Soul flight
The concept of soul flight / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Soul flight is a technique of ecstasy used by shamans with the aim of entering into a state of trance. During such ecstatic trance it is believed that the shaman's soul has left the body and the corporeal world (compare out-of-body experience) which allows him or her to enter a spiritual world and interact with its denizens. Believing themselves to be travelling into other realms, shamans either descend into an underworld (cf. katabasis or nekyia) or ascend unto an upper world (cf. anabasis) - usually by means of an axis mundi (sometimes actually depicted in concrete form in the accompanying ritual) - and indeed they can, in a sense, be said to be flying through such divine or infernal realms.[1]
By means of such trance states, shamans profess to provide services for their fellow tribespeople and one of the techniques they employ in order to achieve such ASCs is soul flight.[2] They alter their consciousness to connect with the spirit world, which is considered to be the source of their knowledge and power.[3] Among the many services that practitioners believe may be rendered by means of soul flight are: healing, divination, protection, clairvoyance, dream interpretation, mediation between the human and the divine, communicating with spirits of the dead (séance), and escorting deceased souls to the afterlife (psychopomp).[3]
Soul flight, also known as shamanic journeying[4] or magical flight,[1][3] has been exercised from paleolithic times to the present day.[5] With the passing of time this shamanic practice has evolved into a way for the individual to transcend themselves.[6]