Approaching Psychosis & Mental Breakdown Through the Lens of Shamanism & Astrology
Explore the question of psychosis and mental breakdown through the lens of shamanism and astrology.
They will explore the origins of what may be understood as psycho-spiritual crisis, and contrast the way it is handled in our modern secular culture, from how it is perceived and responded to in indigenous, shamanic societies, and within communities that recognise the spiritual and archetypal dimension of existence.
Both John and Jez experienced dramatic spiritual awakenings in their early life that were pathologised as psychotic breaks: in John’s case through the psychiatric system, in Jez’s through him convincing himself that he was mad. They will speak to their direct experience of how, in each case, their encounters with an extra-ordinary reality opened up their personal healing journey and their respective vocational paths. For John, it was a powerful encounter with astrology which served both as the catalyst for his ‘madness’, and as the journey to sanity. For Jez, shamanism offered itself up a curative path after many years of mental struggle. Counter to the conventional wisdom of family members and psychiatric practitioners, they both looked toward the wisdom in the content of their supposed ‘mental illness’ as the key to their self-realisation and healing.
We are offering a free 90-minute webinar on Thursday 17th October to introduce this topic. You will get to hear John and Jez’s personal stories and how their own healing paths and vocational directions were shaped by their respective encounters with non-ordinary states of reality. We will set the context for the webinar series, lay out the parameters of the enquiry that we will be entering into in the later sessions, and introduce some of the foundational principles that have guided our research and understanding.
The fundamental mistake was supposing that the healing process was the disease, rather than the process whereby the disease was healed. The disease, if any, was the state previous to the “psychosis”. The so-called “psychosis” was an attempt toward spontaneous healing, it was a movement towards health, not a movement towards disease.
Dick Price, founder of the Esalen Institute
Psychiatric professionals are rarely, if ever, interested in the content of a person’s psychotic break, except insofar as it might pertain to one or other pathological category, typically depression, bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia.
Yet, within that content may lie insight or wisdom that can disclose a key to what is trying to break through from the spiritual world. From a secular perspective, there can be no insight in psychosis, as insight equates to the human capacity for self-reflection. Yet within a paradigm that admits the possibility of a spiritual world in which our psyche or soul is participant, then direct contact with this world can render us temporarily under the grip of beings or archetypal powers that supercede our normal human reasoning.
This is why someone undergoing such an experience within an indigenous, shamanic culture might even be revered as a carrier of spiritual information. Being possessed by a spirit entity is often a deeply disturbing experience. An experienced shaman can recognise the nature of the posession, and help the person transition through it, whilst also harvesting the spiritual information that could benefit both the individual and the whole community.
We will explore examples of this type of shamanic spirit possession in the webinar series, how it might manifest in a person’s life, and how it might be handled appropriately by someone with the eyes to see.
An astrologer might consider a person undergoing a psycho-spiritual crisis to be under the grip of a particular planetary power. In vedic astrology, the planets are known as the graha. This literally translates as the ‘grabbers’, the ones who seize hold of your soul, and in their more extreme expression, can take you over. As part of the webinar series, we will look at the archetypal qualities of the planets, and how these might manifest in and through a person undergoing a psycho-spiritual crisis.
We will look at the ways in which an encounter with astrology can serve as a catalyst for a spiritual awakening and/or a mental breakdown. Astrology is a powerful form of knowledge, which can open us up psychically and energetically. For this reason, it needs to be treated with respect and a certain reverence. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and if a person is ungrounded and in a wide-open psychic state, consulting an astrologer who is not equipped to hold a person in such a state can be severely damaging. In the right hands, however, and within the approrpiate ritual conditions, astrological insight and guidance can help a person to integrate and make sense of their experience.
In this first session, we will look in depth at the background triggers that can help to bring about these types of experiences, including genetic factors, childhood trauma, grief at the loss of loved ones, relationship break-ups, unrequited love, use of psycho-active drugs, meditation practices, exposure to shocking events and more besides.
We will look at the nature of the psyche from an archetypal perspective, and how the development of western society from a religious to a secular state has changed cultural attitudes toward mental health crises and spiritual experiences; how modern society is set up to control and mitigate against non-rational experiences.
In this second session, we will explore how a psycho-spiritual crisis may manifest in an individual’s life. For some people, a rich archetypal landscape opens up, that discloses an extraordinary sense of synchronicity, meaning and connection.
For others, it can be a terrifying experience of losing control, feeling persecuted, hunted, assailed by demons. We will also look at how an individual’s experience is typically received and responded to by the people around them in their families and communities, and by society at large.
We will look at the consequences of mental breakdown and psycho-spiritual crisis, how it is managed and suppressed through drug medication, misunderstood and reductively stigmatised; how the experience from the inside is often so vastly different from what is perceived from the outside.
In this third session, we will explore the process of return. For a variety of different reasons, it can be very challenging to return to your life the way it was before.
How do you come back to your everyday life, after your perception of yourself and the world has been utterly shattered? How do you relate to the people in your life again; after seeing so deeply into the complexity of the human experience, after having been exposed directly to the power and magnficence of the spiritual world, or having been possessed by entities or come face to face with to the darker aspects of your own psyche.
We will look at how a person might integrate back into their family, their community, and adjust to what may be a very different relationship with society. We will explore healing pathways that can open up and help a person come to terms with what’s happened. We will look at ways of restoring a sense of perspective, the need to appreciate the metaphorical and symbolic aspects of their experience, the importance of humility, ways of building bridges between the material and spiritual worlds. We will consider what support is available for people, what can help and what can hinder the integration process.
And also the value of people who have undergone this initiation sharing their experience with others, potentially being in such a unique position to share and hold space for others.
Jez Hughes has been on the shamanic path for twenty five years and is the founder of the training centre Second Sight Healing which offers a variety of accredited programmes of shamanic courses and initiation up to practitioner level. He has worked full time as a shamanic healer for over twenty years, treating thousands of people from the U.K and across Europe. He works closely with the indigenous Wixarika (Huichol) nation of north central Mexico, as a cultural liaison for their work in the U.K. and also through a ten-year commitment to apprentice with the sacred sites and teachers of their land.
His own initiation involved a fifteen-year journey through various mental illnesses and psychotic breaks before finding a cure in shamanism, hence his passion for this subject. His work has featured all across the national press and on ITV television and BBC radio. He is the author of The Wisdom of Mental Illness- Shamanism, Mental Health & the Renewal of World and The Heart of Life- Shamanic Initiation & Healing in the Modern World.
25 years on the shamanic path, offering accredited training programs.
Over 20 years of experience, treating thousands across the UK and Europe.
Jez's books explore shamanism and mental health, featured on ITV and BBC.
John is a professional astrologer, author and teacher. His passion for astrology began in 1990, following a profound experience of communion with the night sky, which opened his mind to the poetry of the cosmos, radically altered his worldview, and became the catalyst for his psycho-spiritual crisis and vocational calling.
He has been teaching astrology for the past 25 years, and founded the Kairos School of Astrology in Glastonbury in 2008, running a two-year professional training. Deeply versed in mythology and archetypal psychology, he is known in the field as a pioneer of the experiential approach, including astrological theatre and astrodrama. He is the author of the book: Your Zodiac Soul , drawn from this work with the zodiac as a medicine wheel, as twelve gateways to wholeness.
He holds an MA in Cultural Astronomy & Astrology from Bath Spa University (UK), during which he wrote a seminal thesis on astrodrama, in which he coined the term “Embodied Astrology”, and founded an epistemological framework for astrology as a form of healing theatre.
John is in the process of completing a 3-year anthroposophical training in mental health at Emerson College, Forest Row, and has been a part of its teaching faculty.
Over 25 years teaching astrology and founder of Kairos School of Astrology.
Known for developing "Embodied Astrology" and incorporating astrodrama and astrological theatre.
Author of Your Zodiac Soul and holds an MA in Cultural Astronomy & Astrology.
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