In shamanic practice, we talk about journeying to three worlds: the lower world, the middle world, and the upper world. What I want to share here is not universal law or someone else’s doctrine. This is how I teach the three worlds to my own students, built from my own years of journeying, and it is the model that has worked best for me. Take what resonates, and always trust your own direct experience above anything you read here.
The Lower World
I often refer to the lower world simply as the spirit world, though truthfully all three worlds are part of the spirit world. When I say spirit world in casual conversation, though, I am usually talking about the lower world specifically. When you journey there, the lower world looks very much like our own physical world. What lives there is everything that has ever walked Mother Earth. This includes animal spirits, plant spirits, and what we refer to asl rainbow spirits.
Rainbow spirits are spirits born of human imagination. They may never have walked the earth in physical form, but they exist because we created them, quite literally, with our minds. We believe they exist, and so they exist. Griffins, unicorns, and phoenixes are good examples of rainbow spirits. The lower world is also where you connect with your ancestors and the spirits of crystals, which we generally refer to as the ancient ones.
The lower world is one of the most important worlds to a practicing shaman. This is where we go about 90% of the time to seek healing, wisdom, clarity, and more. You can meet your helping spirits in this world and ask for aid. You must have a goal when you connect to the lower world. The more generic your questions, the less information you will receive. Questions like “what messages do I need now in my life?” or “Where does the universe want me to go?” are not good questions. You were born with the power of choice, and the spirit world expects you to act on that power. Now asking for guidance is different – more specific questions such as “should I take that promotion?” “Is this relationship as toxic as I think it is or is it me?”, “Which spirit wants to work with me on my new spiritual journey?”, “I feel blocked right now, where is this block and how do I work through it?” are all good questions to ask when journeying to the lower realms.
The Middle World
The middle world is the flip side of the physical world we currently live in, the spiritual layer laid over our own. Many people would call this the astral realm or plane. Here is something important from my own experience, and I want to be clear that this is my own take based on years of doing this work, not a universal rule. Well-seated spirits, the wise animal guides and teachers you might hope to meet, are generally not hanging out in the middle world. If you truly want to speak with your bear spirit, for example, you will find that connection in the lower world, not the middle world.
Because I do a great deal of work with the dead, what I tend to encounter in the middle world are unsettled spirits. The more of this work I have done, the less I trust guidance that comes from middle world spirits. Many of them are bored. Many are desperate for help. Many are angry. These are generally not the spirits you want to seek out for guidance or support, and here is the part that matters most, you may not know the difference. A spirit in the middle world may look you in the eye and tell you it is your spirit guide, here to help you, and be lying through its teeth. Spirits are just like humans, because in a very real sense, they are humans, the dead ones. They are just as capable of deception as anyone still walking around in a body. And they are unhealed – this is why they are wandering the middle world!
Unless you are a very seasoned practitioner, it will be difficult to tell what a spirit’s true intentions are in the middle world – this is why it is safer to journey to the lower realms. Your intention acts as your guidance system and a protective force, making sure that the spirits that interact with you on your journey are the ones you really NEED to interact with.
That said, there are two situations where I do consider the middle world a valid and, with the right experience, fairly safe place to work.
- Distance healing. If someone calls you asking for healing work and they are not physically near you, perhaps they are across the world, you can journey to them through the middle world. In this case, you are not seeking a spirit’s advice; you are locating a specific person.
- Psychopomp work. This is the work of helping unsettled souls move on, and it is precisely because the middle world is full of unsettled spirits that most psychopomp work happens there. If you work with the dead, you will likely spend real time in the middle world, doing exactly this kind of work. I consider this valid and reasonably safe, as long as you are experienced in psychopomp work specifically.
The Upper World
The upper world is where the teachers live. I tell my students this is where you go to learn new things, to receive new knowledge, and I tell them plainly, do not go there on your own. Your teachers will pull you up there when you are ready for the next step. This has been my consistent experience.
Here is an example of how the middle and lower worlds can be used for different things. You can be pulled to the upper world to receive a new ceremony from your spiritual teachers. Your teacher will give you the ceremony and also tell you its purpose and how to work with it in the community or for yourself. You begin working through your ceremony, and things go well. Still, eventually you run into something unexpected: you can’t connect, the alchemy you are seeking isn’t there, or even if this is a public ceremony, it didn’t land right with a participant. At that point, you do not go back up to the upper world for answers. You don’t know why this is happening. Are you reaching a new level of healing that needs to take place? Did you hit a block based on something going on in your own life? Is your client going through something that triggered her during the ceremony? The place that can provide these answers is the lower world. You would then journey to the lower world to find out what happened. If your teachers want to teach you something new about these ceremonies, they will pull you up – but chances are this is healing and guidance work – and this work clearly lands in the lower realms.
As someone who is very much a lower world person by nature, the upper world feels uncomfortable to me. It is an extremely high vibrational place, and in my opinion, it is not somewhere human beings should spend a lot of time. Our bodies are not built to hold that vibration for long. Truthfully, this applies to all three spirit worlds, not just the upper world. A few minutes here and there, maybe weekly, is fine. But you do not want to spend hours and hours in any of these worlds without some serious training. My own spirit teachers have told me directly, do not come up here unless we pull you up here, because it is not a place for humans to linger. Spending too much time there can affect your own body’s energetic field, and not in a good way.
A Model, Not a Map for Everyone
I want to close the way I opened. Everything above is how I experience and teach the three worlds, drawn from my own journeying and my own hard-won lessons, especially around the middle world. It is not the final word on shamanic cosmology, and other teachers and traditions may frame these worlds differently. I share this model because it has served my students and me well, and I hope it gives you a useful map as you begin, or continue, your own journeying practice.
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