Product Description

An incredible, step-by-step journey of discovery into the world of the Shaman - a world built upon thousands of years of tradition and ritual

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #221480 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Most people think of shamanism as an ancient and primitive spiritual practice, still to be found in remote South American or Siberian villages. In fact, it's one of the fastest growing spiritual paths in the West

In The Journey To You, Ross Heaven starts by showing that spirituality and science are not incompatible; the "New Physics", as Fritjof Capra showed as far back as 1975, contains as many mysteries as any religious faith. The model Heaven uses is that of the world being like a hologram, so that every fragment (including ourselves) contains the whole.

The great religious scholar Mircea Eliade called shamans "walkers between worlds". Heaven's extremely practical book explains how we can do just that: with "one foot in the 'real' world and one in the spirit world ... the shaman's challenge is to harness this power, to integrate it and to use it positively..."

To harness the power for knowledge or healing the shaman travels into the three domains: the lower world, "a place of instinct, where our animal-like powers reside", the upper world, "the home of more philosophically-inclined spirit teachers and guides", and the middle world, which parallels our own world, and so should only be travelled by very experienced shamans. The author explains how to enter a shamanic trance, and what one might expect to find on entering these worlds, giving many examples from his own and others' experiences.

This is a very well-written book, drawing on many authorities; both theory and practice are superbly presented; and it is full of warmth and wisdom. For the complete newcomer or for the experienced shaman, this is probably the most important book on shamanism to be published in years. --David V. Barrett

Nick Williams, author of The Work We Were Born To Do
'Ross weaves together science and spirituality in a highly intelligent way. He is a visionary'

Leo Rutherford, author of Principles of Shamanism
'Ross Heaven's The Journey To You is a splendid contribution to this ancient body of knowledge and brings home its relevance to life today'

Customer Reviews

Just to say!
Superb, arguements are well dealt with, and facts are woven together with spiritual things very well. Has you seriously pondering life and reality very seriously. Well written and presented, an important book.

Read this a few yrs ago & agree with scathing Dec 05 reader BUT...
Whilst reading this book the most freakish paranormal things kept happening to me...in my normal everyday life. I will not go into detail but let's just say it scared the daylights out of me as I wasn't really disposed to seeing appiritions and the like. So, 'tho I didn't really like the book the paranormal occurences directly related to it completely converted me into a believer of parallel existences.

another popular book
It is a book on shamanism, an ancient spiritual teaching. The function of the shamanic practitioner is individual empowering, as personal power is perceived here as a substance of wellbeing. A regular shamanic course would start with an explanation of the model of creation, establishing connections with the latest discoveries of science, teach shamanic journeying to various planes for personal empowering, as well as explain ones states and emotions and give a variety of techniques and exercises to work through personal blocks.

This book starts with the author’s countless thanks to every being in shamanic field followed by a chapter long description of his favourite charity.

Following material, including an often used holographic model of the world, comes to the reader in a great number of rather short chapters with author’s enthusiastic presentation of somebody else’s point of view. I have been sincerely following the line, hoping for some revelation or a radical solution to a popular problem only to realise that I was on a wild goose chase. For example: an incident is described, when some open-minded psychiatrist undresses in front of amazed hospital staff to meet the nude and solitary patient on her level. I thought that this unconventional treatment was mentioned in order to report some radical break-through in psychiatry. Unfortunately this was not the case: the sufferer did not recover in response to the session, thus the story misfired. Being disappointed few times in a similar way, I have lost my confidence in the value of the book and looked through the pages more in a spirit of inquiry: is it worth reading it at all?

Despite its use of spectacular props, including scripts of Hollywood-like shamanic journeys, I stayed unmoved, but could not help thinking: “this will appeal to a lot of people”. Neither did exercises strike original, nor did the book offer me any abyss-deep insights I was repeatedly getting from my original shamanic study. I did not encounter any “wow” moments either, although the author seemed to use enormous amount of often stunning information discovered by other people, although this is a very useful popularisation technique, as the names of accepted authorities always sound comforting. Yet, what is offered by Mr Heaven of himself, apart from his studious research? Definitely, the flavour of author’s friendliness follows the reader all through the book.

Still, the point comes when even his friendliness does not pass the test of authenticity.

I could not understand to which purpose the author made public the deep secret his friend shared with him once in the sauna. The name of the friend as well as his key position in the field is mentioned, the secret being his fear of rituals. I did not perceive this brave announcement by the author as in any way empowering to his unfortunate friend.

Although furnished with descriptions of shamanic journeys and exercises, the book’s notion to enthuse the reader with the possibilities of this teaching does not strike deep, as the vast, poorly structured information, depleted of presence of a real authority, after a while turns into superficial chatter. Thus the book does not convey the underlying spiritual power of shamanic ethos as the author is not perceived as an enlightened master, but as another bewildered individual, struggling in pursuit of solutions to it all.

This book, however, has its place in a popularisation of the subject and is a case of an excellent market research by the author. For both of those points I am very happy to give it a star.