Shamanic Counseling
You do the journeying.
You develop the relationship with helping spirits.
I teach, guide and support you through the process.
Find your own path and guidance
At Shamanic Forest Healing we utilize Harner Shamanic Counseling (HSC) in our Shamanic Counseling services. HSC is a structured approach to spiritual exploration and personal inquiry developed by anthropologist Michael Harner PhD, founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, and grounded in Core Shamanism.
At its heart is a simple idea: rather than looking to someone else for spiritual answers, you learn to undertake your own shamanic journeys and develop a direct relationship with helping spirits and Teachers through your own experience.
My role is to teach you the process, guide and support you as you explore what arises, and help you develop confidence in your own ability to journey and seek guidance for yourself.
The answers don’t reside with me. The journey—and what you discover through it—is yours.
A spiritual experience with full autonomy
Harner Shamanic Counseling puts your own experience at the centre of the process. Through your journeys, you begin to explore questions that matter to you and develop your own relationship with helping spirits and Teachers.
I am there throughout the process to teach, guide and support you—to help you become comfortable with the method, explore what arises and develop confidence in your own experience.
It is your journey, your relationship and, ultimately, your path to explore.
You don’t need any previous experience with shamanic journeying. You simply need to bring curiosity, an open mind and something you would like to explore.
HSC may be particularly meaningful if you are drawn to exploring an alternative approach to divination, developing your own direct relationship with the divine and helping spirits, or seeking another way to explore questions, challenges or transitions in your life.
You might think of it as a form of guided deep meditation, using the shamanic journey as a catalyst for exploration, insight and personal development.
You don’t need to arrive with answers. You begin with a question.
How Shamanic Counseling Works
You bring the question
It begins with questions arising from your own life — questions for which you are seeking spiritual insight, guidance or a different perspective.
You learn to journey
I introduce you to the methods used in Harner Shamanic Counseling and help you develop your ability to enter nonordinary reality and journey for yourself.
You encounter your Teachers
The important Teachers are those you encounter directly through your own journeys. I help you develop the journeying method and support you in exploring and understanding your experiences, while the relationship with your helping spirits and Teachers remains your own.
You develop the ability to continue
Across the five sessions, you develop increasing familiarity and confidence with the method. Once the HSC process is complete, you have a foundation you can continue to develop through your own shamanic practice.
What Does a Session Actually Look Like?
Your recordings remain with you, and the experience remains yours.
HSC sessions are quiet, focused and experiential.
When journeying, you can sit or lie comfortably and wear eyeshades to reduce outside distractions. You listen through headphones to a recorded rhythmic drum track designed to support the journeying process.
One of the distinctive features of the Harner method is simultaneous narration and recording. As you journey, you describe what you are experiencing aloud and record it on your own device, creating a record you can return to afterward.
Following the journey, we review the experience together. I may help you identify elements recognized as classic shamanic experiences or offer methodological guidance.
Spiritual Counseling, Not Psychotherapy
Harner Shamanic Counseling is a spiritual practice, not psychotherapy.
HSC works within a shamanic framework and is intended as a method of spiritual exploration and problem solving. It is not intended to diagnose or treat psychological or medical conditions, nor is it a substitute for appropriate medical, psychological or mental-health care.
Begin With a Conversation
You don't need to know how to journey — or even whether Shamanic Counseling is the right approach for you.
If you're curious about the practice or have something you would like to explore, we can begin with a conversation.
Who is Harner Shamanic Counseling for?
What is Core Shamanism?
Core Shamanism is a system consisting of the universal, near-universal, and common features of shamanism, together with journeys to other worlds, rather than being a specific cultural or regional practice. It was researched and developed by Michael Harner, PhD, an anthropologist. For me, that distinction matters. The purpose isn’t to become someone else’s kind of shaman. It is to rediscover our own capacity for direct spiritual experience.
Shamanic Counseling or Shamanic Services?
Shamanic Counseling
You journey.
I teach and counsel you in the method so that you can develop your own relationship with helping spirits and seek guidance through your own experience.
Shamanic Treatment Service
I journey on your behalf or work in partnership with you.
The work may include shamanic divination, journeying, helping spirits, power animals and other Core Shamanic practices depending upon what brings you to the work.
Shamanic Healing
Service Pricing
Shamanic Counseling - A Five Week Process
Harner Shamanic Counseling is undertaken as a structured five-session process, with one session every seven days for five consecutive weeks. The continuity of the process is important, so once we begin, we maintain that weekly rhythm and there is no additional journeying between sessions.
$115 per session | $575 total, + HST
The complete five-session process is booked together. Before beginning, we’ll have a conversation to answer your questions, discuss what you’re hoping to explore and determine whether HSC feels like the right approach for you.
Shamanic Healing & Private Treatments
Individual shamanic healing and divination sessions are guided by what you bring to the experience and what arises through the work.
Unlike Harner Shamanic Counseling, where you learn to undertake your own journeys, in these sessions I journey on your behalf, working with my compassionate helping spirits to seek guidance, information or healing appropriate to you.
Sessions may include Shamanic Divination, to seek guidance or another perspective on a question or concern, or shamanic healing practices such as Power Animal Retrieval, intended to help restore a connection with a protective, compassionate helping spirit.
Because shamanic work is individual by nature, the approach will vary from person to person. The process always starts with a conversation to determine the right approch for you.
$115 per private session + HST