Misconceptions About Hell and the Underworld
In order to explain what the underworld is and how it works, we need to clear some popular misconceptions based on the concept of Hell. This originates from the Norse Hel; which means a place of sanctuary, where the dead go to rest when all the trials of life are over.
Underworld journeying was called Helfaring, a practice used to heal ancestral problems and retrieve lost parts of the soul. The Christian concept of Hell stemmed from the older Jewish sheol, which again was a place the dead go to, not a place of being punished for evil. It seems Christianity distorted the idea in order to frighten everyone to obey their rules.
Furthermore, all the descriptions of Hell are not from religion, but from a play: Dante’s Inferno. This has led to a lot of superstition about this place of eternal damnation, totally corrupted from the original idea of an underworld. So let’s be clear: there is no place of eternal damnation.
We can, however, create such a place on the astral plane through our belief and emotions around it. This is a very irresponsible use of our creative power.
The Underworld as the Interface with the Unconscious
The underworld is simply the interface with our unconscious. Not the unconscious itself, as that, by definition we are not conscious of and can’t see. Rather it is a place where we can interface with the contents of our unconscious through imagery, symbolism and emotion.
Ancestors and Animal Spirits
There are two main areas we connect with here: ancestors and animal spirits. Why? Because our unconscious is built upon our ancient past, beyond recent memory. It is structured around our ancestors and our older animal nature, which is the root of our instincts. Accessing these areas allows us to address and heal ancestral pain, conflicts and conditioning which still impact our lives through our automatic responses, and also strengthen survival instincts while pacifying instincts that no longer serve us. It is a common practice in many shamanic cultures to bring in a power animal, which restores good survival instincts so we can be assertive, stop abuse and maintain good health.
Entities and Energetic Patterns in the Underworld
Apart from these areas, our unconscious also contains deeply held stuck emotions, habits and personal laws, that may manifest in our underworld as entities, as this interface works through imagery, being much older than language. Note that these entities are self-created, or ancestral creations. There is no universal being of evil, though if you encounter the devil there, that too is an eggregore created from generations of belief and emotion, and that too can be removed.
Soul Retrieval and Trauma Healing
You can also find missing parts of the soul there. When there has been such trauma that a person withdraws from the world, they have basically gone into the unconscious. There is no point in trying to counsel the soul, as the person is vacant and non-responsive, but through underworld journeying the soul can be brought back to the body so the person becomes whole again. They may then need some counselling, but they are now responsive.
Releasing Negative Habits and Energetic Laws
Entities found there that are energies of negative habits, laws etc need to be destroyed. These too are beyond counselling as they form on such an unconscious level. They are beyond language or rational thought, so counselling would not have any effect anyway, but when the energy of a habit is destroyed, that habit is simply no longer there. This allows self-destructive habits to be released easily, where no amount of rationalisation will change it.
Navigating the Vastness of the Underworld
The unconscious is vast, so naturally, the underworld will be a vast place. It will have scenery that reflects all the places you have experienced, right back through your ancestry and even through your animal nature. You therefore need a guide to chart your way across the underworld so you can find missing soul parts, troublesome entities and various causes of problems.
The first guide is your power animal, as naturally it is the animal part of you that is most familiar with these depths. The other, even more helpful guides we can gain are the Nagas. These are snake people, which can be understood as our interface with serpent consciousness, which makes perfect sense considering that the reptilian brain is the most unconscious and instinctive part of ourselves. These serpent beings are found in various shamanic traditions. When you form an alliance with Nagas, they quickly guide you to anywhere in the underworld and find any missing soul parts or entities you seek.
Destroying Negative Entities
Bringing back missing soul parts is pretty straightforward, but how do we destroy the negative entities? First, the power animal can kill the entity, particularly if you have a large predatory animal. These entities can act as living things and have a strong will to survive, so it is necessary to have a hunter who will kill them.
There can be, however, entities that are too big for the animal to defeat, such as the eggregore of the devil, if you want to remove this energy of “evil” from your unconscious, or other self-created or ancestral demons, which hold the really stubborn problems. Various traditions have spiritual weapons for destroying demons, such as the phurba and vajra used in Ban Jankri, but the greatest allies for destroying demons are the Dragons.
Dragons and Kundalini Power
These represent the serpent power but with the kundalini fully risen, so they have the spiritual energy to transmute any negative force. The kundalini fire can destroy the largest inner demons.
The Healing Power of Underworld Journeying
Underworld journeying has great use in healing, addressing deep issues that counselling cannot reach. It can be used to end destructive habits, repeated problems, limiting laws, patterns of self-punishment, to retrieve soul parts, thereby reawakening withdrawn individuals, and removing those strange, undefinable spiritual problems that regular psychotherapy doesn’t touch.
Learning Underworld Journeying
If you would like to learn underworld journeying, it is not too difficult. I have a short course with a sound file to guide you on the journey, as well as further courses to take you deeper into these healing methods. The Shamanic Empowerment Home Study Course, and the Shamanic Healing Professional Course, which takes the work much deeper.
For those already practicing shamanic journeying but would like to obtain dragons for more powerful work, there is the Dragon Magick Course.
