Greetings all.

I am now writing a monthly column called Encounters on the Shaman's Path for an online magazine called The Meta Arts. This was my article for the April 2005 issue, an interesting account of how I was able to work with one of my spirit helpers to be of service to someone else.

Encounters on the Shaman's Path
with anthropologist Dr. Hank Wesselman, PhD.

The Leopard Man

In our last column, we discussed the nature of spirit helpers, revealing how they may provide us with enhanced levels of power, protection and support upon request. The indigenous spiritualist traditions affirm with great conviction that one's life can change dramatically in response to having one or more of these wise beings come into relationship with us as allies and spiritual compadres. The account that follows provides an interesting example of how I was able to work with one of my spirit helpers, in the process asking it to be of service to someone else in order to empower and protect that individual.

Almost ten years ago, I was approached by a young woman who had been one of my students at American River College in Sacramento, California, where I teach an anthropology class called Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion. I looked her over as she walked up to me. There was a sense or urgency about her, and she was projecting a feeling of nervous agitation. After greeting me, she asked if she could share something with me, and then she proceeded to tell me a very strange story.

For the best part of a year, she had been waking up every night in her bed in a deep state of fear. And virtually every night, there were three unfriendly entities in the room with her. She couldn't see them but she could feel their hands upon her, holding her down. The moment they saw she was aware of them, one would say "Oh good, you're awake now." They would then molest her in the most unsavory ways, sometimes for hours. For the duration of these attacks, she was a helpless victim, unable to move or cry out, let alone resist her attackers.

I continued to scan her as her account came out in discordant chunks. Her eyes were cloudy and dull, and her skin was pale and waxy. Her clothes were wrinkled and her hair was disheveled. She had deep circles under her eyes and looked exhausted. By the time she came to the end, she was shaking with fear. It was quite apparent that this young woman was in trouble.

I'm not a psychologist, but I was well aware that this woman could have been suffering from the onset of mental illness. There could also have been trauma associated with molestation issues in her past that she had suppressed or largely forgotten. As an anthropology professor, it would not have been ethical for me to ask her about her personal life, nor do I psychotherapize my students. However, I do function upon request as a shamanic practitioner, and when I looked at her from this perspective, it was quite obvious to me that she had lost her protection.

I had a clear sense of how to proceed, but correct protocol required that she ask me to help her. I was aware that she didn't know this, so I decided to prompt her. I looked into her drawn face and asked if she remembered the part of the class when we had discussed shamans and their spirit helpers.

"That's why I came to you," she quavered in her trembling voice. "I sensed that you had gone beyond scholarly research into direct personal contact with the subject matter." Thoughtful pause. "You've spent a lot of your life with traditional people." A glimmer of hope crept into her tired eyes. "Do you think you could help me?"

That's what I was waiting to hear. Protocol had now been established. I smiled and said to her "Yes, I am going to help you. I know exactly how to take care of this problem." I could see in her posture and demeanor the immediate relief she experienced in response to my words.

"Can you go home in the next half hour?" I asked her. She nodded. I explained that she should go to her bedroom at a precise time, close the door and lie down on the bed, setting herself on receive mode. I also asked her to light a candle and turn off her phone. Creating light is a very positive thing to do.

I then told her that I was going home to my house where I would do a protection ritual for her at the time I had indicated. " I don't have to be in the same room with you to do this," I told her. "As my student, there is already an established connection between us. I will simply use that link to set up a perimeter around you, using my most powerful spirit helper as an ally. Once the perimeter is in place, it's done. They won't be able to get to you again."

As the young woman listened, I saw the fear return. "But what if it doesn't work?" she whispered. "What if they come back?" I could see that she needed something more in the way of reassurance. She was in desperate need of healing, and I knew that healing cannot take place in a state of fear. Before anything else was possible, I had to help alleviate her fear.

I shifted the focus of my attention inward toward the one who is always in connection with me--the one I think of as my spirit teacher--and I asked for assistance. The answer arrived immediately. It came in the form of a memory of a conversation I had had several years before with Sandra Ingerman, a powerful shamanic practitioner and teacher who I have known for more than 20 years.

On that day in the early 1990s, I had asked Sandy what she did when she felt herself under psychic attack. She had recounted that she had put that same question to a Chumash woman not long before. The Indian had responded that she used her creative imagination to make an image of a blue egg, a big one. And then she simply got inside it. "When I'm in the blue egg, nothing can touch me," the medicine woman had proclaimed. "Blue is a very protective color."

I told this story to the young woman before me and could feel a shift in her emotional state. I suggested she buy some blue beads at the bead store not far from the college and string them for herself. 'Bead' is an Old English word that means 'prayer' and so string your prayers for self-protection, I told her, and wear them... even to bed. She looked more stable when she and I went our separate ways, she to her home, me to mine.

At the time indicated, I sat down at my desk with my Hopi gourd rattle in hand. On the wall above me hung my oil painting of one of my most powerful spirit helpers--the one I refer to as the Leopard Man in my Spiritwalker Trilogy. This spirit had come into my life when I was a child visiting New York's Central Park Zoo, and it had functioned as one of my imaginary friends for many years, enriching my inner world before mysteriously departing with the onset of adolescence. I have written about how this being re-entered my life as a spirit helper in my early 40s, enabling an expansion of my consciousness that was (and is) quite extraordinary.

Now--allow me to observe (as an aside) that this is an interesting statement for someone like me to make. I am a trained scholar with advanced degrees in science, including a doctorate from UC Berkeley. I have been involved in academic teaching and international research at the highest levels for more than 40 years. Yet in my wanderings in academia and among the traditional peoples, I have learned that for the scholar, the negative polarity is theory, and the positive polarity is knowledge. I have also learned that knowledge can only be acquired through direct experience.

Seen from this perspective, a Western-trained psychologist might proclaim with fervor that the Leopard Man is a product of my creative imagination, or perhaps a projection of myself in animal form. Yet this statement, at its credentialed best, is merely theory. I, on the other hand, know with absolute certainty, derived from direct experience, that the spirit I call the Leopard Man is the group oversoul of the large species of cat that science calls Panthera pardus--the leopard. With equal fervor, derived from my own experience, I can proclaim that this being does not possess human egoic qualities, nor does it speak to me using the King's English. But it does think, analyze, integrate information, and it can make decisions. We can also communicate, using a modality I have come to call "think-feeling."

All this passed through my mind as I fastened my gaze on the painting and commenced rattling. I had rendered the image of this spirit standing upright as a biped on his hind legs, a posture it often adopted when in my presence. It's spotted body was partially concealed by somewhat abstract trees representing the forest in the Lower Worlds where it resides. I had done the painting in an altered state of consciousness while living in Hawai'i in the late 1980s, and I was now using it as a doorway so that I could engage my ally to be of service to my student.

I shook the rattle in a steady monotonous rhythm and focused on the Leopard Man's green eyes. Within moments, I felt the trance state come on. As my consciousness began to expand in response, I saw those eyes close, then open, then close again in that peculiar catly squint that all felines use to convey ease and friendly intention. The trance continued to deepen, until I heard that distinct hissing rush of sound in my ears and my body began to vibrate. Then the Leopard Man's eyes opened... and I was there, in the forest with my old friend.

Our reunions are always intense, our heightened emotional states conveying our great affection for each other. On this occasion, I could smell the rich scent of the trees and the earth as well as the strong odor of cat. Shared memories of childhood adventures passed through my mind... and through his. Then, connection established, I focused on the problem at hand. Because I was dealing with an animal spirit, I doubted that issues of molestation would make much sense. All cats are territorial, however, and so I chose this route in formulating my request.

Using think-feeling, I explained to my spirit helper that I had come to pay my respects and to ask for assistance. The territory of one of my friends (mental image of the girl) was being invaded by bad guys with hostile intent. I repeated the phrase-thought "her territory is being invaded" several times and felt the Leopard Man's emotions darken. I let him sit with this for several long moments, then I asked him to help her. I requested that he follow the link between us to set up a perimeter of protection around her so that the invaders could be kept out. I added that I didn't want him to hurt them in any way. I just wanted them isolated from the girl--and permanently.

I continued to stare into those pale green eyes, holding his attention as my request sank in. Then I added that she needed to have her personal power enhanced--that she had lost her power and needed empowerment. I asked him to come into relationship with her as a spirit helper until that time when she could reconnect with her own allies.

And then, almost as an afterthought, I slipped in that I would also appreciate the same perimeter of protection placed around me and my wife and my children. The last thing I wanted was for these unfriendlies to find their way into my dreaming or that of my family through my connection with the student...

The Leopard Man's 'field' intensified in response to my requests, and his think-feeling became thick. I felt a deep, grating vibration in my own body, like the sound of sawing wood, and knew it to be the leopard's voice. Simultaneously, the green eyes became darker and darker... and then they closed.

When they opened once more they had shifted back into their customary pale jade color, and I knew that the perimeter was in place. The spirit then did something peculiar. It attempted to smile, but being a cat, it never quite made it, the expression coming out more as a grimace. I expressed my gratitude, running my fingers across its brow, scratching up and behind its velvety ears... then slowly, slowly, I ceased rattling. I watched, intrigued, as the spotted face solidified and became a painting once again.

I put down the rattle and checked the time. The whole interaction had taken place in less than 10 minutes. I then went on with my day, picked up my kids from school, and took them to the supermarket to shop for dinner.

The following week, the young woman approached me once again, and this time she looked completely different. Her skin had color and her hair was done. She was wearing makeup and there was light in her eyes. "It worked, Dr Hank," she proclaimed with excitement. "They haven't returned, not once. I can sleep again in safety..." I noted that she was wearing a string of blue beads and was projecting a sense of vibrancy. There was no doubt--she had experienced empowerment. As I then explained to her what I had done and how I had done it (long-distance work), I could feel her growing stronger still.

"And a shrink would probably say that this was all fantasy and new age hoo-hah," she laughed. "Effectiveness is the measure of truth," I responded thoughtfully. "I've reached a point in my life where I can no longer worry about my esteemed colleagues' comfort level. Let's just call what we've accomplished 'applied anthropology' and keep it to ourselves..." She hugged me with gratitude and we went our separate ways.

I didn't see her again for almost a year. My first book Spiritwalker had just been released and I was doing a book signing at Tower Books north of Sacramento. Toward the end of that long afternoon, she suddenly appeared--the last in line--and when I finally signed her copy, I quietly asked her if she'd ever had any more problems in her dreaming. A glance around the bookstore revealed we were alone.

"Everything was fine until one night last month," she began hesitantly. "I was asleep and I was dreaming that I was in a city somewhere. I was window shopping..." I smiled. "Dream shopping," she smiled in response. "A new first for the entrepreneurs.

"I was looking through the windows at all the things I wanted to buy when I suddenly glanced up for some reason. And there, reflected in the plate glass window, I could see the street and the traffic behind me. It was then that I noticed three boys across the street, and when I turned to look, I recognized them. They were the three sleazoids who used to give me the creeps in High School. One of them saw me at this moment and said something to the others. It was then that I knew that they were the ones who had been messing with me."

I had wondered at the time if this could be the cause--if someone who knew her had discovered how to spiritwalk without the positive guidance of an accomplished older teacher. It was usually the discarnate souls of dead humans who caused problems of this sort. As I watched her now, I admitted to myself that it was very possible that these three guys were joining up in their dreaming, targeting this girl in a morbid subconscious scenario of their own creation. I felt her fear return. "What did you do then?" I asked.

"They all stared at me for long moments, and then they started to cross the street. They were coming for me... I didn't know what to do. Then I think I remembered something that you told me. I looked down and there, parked at the curb in front of me was a blue Volkswagen beetle. It was the blue egg." Her eyebrows shot up and I felt her fear begin to depart. "I grabbed the handle and it was unlocked, thank God, so I jumped in and locked both doors. They quickly surrounded the car, and I knew that they were saying bad things to me but I couldn't hear them. They made lewd gestures and grabbed onto the car, rocking it back and forth, but they couldn't get in. I was safe in the blue egg." Delighted laughter.

"I looked down and saw there were keys in the ignition, so I climbed over the gear shift into the driver's seat, and it started. I checked the rear mirror. There was a space in the traffic. So I put it in first and whipped that little blue beetle out into the flow. In doing so, I threw those three creeps off the car. They went flying. Then I slammed it into second and drove away and left them behind." More delighted laughter. The fear was gone. "And since that dream, no problemo," she finished.

This young woman came to one of my workshops later in the year and found connection with her own spirit helpers. My job was done. She had discovered how to protect herself as well as how to connect with power to increase her own personal supply. A version of this account can be found in Visionseeker, the third book in the Spiritwalker trilogy. This book also has my painting of the Leopard Man on the cover (you may see it on the gallery page of our site ).

Finding connection with our spirit helpers is one of the foundation stones that I teach my workshop participants. And once in connection, I teach them how to work with their spirit allies to empower others who are in need. My small book with CD--The Journey to the Sacred Garden--is also there for those who cannot attend one of our workshops, revealing the method, as well as the path to be followed.

There will be more stories to follow in this monthly column. Until that time, allow me to invoke the spirit of my great Hawaiian friend, Kahu Hale Makua, and extend to each of you the Light and the Love of the Ancestors, The Source of Life, rejoicing in the Power and the Peace, braided with the cords of Patience, revealing the tapestry of Aloha.

--with warm thoughts--Dr Hank

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