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Tami Simon:
Hello, friends. My name’s Tami Simon, and I’m the founder of Sounds True. I want to welcome you to the Sounds True podcast, Insights at the Edge. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True’s new membership community and digital platform. It’s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original, premium, transformational docuseries, community events, classes to start your day and relax in the evening, and special weekly live shows, including a video version of Insights at the Edge with an after-show community question-and-answer session with featured guests. I hope you’ll come join us, explore, come have fun with us, and connect with others. You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
I also want to take a moment and introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation, our nonprofit that creates equitable access to transformational tools and teachings. You can learn more at soundstruefoundation.org. And in advance, thank you for your support.
Welcome everyone. This is a tremendously special moment for me. This is a moment where I get to bring forward and introduce you to my very own wife, the person I have been with for now 22-and-a-half years. I think I’ve hosted something close to 800 episodes of Insights at the Edge, and this is the fruitional moment, the moment when conditions are sufficient and it feels right for me to bring forward Julie Marie Kramer and the work that she does, training people to be professional shamanic healers. Let me tell you a little bit about Julie. She’s a shamanic practitioner, a teacher, and a teacher of teachers, and somebody who, as I mentioned, trains people to become professional shamanic healers. She’s taught more than 60 standalone workshops, along with three cohorts of a three-year professional shamanic healer training program. She calls the path of training that she offers, The Ennobling of the Heart.
The entryway onto the path is learning how to partner with compassionate spirits using natural trance states, and we’re going to talk more about that. And also, I want to let you know that Julie’s next professional training program begins in, and she’s also offering many of these entryway opportunities to learn how to partner with compassionate spirits, and unabashedly not holding anything back. I encourage you to check out juliemkramer.com if you want to learn more. All right, to begin here, Julie, please tell our Insights at the Edge listeners how it came to be that you started to focus on training professional shamanic healers as your professional life.
Julie Kramer:
Yes, indeed. So first and foremost, it feels important to acknowledge that the vision that I received came from my helping spirits. The vision to begin training shamanic healers came from my helping spirits. And in a certain way, unbeknownst to me at the time, I became the steward of a vision that grew and grew and continues to evolve as more time passes. And so first and foremost, it feels important to acknowledge that it wasn’t my idea and that the Helping Spirit suggested this for me around 2011, I would say. The first cohort of the three year training that I developed began in 2012. In accepting the mantle, if you will, in agreeing to the vision that they showed me at the time, I think it’s important to recognize that although I now with the fullness of hindsight have more understanding of why the helping spirits gave me the vision that they did. There were some things I knew at the time, and one thing I knew at the time that I’ve only become all the more convinced of and the fullness of time is the importance of lending credibility to the work that I do.
This form of healing, spiritual healing, it’s unregulated. It’s considered to be quite esoteric or quite alternative, if you will. And one of the things I realized was that my contribution to the field, my modest contribution to the field could be to train practitioners who would be well-trained, who would be proficient, who would have tremendous capacity, who would conduct themselves with integrity and humility and professionalism. And by way of those things, I would be contributing to the field of shamanic healing, becoming more credible, perhaps becoming more legitimate. Ultimately, my dream, my vision is for shamanic healing or spiritual healing to be held up alongside the other forms of healing that we consider to be normal, that we consider to be conventional. I realize now is not the time for that necessarily, but in the fullness of time, my hope is that spiritual healing will be included among the different healing modalities that we turn to to address our wellbeing, to tend to our wellbeing. And so this is my very small way of hopefully contributing to moving that vision forward.
Tami Simon:
And for people who are like, “Okay, I think I might know what Julie is referring to when she says spiritual healing or shamanic healing, but I’m also not sure,” can you just offer us a definition there?
Julie Kramer:
Yes, certainly. So let’s consider the Western medical model of illness. Oftentimes, what we’re seeking when we turn to western medicine is causality. We’re seeking an explanation for why we’re sick. And generally, we think about things like environmental factors, we think of genetic factors, we think of things like infection, so in other words, different causes of illness. Now, from a shamanic point of view, there’s another factor that is considered, which is the possibility of there being a spiritual imbalance, or even a spiritual illness that can be diagnosed by compassionate helping spirits, and can also be addressed in partnership with compassionate helping spirits, can also be remedied in partnership with compassionate helping spirits by a shamanic practitioner.
So I realized that for some people, this is quite a radical thought, the idea that there could be a different source when it comes to causality, and maybe that feels like too much of a stretch for some people, in which case I would offer that perhaps a different consideration would be, could there be an influence that’s spiritual in nature that may be exacerbating a situation, or that may be creating increased susceptibility to a situation that could be a co-factor that can be addressed? And if I may, I’ll just add one further thought, which is that when we think about our wellbeing, when we think about what we seek out and the way of support to tend to our wellbeing, well, as a patient, who am I? Or what am I as a patient? From a shamanic point of view, we’re spiritual beings who happen to have these bodies at this time, who happen to be inhabiting these bodies at this time.
I think many people hold that view, even if they don’t necessarily consider that to be a shamanic perspective or don’t necessarily identify as holding shamanic viewpoints. But I think that’s something important to, because basically, in my opinion, what shamanic illness does is treat us as spiritual beings, and that means considering illness and conversely wellness through a number of lenses, including through a spiritual lens, instead of illness or wellness being considered through other lenses, but not that lens. And to me, they all belong together. It’s not a substitute for or a replacement for, but rather complimentary.
Tami Simon:
Now, there’s a lot here, and I want to keep getting our arms around all of our listeners and making sure people are tracking with us. So when you use the word shamanic, you’re not referring to any cultural specific geographic lineage of any kind. What are you referring to?
Julie Kramer:
Yeah. So in my case, when I use the word shamanic, I’m not referring to any specific cultural context, lineage, or geographic location. So perhaps it would be helpful if I just took a step back for a moment. I became introduced to Shamanism by way of an introductory workshop that I took in 2000 at Hollyhock on Cortes Island here in British Columbia. And I didn’t know anything about shamanism. I don’t even think I had heard the word shamanism before learning about this particular workshop that was being offered at Hollyhock at the time. I was living on Cortes Island then and working at Hollyhock, and the workshop was being offered by an organization called the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, which was founded by Dr. Michael Harner. And the body of work that he taught and taught others to teach was called Core Shamanism. And in my understanding, although I was never a student of his directly, but rather a student of his students, in my understanding, he engaged in extensive studies worldwide of shamanic healers and found that there were certain commonalities cross-culturally.
And he put together this beautiful body of work that was intended to teach shamanic practices outside of a particular cultural context, rather the essence of these practices that he found to be commonplace, perhaps even universal. That was my introduction to shamanism. And in the course of my studies and my career teaching, I personally haven’t studied with a teacher who practices any form of cultural shamanism. That simply hasn’t been my path. And so it’s interesting, I was reflecting on this earlier today, how to talk about what my orientation is when it comes to this question. There’s a practice that I do, and you’re familiar with this because you’ve seen me do this many, many times, and it’s a practice that I do when I’m going to a new place, when I’m going to introduce myself to the spirits of the land in that place. And what I start by doing is acknowledging my ignorance, or perhaps innocence, acknowledging my lack of knowledge, my lack of experience.
I’m not familiar with the ways of the place where I’m visiting. You could argue I’m not familiar with some of the ways even in the place where I live that’s familiar to me because I don’t know all of the ways that exist here. And so it’s a posture of tremendous humility and respectfulness, one in which I acknowledge in advance that I may do something that causes offense, but that’s not my intention. My intention is to be here in a good way, and to be here with my helping spirits and with these specific intentions or reasons in mind. I’m here for purpose, and here’s what it is. And for me, in considering the different cultural lineages that are still alive, thriving shamanic lineages, my posture is similar, one of respectfulness and honoring, and there’s a quality of innocence. I don’t have experience with those ways. That’s not the way in which I practice, so how to humbly acknowledge and apologize in advance. If there’s anything I should do to cause offense, that’s not my intention. My intention is to practice with my own helping spirits in a good way.
Tami Simon:
Now, one of the things that got my attention, and this is going to get a little far out, but I do have to bring forward some confessional moments here, I warned you about it, is that when we were getting to know each other, and I was like, how are you getting all of this information? You said, “Well, one of my teachers in non-ordinary reality, those are my main teachers. They’re not human teachers who taught me about this or that, but my main teachers exist in non-ordinary reality. And one of them is someone who I was in a previous life.” And at the time, this was like 20 years ago, I was like, “Say what?” What do you have to say about that?
Julie Kramer:
Well, I’m going to ask her what she would like to say about that. Just a moment.
Tami Simon:
Okay.
Julie Kramer:
Okay. So if I may, I’ll just take a step back for a moment because there’s some context that I feel is important to share.
Tami Simon:
Please. And what were you doing picking up the rattle and all that too? You have a lot to [inaudible 00:15:02]
Julie Kramer:
Yes, I’ll get to that.
Tami Simon:
Okay.
Julie Kramer:
I’ll get to that too. So the context is that research has shown that shamanism existed on every continent. In other words, many people feel that shamanism, earth-based spiritual practices, if you will, were the original form of spirituality. So what that means is that all of our ancestors practiced these forms of divination and healing. Of course, some of these beautiful lineages still exist and are unbroken. Others did become broken. Others didn’t continue. So for some of us, we have to look further back, not necessarily to our immediate ancestors, but possibly ancestors from further back in our lineage. And for some of us, all we have to do is look around and see family members practicing these practices in a way that’s still alive and intact. And so there’s a great deal of variability there from one family to the next, one community to the next one, lineage to the next.
That context is important because the helping spirit that you’re referring to, who is a helping spirit that I’ve worked with since very, very early on, soon after I learned how to journey in 2000, she is a member of my biological lineage, so she is an ancestor of mine. This is where it gets a little bit complicated. I was my own ancestor in that lifetime. And so in another lifetime, I was her. That was a time within a particular historical and cultural context when I was a medicine woman, and so when the kinds of practices that I engage in now were alive and available and pervaded the community that I was a part of.
Tami Simon:
Now, when I asked you the question, and dramatically, and I really appreciate that, you said, “Let me ask her.” And I was like, oh, this is getting good. We’re getting good. This is getting good now. And then you picked up the rattle.
Julie Kramer:
Yes.
Tami Simon:
Why did you pick up the rattle?
Julie Kramer:
Yes. So rattling generates a trance state. As you mentioned, I refer to the work that I do as partnering with compassionate, helping spirits using natural trance states. And that distinction is important because, for me, natural trance states are brought about by way of singing, whistling, dancing, drumming, and rattling. And the drumming and rattling, specifically percussion, in other words, has been shown to alter brainwave activity. So the brainwave activity shifts from beta to alpha to theta. And in theta, when we can stabilize our awareness, we’re in an altered state, a more expansive state, and our perception becomes more subtle. So the subtle pathways of perception that we all have open, and that enables us to perceive the presence of the helping spirits who are with us all the time, who are around us all the time, but whom we routinely overlook.
And so when I pick up my rattle, what I’m doing is shifting my consciousness slightly. And of course, having practiced over years, it happens quite quickly now so that I can make contact with a helping spirit this time, one in particular that I wanted to hear from in order to ask for guidance.
Tami Simon:
Now, you emphasize this notion of helping spirits or compassionate spirits, and what it brings up for me, and I think it’s a sort of obvious question is, are there mean spirits out there, dark spirits, spirits I don’t want to be talking to?
Julie Kramer:
Well, I think this brings up an interesting question when it comes to personal cosmology. Now, there could be a great many varieties on the theme, but let’s just say that people often seem to fall into one of two camps, one camp being that everything arises out of goodness, out of benevolence, out of purity. And then certain people, let’s say, get a little off track, get a little off course, and hence perhaps malevolence forms or develops, and harm can come of that, certainly. A different camp might be of the mind that there are two different sources of origination, that there’s origination that’s benevolent, and there’s origination that’s actually malevolent. Now, again, there could be many other theories. But just to consider those two, because in general, I find, at least in my experience with my own students, people seem to fall into one camp or the other. So I fall into the camp of everything originates from source, and that source is a light source. In other words, it’s a benevolent source.
And yes, there are spirits that have forgotten their divinity, they’ve forgotten their purity, they’ve forgotten their goodness and can easily be perceived as malevolent. Now, do I think they’re malevolent through and through at the core of their being? I personally do not. However, I think that’s a completely valid perspective, and I’m not trying to dissuade anybody from holding that perspective. But my perspective is that yes, we do, in the course of our work as shamanic healers, encounter spirits who seem to be ill-intentioned. And in my experience, they have forgotten who they are. They too are, if you will, children of the light.
Tami Simon:
From a purely pragmatic standpoint, without even having necessarily a clear philosophical framework, I don’t want to run into malevolent spirits. If I’m going to shake, rattle and roll and whistle and sing and dance and enter this natural trance state, I want to connect and partner, especially with compassionate spirit. So how do you help people create that kind of magnetism, if you will, or protection would be a stronger word?
Julie Kramer:
Yes, of course. I think many people feel the way that you do, as do I. And part of that has to do with forming relationships with beings who are of the light, beings, who are beings of high consciousness, whose guidance is loving and kind and compassionate, who hold us with love and tenderness and care. And so in other words, vetting, helping spirits. I think people don’t necessarily consider that helping spirits can have different levels of maturity. They can have different levels of consciousness. They too are on an evolutionary trajectory just like we are. And so for me, my aspiration is always to partner with helping spirits with the highest vibration, if you will. And that, in and of itself, serves as a form of protection.
Tami Simon:
How do you vet them?
Julie Kramer:
Well, some of how you vet them has to do with experience, and so recognizing certain beings. In the course of practicing, because in working on behalf of clients and in working with students, I have occasion not only to deepen my relationships with my own helping spirits, and I would say my own gaggle of helping spirits has changed over years. Sometimes new helping spirits come. Sometimes I’m finished with work that I’ve engaged in with a given helping spirit, and I don’t see them as often or at all beyond a certain point. So there’s sort of a constant state of flux, I would say. But then I also work with the helping spirits who are associated with my clients, associated with my students, so I have occasion to meet with a great many helping spirits. So part of it is just experience, learning about different kinds of helping spirits and how to tell. And some of that has to do with having relationships with many, many, many helping spirits that can then serve as a bridge for clients and students. So those are helping spirits that have been sort of pre-vetted.
Tami Simon:
I meet a lot of people who have an experience, at least, of connecting however much it might be in a transient way with some type of helping spirit through the use of a psychedelic substance, through a psychedelic journey, through the medicine, and yet you have chosen to work with natural trans states, not with psychedelic substances. How come?
Julie Kramer:
That was a directive that I received from my helping spirits very, very early on. So I mentioned that I was introduced to shamanism in 2000, and it was literally later that year, so I was a 26-year-old at the time, when my helping spirits told me that, for me, this path would never involve psychedelics or any mind altering substances. And that was an interesting bit of guidance for me to receive, because although I had had some experiences from recreational perspective, or of a recreational nature prior to that time, I had been introduced to shamanism through drumming, singing, whistling, dancing, and rattling. But of course, I knew that there were practitioners who practiced using the medicine, and that, of course, can consist of different substances. And my helping spirits were so clear, so very early on in telling me that that wouldn’t be my path, and that my path was going to be one of demonstrating and embodying the efficacy of natural trance states and standing for that, which is what I’ve done all this time. And so it just hasn’t been a part of my path to do otherwise.
Tami Simon:
Now, one of the things I’ve noticed is that when I hear people describe their psychedelic journeys, there’s a kind of indisputable around it, meaning they’re like, “This thing happened, and I met this. It was…” And I know for me, the first time that I was introduced to the type of natural trance state meeting of helping spirit, I had this thought of, well, maybe, maybe not. Because even dancing and drumming, there’s a part of me that’s still there witnessing. It’s not like a whole consciousness takeover like in psychedelics. There’s this part of… For me, I have quite a witnessing mind and a critical mind, and I wonder… As you know very well, probably better than anybody. So my question is, how do you help those people who just question, am I making this up? I think I could be making this up.
Julie Kramer:
Well, as you could imagine, that’s a pervasive question that I encounter again and again, and I actually don’t think that there’s necessarily a rote answer or formulaic answer. I don’t think the same answer necessarily assuages that concern in every person’s case. I do think though in general, that evidence eventually does persuade that doubtful part of us that there’s at least something to this, something to pay attention to. And by evidence, what I mean are things like insights that the helping spirits provide for us. I think just as I can attest to your brilliant incisive and skeptical mind, you can attest to the fact that when I journey, I receive guidance from the helping spirits. That doesn’t seem to have come from my own consciousness. Even on my best days, I wouldn’t necessarily have been able to come up with that particular reflection or that particular insight or how they’ve connected the dots when it comes to gaining a perspective on a situation that I’ve been feeling completely muddled about.
You know me well enough to know that there’s Julie’s advice, and then there’s what happens when Julie Journeys and asks the helping spirits, which is why you’re always saying to me, “Go talk to the big wigs. Why are you trying to solve this yourself? Just go talk to the big wigs.” And what happens over time is that you have enough of those kinds of experiences that you can no longer retain that posture. You can no longer preserve the posture of skepticism. I think at first, that’s healthy and appropriate. And what I always say to my students is, I can’t persuade you to drop that, nor would it be appropriate for me to do so. That’s not my job. My job is to provide you with experiences, to facilitate experiences for you, to give you direct experiences of the unseen world. That’s the only way that you’re going to become convinced of the veracity of the guidance and of the clarity of the guidance.
Tami Simon:
Now, tell me about this notion of partnering, oh, partner of mine. What does it mean that you are partnering? You’re not just connecting with them once in a while, you’re partnering.
Julie Kramer:
Well, I began to use that term relatively early on to describe what I experienced in terms of my relationships with my helping spirits. For me, it was important to establish a relationship that was predicated upon my being an adult. In other words, not infantilizing myself and parentifying the helping spirits, not abdicating responsibility in terms of the decisions that I make in my life, not giving away my power and my sense of sovereignty, but rather meeting them from a place of mature adulthood, from a place of sovereignty and agency. Because as much as the helping spirits may provide us with guidance, ultimately, it’s our decision whether or not to act upon it, which is why I started out by answering your initial question about my decision to train practitioners by saying, well, the guidance came for the helping spirits, but why did I say yes to it?
And I continue to say yes to it. I’m about to begin my fourth cohort training practitioner, so I’ve said yes again and again. Each time, that’s my choice. So for me, describing the relationship as a partnership allows for that sense of equality. I’m bringing my full self as a spiritual being who happens to be in a human form at this time. And you beloved, helping spirits are bringing your full selves. You don’t have forms like ours at this time. And together, we’re partnering. Their work through me. Can’t happen without them, but it also can happen without me. And that’s also a part of what I’m trying to describe or include in characterizing the relationship in that way.
Tami Simon:
One of the things I’m often curious about is how come spiritual presences or spiritual intelligences, or the receiving of important spiritual messages happens sometimes, and how come sometimes, I’m, I’ll just speak for myself, left to fall flat on my face. I’m like, why didn’t they come and help me then? That would’ve been a really helpful moment. What’s your view of that?
Julie Kramer:
Do you mean intercession when the helping spirits intercede and when they don’t?
Tami Simon:
Yes.
Julie Kramer:
Yes. This is something I’ve reflected a great deal on, and I’ll share with you what I’ve been shown thus far, and I can also share some experiences from my own life if that would be helpful. One of the things that the helping spirits have taught me is that they intercede when there’s the possibility of the outcome changing, but that isn’t always the case. And so the helping spirits providing a forewarning or directing us away from something that’s imminent is consistent with that teaching, that when there’s the possibility of a different outcome occurring, they can intercede. Now, this gets into universal laws of spirituality that are beyond my knowing and understanding, so I can only provide what I’ve understood thus far from the helping spirits, which is a simple explanation. It does make intuitive sense to me, and I’ve seen it happen in my own life and in other people’s lives, for sure.
The other reason that the helping spirits have given for interceding is when somebody in a given situation having foresight about something that’s going to happen is going to support or assist the situation, and possibly provide some benefit or comfort for everyone involved. And so in talking about this topic, I often use, I must say quite a dramatic example. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but something quite dramatic did happen with my helping spirits that I think illustrates the point. I’ve lost both of my parents, and in my mom’s case, my helping spirits told me years before she received an initial cancer diagnosis, that she would receive a terminal diagnosis and that she would die relatively young. And that was a situation where it was not certainly about the outcome changing, but rather that my knowing that helped the situation.
And to be honest, I don’t know if it helped this situation for anybody other than myself, but it helped me enormously because it meant that I could then turn towards all of the healing work that I needed to do to prepare to say goodbye to my mom, and to do so in a good way, to support her in a good way, to be available, in a good way, to not let my own unresolved material get in the way of my being her advocate at the end of her life. Now, conversely, my father died very, very suddenly, as you well know. In the course of a day, I received a call in the morning. “Dad’s ill, you need to fly home.” This was when, of course, we were still living in Colorado and he was here in Canada, and by the time my plane touched down in Seattle, he was gone. That was a situation where I had absolutely no forewarning, nothing from the helping spirits.
It was completely out of the blue. Now, what can often happen, quite understandably, is that people feel disappointed by the helping spirits. They can feel betrayed by the helping spirits. They can feel let down. That can bring up very deep issues of trust. How can I continue trusting you if you didn’t tell me that this absolutely shattering event would happen in my life? And my helping spirit said… I didn’t have those conversations with them per se, because I didn’t feel that charge in that instance. But I was curious. By then I was experienced enough that I don’t think I had that expectation, but it was a dramatic thing that happened. And basically what my helping spirit said is we couldn’t tell you.
And that’s where it goes to laws or contracts that I don’t necessarily get to know about that I’m not necessarily privy to. And there’s always that dimension in this work, the element of the mystery.
Tami Simon:
Now, one of the things that has floored me in knowing you is your utter, I think I’ll use the word faith or confidence in the reality of compassionate spirits, in the power of your partnerships with them, the truth of it. And I wonder if you could just speak to that to your wife who always seems to have a question mark someplace inside of her about almost everything except you.
Julie Kramer:
Well, not at first, but mercifully [inaudible 00:37:44]
Tami Simon:
Over time. Over time. In the beginning, of course, I had some question marks, but-
Julie Kramer:
Let’s be clear.
Tami Simon:
Okay.
Julie Kramer:
Well, I think that’s an interesting question because I don’t think I would describe it as faith. I think I would describe it as confidence and conviction. And where does that come from? The world didn’t make sense to me until it included helping spirits gods. The world didn’t make sense to me until it included a way for me to contact helping spirits, a means to initiate contact with them. That’s what shamanic journeying provided me with. I didn’t know at the time when I first became introduced to journeying, and I had those initial experiences. I mean, I vividly remember the first journeys that I took as a 26-year-old. They were profoundly life altering. I didn’t know at the time that I was being introduced to both my spiritual path and my professional path that in my case, I would have the great good fortune of those two things being intertwined.
I didn’t know that at the time, but I did know that I was being introduced to my spiritual path. There was such a profound sense of knowing and homecoming and wholeness. Now the world makes sense because now they’re a part of it. Now, the invisible world is a part of the world. Now, the unseen world is a part of the seen world or reality. And everything in me relaxed. Like, okay, now I can be here. Now I understand why I’m here, and now it makes sense. And now I don’t feel so alone and so confused about the world because I’ve found people, I mean, this is a vast generalization, but on the whole, I found people to be quite externally oriented, outward facing in terms of their interests and what defined them, people cultivating a sense of identity and so forth. And all I ever really wanted to talk about were the dreams that I had and the spirits. And my friends thought I was kooky. There were mercifully some family members who also had a curiosity, although it didn’t extend beyond that. Perhaps in the fullness of time it might have.
But for me, there was such an abiding hunger and longing for spirit, that when I learned how to journey, that hunger was met, that longing was met. And it was like, okay, now, in a way, my life can begin.
Tami Simon:
I think conviction is the right word, so thank you for offering that. Now, you call the path of training that you offer. It’s a progressive path. It starts with learning how to partner with compassionate spirits and then moves on to training people to be shamanic healers, and then teachers. The Ennobling of the Heart. Why call it The Ennobling of the Heart? What does that mean?
Julie Kramer:
Yeah, so this is a recent decision that I’ve made. I’ve been ruminating on this for some time. And the reason that I finally decided claim this way of describing my work and this work is because I wanted to describe the path that I offer in a way that would honor my students, my former, current, and future students, in a way that would pay tribute to them because this is what I’ve seen happens with people who choose to turn towards the spirit world, who choose to form partnerships with helping spirits is this beautiful and nobling process. Our hearts become lifted up. We gain greater clarity when it comes to our sense of purpose, which then increases our sense of meaning, our sense of contribution. Together in community, we discover kinship, we become evolutionary soul companions because this is a path where two things are often emphasized, guidance and healing, how we work with the helping spirits to receive guidance from them, insights and reflections and so forth, as well as healing.
Well, the other thing that happens is that we evolve, and that’s what I see happening with my students. They become brighter and brighter. Their medicine becomes splendid. They hone their gifts and they become beautiful emissaries of the light. And so I wanted to find a way to honor them in describing the work that I do and that we do together, and that’s why I decided to call it The Ennobling of the Heart.
Tami Simon:
There’s two more topics that I want to make sure we touch upon, and they’re both topics that we could talk on for hours, but I want you to at least introduce them to our listeners, which is I think some people have perhaps heard of some of the skills that you bring into training shamanic healers, like divination, a form of assessment or cord cutting, which people have learned in different contexts. But you teach these two shamanic skills that I think are really quite deep and intriguing. The first is psychopomp. Can you explain what that is?
Julie Kramer:
Yes, certainly. So the term psychopomp originated, so we believe, in ancient Greece, and it means conveyor or conductor of souls. So these are helping spirits that were known to assist people at the time of death, sometimes appearing to people prior to their actual, pardon me, moment of death or at the actual moment of death, and then assisting them in what we call crossing over, so leaving the human realm and entering into a different realm, if you will. The term psychopomp describes those specific helping spirits who provide that kind of assistance, of which there are a very, very great many, some associated with particular family lineages or communities or particular religious or spiritual context or cultural context, et cetera. The term cycle pump also refers to people who can provide that kind of spiritual assistance for those who are in the dying process in partnership with the psychopomps who are in spirit form.
And so what’s interesting about people who are psychopomps is that oftentimes spirits who need help, who have died, in other words, where there’s been a physical death, they’re no longer in a body, but they’re still here, they’re still in the human realm, they haven’t left yet, oftentimes those spirits recognize living human psychopaths and will make themselves known to them. So that means that a psychopomp is someone who has the ability, whether they realize it or not, to perceive the presence of spirits who need our assistance in crossing over because they didn’t do so at the time of death. Now, this is extremely pervasive, very, very common, that at the time of death, the full crossing over process doesn’t occur successfully. And that can be the result of any number of reasons such as fearful, such as regretful. People can be very resistant about carrying on. They can be resistant about leaving this world. They can be terrified of going any further. They can be afraid of going to hell if they believe that hell exists.
Perhaps they have engaged in ill deeds or have regrets or unfinished business, things that are unresolved. So there are a great many reasons why at the time of death, the person may not succeed in crossing over successfully. And a psychopomp is someone who can become aware that that spirit is there and needs help, and can then provide that assistance. So what’s interesting about psychopomps is that they’re not necessarily identified by their families or communities or teachers. Perhaps within certain cultural contexts, they may be. Not necessarily all the time. So these are people that often have experiences that are unbidden. So they have visitations from deceased family members or deceased strangers who come into their bedroom at night and what have you.
They experience visitations before the death of someone, a loved one, or even an acquaintance. They may have a visitation at the time of death or immediately thereafter. They may go to a hotel and feel like there’s a presence in the room or in the hallway. So in other words, they’re very sensitive to the presence of disembodied beings who did, at one time, have a physical body who experienced a death but didn’t cross over. So then they form partnerships with psychopomp allies to facilitate that process, which can happen anytime, even if the physical death took place days, weeks, months, years, decades, or even centuries before.
Tami Simon:
All right, this is good. This is getting very insights at the edgy emphasis on edgy. So when a disembodied spirit-
Julie Kramer:
Spirit.
Tami Simon:
… gets your attention, and you can tell that they haven’t “crossed over,” which people use that term, of course, a lot. And I always have a question inside like crossing over, where are we going when we cross over? But in any case, what do you do as a human psychopomp to help when you feel called to help? What are you doing?
Julie Kramer:
Yeah. So first, what I’m doing is establishing contact with them, establishing a clear pathway of communication. So I have certainly had experiences where I’ve become aware of the presence of a disembodied spirit. And so what I do, if I have my rattle with me, which I almost always do, is use my rattle to enable me to make contact with them and check in with them and find out who they are, what they need, what sort of condition they’re in, find out what their state of being is. I also have trusted psychopomp allies. So these are helping spirits that have that particular specialization, as I described, that I’ve been partnering with for many years. And I check in with them as well for them to be able to shed light, because sometimes the disembodied spirit, I’ll just say the person, if you will, is confused. Oftentimes, they haven’t crossed over yet because they didn’t realize that they died.
They might’ve had a sudden death, or an unexpected death, or a violent death. And so oftentimes, they don’t even know that they’re dead, or perhaps they died while heavily medicated. And in that altered state of consciousness, there’s this quality of haziness that persists. I often it as encountering in the being in terms of the quality of their awareness, a snapshot of the mint of death. And so sometimes there can be a lot of haziness, a lot of confusion, a lot of fearfulness. So mostly, what I want to do is comfort them and help them come to a place that feels calm and settled. And by way of gleaning information from them and information from my helping spirits, generally, I can piece together some sense as to what happened, why they’re where they are and what’s needed. And then in terms of the actual crossing over process, there are specific helping spirits who stand at what I call the gates or at the threshold, and they open thresholds that lead out of this realm.
And so the person is then escorted by the helping spirits to that threshold so that they can cross over into the light. And often, what happens is that from the other side, if you will, their own ancestors, their own loved ones will come for them. And so for whatever reason, I think because earlier we touched on Cortes Island where I first became introduced to journeying, I’m reminded of a being I encountered there when I was living there who was on the land. And this was someone who had been part of a family that settled there many, many generations ago, and who had died in a terrible accident while [inaudible 00:52:07] a tree, and didn’t know that he had died, but had left behind family members, a wife and children who were very isolated and very vulnerable. And that was an instance where of course, those family members, because this had happened so long ago, had long since died. And so part of what helps the person who’s died become aware that they’ve died and that many, many years, many moons have passed, is to invite their loved ones to make themselves known.
So they become reunited with their loved ones who have crossed over successfully, and that will often compel them to want to join them and go to the light in order to be together.
Tami Simon:
There’s a lot in what you’re describing here in terms of psychopomp and how useful I think it would be for more of us to be trained to know how to do it to help those we love, and for some sensitive people, those we encounter. It’s powerful. Okay, the last topic, this is very edgy. And of course, I’ve been your wife and partner as you’ve taught these three previous cohorts, and this section of the training is one that I’m always so impressed, love, with your ability when it comes to this part of the training. And I think, wow, you wouldn’t know that Julie M. Kramer has the capacity to be kind of spiritually burly, but you are. So this is a skill that you teach called compassionate depossession. And I’m sure many people, probably most, have never heard of this. So describe for us what it is.
Julie Kramer:
Yes, I’m going to describe compassionate depossession by giving an example of something that happened in my own experience many years after I learned compassionate depossession and after facilitating many compassionate depossessions. But this was an experience that illustrates the progression of events in a very poignant way. So a friend of a friend passed away suddenly, and this was someone that I had met, but whom I would’ve considered to be an acquaintance. And she was very conventional, and not at all interested in the work that I do, and not someone who would have ever sought me out as a resource until the time of her death. And what happened when she died, I, of course, was given the news that she had passed away suddenly. It was in a car crash. And when she died, I began to hear her voice. And that surprised me because I wasn’t looking for contact.
In other words, I wasn’t seeking to establish contact with her. I didn’t feel that it would actually be appropriate because she was someone who had viewed my work with quite a lot of skepticism. So of course, naturally, that’s a situation that I wouldn’t turn towards because I’m always very interested in people’s natural receptivity to the nature of the work that I do. But there was her voice. And hours went by, and I kept hearing her voice, and I kept hearing her voice. And at first, when I heard her voice, what she was expressing was confusion. And so I would just talk to her and I would just explain what happened. And it seemed, at first, there was some understanding of what had occurred, because, of course, this was a very sudden, tragic, violent death by way of a car accident, totally unexpected. But then what began to happen was that she began to withdraw from the help that was presenting itself.
So even though I was able to be there to serve as an intermediary and to say, “Here are the helping spirits who are here. Let me explain who they are. These are the psychopomp valleys that have come for you,” trying to create a bridge. And although there was initial receptivity, there was so much heartbreak about the fact that she had died and all that she was leaving behind, and all of the devastation felt by those that were grieving her death. And so there was this withdrawal that I began to notice, where initially, she was brightening and turning towards these beautiful emissaries of the light. Then this withdrawal began to happen. And then what happened was she started to take on this very gray affect. And when I would look at her, I would rattle and check in, and this was unfolding over the course of hours and days, she started to take on this very gray effect. And then I could see that she was beginning to move towards people, and she was doing that because she wanted to comfort them, and also because she wanted to comfort herself.
And the people that she was moving towards were her family members and loved ones. So she was moving towards them. She was getting more and more dim. She was moving away from the helping spirits who would come to escort her and to support her. And what I was being shown in real time was the beginnings of a possession. So had that process continued, what would have happened is that she would have become attached to one of those loved ones, to one of those family members, possibly unbeknownst to them. In other words, they may or may not have become aware of her presence. And in that instance… And possession can occur for a variety of reasons. This is an example where it occurred, or excuse me, it was about to occur. It nearly occurred because this person who had died suddenly was devastated. She was afraid she was lost. She didn’t want her life to be over. She was a young person.
She hadn’t even really begun her life, and she was so heartbroken by the pain that her death had caused. So it was also an attempt on her part to provide comfort by way of her presence. What happened was that I then intervened very strongly and persuaded her to go with the helping spirits. And as she turned back towards the helping spirits, then her light began to grow brighter and brighter, and eventually, she was willing to go to the light. Had she stayed with one of those people, then that would have constituted a possession, which is something that we, as shamanic healers, diagnose and treat. And the treatment is by way of decoupling the person or the host, if you will, the living person from the spirit that’s become attached to them and assisting the spirit to crossover, which is effectively what they didn’t do at the time of death.
Tami Simon:
And I think I mentioned how impressed I’ve been with your “burliness.” Because sometimes when I’ve watched you working with these compassionate depossessions, there are possessing spirits who really don’t want to leave and can really make quite a fuss about it. I don’t know if you can talk about what’s required of the trained shamanic healer to be able to deal with situations like that.
Julie Kramer:
Well, yes. I would say, once again, conviction, conviction that the work is going to happen in a good way, and that these helping spirits really have done this a million times, and that they’re going to be able to provide assistance, they’re going to be able to provide support, that the light is going to welcome whomever that being is who has died and been unable or unwilling to cross over. Whatever they’ve done, whoever they were, whatever they did or didn’t do, really, however egregious their behavior was, they will be welcomed in the light. They will be forgiven. They will be held with love and compassion. And I have utter conviction, unequivocal conviction about that. And I think that does assist me as a practitioner in situations where there’s a lot of resistance. Oftentimes when I encounter with, we call them suffering beings, those beings that have become attached to the living, is tremendous self-recrimination. They can’t possibly believe that they’re deserving of love, deserving of compassion, deserving of the light.
And as someone who’s trying to support them, in opening to that possibility, I have to have utter conviction, I cannot falter in my conviction. And I would say, if you will, this brings me back to the initial question that you asked at the beginning of our conversation about why I decided to start training practitioners. Well, why? As I answered, I agreed to accept that mantle. I wanted to provide a laboratory of learning that would enable practitioners to learn through the experience of practicing on one another, giving and receiving, giving and receiving, giving and receiving throughout the course of a long-term period of time so that they would develop conviction. Proficiency, yes. Capacity, yes. Professionalism, yes. Experience, yes. All of those things. And conviction, because when you’re faced with a situation in your office, like I would be here working with a client, you can’t lean into what your teacher has said is possible. You can’t lean into what they’ve said is true or what’s happened for them. You have to lean into your own experience.
And so I wanted to provide a training that was long enough, rigorous enough, arduous enough, and intense enough that people would gain so much experience that they would be able to practice from that place of embodied lived experience and conviction. So hopefully, the practitioners I train are also burly, because you have to be
Tami Simon:
Two final questions for you, love.
Julie Kramer:
Yes.
Tami Simon:
You mentioned that when you discovered that it was possible to partner with compassionate spirits, that the spiritual world lit up for you and became a world that you wanted to live in. Could you describe for me the spiritual world you live in? Is it multilayered? How would you describe it?
Julie Kramer:
Yes. Yes. Well, of late, I’ve begun to describe it as being intra dimensional. So what that means is that there are multi dimensions, many dimensions, perhaps beyond our imagining, and that those dimensions inform one another. And so the world that I live in is a world that-
Tami Simon:
I live there with you. I just wanted to say.
Julie Kramer:
P.S.
Tami Simon:
I’m also there, P.S. Yeah. Okay.
Julie Kramer:
Down here and up there, the world we inhabit together is a world that, of course, includes the physical world, and also is inclusive of the other dimensions of reality, known and unknown to me, so those familiar and unfamiliar to me that are interpenetrating. So that’s why I’ve warmed up to this idea of intra dimensional.
Tami Simon:
I like it.
Julie Kramer:
Because they’re in conversation with one another, if you will.
Tami Simon:
One final question. You have decided to teach The Ennobling of the Heart and this professional training for shamanic healers at a place that’s very dear to you. You already mentioned it. It’s where you’ve learned how to journey back in 2000, and now you’re going to teach people how to become shamanic healers at Hollyhock starting in September. Why Hollyhock? And what does that mean to you?
Julie Kramer:
Yes. Well, why Hollyhock is that there was a beautiful series of synchronicities that led to my being invited to bring my long-term trainings to Hollyhock, which was quite truthfully a dream come true. I first went to Hollyhock as a 25-year-old, and I worked at Hollyhock for about a year or so at that time as a little shoot. And while working at Hollyhock, as I mentioned, I became introduced to Shamanism. Well, the following year, I was no longer working at Hollyhock, but I was at Hollyhock for a conference, and that was when I met you. And so it would not be an exaggeration. It would not be an overstatement for me to say Hollyhock gave me my life.
Hollyhock gave me my spiritual path, and Hollyhock gave me you. And then, of course, subsequently, while at Hollyhock in 2003, we became aware, well, you became, I was just enjoying my time at Hollyhock, and you were galling on the island, you became aware of an opportunity to become a part of a land partnership cooperative that was created in order to preserve a swath of land that was going to be clear cut, which we joined, which then, many, many moons later, led to us building a cottage on Cortes, which then magnetized us to move to British Columbia in 2022. And so Hollyhock has given me everything, and I feel such a profound debt of gratitude to Hollyhock, and I feel such a sense of home at Hollyhock. And so for me to be invited to bring my trainings, there is such a profound privilege.
It means coming full circle to be able to teach people what I learned so many moons ago as a 26-year-old, and it also means inviting people into my home. Cortes Island is my home. It’s where we spend half of our time. It’s my heart and soul’s home. And so to be able to teach people and to be with people, to be in community with people at Hollyhock is just truthfully a gift beyond imagining. I’m just ecstatic to be able to invite to join me there in September.
Tami Simon:
Friends, if you’re interested, you can check out juliemkramer.com. Love, I’m so proud of you. What a incredible, bright light, and articulate, brilliant spirit-infused, helpful, benevolent human you are. What a glory to have you on Insights at the Edge.
Julie Kramer:
Thank you.
Tami Simon:
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