Journaling The Journey: 25 Spiritual Insights to Light The Way
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Spiritual experiences may also occur during dreaming in rapid eye movement sleep. Again there may be difficulty remembering the spiritual experiences accurately upon awakening, so some use journaling at intervals during the night or immediately upon awakening to preserve the dream contents. Some shamans, such as those in Australia, use the dream time more than ASC as their preferred mode of spiritual connection.
Spiritual dream experiences are recorded repeatedly in the Bible 26 in Genesis Religion also has many definitions. Organized religion is a group of believers who accept a common set of beliefs, practices, and rituals derived from sacred stories and myths. There is broad acceptance based on moments of heightened consciousness or ASC of historical and mythological figures regarding spiritual issues that concern existence and meaning.
Religion has also been facetiously defined as being the politics of spirituality attributed to Bill Olson. Often a religion is based on the spiritual experiences of the mythical or real leader or leaders who formed the religion. A person can have spiritual experiences and not be religious, or a person can be religious but unaware of or uninterested in spiritual experiences.
In kabbalistic terms, spirituality can be associated with the loving kindness of the sephira of Chesed, being open and spontaneous, freeing, warm, fruitful, and full of light, while religion can be associated with the strength, discipline, boundaries, and restrictiveness of the sephira of Gevurah, being ritualistic, legalistic, limiting, and sometimes concerned with domination.
Kabbalistic healing rituals have been developed, including rituals for healing skin disorders, such as visualizing the sefirotic flow of energy for healing skin disorders. With respect to religious historical development and religious healing, shamans preceded other forms of religious practitioners. Considerable insight into religious development can be obtained through familiarity with shamanism. Garb presents the Hassidic Tzadik as a shamanistic practitioner.
The shaman is generally found in hunter-gatherer societies without agriculture and uses SSCC for healing and divination. Each shaman usually has several helping spirits the shaman encounters and with whom the shaman develops relationships with when in SSCC. Tales of shamans journeying or witches flying reflect their use of ASC. The priest employs sociopolitical and religious power over believers and engages in magicoreligious agricultural rites and propitiation of gods for socioeconomic protection, largely through sacrifices of one type or another.
Priests generally do not use ASC and may not have had direct experiences with spirits. The placebo effect is one factor in achieving a healing. The typical healing sequence within the specific framework of the particular cultural and religious beliefs is first disruption of habitual frames of reference, then reframing the situation as a transformative process in pursuit of revitalization and healing. The skin is the largest organ of the body and provides separation and protection, touch and contact, expression and representation, maternal-infant bonding with breast feeding stimulating release of oxytocin in the brain, intimate sexual contact and frictional stimulation with release of oxytocin in the brain at climax, excretion through sweat, and temperature regulation through dilation or constriction of surface blood vessels and through evaporation from sweating.
The skin projects to self and others both physical health or illness and emotional reactions and responses. Skin, hair, and nails at times may reflect inner issues of the body, emotions, psychological states, and spiritual being and meaning. The nervous system and the skin remain intimately connected throughout life.
The more spiritually developed the person becomes, the more aware he or she is of what drives his or her life choices, and whether the ego or the soul is directing.
On the physical sensation level, this occurs as molecular, biochemical, and electrical interactions between skin cells and nerve cells. On the emotional feeling level, skin blushing or pallor and warmth or coldness reflect some emotional states.
On the cognitive thought level, the appearance of our skin, hair, and nails influences our thoughts and vice versa. Anzieu 33 speaks of the skin ego, a psychological semipermeable membrane that separates self from other but permits interchange. On the social level, the appearance of our skin, hair, and nails influences social interactions as well as internal psychical self interactions. There are numerous metaphors relating to skin. These boundary metaphors sometimes include spiritual overtones.
All of these aspects and thoughts related to skin add to the spiritual core concept of self and others. The skin is also associated with subtle energies, electrical charges, auras, energy meridians and points, and other features often less detected and described in Western culture. Acupuncture meridians have been most elaborately described in traditional Chinese medicine, but have been noted in other cultures also.
The type and extent of clothing can have spiritual as well as social and religious aspects. Clothing covers the skin and can vary from none such as in certain tribal cultures or nudist camps to complete coverage of all skin, such as a burqa. Varying degrees of individual expression are acceptable amongst different cultures. Clothing represents nonverbal communication and social identity. Skin coloring with makeup, paint, or tattooing has reflected spiritual aspects and dimensions. Examples of the spiritual and social value of applying red paint on the skin have been present in many cultures from ancient times to the present day.
Red ochre coloring, a natural earth pigment with iron in hematite or dehydrated iron oxide form, for painting skin has been identified from , years ago at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Ancient Egyptian women used it as lipstick and rouge. Bones painted with red ochre were found in Australia dating back 62, years.
Australian aborigines have used red, yellow, and brown ochre for painting their bodies, boomerangs, and rock art based on spiritual visions during dreamtime. Currently, the Maasai paint their bodies with red ochre. This red paint on the skin has been associated with blood, power, fertility, life, and death, all of which have been further associated with spiritual and existential quests.
Makeup can in some instances reflect spiritual self-expression based on visions. It includes various shades of paint, base, powder, blusher, eye liner, eye shadow, and lipstick. Hair coloring with various dyes and bleaches is also widespread, as is the use of curling and straightening processes.
These can also help depict spiritual experiences or visions. Facial masks based on visions have been worn for spiritual as well as religious purposes. Some orthodox Jewish women wear a sheitel as a form of modesty as a spiritual or religious practice. While in Western culture skin coloring with makeup, hair dying, and nail polish are often used primarily to enhance attractiveness and to mask flaws in the skin, hair, or nails; in some cultures they can also indicate social status and individualistic expression, including spiritual aspects. In India, the bindi dot on the forehead is an indication of high caste.
Women in India traditionally color their hair part with henna, and for their wedding often have elaborate patterns of henna staining on their hands. Subcultures and religions have their own norms and taboos with respect to skin, hair, and nail coloring. This can have both religious and personal spiritual symbolism.
Skin tattooing can be performed by piercing the skin with a needle covered with pigment. Charcoal has served as a black tattoo pigment for centuries. Perhaps the first tattoos were accidental, with the skin being pierced by a sharp burned stick coated with charcoal soot. Other prehistoric frozen mummies from Siberia, Peru, and Chile have been discovered with decorative tattoos. In Tahitian mythology, one of the sons of the creator taught humans the art of tattooing.
Skin piercing allows attachment of ornaments to the skin. While the most common is pierced earlobes, pierced umbilicus, eyebrow, nostril, lip, tongue, nipple, or genitals are also found. They can be a form of spiritual expression through the symbolism of the ornament as well as having other individual, social, and cultural dimensions.
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Intentional scarring of the skin can be an expression of spirituality or culture. Some individuals form hypertrophic scars, and in groups where this trait is common, patterns of scarring can help to identify individuals as well as permit individual spiritual expression based on visions. Scalp hair can be grown long, cut short, shaved, dyed, bleached, made wavy or straight, and worn in many styles. Within a given range of cultural acceptance, there is often a fairly wide range of opportunity for individual expression with scalp hair, and in men with beard hair.
Body hair can also permit spiritual expression within a culturally acceptable range. Skin and skin disorders have also had religious aspects since ancient times. How much skin is covered with what kind of clothing, how the scalp and beard hair are cut and styled, skin, hair and nail coloring and decorating, skin tattooing, skin piercing with wearing of ornaments, and intentional scarring of skin all have had and continue to have spiritual and religious significance. Skin, hair, and nails are visible to self and others, and are touchable by self and others. At the outer layer of the body that presents itself to self and others, skin has major psychological and social effects on how we view self and others.
Various skin disorders, such as psoriasis, leprosy, and vitiligo, have spiritual and religious aspects. Religious beliefs and customs often determine the cultural norms of believers with respect to how much skin is exposed, types of clothing worn, type if any of skin painting or cosmetics, use of facial masks and costumes in ceremonies, hair styles and coloring, nail styles and coloring, tattooing with religious themes, scarification, piercings, and types of jewelry worn that have religious significance.
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The anthropological literature 43 has extensively described these factors for many cultures and the religious meanings attached to them in each culture and religion. The skin is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible a number of times, and reflects specific religious values and goals. Light is a prominent metaphor for spiritual flow of beneficent energy.
Returning a borrowed cloak by sunset to permit the owner to cover the skin with it for night-time sleep is mentioned in Exodus In Judaism, as in other religions, moral behavior is foundational for personal development. If a slave agreed to be a permanent slave, the antithesis of the laws governing slavery, his ear was pierced with an awl as described in Exodus Otherwise, piercing and tattooing is proscribed in orthodox Jewish practice.
Male circumcision involves cutting off the penile foreskin, as was done starting with Abraham in Genesis This removal of a portion of the male genital skin empowers a male child to be entered into a sacred covenant within Jewish tradition. This has both religious significance and health effects. Skin infections that tend to occur under the foreskin are usually avoided in the circumcised. Abraham circumcised Isaac at 8 days of age in Genesis Circumcision of the penile foreskin is prescribed in Genesis Jewish males continue to be ritually circumcised when 8 days of age and are thereby entered into the covenant of Abraham.
By analogy, circumcising the foreskin of your heart is spoken of in Deuteronomy Skin color is mentioned in Jeremiah Lice were also mentioned as one of the ten plagues in Exodus 8: Ritual cleansing of a priest or other person was performed by placing blood from a ritually sacrificed animal onto the skin of the right ear, right thumb, and right great toe in Leviticus Blood was considered to contain the spiritual life force of the animal. Anointing the skin of a king sanctified him, as in Judges 9: Anointing the skin with oil continues to be a way of consecrating making sacred Christian priests, ministers, and lay people.
Religion has also been facetiously defined as being the politics of spirituality attributed to Bill Olson. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. Moses prayed for Adonay to heal her. Levites who had skin blemishes or skin disorders were not permitted to function as priests. Shamans, Priests and Witches:
Washing the skin with water in a ritual bath was also a common form of spiritual cleansing, as in Leviticus Similarly, baptism was used by John the Baptist, as in Matthew 3: Cleansing the skin with water by immersion or sprinkling has continued as baptism in Christianity and in the Mandaean faith. Symbolically, it is not just the skin but the whole person that is cleansed and sanctified in most of these religious traditions. Religious clothing can be considered a second skin. It varies from none for certain Hindu holy men 48 to mostly covered, as with traditional Roman Catholic nuns, other Christian monks, nuns, and priests, 39 Muslim women wearing the hijab with or without veil, Buddhist monks and nuns in flowing robes with shaven scalps, shamans in costumes with or without masks, Jewish men with kippot head coverings, prayer shawls, and tefillin, and a wide variety of other types of clothing with religious significance.
Amulets may be worn as necklaces for protection. Tattoos were banned in Judaism based on the injunction in Leviticus Tattoos and piercings are prohibited in traditional Judaism because the dead are expected to rise from their graves with the arrival of the Messiah. The bodies are expected to look the same as before death and be in their original created states. Tattoos were also discouraged in Christianity based on considering the body a temple of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 6: A number of cultures, including the Maori in New Zealand and the Lakota in North America, believed that after death a spirit would recognize the tattoo patterns specific to the tribes and allow them passage into the afterlife.
Ainu women in Japan tattooed their body with an image of their goddess for protection. Sacred texts and images may cover large portions of the body. The skin is a great projection screen onto which physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of the person are constantly made visible. The afflicted person may seek to understand if there are spiritual implications buried beneath the skin disorder, either as a matter of being deserved or of reflecting their psychic shadow. According to Dethlefsen and Dahlke, 9 the polarity resulting from the person not unifying with their shadow aspects can result in psychological disturbances, functional psychosomatic disturbances, acute physical disturbances such as acute skin inflammation, chronic conditions such as acne or psoriasis, incurable processes such as metastatic melanoma, or karmic conditions such as congenital defects or genetic abnormalities.
Inflammatory skin disorders such as acne and skin eruptions may point to a variety of spiritual concerns.
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Psoriasis can symbolically provide an armored shell for protection, but it can also impair emotional and spiritual intimacy. Visible benign tumors such as syringomas or seborrheic keratoses can impair appearance. Malignant tumors such as basal cell or squamous cell carcinoma can lead to treatments that result in disfigurement from scarring. Malignant melanoma, if invasive, can become metastatic and life-threatening. All of these physically deforming conditions can raise existential issues and provoke searches for meaning in the afflicted. Flaherty 51 sought relief from his severe eczema through shamanic rituals in Peru that involved shamanic counseling and chemically ASC through ayahuasca.
His eczema had failed conventional medical treatments and acupuncture in England, and he had been incapacitated for a year. After a number of shamanic rituals involving ayahuasca in the Peruvian Amazon, he felt a dramatic spiritual shift and his eczema cleared rapidly; he has remained almost clear for over 7 years following the spiritual experience. Sandra Ingerman, a well known shamanic practitioner, has stated to one of the authors PDS that she has seen some good results with rashes and eczema being healed from shamanic work, but she has not written down or published these experiences.
Carson 52 reported that a primary care physician colleague of hers had a female patient with a cutaneous ulcer from a non-healing spider bite reaction and also had depression. The ulcer had failed to heal despite 17 previous surgeries. When the physician later discussed the shamanic journey with the patient, her depression lifted and she was able to have two successful skin grafts for the first time over the ulcer at the bite area. LeShan 53 described a case of distance healing of psoriasis through prayer. A man with intractable psoriasis for 18 months noted a change when a healer 50 miles away prayed to God to do whatever was best for the healee.
The psoriasis improved and disappeared within a few days, staying clear on follow-up 2 years later. Psychosomatic hypnoanalysis can also be used to explore the psychological and spiritual aspects of skin disorders. Motivation or secondary gain often involves being excused from having to do certain duties or obligations because of the skin disorder. Past traumatic experiences involve a memory that links to the skin.
For example, Ewin and Eimer 55 relate use of psychosomatic hypnoanalysis with a medical student who got hives every time that he ate chocolate. When the medical student was age-regressed in trance to about 4 years of age, he recalled visiting a zoo with his parents on a Saturday afternoon. It happened to be feeding time for the snakes, and he witnessed with great horror as a large snake ingested a rabbit.
The next morning happened to be Easter Sunday, and of course he found in his Easter basket a chocolate bunny. Upon eating the chocolate bunny, he broke out in hives, and continued to get hives every time he ate chocolate thereafter. Ewin provided suggestions that he would no longer need to develop hives when eating chocolate. The medical student was able to process this recovered memory as an adult and tested himself by eating chocolate and no longer developed hives. Active identification occurs when a powerful other, such as a parent, had a similar skin problem.
Self punishment occurs when the skin disorder is related to something that the person feels guilt about. Suggestion occurs when a powerful other, such as a parent, suggests something related to the skin that the person internalizes subconsciously. Sometimes these items may have spiritual aspects of existential concerns or meanings that require some exploration or reframing.
Another example related by Ewin and Eimer was of a Roman Catholic priest who developed intense skin itching shortly after a married woman parishioner made a pass at him. Moses was told to put his hand back in his cloak and it came out normal. Persons with these conditions were considered ritually impure, with the presumption that their skin disorder was associated with transgression or immorality. The person was to be separated from the community for 7 days and then re-examined by a priest.
The ancient Jews believed that certain transgressions were airborne, and it was exposure to the spirit of the transgressor, above its manifestation through the skin that needed to be avoided though quarantine of the individual affected. Levites who had skin blemishes or skin disorders were not permitted to function as priests. When Miriam slandered Moses in Numbers Nachman 57 attributed leprosy to slander based on the story of Miriam.
Moses prayed for Adonay to heal her. Miriam was quarantined for a week and was healed, and rejoined the community. Midrash Tanchuma Metzora 7, 24a, and 22b extends the notion that leprosy is a punishment for slander. Christians associated leprosy with sin. Many scaly skin disorders occur that in ancient times were not differentiated from leprosy, including psoriasis, dermatitis, xerosis, ichthyosis, and the mycobacterial disease currently known as leprosy.
The Laws prohibited contact with those affected by leprosy and punished those who married into their families, ostracizing those with the disease for their past sins. While Hinduism usually considered suicide a sin, for leprosy it was not. Mycobacterium leprae as the causative organism was not identified until Other skin diseases such as psoriasis and vitiligo may be mistaken by lay persons for leprosy. Social aversion to skin disorders has promoted ostracism of individuals with those skin disorders that still plays a role in current society and is often supported by religious beliefs, although compassion can be a modifying factor.
This review has just started to scratch the surface of the spiritual and religious aspects of skin and skin disorders. What and how much skin is exposed, how the skin is painted or decorated, tattooed, scarified, pierced, hair styled, nail styled, and accessorized is determined by cultural norms, personal preferences, spiritual aspects, and religious beliefs and norms. For more information about Larry, please visit his website at www.
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Journaling The Journey: 25 Spiritual Insights to Light The Way
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