by Sandra Ingerman: Rivers have always reminded me of the magic of life…
My love for rivers led me to wonder whether or not it is possible to reverse river pollution, which led to an interest on a broader level of the reversal of all environmental pollution.
In 1978 I graduated with a BA in Biology specializing in Marine Biology from San Francisco State University. My curiosity of the question of reversing river pollution led me to apply for a Masters degree in biology. My thesis proposal would be on the issue of reversing pollution. The school I had applied to was excited about my thesis proposal and it looked like I was getting ready to walk down the scientific road of exploring this issue.
At that time I had a realization, which was, I did not want to stay in the field of science. I ended up enrolling in the California Institute of Asian Studies (now called the California Institute of Integral Studies) where I began to pursue a master’s degree in counseling psychology.
During my time there I took a course on shamanic journeying. Shamanism is the first spiritual practice of humankind, which dates back at least 40,000 years. Some anthropologists believe it goes back more than 100,000 years. The core method in shamanism is the shamanic journey. The shamanic journey is a way to access spiritual information by traveling into non-ordinary reality and to engage with helping spirits; compassionate spirits for direct revelation to answer questions and receive healing help.
I started practicing shamanism in 1980 and my own personal practice led me to explore with the spirits the issue of reversing environmental pollution. One of the most important messages I was to receive over my twenty years of journeying on this was it is who we become that changes the world and our environment not what we do. Harmony within will create harmony without. So the true work is learning how to change our thoughts, attitudes and belief systems. We actually have to work with “ the alchemy of the soul” to really be able to change our inner environment as our inner state of being is reflected back to us in the outer world. The literal definition of alchemy is “working within and through the dense darkness inside.” This is big work and involves committing to spiritual practices that we must engage in daily and throughout the day.
Stories that come from the Bible, from the Kabbalah, and from various Taoist, Hindu, yogic, alchemical, Egyptian, and shamanic works show that miracles were once an everyday occurrence. I researched different spiritual traditions to give me clues to how miracles were performed by ancient cultures, mystics, and saints. As I read about miracles a formula of elements that seem to be part of all miracles started to form. The formula that came to me is a hologram. The elements cannot be taken separately but combined with each other create transmutation. The definition of transmutation I am using is the ability to change the nature of a substance. The work of effecting environmental change is how to change toxic substances into neutral substances.
The formula I arrived at is intention + union + love + focus + concentration + harmony +imagination = transmutation.
For all miracles to happen we must hold a strong intention of what we want to see happen. Intention creates action. This involves concentration. We know that a key to the success of spiritual practice is the ability to concentrate. We must also be able to maintain a focus on our short term and long term goals.
All miracles involve union with a divine force. In the bible when Jesus says to heal in my name the true Aramaic translation of this is to know God and heal as God does. This means to have union with the creative force of life is essential for true healing to take place. Sai Baba, a guru in India, is known for his miraculous acts and healing abilities. He says: “The only difference between me and you is I know who I am and you don’t” (meaning he knows he is divine). These are just a couple of examples of what different mystics say about union.
Love is an essential ingredient in all miracles as it is only love that heals. Techniques don’t heal. Where there is an open heart there is the energy to bring through miraculous and magical energy. Love is the great transformer.
I have already mentioned harmony as it is known in the practice of alchemy that harmony within will create harmony without. Disharmony creates disease; harmony creates beauty and health.
Imagination is another key in performing the miracle of transmutation in that we must be able to envision an environment that is pure and clean and which supports all of life. Caroline Casey an American astrologer says: “Imagination lays the tracks for the reality train to drive down.” With our imagination we have to ability to sculpt our world.
To add to this formula there are more principles to remember. As we change our perception we change our reality. To change our perception to create a reality of a clean environment we must be able to see the beauty in all things. To see the beauty in all things we must live in a state of appreciation and gratefulness.
There are two phases of the work. One phase of the work is to learn how to recognize that we are more than a body, our thoughts, and our past experiences. We are spiritual light and we are divine at all times.
We are not separate rather we are connected to one source and to a web of life. Imagine a hand where one of the fingers drops to the floor and thinks it can have an independent life without being connected to the body. That is what is happening today. Humankind is acting like separate fingers that have forgotten the connection to the original source of life.
In our egoic states we perceive ourselves as separate from each other and the rest of life. Life circumstances and our relationships with others trigger negative thoughts and feelings. As human beings it is important to acknowledge our thoughts and feelings. It is also important to acknowledge that there is energy behind our thoughts and feelings that we can send out to others and into the environment. In shamanic cultures it is understood that there is a difference between expressing anger and sending anger.
It is healthy to have a range of thoughts and emotions. The work we must do is to learn how to transmute or transform the energy behind our thoughts and emotions into love and light. In this way we can feel the depth of our feelings but not create any harm by doing so.
We must again recognize as all ancient cultures did that words are vibration. And when we speak out loud we send a vibration out into the universe that will manifest back down on others and us.
You might remember when you were a child saying the phrase abracadabra. This is actually an Aramaic phrase “abraq ad habra” and it literally translates to “I will create as I speak”.
In my new book How to Heal Toxic Thoughts I teach how to work with the transmutation of negative states of consciousness and how to work with the power of words.
The second phase of the work is gathering together in community to do ceremonies to reverse the pollution that we have created.
My book Medicine for the Earth: How to Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins goes into detail about the above material. After I wrote the book I started some scientific experiments to check out if the practices I wrote about will truly transmute toxins. I have been working with intentionally polluting deionized water (pure water with no minerals in it) with ammonium hydroxide a common and dangerous pollutant in our environment. As ammonium hydroxide is a strong base it is easy to check its presence with the use of pH strips. I have worked with many groups of students at this point. With every group I have worked with using the principles I wrote about, the water has changed a pH of 1-3 points toward neutral. We have prepared for days but once we begin the ceremony work it has only taken approximately 15-20 minutes before the water changes. From a scientific point of view this would be seen as impossible.
Since these initial experiments I started using a gas discharge visualization camera which is based on the Kirlian effect. We can now take pictures of the change in energy of the substances present in our circle. Besides water we have put in the circle a peach, some soil from a road, and some cheddar cheese crackers. To see some of the pictures we have gotten you can visit www.medicinefortheearth.com and click on results.
It is important to note that in our ceremonies we have not tried to manipulate the environment. We have not focused on the substances on the altar of our circle. We change ourselves with the understanding that our outer world will reflect back to us the inner changes that we make. This way of perception goes back to the ancient and esoteric principle of “as above, so below; as within, so without”.
Alchemists did not actually change lead into gold. The practice of alchemy was about changing lead consciousness into gold light consciousness. As we begin to change our consciousness and get in touch with the light inside of us we can effect great changes in our outer world. It is who we become that changes the world not what we do.
All life is made of light. We are all light. Everything is light. In remembering this we can transmute everything in our outer environment and what we take in to pure healing light.
All spiritual traditions teach that everything manifests on a spiritual level before manifesting on the physical. Where we have power right now to create change on the planet is by incorporating spiritual practices into our lives.
