This week MysticMag‘s Miguel Amado interviewed Shaman Marcus, a modern day Shaman “who walks in conjunction with my guides and my power animals to the best of my ability”. In this interview Marcus presented his story, how he can help people with shamanism but also Reiki and how to pursue spiritual growth.
Check out this interview now!
When did you discover Shamanism and Shaman rituals?
It was an early calling in my life. Certain people have Shamanic experiences early on in life, which can be near-death experiences. In my case, I used to have a lot of truth dreams as a kid. I’d dream, wake up and say “well, that’s never going to happen”. About a month or two later, the exact scene took place. As that happened a few times, it started blowing my mind as a 10-year-old. I thought: that’s got to be another way the world works than we’re being told in society.
Now that I look back on these dreams, most of them were happening around something significant that would later change my life. For example, in my mid-thirties, I worked as a bouncer in a bar and had a dream that a guy came up trying to kill me, leading to a big fight that turned very ugly.
About a week after the dream, I get a call at work from a woman that I know, who says Mike is going to kill me with a big knife, telling me to go away from the door. I thought it’d be better if I did not walk away from the door, so I’d have more control, so I stayed there.
In the dream, this exact same thing happened: this same guy showed up, he pulled out his knife and we had a big fight. In real life, I ended up saying “what can I do for you?”, he said something and I agreed to do that. He had tears in his eyes and his big knife in his jacket but he never pulled it out and walked away.
For me, those dreams have been one thing. Then, when I was 10 years old, I had a shapeshifting experience. I know it sounds like a normal fantasy, but I was sailing, got off the boat and ran on some rocks. Suddenly, I felt like the world shifted and I experienced running with a whole pack of wolves and turned into one of them. It felt very real.
Then, the whole world changed again and I was out of it, back in the ordinary state of reality and back to the boat. These were experiences I’d later find out are called a Shamanic state of consciousness. It showed that there’s something more going on in our world. There are more levels of reality than what meet the naked eye.
Later on in life, I found deep Spiritual awakening through some relationships that fell apart. I found absolute stillness in meditation, which slowly started leading me down the road towards more insights and Spiritual alignment of my insides with my outsides.
Finally, after many years of meditation, I found something called Reiki. I got Reiki from a lady friend, who also taught me. One day, she called me up and told me her Spiritual guides told her to take me on an intensive initiation into the tribe.
I agreed and she took me in for an Ayahuasca journey. We did a lot of initiation work, which unlocked a lot of knowledge in me that I didn’t even know was there. Slowly, I started using Shamanic practices on my Reiki clients. It has slowly become a very strong Shamanic walk.
How do you know if your clients need Reiki or Shamanic work? Do you leave that to them or do you indicate what is necessary?
It depends on how they come to me. I believe in Spirit and that whatever you feel to need is right for you at the time. So, if you come to me and say that you want Reiki, I’ll do that. But then, at the end of the Reiki session or even earlier I’d often tell people that, if they want to try and go deeper, they should try a Shamanic session and see how it feels.
Reiki is a very beautiful system for cleansing of energy, and it clears many blockages. The Shamanic work is more intensive and goes deeper into each specific area of you. They are similar in the sense that they work with the energy body. Usually, Reiki is like a light massage, whereas Shamanic work is more like a Roto-Rooter going right in and removing things.
Do you see common blockages in your clients?
I almost always see root and sacral chakra blockages. Men are often more blocked in their root chakra and women in their sacral chakra. Throat and heart blockages are common as well. It’s very hard for the throat chakra to be in alignment. People nowadays have a lot of thyroid issues, neck problems, sinus and ear problems, which are connected to the same chakra. When unblocking the throat, people get better in their necks, their voice comes down in tension and we can be more grounded.
The sacral chakra is where the women’s reproductive organs are and it’s also where the sense of self lives. For many women, that’s where a lot of trauma can happen because it also coincides with the second seven years of your life, which are linked to puberty and the sexual awakening.
For men, the root chakra, which is where male sexual organs are, correspond to ages 0 to 7 years old and can get trauma in that period. The root chakra symbolizes stability in life: feeling stable, solid and with a healthy connection to life. Many men need a feminine energy to ground themselves.
While women’s sense of stability comes from the ability to make life, men’s sense of stability is more connected to how strong they can be in life – like if you are making money or have a solid house or car. Many times, we can see that people with a broken root chakra live in the streets or have a hard time with money. When energy in your body starts to shift, the outer world starts to follow.
What are the first steps to pursue Spiritual growth and live a healthier life, being more active and present?
As first steps, I’d recommend meditation, going to see some Spiritual person and talk to them to see how to start your path, and read books that speak to you. First of all, you must become aware that this might be something for you.
Then, you might want to become aware that you are going to do whatever you can to grow. There’s got to be a sense of openness to new ideas. You go into a bookstore or to YouTube and start searching for Spirituality, meditation, looking at what speaks to you. I recommend reading different books. What they can do for us is to open up to see what we like. I ended up finding a lot of love in this book called “Autobiography of a Yogi”, for instance.
Also, know that everybody in the whole world has access to their inner space. What most of us do is to live our lives in the frequency of the mind, which is very thought-based. We sit with our phones thinking and we are on them, thinking that that’s reality. The effects on the body are stressful.
Do you want to find stillness? More power in life? Less pain? Better relationships? Those questions must be asked and if we can respond positively and relate, then a Spiritual guide can help us see past the fallacy of mind.
