Dr Rafael Locke, a leader in Shamanic teaching in Australia, explores how the oldest spiritual practice is evolving in our modern world

Until the 1960s in the Western world, the topic of shamanism was either ignored or regarded as unworthy of serious attention. However, with the growth of new and radical ideas about health and healing through the holistic health movement, riding on the wave of the broad counter culture, professional interest began to change.

Until that time, shamanism had been largely the preserve of anthropologists and related researchers in the Eastern Bloc. But the holistic health movement and counter culture served to focus attention on two important areas.

The first of these was the realisation that many cultures had established and effective ways of dealing with health maintenance and healing and that many of these methods had a spiritual foundation. Traditional Chinese Medicine and Yogic medicine were good examples.

Secondly, and probably more importantly, there was a renewed interest in the nature of human consciousness, states of consciousness and their involvement in healing and other human potentials such as ESP, psychokinesis, out-of-body experiences, and so on.

The value of these developments derived significantly from the needs of mostly urban people searching for a meaningful, self realised existence and, along with that, a more humanised and personal approach to healing. Shamanism seemed to offer just that possibility.

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When May comes around every year, I celebrate a private anniversary. Way back in May 2001, my life took a different turn when, together with my husband, we set about publishing this very special magazine.

Even back then, NOVA had become something of an icon in Western Australia since its launch in March 1994. So we knew it came with a big responsibility and much joy and I can't really believe how much change it has brought into our lives in the intervening 12 years. And what momentous years they have been on the world stage.

Just a few months later, after our own launch issue on the theme of Simplicity in July, the terrible events of 9/11 changed our world irrevocably. My own world was changing too as my mother lay suddenly, and critically, ill in hospital. I grieved on many levels - and NOVA was my salvation.

To be surrounded by people who cared and who weren't afraid to show it, was balm to my soul. And there were others close at hand whose strength in the face of the world's loss of innocence gave me the courage I needed, and empowered us all.

That's the reality of the holistic community and such qualities really come to the fore, I believe, when the chips are down or when the world seems to be changing at a breakneck pace.

Once again, just this week, the US has endured another terrible blow with the bombings at the Boston Marathon, an event that stirred those memories of 9/11. We number many Americans among our readers online and we send our heartfelt wishes to you and hope this wound heals soon. We all know the extraordinary ways our lives are changing - just look around a cafe and count the smart phones for starters.

It's an essential extra guest or four at any table! And Facebook hadn't even been thought of back then, let alone reached the stage of overfamiliarity! ... Read On

Margaret Evans
NOVA Editor
May 2013

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Margaret Evans