitz, who had never met Keti and who knew 
nothing about her except for the nature of her illness, and this was his 
response:
Dear Michael,
A very powerful helper has arrived at the scene. A Chestnut Mare. If it 
is possible for Ketevan to understand this beautiful mystic practise we call 
shamanism, please ask her to open herself up to this power of the Chest-
nut Mare. This Helper may even already have a meaning for her. Ask her 
to let the Chestnut Mare into her dreams. And keep me in touch.
Love to you both,
Jonathan
This was followed by Jonathan carrying out a soul retrieval for Keti 
despite the fact that he was in an extremely remote region of Sweden 
at the time. A copy of the e-mail he then sent me, summarising what he 
found, is presented below:
Dear Michael!
. . . I did a soul retrieval immediately after we talked. She was standing 
right next to her body and looked ready to leave. I pleaded with her to 
get back into her body and said that the situation would be different if 
she returned, and she wouldn’t be feeling the need to leave. Finally she 
agreed to re-enter her body, but she didn’t seem convinced, but she did 
it with sort of a ‘Well, here goes . . .’ feeling.
. . .
Much Love to you,
Jonathan

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As for Keti, she woke up the very same day it was received. The 
‘outsider’ could justifiably argue this was nothing more than a coinci-
dence, though the ‘insider’ would clearly not share this view.
This account has not been presented though, to prove or disprove 
the power of shamanism. The reason for offering it to you is rather to 
show what a crucial role the shaman still has to play, even in the lives 
of sophisticated urbanites, and how the role has evolved to suit the 
times we are now living in – with soul retrievals even being carried out 
via the World Wide Web.
(Incidentally, to bring the story up to date, the doctors now say that 
given time Keti should make a full recovery). [Abridged from 005436]