Awakened at Needle Point

8/8/2019 Awakened at Needle Point

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Awakened at Needle Point: A Shamanic Journey into Body-Mind-Spirit Wellness

By John Jay Harper

The search for new shamans has begun in earnest.

~Margaret Wheatley, Ph.D., Harvard University, author of Leadership and the

New Science

Introduction

It was late Friday afternoon February 26th, 2010; a cold, snowy mid-winter day

in the Pacific Northwest when an unresolved, incapacitating childhood conflict surfaced again. Indeed it

was the source of symptoms, mental and physical, that had controlled my entire life story until now.

These anxieties dogged me like a proverbial hound from hell and I began paying close attention to them.

I knew my sanity depended upon comprehending these symptoms as signs and symbols of my

unconscious psyche, but I did not understand why they manifestedyet!

The original catalyst for my crash and burn was the abandonment by my father in Seattle at age 5. Heleft my mother, Catherine, and my two brothers, Ron and Steve, homeless and penniless, so he could

hire on with a fishing fleet. His goal was to become the chief marine mechanic to keep them trolling for

the deadliest catch in waters up and down the coastlines of Alaska, Canada, Washington, Oregon, and

California. I never saw him again until I was 32-years old.

In fact, as I shared in the Second Edition of my book, Tranceformers:

Shamans of the 21st

Century , my perceived reality since the 1950s was

nothing but the symbolic cutting down of my family tree reenacted through

me. And my heroic efforts to stop it from happening to those I loved, again

and again and again. Clinically speaking, I was suffering from a borderline

personality disorder known to psychotherapists as third degree emotionalburns. In short, I felt a swarm of toxic emotions sting me that evening and

reacted as a helpless child alone in the darknot an adult. I truly did not

have a life yet, nor an authentic sense of self that was symptom-free and

able to engage the world on its terms.

But the scenario that led initially to nothing more than allergy headaches and

sinus symptoms was Claritin clear enough. My beloved 20-year old granddaughter, Kathryne, who had

been living with us for the past 3 years, was embarking on her first solo cross-country road trip from

Spokane, Washington to Jacksonville, North Carolina, and I was deathly afraid for her safety. Katie was

en route to Andrea, a girlfriend she had known in Spokane since 14, to share a recently purchased home

close to the Atlantic Ocean. Andrea was today a proud U.S. Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, awaiting

the return of her husband, high school sweetheart Joshua, likewise a combat soldier fighting the Taliban

in Afghanistan until summer 2010.

Specifically, I decided to drive our gas-miser Honda Civic in front of Katies car for the first one thousand

miles of her four thousand mile journey to the East Coast, in a heartfelt albeit panic-stricken moment. I

wanted to blaze the trail, so to speak, make certain she, and co-driver Jody, got safely through the

snowy mountain passes in Idaho, Utah and then into the first city they planned to stop on Saturday



afternoon: Las Vegas, Nevada. I even paid for a deluxe room-in-advance at the Luxor Hotel for my wife,

Connie, and myself before we departed Spokane confident this was a slam dunk mission possible.

However, my cock-eyed military veteran optimism overstretched my capacity to drive around-the-clock

anymore, as I did easily in my pre-retirement years. We never made it. For I collapsed from physical

exhaustion early Saturday morning while driving on Interstate 84 through Boise, Idaho, forced to exit the

freeway pulling into the Hampton Inn at approximately 3:30AM PST. Connie called Katies cell phone

and explained what had happened and wished her and Jody a fun weekend in Las Vegas, but without us.

We would rest a few hours, we said, and chart a new course back home via western Idaho, eastern

Oregon, and central Washington, avoiding the mountain passes crossed in the middle of the night.

With hindsight 20/20, I saw Id been literally travelling on sacred ground,

revisiting a segment of the East-to-West migration route from Scotland-to-

Virginia-to-California that was significant to my family ancestry. I recalled

my grandfather was born in Salt Lake City in 1890 and my great-

grandfather, Robert Harper, helped lay stones on The Mormon Temple.

Moreover, my father, in fact, was born in Eureka, Humboldt County,

California on April 6, 1928, but died at Las Vegas Medical Center onFebruary 25

th, 1991. Ironically, none of my fathers family became

members of any organized religion as far as I know but I bet they were

bona fide mystics! So my advice early on to my readers is pay special

attention to the meaningful coincidences sprinkled like Old World spices throughout this autobiography.

These, of course, are relevant to me and my life story ultimatelybut let me give you a hint upfront:

Your body is an open book too! Wake-up and follow the trail of breadcrumbsblood and bonesof

your own genealogy for there is meaning to everything in existence symbolically mapped by The World

Tree and The Cosmic Serpent in the Garden of Eden.

French scholar of religions Mircea Eliade, saw the trunk, conduit or tunnel, within The World Tree as the

gateway to the gods, and devils, declaring in his classic book Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy :The underworld, the center of the earth, and the gate of the sky are situated on the same axis, and in

past times it was by this axis that passage from one cosmic region to another was effected. The shaman

was a skilled person that could use altered states of consciousness and knowledge of the north-south

pole axis running through the center of the cosmos to soul travel. The Cosmic Serpent is nothing more,

or less, than our DNA macromolecule that is the human body made flesh.

Basically, you have to be brave, at least fearless enough to face these things that go bump in the night

and, hence, the need for so-called guardian angels and a supportive spiritual community would be nice.

Otherwise, it gets mighty scary! I also have had close encounters with the citizensand denizensof

hyperspace since childhood and methodically investigated mysticism and near-death experience (NDE)

visions of the End-Times for that reason. Ive spoken to millions on talk radio shows about my

conclusions since 1993. Today these themes are common cocktail party conversations among

psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers, physicists, and theologians; so at least I am in good company.

They are themes to television series and movies too; so I no longer feel like a fish out of wateror crazy.

Clinical psychologist Wilson Van Dusen, Ph.D. (1923-2005), could do just that, soul travel, and worked

for many decades with the mentally ill in California state hospitals after serving during WWII in the U.S.

Merchant Marines. He had a remarkable life concluding that spirit possession can be the soul cause

of illness. And upon retirement, he wrote about his life as a mystic, sharing a lifetime of insights in many



inspiring books on heaven, hell, and hyperspace nature of existence: infinite worlds within worlds

without beginning or end. Dr. Dusen became a believer in Swedish scientist, inventor, and Christian

mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg (1668-1772), and learned, as I had, that The great spiritual adventurers

found the whole of creation and every part of it symbolic as he shared in Seeing Through Symbols:

Insights into Spirit .

Wikipedia records this much on Swedenborg: In 1741 at the age of fifty-three he entered into a

spiritual phase in which he eventually began to experience dreams and visions beginning on Easter

weekend April 6, 1744. This culminated in a spiritual awakening, where he claimed he was appointed by

the Lord to write a heavenly doctrine to reform Christianity. He claimed that the Lord had opened his

eyes, so that from then on he could freely visit heaven and hell, and talk with angels, demons, and other

spirits. For the remaining 28 years of his life, he wrote and published 18 theological works, of which the

best known was Heaven and Hell (1758), and several unpublished theological works. Interestingly

enough, overall Swedenborgs model of creation matches the shamanic that is usually akin to a three-

layered cake: upper, lower with earth in the middle of it. So how does evil work against us? Quite

simply, through negative emotions; anxiety, pain, stress seeks to destroy our will power to live fully

present in each and every moment now!

My future vision in total is that we are in the early stages as a species learning to climb the world tree,

walk between worlds, bring the spiritual truth of heaven down from the magnetosphere and hell of

our fiery molten core imagery up to the surface of planet earth again through the third eye skills of

shamans. One of the leading NDE researchers, Dr. P.M.H. Atwater says: Hell refers to levels of negative

thought-forms that reside in close proximity to the Earth realm. It is where we go to work out, or remain

within, our hang-ups, addictions, fears, guilt, angers, rage, regrets, self-pity, arrogance, or whatever else

blocks us from the power of our own light.

Moreover, I see us integrating the wisdom of outer and inner space through an emerging science of

soul wellness clinic in the 21st

century. (See www.near-death.com/experiences/experts13.html)

Shamans of the 21st

Century

In the days, weeks, and months of spring 2010, my symptoms

increased from sinus to serious and I lost the ability to control my neck

muscles and it collapsed. A pinched nerve in the upper region of my

spine at the base of my skull became so painful that it demanded

medical intervention. This bracing against pain 24/7 began a decline in

my health with sleepless nights and miserable days of suffering

spiraling towards disaster. I no longer had a life really; rather I became

a walking, talking set of symptoms constantly seeking a savior with a

magic silver bullet.

So I brushed-up on my pig Latin because my constant bedfellow

companions spoke only in the multisyllabic language of the Physicians

Desk Reference (PDR) dictionary. My medicine cabinets stock and trade went from boxes of Alka-

Seltzer to neatly ordered rows of pill bottles from the allopathic pharmacy. To my primary care doctors

credit at Group Health Cooperative in Spokane, Tim J. Meyer, M.D., and Jan H. Mueller, M.D., I began a

course of drugs that did address the PAG (periaqueductal gray), the pain control center of the brain.

Thus we started down the right track pharmacologically even if I was to derail later. I reviewed the



medical literature in articles, books constantly for clues to my situation and read in Molecules of

Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel the encouraging words of biochemist Candace Pert, Ph.D.:

Pain researchers all agree that the area called the periaqueductal gray, located around the aqueduct

between the third and fourth ventricles of the midbrain, is filled with opiate receptors, making it a

control area for pain. It is also loaded with receptors for virtually all the neuropeptides that have been

studied.

There was the key word I must investigate further I mused:neuropeptides. So began a major turning

point in my search for salvation from suffering, although understanding neuropeptides was not that

easy since they acted more as quantum ghosts in the brain, non-local fields of energy declared the late

Francis Schmidt of M.I.T. He called them information substances or messenger molecules. Dr. Pert

proclaimed This complexity has led to their being classified under a variety of categories, including

hormones, neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, growth factors, gut peptides, interleukins, cytokines,

chemokines, and growth-inhibiting factors.

Nonetheless, ideally, these information substances in balanced proportions give our human brain-

blood-bones a sense of wellbeing, bliss or euphoria that make life worth living in plain terms. But my

body quit making them, and my physicians prescribed the opiate-derivative equivalent drugs to themsuch as hydrocodone and oxycodone as I underwent a comprehensive diagnostic work-up to isolate the

problem over a 3-month period from June to August 2010. These tests included the cutting-edge in X-

Ray for the spine, laboratory analysis of blood and urine for general chemical health index baselines, as

well as cardiac enzyme function examination at Sacred Heart and then, the final straw that pushed me

into an urgent search mode for alternative treatments for pain, my MRI at Holy Family Hospital. The ER

physicians words were themselves a blunt force trauma: If you saw what I did, no anesthesiologist in

this town would touch you for surgery!

For now I had more diagnoses, prognoses, and fear factors than my beloved late grandmother, Mary

Evelyn Scott (1888-1977), would say Carter had liver pills! Yet these high-tech toys are our pride and

joy in the Western world, our electron microscopes and spaceship-shaped nuclear magnetic resonanceimaging capsules save lives every single day because we can see into the living brain-body-blood-bone

matrix non-invasively, but intervene surgically with razor-edge, laser-light precision if warranted.

Indeed, my wifes cousin in Kansas City has her husband, Bob Stevens, alive today because a

neurosurgeon was able to pinpoint a brain aneurysm earlier this year and repair it successfully. They call

Bob a miracle-man for he beat the odds but he is still seeking relief from one nagging problem: pain that

prevents sleep! In this same time period, Mona Klinger, a medical intuitive, vibration healer, Reiki

master, and shaman in Bend, Oregon came into my life just when I thought I could go on no longer. My

suffering reached cosmic-levels heretofore unimaginable and I could not cope with the pain or lifes

demands.

Often collapsing into a fetal position, I retreated to my back porch deck to curl up on my side to relieve

the unrelenting ache in my neck and pain in the bones of my skull. The cold concrete floor served as a

whole body ice pack in those early morning hours before the sun heated it anyway. Without a doubt,

however, there is One Great Spirit that listens to our pleas for intervention, and speaks to others to go

help us recover, and Mona was that earth angel God sent to my rescue. Through a synchronistic chat

on Facebook Mona sensed my situation resulting in her flying, and later driving, to Spokane to reorient

my focus from fear to faith, illness to wellness once again. She conducted not one but two 3-day

treatments a month apart for me and Connie, and she made all the difference in our world. From her

first session employing shamanic wisdom, it was clear that I was being spared to walk the talk of a



Christ-centered, earth-honoring medicine man as I had written a couple books on this topicand it was

time to put up or shut up! (See www.sacredreconnections.com)

Along this same line of treatment, I went to several complementary health care specialists in my

community to tap my biological plant farm roots that included acupuncture with Rebekah Giangreco,

L.Ac., Dipl.Ac., at New Moon Family Acupuncture; sports medicine chiropractic with Ryan Johnson, D.C.,

at Pearson and Weary Pain Relief Clinics; and massage therapy with Marlene Sullivan, L.M.T.

Thank God, I also had a strong spiritual support team that appeared as if by magic, usually a bad choice

of words with the Christian evangelic. Hopefully, I will be instrumental in helping them step-up to the

plate: the challenges and opportunities for ministry in this matter now. Trust me they are right-on-target

when it comes to Hadesthe hidden placeand the evil spirits! For the doubting Thomas, I only

ask you to review one non-religious textbook, The Body of Myth: Mythology, Shamanic Trance, and

The Sacred Geography of the Body by mathematician, and physicist Professor J. Nigro Sansonese, and

the objective documentary DVD film titled Gates of Hell produced by The History Channel. That is, I

am not focused on fear at all but facts that will convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that what

weve called hell is right here on earth. Specifically, were experiencing a literal warfare going on

within the cells of our human body-mind-spirit! (See www.history.com)

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy

and pleasing to Godthis is your spiritual act of worship. (Romans 12:1) Pastor Robert Lindseth of the

Life Church located at the corner of 25th and South Grand Boulevard in Spokane came into my life

miraculously after his teenage daughter happened to come by our house one evening to ask my wife if

there was anyone that needed prayer? Oh did I ever! Bob invested countless hours ministering to me

this past summer as we prayed together for answers to my situation. I even asked him to renew my

covenant in baptism for I identified with this proclamation of Paul of Tarsus as never before in my life: I

am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now

live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians

2:20) Hint: The word covenant in Hebrew means a cut-where-blood-flows!

Though pharmacologically, weve only scratched the surface of these

non-toxic vision plants for pain potions and cancer cures. However, if

my musings on this topic are validated, amino acid therapy can

combine with indigenous hallucinogens to create a pharmacopeia to

treat addictions, pain, and stress disorders second to none soon. I mean

every single one of us make the spiritual visionary substances of

ayahuasca, the vine of the soul, every second within our brain, blood,

and lungs. The sacred plant researchers such as Martin W. Ball, Ph.D.

and Graham Hancock report the same inner space mindscape as

shamans. Writing in their own books, respectively, Mushroom Wisdom:

How Shamans Cultivate Spiritual Consciousness, and Supernatural:

Meetings of the Ancient Teachers of Mankind , they share the same

realization that endogenous entheogens do in fact create God within us! (Seewww.alexgrey.com,

www.martinball.net, www.deoxy.org/mckenna.htmand www.grahamhancock.com )

Again, I turned to Wikipedia for clarifications: An entheogen, in the strict sense, is a psychoactive

substance used in a psychotherapeutic, religious, shamanic, or spiritual context. Historically, entheogens



were mostly derived from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts.

Most entheogens do not produce drug dependency. Entheogens can supplement many diverse practices

for healing, transcendence, and revelation. Psychiatrist Rick Strassman, M.D. has also released his

clinical experiments on 60 volunteer subjects at the University of New Mexico with approximately 400

doses of the spirit-seeing substance N,N-dimethlytrptamine inDMT: The Spirit Molecule. One hypothesis

is that DMT is endogenous, made in the pineal gland, what French philosopher, physicist, and

mathematician Rene Descartes (1596-1650) himself called the seat of the soul. In metaphysical terms,

this is the endocrine gland location of the third eye that opens us to the multidimensional realms of

hyperspace.

Since 1996, Dr. Strassman has been exploring models for the DMT effect, and has focused primarily on

the Old Testament concept of prophecy. This is a spiritual experience which takes into account the

apparently external, free-standing nature of the DMT worlds, in which ones sense of self is highly

preserved and interactive. This is in contrast to previous models that borrow more heavily from Eastern

religious systems, ones that emphasize unitive, ego-dissolving experiences. In addition, the prophetic

model deals directly with ethical and moral concerns, adding a

crucial element to our ability to understand and integrate the

content of the psychedelic experience. He is developing these ideasin his next book, The Soul of Prophecy , due to appear in 2011. (See

www.rickstrassman.com)

Again, in addition to healing, the shaman is the one that can read

the star maps, the signs of the times in the precession of the

equinoxes, as did the Old Testament prophets with regards to the

coming of Jesus Christ. In fact, the Zodiac, or circle of animals has

been used as the solar lens by which to forecast the future of the

past for millenniums. I mean it is true, what goes around comes

around only in new costumes for there really is nothing new

happening under the living Suns of God!

Columbia University scholar Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880-1963) studied

comparative religions, mythology, and linguistics then wrote his

doctoral thesis based upon his mastery of Egyptian sun sign

symbolisms linking them completely to the origins of Christianity titled Theosophy: A Modern Revival of

the Ancient Wisdom. This is not surprising given the Genesis of the Holy Bible stories are themselves

attributed to the writings of Moses and the retreat by Mary and Joseph to Egypt with the baby Jesus

for theology schooling by the priests-shamans overseeing the temples and pyramids. This culture

worshipped the Sun God: RA. However, the rest of the story is apocalypse, or unveiled, truth about

the revelation of renewal or Second Coming that Dr. Kuhn only hinted at in his final book prior to his

death, A Rebirth of Christianity .

Clearly, we are about to die and be reborn too! No modern-day mythologist speaking to these matters is

akin to the integrity and intelligence of Joseph John Campbell (1904-1987), than is Director of 2012

Studies, John Major Jenkins, in Ft. Collins, Colorado. He is the author of several authoritative books on

the Maya and Mesoamerica but, in particular, I am referring to his latest, and most informative in

dispelling the nonsense and highlighting the Sense of Self as the focus for the End-Time inThe 2012

Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth Behind the Most Intriguing Date in History [December 21, 2012].

Will outer space travel

become easier once

we realize that the farthest

reaches of all space may be

visited through our inner

space?

~Brian OLeary, Ph.D.,

Former Mars Mission NASA

astronaut, and author of

Exploring Inner and Outer

Space



Although I desire to cut-to-the-chase, since we are according to the Mayan calendar running out-of-

time, and that seems to be truly Good News! Specifically, Jenkins shares a vision he experienced in an

isolation tank under the influence of LSD at age 19 in Chicago, not unlike the approach employed by

the late John Lily, M.D. in Hawaii to symbolically, telepathically communicate with dolphins. Briefly,

after Jenkins sensed he was under-the-influence of this psychedelic neurotransmitter-receiver

messenger molecule, lysergic acid diethylamide, he awoke within the dream we call physical reality.

He travelled to the farthest reaches of inner space by catapulting through outer space in blunt terms

and that was his ultimate conclusion and one that I wish to emphasize as extremely important to my

own thesis now: I also felt I had never left my body: I had, rather, explored the cosmic contents of it,

Jenkins revealed. Is this not the supreme revelation of Jesus Christ with respect to his Second Coming:

The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the face of the earth but men do not see it? (See

www.Update2012.com )

Futurist, educator, talk show host, and author Elaine Smitha made what seemed to many critics years

ago a startling statement in If You Make the Rules, How Come Youre Not Boss? : Perhaps junk DNA

contains all the secrets of the universe, including those unconscious potentials you have yet to discover.

Perhaps it is this DNA that allows you to travel without your body into starry realms. Maybe that is

where you go in your dreams. Quite possibly intuition, psychic powers, and remote viewing (non-localinformation gathering) fall into the realm of this amazing communication channel. Perhaps with a

relaxed mind, you can tap into the prime DNA alphabet soup for transport. Can amino acid therapy be

employed to help our junk DNA activate its contents in a safer setting? (See www.elainesmitha.com)

Then in like manner Andrew Collins, shared the ancient Greek Panspermia Theory seeds

everywherethat DNA came from outer space sources; for example, asteroids, comets, planets in The

Cygnus Mystery: Unlocking the Ancient Secret of Lifes Origins in the Cosmos. The shorthand translation

of his conclusions are that the star constellation in the sky seen as a swan (astronomically Cygnus X-3),

is the source of creation for us on earth. This was discerned through the use of trance states by shamans

in these early cultures as depicted in prehistoricthat is to say, before languagecave drawings and

myths. Yet what we need to know is that gamma-ray bursts (GRB) from this, and perhaps, other light-storing black holes within the Milky Way Galaxy, are mutating the amino acids-DNA-RNA protein

synthesis blueprint template that give us our form, fit and function into new configurations now. That is,

this radiation exposure is reworking the expression of genes throughout the animal kingdom signifying a

time of mass extinction of old, emergence of new species, yet all things considered rapid changes in the

climate, ecology and biosphere of the planet itself, referred biblically to as the manifestation of a new

heaven and a new earth. (See www.andrewcollins.com)

The Cosmic Serpent is the Human Body

Theoretical physicist Fritjof Capra, Ph.D. wrote in his epilogue to The Tao of

Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern

Mysticism, and I agree: Physicists do not need mysticism, and mystics do

not need physics, but humanity needs both. In fact, when under the

influence of LSD, Capra saw that molecules of matter could melt in front of

and behind his eyes. Beyond that revelation, I was truly stunned to learn

upon the death of Francis Crick (1916-2004) that he too had used

psychoactive compounds to unlock the door to the secrets of shamans that

we are beings of light. On Sunday, August 8, 2004 the London newspaper

The Mail ran this shocking banner headline: Nobel Prize genius Crick was



high on LSD when he discovered the secret of life. The text to follow read Crick had privately

admitted to colleagues that he was under the influence of LSD in 1953 at the moment when he

perceived the double helix shape and unraveled the structure of DNA.

And while all of these aforementioned skilled practitioners of the healing arts, sciences and religions

helped me cope to a certain extent, over the span of excruciatingly painful weeks that stretched into

agonizingly slow months I realized I was missing a critical key to opening the locked gates of hell to my

own wellbeing: Life force energy. In particular, I needed to increase my chI to repair the cell damage of

alcohol, aging, diet, and toxic emotions I sensed in order to restore the functioning of the

neurotransmitters, the message molecule carriers of the brain, heart, and central nervous system. I had

to glue Humpty-Dumpty back together again. Anthropologist Jeremy Narby, Ph.D. unpacked the genetic

secret to the DNA-RNA protein synthesis and neuron receptor site cycles of consciousness from his field

work with the shamans and plant teachers in the Amazonian rainforests, ecstatically reporting in The

Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge:

"When I started reading the literature of molecular biology, I was stunned by certain

descriptions. Admittedly, I was on the lookout for anything unusual, as my investigation had led

me to consider that DNA and its cellular machinery truly were an extremely sophisticatedtechnology of cosmic origin. But as I pored over thousands of pages of biological texts, I

discovered a world of science fiction that seemed to confirm my hypothesis. Proteins and

enzymes were described as 'miniature robots,' ribosomes were 'molecular computers,' cells

were 'factories,' DNA itself was a 'text,' a 'program,' a 'language,' or 'data.' One only had to do a

literal reading of contemporary biology to reach shattering conclusions; yet most authors

display a total lack of astonishment and seem to consider that life is merely 'a normal

physiochemical phenomenon."

Dr. Narby concluded that the visions of spirits and serpents seen in trance was due to the emission of

botanical photons of light wave energyinformationtransmitted and received between DNA itself.

DNA seemingly is the axis mundi that shamans enter in trance. That a complex, sophisticated languageof life is constantly being broadcast between cells and the cosmos, both in the body and outside of it

throughout nature. Specifically, our brains are bags of hormones that will use whatever drugs we feed

them to stay alive as long as they can and chatting away with the environment. For instance, tobacco is

an equivalent neurological lock and key fit to acetylcholine, and hallucinogens DMT, LSD, and

psilocybin match serotonin.

Again, Dr. Pert, formerly a Research Professor in the

Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown

University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., wrote in

her aforementioned textbook on this topic: Ligands are

generally much smaller molecules than the receptors

they bind to, and they are divided into three chemical

types. The first type of ligand comprises the classical

neurotransmitters, which are small molecules with such

unwieldy names as acetylcholine, norepinephrine,

dopamine, histamine, glycine, GABA, and serotonin.

(See www.candacepert.com )



Soon thereafter, at my wits end with drugs of every flavor that did not yield viable cures only intolerable

side-effects, I remembered an informative dialogue I had on Facebook again, albeit a year earlier, with

Steve Sewell, founder of Mind & Body Works in Durango, Colorado. He had succinctly replied to a

comment I made that I was using amino acids orally to improve my health but he knowingly stated that

in many cases, they had to be administered via I.V. to enter the bloodstream: bypass the deleterious

impact of digestive tract juices and processes. Then in a subsequent telephone conversation, I shared

my medical history and Steve offered that, perhaps, my brain-body could no longer create its

endogenous, morphine-like pain killers, the endorphins, to give me that runners high I associated with

wellness? That was a reasonable conclusion given my free-floating symptoms of anxiety-panic,

hypomania that seemed even to me to be a case of hypochondria; that is, more psycho than somatic!

In the final analysis, I needed high-tech soul food: the finger-licking-good to the last drop ligands! If I

wanted what they offered, Steve said, I could report to the clinic on Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

for a physical examination by Paul Glanville, M.D., an anti-aging specialist schooled in complementary

and traditional medicine. Of course, I was impressed with the intravenous protocols potential for

healing my spine and took his advice to heart, and head: they seemingly had exactly what I was looking

for no doubt about it.

From my own decades of study in the shamanic sciences and practice in Community Health

Administration and Wellness Promotion with the U.S. Navy Hospital Clinic, Keyport, Washington, I knew

that healing disease happened through integration of the East and West: what Larry Dossey, M.D. in

Santa Fe, New Mexico, and his wife, Barbara Dossey, R.N., Ph.D., call ERA-III Medicine. They do not

mince words or split-hairsand neither do Ifor this is the emerging health care paradigm of the

future: We are literally thought forms co-existing within the Mind of GodBody of Christand we

need to apply this eternal truth to our lives here and hereafter. We co-exist with myriad life forms and

we need to get over it and get on with it: There is a lot of work to do if we are to bring hell up from and

heaven down to earth. Our mission is to merge three worldsupper, lower, and middleinto one new

world order right here and now! Dr. Dossey counsels:

Taking nonlocal mind seriously can, as I describe in Reinventing Medicine, widen the dimensions

of consciousness. We can tap into sources of wisdom beyond ourselves and beyond the present:

Creative breakthroughs and prophetic knowing become ordinary in the context of nonlocal

mind. Empathy and compassion flower as a result of our felt linkage with one another. And the

awareness of immortality, as I've described, takes the pressure off living and dying. This will not

happen automatically, however. We have to do our share and set our biases and prejudices

aside. These are urgent matters. As Andre Malraux said, "The twenty-first century will be

spiritual or it will not be at all." (See www.dosseydossey.com)

Rocky Mountain High

For the record, it is an absolutely divine drive into Durango.

Colorado from all directions but we had come by way of the

northern Interstates: I-90E, I-15S, I-70E: Spokane-Billings-Salt Lake

City-Grand Junction, and then south onto Colorado Highway 550.

This is a breathtaking scenic route with big timber, wildlife views at

somewhat oxygen-starved elevations: over two miles high at its

jagged-rocky top peaks. But what a beautiful clear-blue unpolluted

sky!



Then as we descended into the City of Durango itself, we saw clean streets, a well-planned city center

and marketplace that highlighted its southwestern cowboy theme. The focal point was the restored

train station for the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. Of course, the antique brick hotels

with crystal-chandeliers and gun-fighting saloons of the 1800s helped set the stage, literally. Actually,

Connie remarked that we had come to a 5-star vacation getawaynot a sterile-looking typical medical

district as we had envisioned. There was even a gorgeous fast-moving river running through the city

park: Animas. This in fact was a sacred space nestled within the Four Corners of the USA.

Upon arrival at the clinic the next morning, I already knew that I came to the right place to kick-start my

immune system. If I needed a booster shot of confidence, I was greeted with a warm smile by Julie

Frank, the office administrator, and Steve Adams, my co-counselor for the next 10-days. Then I reported

for my physical exam at 10AM to Paul Glanville, M.D., and read these inspirational words on his business

card from Psalm 103 that made my day:

Praise the LORD , O my soul, and forget not all his benefits who forgives all your sins and heals all your

diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies

your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

You know what an eagle can do, right? It can grow brand new feathers no matter its age! Indeed I

needed new feathers, and bones to support them, if I was ever to fly again without a neck brace and a

beak load of medicines. In a nutshell, be careful what you pray for and write about, and who, for they

may very well return to validate, or not, your claims about them be they among the living or dead. Youll

see what I mean when you read the First Edition of my book Tranceformers: Shamans of the 21st

Century . But, in brief, you will learn what I did from an after-death communication incident with a

deceased optics physicist colleague, George, and why analytical psychologist Carl Jung, M.D., stated

Modern behaviorist psychology reduces psychic happenings to a kind of activity of the glands; thoughts

are regarded as secretions of the brain, and thus we achieve a psychology without the psyche.

In other words, we removed the powers of the psychesoulfrom our physical sense of self but the

greater truth is we are entangled within messenger molecules of spirit all the time. Close encounters

of ETs/UFOs, for example, are synchronistic cluesprofoundly meaningful coincidencesthat speak to

a multi-dimensional, layered hyperspace cosmos filled-to-the-brim with psychophysical beings. Mind

and matter is a single substance made of information. There is simply no wiggle room anymore around

this fact says National Public Radio award-winning correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty, and

acclaimed author of Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality .

The lesson we are learning from amino acid therapy is straightforward: the mind of the mystic, prophet,

and shaman is lying dormant, sleeping untapped within DNA yet cosmic consciousness is forever

flowing-freely through us all now. That is, the knowledge to heal ourselves is available for the asking if

we ask the right questions symbolically and playing possum is not the answer to a spiritually alive,

genetically mutating universe. The author of creation, God, writes the Book of Life and illustrates it via

DNA codes with our life experiences providing the data each and every second for the messenger

molecules forming and informing an infinite number of space-time real worlds. With this insight, I

wept tears of joy for I knew that my prayers had been answered: my deliverance from pain was at hand

and my walk into wellbeing had begun. Although I was optimistic, and looking forward to the treatment

sessions, I was about to take an unexpected swan dive, and it was not the 6,500 foot elevation in

Durango that made me swoon either.



I Died in Durango

Are you okay, John? my nurse, Jessica Dehen, R.N., asked. She had

skillfully inserted the first of ten-day intravenous (I.V.) needles into my

arm, but suddenly my mind relaxed its tenacious grip on the pain in my

neck. I unwittingly started to slump into what I imagined was the

darkness of unconsciousness, so replying softly, I said what I felt was

obviously true: Im dying.

She calmly helped me into a black lounge chair and discretely summoned

Dr. Glanville to check my vital signs, if that was needed. But it wasnt, and

of course I was not dying but being reborn in fact into a new way of living. Yet I didnt know that until a

few days later after I shared what had happened to me with Jessica and she corrected my distorted

perceptions of this incident. She informed me that I did not faint nor have any type of adverse reaction

to the amino acid nutrients whatsoever, rather I simply slipped into a deep state-of-sleepand snored

to high heaven!

As I reflected upon her words, that made perfect sense

since I had not slept without a sleeping pill in months. I

knew I had stopped dreaming once I began taking

Ambien and my educated guess was that rapid-eye

movement (REM) sleep is much more critical than we

have imagined. Perhaps, the brain-body cannot repair

itself properly if we induce sleep with drugs of all types:

alcohol, prescription, and street? Maybe the organic

messenger molecules created by nature such as

serotonin, dopamine and melatonin, for examples, are

paralyzed, and cannot exchange DNA-RNA proteinsynthesis maintenance information between brain

hemispheres, I pondered?

Author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism,

Daniel Pinchbeck, shared the conclusions of Dr. Carl Anderson of McLean Hospital, Virginia:

disparities between the left and right brain disrupt REM sleep, which as Anderson notes is essential for

emotional regulation, learning, and memory consolidation. In particular, I agree with Dr. Anderson,

although I acknowledge that Pinchbeck, a wise urban shaman in his own right, is not totally convinced

yet with respect to this physicians hypothesis: Interhemispheric struggles, primarily a result of child

abuse, may be a fundamental psychological root of drug addiction. (See

www.breakingopenthehead.com)

What if DNA is an immortal information substance and never loses its memory? Perhaps, it returns to

the invisible life force fields of zero-point energy, or chi, as a liquid-crystal that physics wrongly called

the vacuum of space in earlier centuries? That is what the near-death experience of Mellen-Thomas

Benedict taught him is true. Native American shaman, Beautiful Painted ArrowJoseph Raelalso

confirmed from the practice of shamanism, The rattle is how to get in touch with the vibration of chi.

The chi sound in the rattle calls into existence the wisdom that is held in the place of the ice-cold plane.

When the chi interacts with heat, psychic energy is created, he explained in Being and Vibration. So, in

"This body, that you are in, has

been alive forever. It comes

from an unending stream of

life, going back to the Big Bang

and beyond."

~Mellen-Thomas Benedict



essence, we have to correct our faulty genetic memory or we are doomed to see it spread like a virus

through our family tree? Accordingly, drug addiction is indeed getting worse every single year in PTSD

breeding grounds: military families, inner city slums, and First Nations reservations. This is the siren song

warning that our children and grandchildren are at high-risk for self-destruction in untold numbers if we

do not intervene now, if not for any other reason than we are also a nutritionally-bankrupt nation? The

obesity we see is symptomatic of stress stored in belly fat and the high corn sugar-low exercise diets will

have only one long-term outcome for the Western world: degenerative diseases such as arthritis,

diabetes, hypertensionpremature pain, suffering, and deathwith its correlated runaway health care

costs for generations of taxpayers? I mean we can treat these disorders now and not pay the price later.

(See www.mellen-thomas.com)

So I asked myself: Can amino acid therapy rewire our genes towards not only optimal wellness and

personal happiness but world peace too? Is it that simple: Let food be our medicine in the way that the

father of medicine, Hippocrates, meant it? Its a visionary idea for certain and will require considerable

scrutiny if and when taken seriously enough to have federal government funds assigned to it. In the

meantime, Id reflect upon the meaning of the epigenetic medicine model findings of Dawson Church,

Ph.D. relayed recently in his book The Genie in Your Genes: The healing power of consciousness and

intention appears to be independent of time as well as space. Prayer seems to work retroactively as wellas across great distances. Perhaps the whimsical injunction is true: Its never too late to have a happy

childhood! (See www.soulmedicineinstitute.org)

Can we pray our self and world well too? This much I know from my observation: our brain is a terrible

thing to see waste away on junk food, drugs, and booze! Slowly I stitched the pieces of my addiction,

pain, and stress disorder together with the help of the staff assigned to me for that purpose: co-

counselors extraordinaire Steve Sewell, Steve Adams, and shamanic practitioner Marie Redfeather.

Though my life story is not unique, it is totally relevant to you my friends regarding how to heal from

childhood traumas, symptoms, employing specific steps I took along the way that I methodically,

painstakingly but also joyously, outlined in the Second Edition of my book, Tranceformers: Shamans of

the 21st

Century . Again, Daniel Pinchbeck speaks wisely beyond his tears: With his visions, his ability totransform energies, and his mastery of healing, Christ could be seen as a prototypical shaman.

Not surprisingly, every one of the lessons-learned on my own from decades of research, I saw

incorporated into the wellness model employed at Mind & Body Works. Therefore, amino acid therapy

is the key to survival in our efforts to offset the impact of climate changes and what near-death

researcher at the University of Connecticut, Professor of Psychology Emeritus Ken Ring, Ph.D., knowingly

called us to embrace two decades ago: the shamanizing of humanity! By the way, my two books are

also directly related to what is happening to people and planet today in era-2012: We are threatened

with extinction. As cell biologist Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. has said, Its the environment stupid! Our toxic

technology has turned our agricultural soils and drinking water sources into septic tanks and our

dysfunctional attitudes, behaviors, and lifestyles are eating away at our immune systems worldwide.

(See www.brucelipton.com and www.iands.org)

Thus I cannot emphasize enough the importance of shamanic tools and techniques for our day and age

for it is indeed the myths by which we live that determine our life story individually and collectively as

a civilization. What is it we want to experience, in other words? It could not be said more clearly and

forcefully than this prophet: As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. (Proverbs 23:7)



The Key is Under Your Mothers Pillow

Over the 10-day course of I.V. treatments with amino acid nutrients, what I

came to call Love Potion Number 9, I also had sessions with other

outstanding health care providers including Healing Touch with Linda

Marie Ambrose, as well as in the downtown Durango community. Namely

massage therapy at Amaya Natural Therapeutics, and acupuncture at

Animas Oriental Medicine clinic.

Macushla F. Hobin, L.Ac., MSTOM is a graduate of the Pacific College of

Oriental Medicine, San Diego, California and her expertise in clinical

diagnosis and needle placement really opened the doorchakras and meridiansto my healing. For the

first time in six months, I finally heard an assessment of my situation that made sense of the symptoms

that was a true mystery to me. Yet I agreed with her immediately, intellectually and intuitively, as to the

underlying cause-effect relationships: Sleep Deprivation. More so, I was told that my neck symptoms

presented itself in a way that was well-known to the classical oriental medicine model and therefore had

specific treatment protocols that could be followed to heal me now.

Beyond a doubt, I benefited once these blocked pathways were opened to the flow of life force

energychiagain through my spinal column vertebras and into the skulls sinus cavities. I felt the

instant relief from pain when she inserted needles into C7 vertebra that second session: these circuits

began to function as intended. That is, I was no longer grid-locked neurologically between my head and

heart in particular and the neurotransmitters could transmit messages full-circle in these circuits of

consciousness. My nerves quieted down and restored themselves to peaceful co-existence with the

natural rhythms of my lifestyle in the days and weeks ahead.

Marie Redfeather played a pivotal role in recovering and releasing early childhood trauma that I had

completely buried within my body. She is a First Nations, French-Canadian descent initiate of Peruvian

shamanism. Through her expertise, and sensitivity, to what was seeking to surface during our counselingsessions and ceremonies together, we rediscovered a series of medical crises that had crippled me

throughout my life. Specifically, I broke my leg in the 3rd grade and had to be transported for treatment

to Auburn General Hospital, Washington. This was in the days when a parent could not visit or stay at

will with a scared child, but to make matters even more terrifying in my case the ward nurses used

hypodermic needle injections to sedate mekeep me quietthroughout the night.

Moreover, during my days hooked-up to I.V. at Mind & Body Works, I flashbacked to several incidents

that involved doctors, nurses, syringes and I.V.s in Seattle. For examples, I had blocked memories of

Childrens Orthopedic and Virginia Mason Hospital clinic visits that had traumatized me severely in my

early teen years. Thus, we uncovered and brought to light how these disturbing incidents ultimately

steered my studies to psychology and theology in my totally subconscious efforts to continually work

through these fears as an adult much as psychiatrist Stan Grof, M.D. outlines happens in Psychology of

the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research. (See www.holotropic.com)

Needless to say, I was indeed awakened at needle point in Durango, Colorado! However, it was the

insights of the founder of Mind & Body Works that triggered a major catharsis during his first counseling

session with me. Steve Sewell patiently listened to my medical history: recitations of childhood and

alcohol abuse, military injuries and related psychophysical symptoms, allopathic and integrative

treatments, as he observed my body gestures, too. He then gently, nonchalantly offered this pearl of



great price for me to mediate upon later that evening at the Iron Horse Inn motel as my counseling

homework assignment: The Key is Under Your Mothers Pillow.

So I mused into the night, as my wife slept alongside me, about my lifes story and how I spoke it into

existence with every word uttered. Specifically, I came to see the wisdom in the words of St. John: In

the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1). That is to

say, I needed to wash my mouth out with soap for I spewed out toxic temper tantrums, childish

concepts and emotions in nearly every sentence. I colored my world with words that had coagulated,

nearly choked the life out of me with fear over many years by failing to follow my bliss as a public-

speaker because I was reenacting my mothers sense of learned helplessness, also known as clinical

depression, at being abandoned by my fathernot me. In reality, I never knew my father given my age

at the time of his departure so how could I blame him for being a bad parent or role model? But I did

incorporatemake physicalevery negative emotion my mother felt and expressed by her body

postures and inadvertently poisoned my environment. My father had little to do with my life issues

was the bottom-line: It was mommy dearest after all.

Summary

Apostle Paul summed-up my conclusions nicely: Now you together are Christ's body; but each of you is

a different part of it. (I Cor. 12:27) No one knows that truth better than Andrew Newberg, M.D.,

Director of Research at the Myrna Brind Center for Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University

Hospital and Medical College. He is a pioneer in the study of a field frequently referred to today as

neurotheology. In his career, he has also actively pursued neuro-imaging research projects on aging

and dementia, Parkinson's disease, depression, and other neurological and psychiatric disorders. He has

also researched the neurophysiological correlates of acupuncture, meditation, and alternative therapies,

and how brain function is associated with mystical and religious experiences. Dr. Newberg has received

an award from the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences for his program entitled "The Biology of

Spirituality." (See www.andrewnewberg.com)

In the Gospel of Thomas, Christ spoke these words of wisdom: If you bring forth what is within you,

what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is inside you, what you do not bring

forth will destroy you. Daniel Pinchbeck has the right molecular spin on many of these matters: The

tryptamine molecule is the building block of many neurotransmitters. You may spend the rest of your

life suppressing the memory, but it is still inside of you. Later in a mystical burst of clarity, I saw that I

did not get sick or healed in a vacuum these past months either, rather my life story was the well-

orchestrated script that God designed to bring me to Him and my future work with people suffering

from addictions, pain, and stress disorders needing amino acid therapy.

No doubt about it today, my history is not my destiny. Yet to say Im objective anymore is a lie: I am

subjective in that I know what works and I plan on shouting it from the rooftops. If you are an

adventurous, courageous soul willing to follow the road less travelled to achieve optimal wellness here

and hereafter, then I wholeheartedly suggest that you go to this website right now without delay:

www.mindandbodyworks.org . Note that they are a non-profit organization and need your love

offering donations to stay afloat. Indeed, be bold and call the Mind & Body Works clinic Toll Free at 1-

888-788-7348 and see how you can help spread the word in your community, and perhaps you or a

loved one will likewise become awakened at needle point!



Further Recommended Reading References:

1. For those interested in the symbolic treatment of illness, I refer you to an eclectic new book on

this topic, Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy by Alejandro

Jodorowsky in Paris, France. As well as the insights of Jungian-oriented psychotherapist Paul

Levy in Portland, Oregon, himself a former mental hospital patient and now crazy life a fox.

(See www.awakeninthedream.com )

2. Braverman, E.R., M.D., and Pfeiffer, C.C., M.D., Ph.D. The Healing Nutrients Within: Facts,

Findings and New Research on Amino Acids. CT: Keats Publishing, Inc., 1987.

3. Twiss, Richard. One Church Many Tribes. CA: Regal Press, 2000. (www.wiconi.org)

About the Author

John Jay Harper is a Community Health Coach specializing in the treatment of addiction, pain and stress

disorders and author of the bestseller Tranceformers: Shamans of the 21st

Century . He holds post-

graduate degrees in Business Administration, Human Resource Management, Community Health

Administration, Wellness Promotion as well as Clinical Hypnotherapy and Psychology. He can be reached

for radio/TV/print media-interviews at [email protected] or on Facebook anytime. John is now

serving as a consultant to Mind & Body Works in order to establish a public-speaking awareness

campaign for amino acid therapy clinics nationwide. (See www.johnjayharper.com)

Awakened at Needle Point

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