The Shamanic Journey Method: Michael Harner’s Map of Non-Ordinary Reality

Two States of Consciousness

At the foundation of Michael Harner’s work lies a distinction that reframes the entire modern understanding of consciousness: the difference between the Ordinary State of Consciousness (OSC) and the Shamanic State of Consciousness (SSC).

In ordinary consciousness, we perceive what Harner called “ordinary reality” — the material world of physical objects, linear time, and sensory experience. This is the world that modern Western culture takes to be the only reality. It is the world of science, commerce, and everyday life.

The Shamanic State of Consciousness, by contrast, is a specific altered state in which the practitioner gains access to what Harner termed “non-ordinary reality” (NOR) — a dimension of existence that is just as real as ordinary reality, just as internally consistent, but governed by different laws. In non-ordinary reality, communication with spirits is possible, time operates differently, physical laws do not apply in the same way, and information can be obtained that is not accessible through ordinary means.

Harner identified the SSC as corresponding to theta brainwave activity (approximately 4-7 Hz), the same frequency range associated with deep meditation, hypnagogic states, and certain phases of sleep. However, unlike sleep or trance, the SSC involves a distinctive quality of focused awareness. The practitioner is not unconscious, not dreaming, not hallucinating. They are alert, intentional, and in control of their experience, able to direct their journey and remember it clearly upon return.

This distinction was crucial because it validated the shamanic practitioner’s experience on its own terms rather than reducing it to psychopathology. Where Western psychiatry might see hallucination or dissociation, Harner saw a disciplined technology of consciousness with a 40,000-year track record across every inhabited continent.

The Drum: The Shaman’s Horse

The primary tool for entering the SSC in Core Shamanism is the drum. Called “the shaman’s horse” in Siberian tradition because it carries the practitioner between worlds, the drum is far more than a musical instrument. It is a technology of consciousness.

Harner’s research identified the optimal tempo for inducing the shamanic state as approximately three to four beats per second — roughly 180 to 240 beats per minute. This steady, monotonous rhythm, maintained for at least fifteen minutes, acts as what researchers call “sonic driving” — rhythmic auditory stimulation that entrains the brain into altered states of consciousness.

What makes this approach remarkable is its accessibility. Harner discovered that when drumming is used at this tempo, most novices can successfully journey on their very first attempt. No years of meditation training are required. No psychoactive substances are necessary. No special genetic gifts or cultural background. The drum opens the door to non-ordinary reality for virtually anyone who is willing to try.

The rattle serves a similar function in some traditions and is also used in Core Shamanism. Both instruments produce the kind of sustained, repetitive sound that shifts consciousness from the analytical, left-brain-dominant mode of ordinary awareness into the more fluid, imagistic, holistic mode of the SSC.

Harner also produced recordings of shamanic drumming that have been used by millions of practitioners worldwide, making the practice accessible even to solo practitioners without a live drummer. These recordings typically include a “callback” signal — a change in drumming rhythm that signals the journeyer to return to ordinary consciousness.

The Journey Technique

The basic technique of the shamanic journey, as taught by Harner, follows a clear structure:

Preparation: The journeyer lies down on their back, usually with a bandanna or cloth covering their eyes to block out light. The left hand covers the eyes. The room is darkened. A clear intention for the journey is formulated — a question to ask, a spirit to meet, a healing to seek.

The Entry Point: The journeyer visualizes a real place in nature that they remember from their own life — an opening in the earth such as an animal burrow, a hollow tree stump, a cave entrance, a spring, or a hole in the ground. This must be a real place the journeyer has actually seen, not an imagined one. This specificity helps ground the experience and provides a reliable “doorway” into non-ordinary reality.

The Descent or Ascent: As the drumming begins, the journeyer enters the opening and moves through a tunnel or passage. For Lower World journeys, this involves going downward through the earth. For Upper World journeys, it involves ascending — climbing a tree, a mountain, a rainbow, a beam of light, or riding smoke upward. The tunnel may be long or short, dark or dimly lit, straight or winding.

Arrival: At some point, the journeyer emerges from the tunnel into one of the three worlds. The landscape that appears will vary from person to person and journey to journey, but it has a vivid, three-dimensional quality that distinguishes it from ordinary imagination or daydreaming. Colors may be unusually intense. The sense of “being there” is palpable.

The Work: Once in non-ordinary reality, the journeyer carries out their intention — meeting a power animal, asking a question of a spirit teacher, seeking healing or guidance. The experience unfolds with a narrative quality, though not always in a linear fashion. Spirits may communicate through images, feelings, direct knowing, or even words.

The Return: When the callback drumming signal sounds, the journeyer returns along the same path they entered, moving back through the tunnel to their starting point, and gradually returns awareness to ordinary reality.

The Three Worlds

The shamanic cosmology that Harner taught — and that appears in remarkably similar forms across cultures worldwide — divides non-ordinary reality into three interconnected realms.

The Lower World

The Lower World is accessed by journeying downward through the earth, typically through the opening the practitioner has chosen as their entry point. The tunnel that leads there may pass through earth, rock, water, or darkness before opening out into a landscape that is often described as a natural environment — forests, meadows, oceans, deserts, jungles, mountains — but more vivid and alive than anything in ordinary reality.

The Lower World is the realm most closely associated with power animals, nature spirits, and the deep, instinctual wisdom of the earth. It has a quality of groundedness, raw vitality, and primal power. Many practitioners describe it as having a timeless, primordial feeling — as though one has entered the earth’s own dreaming.

It is in the Lower World that most beginners first meet their power animals. The healing and guidance available here tend to be visceral, embodied, and connected to the natural world. The Lower World teaches through direct experience, through the body, through the language of nature.

The Upper World

The Upper World is accessed by journeying upward — climbing a tree, ascending a mountain, riding a column of smoke, following a beam of light, or flying with a spirit helper. The practitioner may pass through layers or levels, sometimes encountering what feels like a membrane or threshold between layers.

The Upper World has a quality that many describe as ethereal, luminous, or expansive. Its landscapes may include cloudscapes, crystal cities, vast open spaces, or realms of pure light. The atmosphere tends to be more rarefied and cosmic than the Lower World’s earthiness.

This is the realm of spirit teachers — beings who appear in human or humanoid form and offer wisdom, guidance, and teaching. These may present as wise elders, religious figures, ancestors, or beings of light. Harner’s final book, “Cave and Cosmos” (2013), drew on over 2,500 reports of Western practitioners’ Upper World journeys, revealing striking consistencies in what people encountered: compassionate teachers, cosmic landscapes, and experiences of profound spiritual union.

The Upper World teaches through knowledge, perspective, and expanded awareness. Where the Lower World connects us to the embodied wisdom of earth, the Upper World connects us to the transcendent wisdom of spirit.

The Middle World

The Middle World is the non-ordinary reality counterpart of the ordinary physical world. It occupies the same space as our everyday reality but exists at a different frequency or dimension. Shamans journey in the Middle World to communicate with the spirits of nature — the spirit of a river, a mountain, a plant, a storm. It is also the realm where psychopomp work (helping the spirits of the dead transition) takes place.

The Middle World is the most complex and potentially challenging of the three worlds because it contains both compassionate and non-compassionate spirits. Unlike the Lower and Upper Worlds, which are populated exclusively by compassionate beings in Core Shamanism practice, the Middle World requires more discernment. For this reason, Harner generally recommended that beginners focus on Lower and Upper World journeys until they had developed strong relationships with their helping spirits.

Power Animals

The concept of the power animal is central to Core Shamanism and reflects a nearly universal shamanic understanding: that every human being has animal spirit guardians who provide protection, power, and guidance.

In Harner’s framework, a power animal is a compassionate spirit who appears in animal form and has chosen to be in relationship with a particular human being. Having a power animal is not optional or special — it is the natural state of a healthy, empowered human being. Conversely, “power loss” — the loss of one’s connection with a guardian spirit — is understood as one of the primary spiritual causes of vulnerability, illness, and misfortune.

Power animal retrieval — journeying to find and return a power animal for someone who has lost theirs — is one of the foundational healing practices in Core Shamanism. The practitioner journeys to the Lower World with the intention of finding the client’s power animal, and when the animal is found (often identified by appearing four times or from four different angles), the practitioner carries it back and “blows” it into the client’s body, typically into the heart and the crown of the head.

Harner taught that power animals should be honored and maintained through attention, gratitude, and regular shamanic journeying. Dancing one’s power animal — moving and expressing the animal’s energy through the body — is a practice for strengthening the connection.

Spirit Teachers

While power animals are typically encountered in the Lower World, spirit teachers are most often met in the Upper World. These beings appear in human or humanoid form and serve as sources of wisdom, guidance, and advanced teaching.

Spirit teachers may present as figures from spiritual traditions — sages, mystics, ancestors — or as beings of light without specific cultural markers. The key criterion is that they are compassionate. Any being encountered in non-ordinary reality that is not compassionate is not a true helping spirit and should not be worked with.

Harner emphasized that the relationship with helping spirits is the foundation of all shamanic practice. The shaman does not heal through personal power but through the power of the spirits. The practitioner’s role is to be a “hollow bone” — a clear channel through which spiritual healing power can flow.

Journey as Empirical Exploration

One of the most distinctive aspects of Harner’s approach was his insistence on direct experience. He did not ask practitioners to believe anything. He asked them to journey and find out for themselves. The shamanic journey is not a guided meditation, not a visualization exercise, not a creative fantasy. It is an empirical exploration of non-ordinary reality.

The spirits one encounters in journeying are understood to be autonomous beings with their own intelligence, knowledge, and agency. They surprise the journeyer, provide information the journeyer could not have known, and sometimes refuse to cooperate with the journeyer’s plans. This autonomy of the spirits is one of the features that distinguishes genuine shamanic experience from imagination or wishful thinking.

Harner was fond of saying that the only thing he asked people to believe was that there was a method worth trying. The rest would be demonstrated by their own experience. This empirical, experiential approach made Core Shamanism uniquely compatible with the Western emphasis on personal verification and evidence, while simultaneously opening practitioners to dimensions of reality that Western materialism had long denied.

The Practical Power of the Journey

The shamanic journey serves multiple practical purposes:

Healing: Journeying to diagnose and treat illness by retrieving lost power, extracting spiritual intrusions, or recovering lost soul parts.

Divination: Asking spirits for information — about the cause of a problem, the right course of action, the location of something lost, or the nature of a situation.

Guidance: Seeking wisdom and direction from helping spirits about life decisions, relationships, creative projects, or spiritual development.

Knowledge: Learning from spirits about the nature of reality, the workings of the cosmos, the properties of plants and animals, or the deeper dimensions of any topic.

Psychopomp Work: Helping the spirits of the dead who are “stuck” in the Middle World to find their way to the appropriate afterlife realm.

Connection: Deepening one’s relationship with the web of life, with the spirits of nature, with one’s ancestors, and with the sacred dimension of existence.

The shamanic journey is not a one-time event but a daily practice for serious practitioners. Like any relationship, the relationships with helping spirits deepen and strengthen through regular contact. The spirits teach more, reveal more, and empower more as the practitioner demonstrates commitment and integrity.

A 40,000-Year-Old Technology

Harner often emphasized that shamanic journeying is perhaps the oldest spiritual practice known to humanity. Archaeological evidence suggests that shamanic practices date back at least 40,000 years, and the cave paintings of prehistoric Europe may represent the visions of shamanic journeyers.

In bringing this ancient practice to the modern West, Harner did not invent something new. He recovered something old — something that was part of our shared human heritage long before the rise of organized religion, philosophy, or science. The capacity to journey, to enter non-ordinary reality, to communicate with spirits, is not a cultural invention but a human birthright.

The shamanic journey is available to anyone willing to lie down, close their eyes, listen to the drum, and set an intention. In that simplicity lies its power. In that accessibility lies its revolutionary potential. In a world that has largely forgotten the reality of the spirit dimension, the shamanic journey offers a direct, personal, verifiable pathway back to what our ancestors knew: that we are not alone, that the world is alive and ensouled, and that healing is always possible through partnership with the spirits who have loved us since the beginning.

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Sources: Foundation for Shamanic Studies (shamanism.org), “The Way of the Shaman” by Michael Harner (1980), “Cave and Cosmos” by Michael Harner (2013), shamanicdrumming.com, bodymindwholeness.com, roelcrabbe.com on the three shamanic worlds.