Shamanism and Nature-Based Spirituality | Spirit World Center

Spirit World Center

Will: [00:00:00] I know we say it all the time, right up my alley, but this is right up my alley. I do have a big bowling alley. Yes I do. But today, 

what are your thoughts about the spirit of. 

Eric Lingen: Eh, 

Karen: no, that's a whole, that's a lot. It would put on my thoughts. I have a plethora of thoughts 

Eric Lingen: about the spirit world. Okay. 

Will: So then let me get a little more specific. Is his spirit just in humanity? 

Eric Lingen: I don't think so. You 

Will: don't. Oh, that's great. Where, tell me about that.

Well, no, let's 

Eric Lingen: hear them 

Karen: from the experts not to hear my 

Eric Lingen: opinion. Okay. 

[00:01:00] 

Will: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the skeptic metaphysicians. Karen, this is going to be a fun one. 

Eric Lingen: I 

Karen: know I'm super excited. Are you, do you 

Will: know why? No, but you're still, you're still super excited and that's the best thing about you, especially cause you, you bring such enthusiasm and energy to the show.

I really love having you as my cohost. Well, I'm excited because. It's the first time we've had two people on the, on the show at the same time. 

Eric Lingen: That's 

Karen: right. 

Will: And to make matters even better. It's not that they are the first two person interview that we're doing, but the topic that we're going to be talking about is. 

Well, no, let's 

Eric Lingen: hear them 

Karen: from the experts 

Will: that's a good point. Let's bring them in. They are actually the experts in this because. They have a spirit world center and they provide I don't want to say training cause it's not really training, although it is, it's kind of [00:02:00] like a mentorship on a shamonic journey.

Or path that I'm completely butchering. So I'm just going to introduce our guests, Eric and Lincoln. Thank you guys so much for coming on. 

Eric Lingen: Oh, thank you so much for having us. It's great to be here. 

Laova Lingen: Very happy to be here. Thank you for having us.

Will: First and foremost in your estimation. What exactly is. 

Eric Lingen: It's a very good question. Yeah, and, and as you're saying, we have the spirit world center and we basically teach people through various modalities, shamanism being one of them, how to interact with the spirit world and that through mediumship in other ways.

But shamanism, shamanism is one of the main ones. And essentially what shamanism is, is really something universal. I like to describe it as the, the birthright of humanity. It's. And it's also important to make a clear distinction between shamanism and let's say native American religion, because otherwise [00:03:00] some, some weird appropriate of things, you know, cultural appropriation starts happening there.

We're not talking about particular cultural practices. What we're talking about is this, this experience that is really open to anything. Okay. And, and it's found throughout time and throughout cultures, right? It's like water. It can be poured into lots of different cups, lots of different glasses. Right.

And so it takes many different forms, but it's the same impulse that keeps it coming across. And ultimately what it is is that humans have this, this power, they have this ability they're born with it. Anyone can do it. And that is entering into trans trans work is essential to shamanism. And ultimately what happens there is that your.

Your rational brain, your ego and all that, it kind of shuts off and you get to have an experience of what is normally being filtered out. It's very much like what I'll do as [00:04:00] Huxley was saying about the brain as a, as a field. Right. That it filters out all these things and under things like hallucinogens and this, it basically allows you to have an expanded awareness.

Your, this certain data is no longer being filtered. And there's many ways that the chairman's have entered into trance throughout the years. Of course, you know, hallucinogens have been one of them. However, things like ordeals have been other ways, you know, so, fasting until the point of starvation dancing around a fire for three or four days until he collapsed.

Right? These are, these are risky ways. Okay. Extremely risky risk. And ultimately what you're looking to do is cause. In your nervous system where suddenly you are, you know, your brain is no longer filtering out these other realities and drumming is of course, one of the safest ways to get into that state where basically at about 210 beats per minute, it just entrains your mind [00:05:00] and enters you into that trance state, where you can then experience these broader realities of consciousness around.

You know, and it's not just humans who can enter into a trance, right? You can hit in the ties at chicken, right? You basically take a chicken put on the ground, it with a piece of chalk. You draw a line slowly in front of its beak that will leave the, the chicken hypnotized for like half an hour. They actually have competitions on this, right?

So this is a neurological thing that's happening, but it opens up these spiritual vistas of experience. And this is why I say that's something that has been around forever. Right in the human experience, you have one of our earliest ancestors sitting around a fire, staring at the fire, listening to drumming, he trances out, and then suddenly he has experiences of the local spirits around 10th, the spiritual land.

So that's really what shamanism is in a nutshell. And there's many ways in, you know, from the hallucinogenic end, which we [00:06:00] don't practice ourselves, but all the way to the kind of just listening to drumming and, and working with that modality to get in there. 

Laova Lingen: No, I 

Karen: was just going to ask if you can get in through breath.

Eric Lingen: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Holotropic breathwork and that kind of thing, that can, anything that causes that shift in mind, and you're always going to have a bit of a different flavor with different modalities. Right. Breathwork definitely gives you that super high on top of things. Right. But it, it will get you into those.

Altered states for sure. And this is one of those things where there's many ways that the spirit world can make itself shown to you, right? Because suddenly you have, and I guess we'll get to this when we talk about what the spirit world is, but you have this pure consciousness realm, that's interacting with you with you in particular.

And so there's based on how you approach it. And even, you know, what's going on in your life and your own symbol sets. There's many different experiences that are on the table that you [00:07:00] can. 

Will: I'm chomping at the bit because one of the things that really has called to me over the course of my X amount of years, looking into this stuff has been shamonic journeys.

I identify very, very strongly with that for some reason. And I don't really know why, but I do. I, it speaks to me in a big way. So I've actually experienced a couple of things, I remember. Back in my young days when I was first looking into the stuff like full moon drummings and things like that, where everyone would have a drum and, it, you would lose your mind, right?

Doing all kinds of dances and things. So my question first and foremost, I have a lot of questions, but my very first question to you is you mentioned that drumming is a way to get you into trance. Do I have to drum or just listening to drumming? Is that enough? 

Laova Lingen: Listening to drumming as enough is the redeem that Carrie kind of your, the waves and to your brand.

And even just listening to ear buds, if, [00:08:00] and if it's not the real drum, it is fine too. And from my experience, I know that some people, they prefer to listen to drum, track other people. They need to drum for journey because so it's all verdict. But yes, you can certainly be in a trance just with the sound of it.

That's 

Will: good because I can't multitask for, to save my life. So I can't imagine trancing and drumming at the same time. I'd be like, I'd be waking up all the 

Eric Lingen: time 

Karen: just to have to be a certain rhythm or a certain. 

Laova Lingen: Oh, I would say that, yes, the, the 210, I would say about 210 minutes 

Eric Lingen: per minute. It's actually called the, the Yucatan beat.

And the reason for that is that in the 20th century, there was a researcher who went down to a church in Mexico. And they were, they tried to figure out, you know, the parishioners at this church, they were entering into these strange ecstatic [00:09:00] states and they were, you know, entering into trance and they were making vocalizations and they were just, something was weird happening at this church.

And the researchers found that there were parishioners who were banging on gourds at 210 beats per minute. And so they realized, okay, there's some kind of entrainment happening. We're at that, at that Right, right. Something very interesting is happening to the. 

Laova Lingen: Yes. Now, of course you can have other read them that will give you other experiences.

And I found myself when I, and you can drop in there. This is what is fun, which I'm on. As soon as that, you can be so creative. And so let's say sometimes I like to drum while standing and just adding movement to it and be kind of. Drumming trends at the same time. And there will be part of my trends on it will be more slow all the time.

It will be like going like crazy because I need to let go of things. So I need another rhythm to kind of shake it off and then it will just go back to a regular. [00:10:00] Standard 200, 200 at 10 beats per minute. Yeah. So it can be all over the place. 

Eric Lingen: And that's one of the things that there's, there's various levels, if you will, because there's a lot of different things that can go on with shamanism, right.

It's not just a. Yes, the transport part of it is a huge part. Right? And that's where you're entering into these shamonic journeys. And just for your, for your listeners, right? The, the shamonic journey is when you're in that trance state, you're kind of, you're able to send your consciousness off to the spirit world or elsewhere and have this kind of lucid dream like experience where the spirit world interacts with you through symbol.

Laova Lingen: Yes, it does really like, yeah, it's good to explain the Chamonix journey. It's really like a vivid dream, you know, and the feeling is it's not just visualization. You have all the body. Sensation with you, you can, you know, feel the wind, the call, the worm. Uh, You can [00:11:00] smell, you can irritate and see, and you might not have all the five senses activated necessarily.

Some people feel more, some people see more. It's really, again, depending on who you are. And But if you can try to integrate more census, this is what is great, but you don't necessarily need a good. To to experience a journey. And one thing I would say is that the most important feeling is your heart.

It's like, how do you kind of, translate all these sensors? That's your receive into kind of a heart feeling it's heart-based communication, and then you have kind of a sense. You cannot really put words on it, but it's, it's a knowledge. And then, then you can interpret it. It's like when you have a vivid dream, right.

You're living the dream, you're kind of. You're you're doing some step, but at the same time, you're carrying away by some forces that [00:12:00] are just, you cannot explain them, but it's there, you're kind of carried away by them. And so you're just living the dream and then it's just, when you wake up that you start interpreting it.

So this is why we say it's so important to put your mind. You know, it's a hard base communication. You want to be like a whole bond, you know, your hollow inside, you let it pass through you and you just got inside your hat. Yes. 

Karen: So just to touch on something, you said a couple of minutes ago, you said you can change the beats if you need to get rid of more things.

 So is this journey, can it be used as a cleansing 

Laova Lingen: journey?

Yes. So, totally. You can use a journey to cleanse. You can use the journey it took through you know, there's a lot of popular word, like shadow work child. Work and like inner child work and so on. And we usually call it soul retrieval and power, which revolves so on them on the shamanic perspective.

And I'm [00:13:00] talking about, they're like a very vague core universal shamanism here, nothing specific, but as something that is common in the community is that you would see. Or there are things that you can add to yourself or to your sore, or they are thing that you can take off your soul that are like, you need to take away from yourself.

So, when it does something, you have to call back to you like something missing. We call that a retrieval like solar power retrieval. And then when it is something that needs to go, we call it an extraction. Something that needs to be extract from you, and it can be. Uh, You know, it can go to a negative energies to well, we like to work line together thoughts and negative feelings and so on and oh course curse and a cheddar up.

Now, if you go on what is to add then it is what do we call soul retrieval? This is the, the most Difficult one, [00:14:00] it is something that app and you show it to someone when it does a very difficult event 

Eric Lingen: know. And in essence, one way to look at the soul, which is helpful is to look at it as consciousness.

It's that consciousness that you came into this reality with and something that's very very big in shamanism is this idea of soul retrieval. And the thing that. That implies you have to retrieve parts of your soul. And something that can happen is that when you go through a traumatic event, it's a, it's very possible to, to lose a piece of that consciousness.

When you have a traumatic event, part of your consciousness, part of your soul basically takes one for the team and it takes the, the lived experience of that event. And it basically. Departs. It leaves from your, your, your, your system there. And it goes off and hides in the spirit world during this realm of consciousness.

And so this of course helps [00:15:00] the person go on in life because they don't have the felt experience of that trauma. Even if they have the memory of it, they don't have that felt experience the memory of the felt experience. But at the same time, this. Can eventually lead to problems because you literally are missing pieces of your consciousness, pieces of your soul.

And so a big part of the shamonic healing process is going and retrieving those bits of soul that have those, those memories and reintegrating them into your system and, and by doing so it could be. Because you have to face those memories again and experience it and, and make that piece of your consciousness feel comfortable coming back.

That can be a lot of lifestyle changes. It can be a lot of, a lot of things in that bargaining relationship that opens up there, but ultimately you can, it can heal you in a lot of ways, make you feel more powerful, make you feel more present and happier and all that because when you're missing those pieces of consciousness due to power loss, solar.

You, [00:16:00] you basically can also be open to a lot of attachments, love entity attachments, energy attachments, because you basically have like little pockets in your consciousness. Right? Think about piece of paper that you've torn pieces out of. Right? Well, now you have these little, little holes, right? And they're kind of like broken ones.

And, you know, so, energies and entities, when they're, you know, most of them, when they're passing by they're benevolent, they're not going to jump in the window, right. Through this broken window. and so, but you know, the negative ones, they will, they'll take our residents in that room that they got in through the broken window in the house that is.

Your soul. And that, of course, you know, has a lot of negative things that can come from that. A lot of, you know, you might just feel terrible one day because you've picked up kind of a negative energy, right. You'd go to an antique store and you pick up something that, you know, had some energy, some this energy stuck to it and.

One that the first thing that people tend to do in that situation is cleanse, right? You might go to a Reiki [00:17:00] practitioner or shamonic practitioner and they kind of, they do a cleansing on you, right? They might drum you, they might put their hands on you and, and send any of that gunk away. The problem is though that, you know, this guy uh, Vicks, evicts that That energy or entity from that room, but the window's still broken.

Right. So they can come back right away. And so, you know, in that kind of situation, you want to do kind of energetic ceiling after you cleanse. And that's kind of like putting that plastic with a tape up on a broken window, right. It's a temporary. It doesn't last forever. The, one of the strongest things and Shamana healing that you can do though, is actually replacing that window.

And that's that kind of that see us that's soul healing. So yeah, there's a lot of soul retrieval and soul healing. So there's a lot of different things that you can do through the shamonic journey states. It, it really allows you to play with your conscious. You know, so you, you have your consciousness, you have your soul, you can send things away, you can add things and you can [00:18:00] really grow.

You can really create transformational events in your life that just cause you to continually level up. 

Laova Lingen: Solar Ling is one of the things you can do, but you can also, you know, I learned to connect with the spirits of the land around you, a spiritual connection with nature as well. You can learn divination.

Uh, You can also do. What else? Ancestor ancestral healing as well. So you can heal yourself, but you can also connect with your ancestors and engage also in what they, they call psychopomp work, which is helping the debt to pass over. 

Will: You. So much that I don't even know where to start. I'm thinking all these notes here and let's let's back up for a second because we have so much to talk about and we're, there's no way that this is going to be the only interview that we do with [00:19:00] possible.

We would literally we're halfway through and we're not even closed.

All right. So, Going back and the soul retrieval process. Interestingly. I am going through something similar on a, not a shamonic journey path, but on, you know, psychotherapy kind of thing. And my statement has always been, I'm kind of sleepwalking through life and I've identified certain things that happened when I was a kid like a kid, a kid that.

seemed to be the root of these kinds of things. And in psychotherapy, you are trained to go back and face and actually feel the emotions and all that kind of stuff. So I would assume that the, the difference here is that in the shamanic journey, you're actually, when you're in your trance, you're transported into it.

So you actually reliving the experience versus remembering the experiences. It might. 

Laova Lingen: It is a [00:20:00] possibility. One thing that I really want to say that it's always the experience of all you will retrieve the soul is very unique to everyone. You might. Yes. You might relive the entire experience completely.

You might also just meet with your childhood self and just want to take it back with you and talk to it. Uh It's it depends on people. And so, but that's one possibility and yes, it can be very intense. But then, you know, From what I, from my size that it's never just that you know, that the spirits or your guides, if you want, they never let you just with, let's say, okay, let's just relieve your trauma and then you're good to go.

No, no, no. They will like, kind of, there will be, it's very ceremonial, very ritualistic. So, you know, there's kind of, there's something that will happen before to can prepare you to that step. Hm. Then when he let's say you relief this despair. So you found back [00:21:00] that's that piece of soul of yours. And then there, there will be another ritual.

Your surely something that will follow that will help you heal the soul, bringing back and you will really feel it inside of you. Okay. And Dan, it's not that all. I mean, that's just the first part. Then you have to do what we call the integration process, which is not just like the kind of soul integration, the spiritual part of it, but also in real life, in your life day-to-day life.

What are you going to do to make sure that this part of your soul is healing and, and you can. Yes. 

Eric Lingen: So this 

Will: kind of process can be like, to your point, really intense in the world of COVID. before COVID I would assume that you might be able to help someone in person to go through the process.

That kind of stuff. I'm assuming that now most of the stuff you do [00:22:00] is the way we're talking now. Right? Virtually. So 

How dangerous is it to do things like this on your own? Can you get stock or do you really need to have someone next to you while you're doing it to make sure that they can help? 

Eric Lingen: Th this is, this is something that can be problematic if you go it alone.

And so for instance, I, I put out meditation tracks, but I don't put out meditation tracks for soul retrieval. Let's say, because I would need and want to be able to talk to you after you've gone through that experience to be able to integrate what's happened to you. And so, yeah, if you're, if you're going through the soul healing process, You definitely want to have someone who has been there before, who can talk you through it and, and talk after it.

And of course, one approach that we, that we have personally is that soul healing can be a very long process, right? It's not, it's not like you, you [00:23:00] go to the shamonic practitioner once and then they do something and then suddenly you're, you're cured forever. It's it's very much something that requires lifestyle change.

It requires you to actually do the work and, and, and integrate that piece of you when it returns. And so actually at this point, we actually only teach people how to do it for themselves. After a lot of training. Right. So it's kind of like, okay, we'll give you six months of training, then you're ready to start on soul healing for yourself.

But then we are here in that mentorship capacity to talk you through it afterwards. Right. So you definitely want to have a mentor around. But at the same time then it's, it is a thing that. Is deeply personal and that you kind of want to work through in your own personal relationship with the spirits, but you definitely want a guide who can talk you through it.

[00:24:00] [00:25:00] 

Karen: you said earlier that this is something that, that everyone can do or that's accessible to everyone. Does it work for everyone? Because you know, like some people go to hit get hypnotized and it works like the one guy's acting like a chicken and the other person didn't feel anything. I mean, is there a situation where it wouldn't work for someone.

Laova Lingen: I think that this a lot of different type of people, and this is why there's different type of tools to get interests. You're not like shamanic, journeying might not be for everyone. It's one way to connect with the spirits, but you know, you can do transport posture, you can do Uh, soul singing, you can do breath work, you can do aesthetic dance.

You can you know, the rituals, you can, some people prefer to work with the dreams because they are very, very good with dreams. And, or different type of instrument. Drums is, is one of them. But there's other instrument that works too, like rattles or um, th the little AARP there's a little [00:26:00] jaw RX.

Yeah. Thank you. More than that. So it's, this is why the. Different ways to get into a transport, different people. 

Eric Lingen: Yeah. It's it's a curious thing, you know, different temperaments and talents require different modalities for getting in there. Right. And, and this is something that we find, especially a bit of a difference between men and.

In interacting with this, you know, if you tend to be more, I always get these backwards, but left-brained, if you kind of are more left-brained and logical and mathematical and all this you might find a bit of, of difficulty getting into that Chemonics state, just because you might be getting in your own words.

Right in that, as Louella was saying, it's essential to basically be like a hollowed out bone, just allow the experience to come through you. And then, you know, if you're going to be a, you know, as the name of the show skeptical save it for after, right. Have that pure experience, gather that data and [00:27:00] then apply your skeptical mind after.

Right. Cause if you're applying that left brain. Mind to it, as you're having the experience, you're going to get in your own way. Right? And this is why, right. Brain people who are more artistic and more intuitive, they find it a bit. And this is why at the center you know, I'm that left brain type, right?

I've definitely had to train myself to be better at, at Shamani journey. But at the same time for me and for people like me that's why I tend to teach more what we call kind of spirit craft, or kind of more the ceremonial way, almost like a Druid of working with the local spirits of the land through this kind of.

Contractual ceremonial style of working based on meditation and, and working with the landscape. So there's various ways in, right. But ultimately you're doing a lot of the same things through these different directions 

Will: you may, you bring up a really good point because On your site, when you touched on it a little bit about the fact that you're really, truly against appropriating [00:28:00] anything.

And the difference is not in adopting other people's rituals in dances and things like that, but rather to create your own based on your own experiences. And it makes sense. I have a note here to ask, but Karen, so wonderfully asked the question. What, if you can't clear your mind enough to happen and you answered that you have different ways of doing that, which is great, but then it leads us into probably the biggest question that I have because when I was a young man, I was training with.

Native Americans in their way of doing things and in their thought process, everything, which is why I introduced to the show. The way I did everything has a spirit. It's not just you, me, the other person, everything has a spirit and it's getting in touch with that spirit through ritual. That actually makes a difference in your life.

Is that similar to the things that you are. 

Eric Lingen: Absolutely. You know, it's, it's one of these things where I don't like to [00:29:00] push any dogma on my students or on anyone else. And so I always say, you know, okay, treat what I say as a working hypothesis and then do the work. Right. Do the Shimano journey and do the ceremonies you know, that you find yourself and, and see what happens.

Right. And then, you know, take that working hypothesis that I gave you and see if it works for you, see if it matches your experience of things. But that working hypothesis that I always start off people with it, which definitely. It is what lava and I have had found through our practice is this animous worldview.

Absolutely. We live in this world that is insult, right. And, and this is You know, we have a bit of a map of the spirit world, a map of reality that kind of lays things out. And that is, you know, you can look at the physical world as this realm of time and space and you have consciousness, but it's embodied, right.

It's embodied within matter, right? You don't really have consciousness floating around, right. It's [00:30:00] all embodied. And then you have what we call the spirit world, and that's kind of where we come from, but it's this, this place without time and space. Sure consciousness, pure infinite consciousness. And so then you have the interaction between us and it, right?

So when you go into Chemonics journey, Are basically shutting yourself off in the physical and allowing your consciousness to go and engage with this kind of pure consciousness realm. And you're having this experience, that's basically the personalized to you, right? It's able to look into, and you're not getting something that's literally true.

You are getting something, this kind of lucid dream that is being personalized. They're looking inside of you. They're seeing what your S your symbols and what your your symbol sets is and what your. Your personal spiritual languages, and it's giving you an experience that is comprehensible to you, right?

And so that is kind of these two realms. And then of course you have kind of [00:31:00] this area where they intermix, right? So if you have a Venn diagram, you have the physical world on one side, you have the spirit world on the other, and then the, the area where, you know, an event. That area where they intersect it shares qualities of both.

Right? And so you have to have the physical and the spirit world where they intersect is something that we call the liminal. And, you know, if you interview any kind of pagans or Wiccans or witches, they'll talk about seeing across the veil, seeing into the veil, right? And this is very much this kind of parallel existence that exists alongside us in which you have.

Pure consciousness, like in the spirit world, interacting and existing amongst physical matter and, and time and space. Right? And so this is, you know, the realm of ghosts and all this. And so, and nature spirits, spirits of the land. And so when you are entering into trends, Yes, you can see into the spirit world itself, but then you can also see just a cross into [00:32:00] this, this realm of, of consciousness.

That's much, much closer to us, and it is existing in relation to time and space. So I guess what I'm getting at here is we live in a. And a very animated environment. And I like to express that we live in the midst of a spiritual ecosystem. You just can't see it. And it's just like any other ecosystem out there full of things that are benign you know, your deer, your rabbits, your trees, your your mushrooms and all this, but then there's, you know, the things that are uh, you know, predatory and parasitic and you know, we live in a, in a.

Amazing ecosystem. And with shamanism, you can learn to navigate that spiritual ecosystem, interact with it in a lot of different ways, but by interacting with that ecosystem, you very much realize that everything has. Some consciousness to it that in fact consciousness is primary and this physical [00:33:00] reality really is just kind of this hallucination being created for consciousness to play out narratives and to tell stories and to have experiences.

And so absolutely you go out there, you look at it. That rock has consciousness consciousness in it, a tree, a mountain, a galaxy, there's all these different levels of consciousness. The same way that a cell in your body is its own living, being it's conscious to a degree, but then you have the consciousness of the entire body in you.

And you're a cell. The galaxy. Right. And it has its own consciousness. So there's all these various levels. And I think that's one of the exciting things you find when you start working with the shamonic path. 

Will: there's two things. First. I think my daughter would disagree that mushrooms are not are benign.

She's not a fan, not a fan. And second. The only way that I have found for me to wrap my head around all the things you're seeing [00:34:00] right now is by using quantum mechanics, because the scientist in me is going no way in hell. Is this rock conscious? Sorry. No way. It's just not possible. As, as a scientist defined consciousness, it does.

It is not. But with the advent of quantum mechanics, we now find that there are so many things that we thought were not possible, but we're finding to be not only quite possible, but real that. I guess it's my disclaimer for everyone who's listening in. That's how I can just go. Okay. Next question.

Right? Because otherwise I'd be like, no, no, no. You just said a lot that I can't wrap my head around, but but I do appreciate what you're saying. you touched on something that sparked my memory. When I was looking into you, you do have a background in. Nature based religions like WIC, uh druidism that kind of stuff.

So what actually made you decide [00:35:00] to follow a shamonic path? Like I, they say people get called to this path. How did that happen? 

Eric Lingen: Well for me, you know, I think I'll tell my side of this, which is less interesting. And then lava can tell hers is that way, isn't it? Yeah. So I suppose it started when I was 12 years old, right.

I, I went on a trip to England and the last day we went on a tour of all the sacred sites, things like Atterbury and Stonehenge Glastonbury tour. And when I got back to Canada, Absolutely fascinated. I was the, you know, the 12 year old kid who was hanging out at the new age section of the, of the bookstores and that introduced me to things like drudgery.

And then that got me into Celtic, shamanism, shamanism, and then that was a gateway drug to everything else, right. WCA, the occult, everything. And that led me to a lot of spiritual seeking and. You know, it's something that when I was like 18, I kind of fell away from, cause I went off to university [00:36:00] and like, okay.

I discovered things other than spiritual seeking. Right. And then I eventually came back to it. And I suppose in my early twenties, I had, you know, the, the dream job, a dream career in Toronto. And I just, Started to think that there's some emptiness there. And so I left that job and basically just went on this spiritual quest, right.

Where I was like, okay, I know about all these systems. I just want to delve as deep as I can into them, find what universal what's shared. And. And see what the truth is. Right. And that of course led me to get deeper and deeper into nature spirituality. And, you know, I was practicing things, a lot of things in the background, bit of shamanism here and there.

But then through the miracle of online dating, I met lava and she had been shamonic practitioner for quite some time. And she was the, she got me deeply into that after we met. 

Laova Lingen: we're really like the left and right brain, you know, it's really like this. Oh, [00:37:00] I read all the books, walking library. I am just like experiencing stuff and go with the flow type of person 

Eric Lingen: and I'd read all the books.

Real kind of paranormal experiences, other than some synchronicities, she was having all the paranormal experiences and, and, you know, just going with an intuitive, which I think is 

Will: going to be our second part of the interview is the paranormal experiences, because we haven't even touched on that. When I looked into this stuff, all the, all the paranormal experiences that you guys have had, and you actually consult in that side of things and we haven't even touched on it yet.

So part two to come and it will be all about the paranormal, but I'm so sorry. 

Laova Lingen: Oh, no, no problem. Yes. I'm kind of paranormal. Magnetize cannot attract that kind of stuff. but so if I go short mom, since I was at child I grew up in a haunted house. My sister was seeing ghost.

We had weird experiences there. It was a 130 years old house, you know, in the [00:38:00] countryside. I was raised Christian, eh, catabolic. So what we would do is just pray God and pray for the best hope, for the best it was working. Then, you know, I was teenager, I grew up and I forgot about that stuff. It was just kind of spooky stories.

Dale around a fire with a beer with my friends, you know? 

And I, for me I, when I was about 17, I enter a relationship was very, very toxic. It was very broken for four years. Uh, It was not a good idea and I left, I finished by Lyft, but when I left, I felt like I was in 1000 pieces. You know, I felt so terrible. And I, I knew I had to find back myself and to build myself back.

And this is what put me on this spiritual battle start starting in the. Reading self-help book and studying meditation. And at the time I was supposed to go to school, but I didn't go for you reason with that relationship. But [00:39:00] then I decided to go to art school, just take my left back for myself.

And as I do meditation, I started having paranormal experience again, that, that cannot explain. And I'm like, what is going on? I don't know. And there was a point where I asked two of my friends in the same day acid to, you know, a medium, I didn't even know about shamanism. I said, do you know what medium, I need to talk to someone that knows about spirits because something's happening with me.

And they both say, I don't know what medium, but I know. It was not the same person, but I decided to go see one lady very, very adorable native American. And she asked me, do you have native blood? I said, well, my grant grant grandmother was native and she said, okay, I'm going to ELP. And so she sat there for like 10 minutes to close her eyes.

We didn't, she didn't know me. And she was able to say the next six months of my life, [00:40:00] Then it happened. I mean, and it was not, it was not fun. I mean, it was quite something. So you have a difficult autumn, you will have but then should I see you working with children? And she said, You're overdue to work with the spirits.

And she was like, kind of pointing at me and I'm like, okay. Okay. And so she helped me a lot during the summertime and then the fallout arrive and my apartment went on fire. I start having hours a before having the center with Eric. My, my main occupation was professional visual artist and Five contract with schools and art centers and art gallery to teach children.

Like I've never done that. No, no. It was like one after the other boom, boom, boom. In a month I had five contracts and then yes, then working 

Eric Lingen: with kids, working with kids with kids, 

Laova Lingen: I think I was teaching like 500 kids. This was just like, [00:41:00] yeah. And so after that I mean, I was in another relationship I left and everything just start.

My life turned around in the six months she was talking about and I realized looking back, I was like, wow. She really really said my life. This is powerful. She closed her eyes for 10 minutes and she was able to say all of this. I'm like, I really need to be serious about that. And this is. It was my confirmation event that I knew that Shamana SIM is just so magical and powerful and I just want it to be in.

So I started to delve into the practice, a 

Eric Lingen: bit of a disclaimer, if you start seriously practicing shamanism and you invite. The spirits and the spirits that when we talk about them, we're talking about ancestors, we're talking about, you know, things like guardian spirits and protect your spirits and all that.

When you start working with them they will help transform [00:42:00] your life. And so if you have a lot of patterns that you need to slag off and get rid of, they will, they'll help you transform. And it might happen in fast striking and startling ways, but they'll help you transform that's for sure. Wow. Gosh.

Will: I know that you help people.

Go on this shamonic journey on this path. I know that you have some virtual offerings that you do and you can help people from across the world really. Right. So what, how can someone reach out to you if they're looking to either get on the path or looking for some help from someone like. 

Eric Lingen: Certainly, well, we have the spirit world center.com.

That's just spirit world center.com and that's where you'll find the majority of our stuff. We have our our PR our apprenticeship programs listed on there and our various mentorship programs and shamanism and spirit craft. And then we also have a. Well, a podcast where we talk about these things and basically do Q and A's for our students and that's [00:43:00] publicly available.

We also do some good interviews there. We have a YouTube channel. That's the spirit world center on YouTube. The podcast is, it's not a very inventive name, but it's the spirit world center podcast. And that's available on all major podcast apps. We also have an Instagram account that spirit.

Underscore world underscore center. And those are, yeah, those are the main places to find us. And I encourage anyone who's having any kind of weird paranormal experiences or anything, you know, reach out because we can probably say a few things that might help you out and give you a couple of practices that that might be of help.

And yeah, we're very approachable and uh, there's various many ways of contacting us through. 

Will: Okay. Well, we are going to put all of those links directly on our website. So if you just go to the skeptic men, position.com and go to their episode page, you can see all those links directly there. You can reach out to them specifically directly one stop shop, right at that site. 

Karen: Please do reach out to them because [00:44:00] they are so informative and just lovely people.

And they're going to make you feel so comfortable while, while they're helping you on your. Yeah, 

Will: no, it's, it's it's this has definitely been an incredible, incredible conversation. And I just can't believe it's already over really quickly. I know that we are way short on time, but I really I've got to really make sure we hammer this point down.

If you could narrow everything down that we just talked about into one fell swoop, what are the best benefits that shamanism provides and how can it help in someone's life 

Eric Lingen: one thing that you find with shamanism is that it is like a reunion. You have all these spiritual beings who are around you from a guardian spirit to all these beings who are empowering you to your ancestors.

And a wonderful part about shamanism is waking up to that relationship to these beings that are all around you, and then being able to work with those beings to [00:45:00] solve practical issues in your life. Whether it's so lost or whether it's just cleansing some spirit that you picked up in a used bookstore to you know, trying to bring some positivity and luck into your life.

There are just so many ways that they can help. And it really is this, this homecoming, this reunion with beings who love and care about you and they're around you right now anyways, but you can learn to work with them during. 

Laova Lingen: Yes. I would say it's all about feeling like you're getting things back to you.

I'll do the gift. Maybe you feel you've lost throughout the life or that you discover, but also letting go creating boundaries, healthy boundaries to gain your power, to stay in your power in life. When in a. In a very meaningful way and you know, like with the nature, but with the human and also with this spirit.

So it has really like kind of all [00:46:00] these dimension to 

Will: it. guys, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to come on the show and. Speak to us about shamanism and what you do and sharing of yourself with our audience, because what you bring to the table is so huge and so important. It, another path that's out there for those that are seeking the way in life.

 Thank you once again for coming on. 

Eric Lingen: Thank you so much for having us. It's been an absolute blast. 

Laova Lingen: Thank you very much, 

Will: Before we go, I did want to share another great review that came into our show. Melissa. Oatman from the United States rated us five stars and she says, awesome podcasts. I love your energy and the topics you cover. Everyone should check out this amazing podcast. I could not agree with you more, Melissa.

Thank you so much for leaving us that wonderful review. And we'd love to hear from you. So visit us@skepticmetaphysician.com, where you can leave us a voicemail or an [00:47:00] email directly. You may just hear your voice or your words. And we're always looking for ways to improve the show. So if you have some feedback that you'd like to provide good or bad, Just let us know. We are happy to take any criticism that you feel we should know. Of course, reviews and readings are a great way to evolve and grow the show. So we'd love it. If you would take a minute and leave one of those, as well, as you can see from Melissa's review, it doesn't have to take a lot or long time.

A couple of words saying what you feel about the show is all we really need.

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