Soul Retrieval

The basic principal of Soul Retrieval is the shamantic believe that after a traumatic experience, such as an accident, physical and/or mental abuse, emotional trauma, incest, assault, rape, addictions, etc., a fragment of the soul splits off from our psyche to take refuge in one of the ‘Other worlds’, where it can get lost. Sometimes we ourselves can cause this soul loss by neglecting aspects of our inner being so that it leaves us and takes refuge in the ‘Other worlds’.

This may sound very science-fiction like to you, but the idea of a soul protecting itself from harm is not unknown to psychology either. Here you have the idea of multiple personalities. A soul creates another personality to protect itself from a traumatic experience. If this is possible, why not the idea that a fragment of a soul may flee in order to protect itself?

The task of the shaman is to search the Otherworlds, find these lost fragments, and reunite them with the person.
One way of doing this is by singing the soul back home. This is done with the help of a shamanic song, which is taught to the shaman by his spirit guides. This song attrackts the soul and provides a kind of energy path on which it may return home. The song talks about love, warmth, recognition of its pain and its needs, and of home, the place where it can dwell in peace again and where it is awaited.

Sometimes though the soul fragment can be so lost that the song does not reach it, or it is so traumatised that the song is not strong enough to guide it home. In this case the shaman has to journey into the Otherworlds, locate the lost fragment and reunite it with the person. In order to do this kind of work, a Shamanic practitioner must have developed considerable skills at Journeying. The fragments, which are often still in a stage of distress, may not want to return, so that the Shaman has to use all his skills to convince them that it is now save to return.

Once a fragment is returned and blown back into the person, it takes three days to about two weeks to be fully reintegrated. The person may well need some therapy or some form of support while the changes are taking place.

The reintegrated fragment also will need some loving and caring attention from the person. It will need to feel welcome, if it is going to stay. Any fragment returned might decide to leave again if the situation it has left for to begin with has not changed.

The welcoming back of the soul is done initially at the time of reintegration by the shaman, in form of a ‘Song’. The rest has to be done by the person self with support and help of the shaman.