Beyond Within

Soul Fragmentation Series

1. Soul Fragmentation Explained
2. Three Rules Governing Soul Fragmentation
3. Englightenment, Salvation and the Rejection of Power
4. Soul Fragmentation, Neg Interference and the Paranormal
5. The Law of Attraction and the Mobile Soul
6. Adding a New Dimension to Your Perception
7. Hints for Smoother Integration

Soul retrieval is a concept that comes to us from Shamanic traditions around the world. According to this school of thought, as well as my personal experience, it is possible for nonphysical fragments of a person to become separated from the whole. I have additionally come to suspect that this basic phenomenon accounts for many of the other concepts common to spirituality and metaphysics. In this series I will be explaining the concept of soul fragmentation and recounting some personal experience; following posts will explain the theory I’ve developed based on the implications. Note that I use the term “soul” only for the sake of familiarity — in reality, what people are talking about when they refer to the “soul,” and the parts of the self capable of fragmenting, may or may not be the same thing. So, don’t get hung up on terminology.

We typically think of ourselves as separate individuals – completely distinct from others, and a single unified whole within ourselves. The reality is decidedly more complex. The ego, or conscious mind with all its conditioning is our socially acceptable “face,” the part of ourselves that perceives itself in the way that we’re most familiar with. But behind every ego lies a subconscious mind, made up of an entire cast of character. Personal archetypes, past aspects of the self, our shadow aspects and even influences from other lives are just a few of the parts of us that make up who we are, usually below the level of our conscious awareness. While elaborating much further on the anatomy of the subconscious mind is beyond the scope of this article, suffice to say that you’re a much more diverse bunch than you may have ever imagined.

If expanding your self-concept into a group effort isn’t making your head spin already, let me go one better. Many of these aspects are capable, to varying degrees, of operating independently of your awareness, and each other, within or outside the area of the physical body. We humans don’t just exist on the physical plane – we are multidimensional. Most of us keep the bulk of our awareness trained on the physical world the majority of the time, but in reality, parts of ourselves exist and operate on a variety of “frequencies,” perceiving from a range of perspectives and environments spanning a spectrum from physical to nonphysical. Expanding our perception to encompass an increasingly broad range of these aspects of ourselves is a big part of what it means to advance spiritually – though the importance of remaining grounded and centered in this reality, while becoming aware of others, so we don’t lose ourselves, cannot be overstated.

Reasons for Fragmentation

The most commonly known cause of soul fragmentation is trauma. During such an event, it is common for a part of the self to split off in order to avoid suffering, and either go its own way, or remain, but in a dissonant state where it keeps replaying the original event, causing disruption in the present. (A technique for resolving situations where the traumatized or otherwise dissonant aspect remains “local” was discussed in a previous article.) It is my opinion that this is the most commonly known cause because it causes the largest pieces to fragment – in other words, if a very painful event causes part of yourself to leave, then it’s probably going to be a significant enough part that takes a few functions with it. Generally someone in this position ends up with a sense that “something is missing” or that they were “never the same afterward.”

Another reason part of the self might split off is “permission” has been granted for it to either leave or be taken away, although at the time it is rarely, if ever, recognized that this is what has taken place. There are many ways that we give our personal power away in even the most seemingly innocuous daily interactions for instance – in some of those cases, part of the self goes with it. If part of the self is viewed as being sinful, problematic, the source of pain or is otherwise rejected or repressed, it will likely either become part of one’s Shadow and continue expressing itself in unhealthy ways, or simply leave in hopes of expressing itself more freely. Given the prevalence of influences that label parts of ourselves as “wrong,” this is likely a much more common, yet less recognized, source of fragmentation.

I have recognized the tendency of religion and psychology to have us “release” the things that trouble us as another potential source of fragmentation. Angry? Need closure? Holding a grudge? Release, release, release. The perception seems to be that we’re just releasing our “feelings” which evaporate into the ether — and it does make us feel better. Problem solved, right? Well, this may at times be the case, though often what we’re “releasing” is a semi-aware part of the self, which consists almost solely of the related issue; a fragment made of anger with a singleminded need for resolution, for instance. With little direction except that its been “released,” worst case scenario is that it takes itself out on the party in question, resulting in a form of psychic attack. If not though, it will likely just become one of the many aimlessly wandering and potentially hostile denizens of the astral plane. This possibility makes it worth considering a new approach to “release,” which I will elaborate on below.

My Experiences

I can thank a few unhealthy coping mechanisms for providing me with much of the material for this article. While I did have some instances of fragmentation that were likely caused by events outside my control, most of my own experiences were unknowingly self-inflicted. In early adolescence and on into the teenage years, I fell into a destructive pattern of locking down many parts of myself, in a process that got to be routine. If I felt that part of me was being attacked, or even if I had desires I was unable to meet, I would simply shut down the part of myself that was experiencing the discomfort. In some cases I would refuse to express part of myself – and that part, not particularly wanting to be shut down, would simply leave to find expression elsewhere.

Mistakenly believing that there was no “true self,” that I could just shut off or change parts of myself at will (and turn them back on just as easily) – I ended up with parts of myself scattered all over various planes, while what was left, local to my physical body, ended up losing much of its personal power and function. When I would come around and want to turn these functions back on again, I would find it wasn’t quite that easy – because they weren’t there to be turned on.

While I take responsibility for the poor, albeit uninformed choices I made that led to much of my fragmentation, at least part of this process was instigated by the negative interference I was subjected to during the same period. Eventually things got to be a bit too systematic, almost as if something was going down a checklist of my functions, and prompting me to split them off, in a process whose order and triggers were getting increasingly, and chillingly efficient.

In hindsight the pattern seemed to be that part of myself would split off, and an etheric implant would be inserted in its place, to prevent the return of the fragment, as well as encouraging further dysfunction, isolation and fragmentation. By the time I began the process of spiritual awakening, complete with budding 3rd eye phenomena that was intriguing and even fun, this process of shutting down and fragmentation had become subconscious and automatic. This unfortunately meant that when the audio and visuals turned overtly threatening, my higher spiritual and intuitive functions were shut down and split of about as quickly as they appeared. Most of my subsequent development has thus focused on putting Humpty Dumpty back together again; reassembling myself, and regaining abilities I had to begin with. Through a process of removing harmful implanted constructs, finding and reintegrating parts of myself, I have restored a great deal of those functions – including spontaneously regaining “normal” abilities most people take for granted, that I’d never previously had use of in this lifetime. I elaborated more on this side of things in a previous article.

Reintegration

Most shamanic sources portray soul retrieval as something that requires intervention by someone qualified, which often involves a lot of negotiation with either the fragment or another entity that has assumed control of it. However, it has been my experience that most fragments will return on their own under the right conditions. Adopting a policy of unconditional acceptance of all parts of myself brought back a lot of the parts that left due to various forms of rejection, for instance. That said, I have had cases that were more involved. Some fragments lacked either the mobility, the awareness, or both, to find their way back; others were actively prevented from doing so by various types of interference. Once I recognized self-fragmentation as a legitimate concept and one that applied to myself though, I adopted a firm resolve that all parts that originated with me, would return to me, and I suspect that this alone helped a lot in facilitating their actual return through various means.

Reintegration has provided an even more surreal set of experiences than the fragmentation that necessitated it. Starting at age 18, I would occasionally have what I began calling a “memory dump” before I knew anything about what was actually happening. Most often I would be hit by a sudden flood of dreamlike imagery and impressions (from dreams I didn’t remember having), memories that didn’t come from myself (at least not the self I’m most familiar with!), and all of this would be followed by deja vu lasting five minutes or more. Sometimes the deja vu would occur without the “memory dump,” and vice versa, but when those subsided it would always be followed by a powerful feeling of heightened clarity, and energy surges through my body.

As I got older and more spiritually aware, I began to piece together what was really going on and took steps to refine the process deliberately. Increasing my own intuitive abilities and energy sensitivity, as well as connecting with friends who were engaged in similar metaphysical pursuits, resulted in a few instances of being able to engage, and interact to varying degrees, with these aspects of myself before they integrated with the rest of me. In several instances, at least one of those aspects proved capable of physical interaction apart from my conscious awareness. In separate incidents it visited, and surprised the hell out of a few friends of mine, in the middle of the day. They were aware enough to perceive that it was “me,” though I wasn’t consciously aware of any of this until they told me later. Fortunately everybody it interacted with that I was aware of, agreed that it was good natured, well mannered and respectful of boundaries… if rather uninhibited when permitted to be, ahem. (It was associated with my base chakra, which was likely why it could interact easily with the physical; do the math, people. ) Finally this aspect visited Gehenna, and she was able to help me reconnect with it and convince it to reintegrate… possibly reluctantly so on both their parts. Cough.

As my ability to perceive non-local aspects of myself has increased, I have taken measures to integrate their memories and perceptions in a more orderly fashion, in order to make at least some sense of what’s incoming. Those who have read material by the author Robert Bruce will be familiar with the concept of memory download. For those who aren’t, the basic idea is that if two parts of the self have recorded separate sets of memories for the same time period, and then the nonphysical aspect attempts to reintegrate with the physical set of memories, much of the nonphysical memories will likely be lost. This explains, for instance, why memories of dreams and astral projection can be so hit-or-miss. I believe it also explains why my early experiences of “memory dump” were so disjointed and fleeting.

Through some internal reorganizing I have designated a part of myself to receive the incoming memories of reintegrating aspects so that they’re not being overwritten by anything else, and so they will be downloaded and organized in a way that I can perceive more of the information content. This has led to much smoother reintegration experiences and much intuitive insight on things like the cause of the original fragmentation, what the aspect has been up to in the meantime, and how I can help it to get re-oriented and brought up to speed with the rest of me. Two of such experience stand out enough to be worth a mention.

In the first, I felt for a few days that an aspect was “circling the drain” and preparing to reintegrate, so I simply allowed it to happen, which it did. I felt the familiar reintegration symptoms, but then a very distinct and pronounced sense of disorientation. I clearly intuited that this was an aspect that had been apart from myself since some time during my teenage years, a very different person living in southern California. From his perspective, he suddenly woke up, not only years older with a completely different personality, but on another continent! For a short time this aspect was very prominently in the front of my awareness, going “Where am I? How’d I get here? What’s going on?” …and I literally had to sit there, mentally reminding myself of the course of events that had brought me to that point, because for a few minutes, the rest of my scrambled brain wasn’t entirely sure either!

The second instance will be getting its own article before long, but there was another aspect of myself that had been unconsciously ejected for remaining antagonistic, once I decided to start treating myself a lot better than I had been. It was operating with the belief that “no-win situations build character” – and trying to make this maxim encompass my entire life’s experience. Where this aspect got this idea remains unclear, though before I learned how to establish and enforce personal boundaries, it continued to use its increasingly limited access to invite all manner of negative interference, and re-align other aspects of myself toward its own destructive agenda. Needless to say it did not ultimately succeed, and after finally figuring out that this was what was happening, a battle of wills brought this aspect to the point of nonresistance where it could be re-aligned with the rest of my values and ethics, and successfully integrated. That makes it sound more epic than the situation actually was though – by the time I figured out what was happening, it was this single aspect against all my others that had already re-integrated more easily, so it wasn’t much of a “battle.” When I finally got it to integrate, I had an intuitive download that was as extensive as it was unnerving, followed by a roughly ten minute preview of everything happening in the room I was sitting in, about ten seconds in advance.

The Mobile Multidimensional Self

While the fragmentation scenarios I’ve discussed until now have been the result of traumatic or otherwise unhealthy circumstances, thankfully that is not the whole story. Under ideal conditions, aspects of the self come and go for a variety of reasons, relative to the physical body, on a fairly regular basis. Unlike a fragmentation scenario though, these traveling aspects maintain a connection to the rest of the Self, through which energy and information is exchanged. The degree to which the conscious mind is aware of this exchange accounts for a lot of the mechanics behind much of the most common intuitive and psychic phenomena.

In light of newfound understanding of what happens when we “release” things, I have also developed my own approach to this practice. I still release dissonant parts of myself to find their resolution (assuming there’s a good reason why it can’t just be talked through the old fashioned way) — but with clear instructions. Rather than the nebulous objective of “release” being an end in itself, my objective is that they resolve in a way that brings them back in harmony with my mission statement, and then return. I then send them to work themselves out on a “dreamscape” part of the astral plane, where they can cycle through as many different approaches to the issue as needed, until they’re realigned with the rest of myself. In this way I avoid unleashing pissed off self aspects on unsuspecting people, they resolve themselves without occupying much more of my thoughts and energy, and often they bring back a bit of newly acquired self-knowledge from the experience of cycling through many different approaches to the issue in question. Pretty good deal, methinks. I recommend this approach strongly; it doesn’t require much “technique” other than setting clear intent for what happens after you release something, and then achieving the release via whatever method you’re comfortable with.

This is just one of many examples of how I’ve come to use the mechanics of the multidimensional self in ways that are constructive and beneficial to myself and others. My work in this area has also taken me to a new level of understanding of many of the most common spiritual and religious concepts. This has illuminated a fresh approach to some, and has framed others in a way that is decidedly unflattering. I’ll pick it up there in my next post.

–Palehorse
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