Revitalization of Spirituality

by Hank Wesselman, Ph.D.

It is of interest that the current spiritual reawakening is mainly happening outside the carefully patrolled borders of our organized religions. It appears to be cutting across socioeconomic levels of achievement and status, and is transcending cultural, political, and ethnic boundaries as well. It's not surprising, therefore, that this widespread movement includes a growing revival of interest in shamanism.

This is an appealing proposition to Westerners, and virtually everyone in the transformational community knows that it's possible to connect with the dimensional realities where all the mysteries, great and small, become known.

This is the direct path of the mystic at its absolute best. This is the sacred way that leads each of us into the experience of self-empowerment and self-perception, without the need for any particular organized religious or spiritual structure to do it for us.

In the same breath, let me add that it helps to have some structural foundation in the beginning, and most of us find one that fits -- whether Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain.

The exploration of the nature of reality, as well as the mystery of who we are and what we're doing here, is the substrate of the quest. It's not about clearing up these mysteries. It's about making these mysteries clear.

When we experience the mysteries directly, we make them our own. And although it's possible to do this in the church or the temple, the zendo or the mosque, the challenge is to accomplish it out in the world at large -- in the supermarket or the bank, the law office or the fast-food joint, in our families, in our friendships, and in our alliances. It is in this manner that we bring the mysteries into our everyday lives, and by association, into our relationships with everyone, everywhere -- forever.

At its inception, this inquiry into the mystery is intensely personal. Yet as it progresses, it leads the seeker inevitably toward a universal and ultimately altruistic perspective, one that takes us straight into the irreversible vortex of spiritual enlightenment. This progression, once begun, changes us profoundly and forever because it conveys to each of us the experience of authentic initiation.

About the Author

Anthropologist Hank Wesselman, Ph.D., received his doctoral degree from the University of California at Berkeley and has worked with an international group of scientists for much of the past 30 years, exploring Eastern Africa's Great Rift Valley in search of answers to the mystery of human origins. Born in New York, Dr. Wesselman served in the U.S. Peace Corps and has taught for Kiriji Memorial College and Adeola Odutola College in Nigeria; the University of California at San Diego; the West Hawaii branch of the University of Hawaii at Hilo; and California State University at Sacramento. He currently resides in Northern California, where he teaches at American River College and Sierra College and offers experiential workshops and presentations in core shamanism worldwide. He is the author of Spiritwalker, Medicinemaker, and Visionseeker. Visit his website at www.sharedwisdom.com