Are Spirit Realms Real?
Virtually All Indigenous Cultures Say They Are
Art by Australian Indigenous artist Khatija Possum Nampijimpa, “Grandmother’s Country”
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EXPLORE THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LIFE
with my MID-YEAR AUDIO PREVIEW of YOUR DESTINY
for the REST of 2025:
This week my Expanded Audio Horoscopes explore themes that I suspect will be important for you during the coming months.
What areas of your life are likely to receive unexpected assistance and divine inspiration?
Where are you likely to find most success?
How can you best cooperate with the cosmic rhythms?
What questions should you be asking?
To listen to my IN-DEPTH, LONG-TERM AUDIO FORECAST for YOUR LIFE, go here, then register and/or sign in: https://RealAstrology.com
After you log in through the main page, click on the link "Long-Term Forecast for Second Half of 2025."
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The Expanded Audio Horoscopes cost $7 apiece. There are discounts for the purchase of multiple reports.
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ARE SPIRIT REALMS REAL?
Some self-proclaimed skeptics relish the sardonic fun of dismissing religious people’s beliefs. Ex-Catholic comedian George Carlin spoke for many when he said, “Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do every minute of every day.”
(Carlin seemed to be under the false impression that all religious traditions everywhere and everywhen have imagined such a preposterous caricature.)
The avowed skeptics primarily reserve their dissing ridicule for Christians, while believers in other mainstream religions are largely spared—despite the fact that most of them also presume the existence of unseen spirits and invisible realms. Tibetan Buddhism alone entertains the worship of hundreds of deities.
There’s another crucial and inconvenient fact that the ridiculers never deal with: In virtually all Indigenous religions throughout history and across the world, people have cultivated relationships with spirit realms that interpenetrate yet remain distinct from waking life in the material world.
Have there been Indigenous cultures that don’t maintain a connection with an invisible domain? No.
Religious studies scholar Graham Harvey says that Indigenous religions constitute the majority of the world's religions (upwards of 10,000 of them), and virtually all of these include some form of otherworld or spirit realm concept. Further, every spirit realm is populated by beings invisible to human sense perception.
We can confidently conclude: The existence of an unseen otherworld and spirit beings is a universal characteristic of Indigenous traditions.
Typically, a specific class of people has the responsibility of consorting with this otherworld and its denizens. Holy people, medicine workers, shamans, and seers regularly journey to these realms. One reason they do so is to obtain cures, resources, and wisdom to be used for healing and guidance in the material world. This is a universal practice in Indigenous cultures.
PS: The majority of Earth’s religious believers worship within one of the seven mainstream faiths. But there are far more varieties of Indigenous religions. And If all of these were grouped together, they would form the world’s fifth-largest “religion” by number of followers, behind Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
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Various cultures have different names for the Otherworld. Below are a few, and there’s a fuller list here: https://tinyurl.com/OtherWorldNames
• Ani’-Wah’ya (Cherokee) — “Wolf Land,” a dreamlike spirit territory where animal guides and ancestors walk in beauty and wisdom. Especially sacred to those undergoing vision quests or rites of passage, Ani’-Wah’ya is reached through prayer, sweat lodge ceremonies, and encounters with wolves in dreams or wilderness. It is both a teaching ground and a healing space, where lost power can be recovered and deep instincts renewed. Songs, footprints, and winds are its messengers.
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• Alcheringa / The Dreaming (Arrernte and other Aboriginal Australian groups) — The Dreaming is not in the a past, but an eternal, ever-unfolding realm where ancestral beings formed rivers, stars, rocks, and laws of life. It exists alongside physical reality and shapes all living relationships. Accessed through sacred sites, dreamtime travel, and ancestral songlines, the Dreaming is both memory and map, instruction and essence. It is a field of deep ecological and spiritual intelligence that guides the community's harmony with land, kin, and spirit.
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• Uku Pacha (Quechua, Inca) — The innermost underworld of Andean cosmology, Uku Pacha lies beneath the surface of the Earth and is intimately connected with seeds, ancestors, and the gestational powers of the soil. It is a space of darkness and mystery, not evil but fertile and brimming with potential. Caves, wombs, and springs are portals into Uku Pacha, and rituals of sowing and mourning are ways of honoring its powers. Spirit healers descend to this realm to awaken and access the forces of renewal.
Art by Ernest Budu, from Ghana, “Gathering”
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SPIRITUAL HEALERS AND MEDICINE WORKERS
The word "shaman" originally referred to holy healers and medicine workers in Indigenous Siberian and Mongolian cultures. Western anthropologists coined the term from the Evenki word šamán.
But in recent years, “shaman” has acquired a more universal application, and is now used by Westerners to identify comparable holy people in other Indigenous cultures.
However, many Native Americans find the terms "shaman" and "shamanism" offensive because the words originate from outside their cultures and don't accurately represent their spiritual practices.
The same is true about other Indigenous traditions all over the world. Each culture has its own unique understanding of these roles, and the Western academic term "shaman" often oversimplifies or distorts the complex spiritual, medical, and social functions these practitioners serve in their communities.
Indigenous people outside of Siberia ans Mongolia refer to their own holy people by terms in their own languages that are the equivalent of doctor, medicine person, spiritual leader, elder, herbalist or diagnostician.
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Is there evidence of Indigenous spiritual traditions that DON’T have special people playing roles like this?
Certain bands within the !Kung (San) peoples of the Kalahari have traditions where trance dancing and healing abilities are more widely distributed among community members rather than concentrated in specific individuals. Even there, however, some people are recognized as having stronger abilities.
A few Indigenous traditions have "part-time" or "situational" specialists rather than full-time religious practitioners. In some Pacific Islander cultures, for instance, spiritual duties might rotate among family or clan leaders based on specific ceremonies or seasonal needs.
Some traditions, like the Arapaho and Indigenous Australians, emphasize that spiritual abilities are potentially accessible to anyone through proper preparation, vision quests, or life experiences, even if in practice certain individuals become recognized specialists.
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But the vast majority of documented Indigenous traditions do indeed have recognizable categories of people—whether called shamans, medicine people, spirit workers, seers, or other terms—who serve as primary intermediaries with spiritual realms.
The consistency of this pattern across geographically and culturally isolated Indigenous societies is a striking universal.
Various cultures have different names for the spiritual healers / medicine workers. Below are a few, and there’s a fuller list here: https://tinyurl.com/SpiritHealers
Ojibwe/Anishinaabe: Mashkikiiwinini (medicine man), Mashkikiiwininiikwe (medicine woman)
In the Anishinaabe tradition, these healers are not merely herbalists—they are intermediaries between human beings and the plant spirits, animals, ancestors, and elemental forces. The word mashkiki means “medicine,” which itself derives from mashkawizi, meaning “s/he is strong.” A medicine person is therefore someone who channels strength—physical, spiritual, and emotional—to restore balance. They carry bundles of sacred objects, sing healing songs called nagamowin, and may work with the windigo and the manitou in subtle negotiations of power.
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Zulu/Southern Africa: Sangoma – Spirit Medium and Seer
The Sangoma is a diviner, dreamer, and spirit-messenger who mediates with the ancestors (amadlozi) on behalf of the living. Their calling often begins with illness or madness. What the West might mislabel as a crisis, the Zulu recognize as a spiritual summons. They undergo an initiation called ukuthwasa, wherein they receive training in ancestral dreamwork, herbal medicine, and bone divination. Their bones (amathambo)—thrown in sacred patterns—tell stories the healer decodes. A Sangoma walks with spirits at her side and is known to sing in voices that are not entirely her own.
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Mongolian: Böö (male), Udgan (female)
In the Mongolian steppes, where the sky is vast and the wind speaks in riddles, the Böö and Udgan act as travelers between Tenger (the Sky Spirits) and the Earth. Chosen through sickness, visions, or ancestral lineage, they are trained to enter trance with the beat of the khel khuur (mouth harp) or the shaman's drum. Their clothing is a costume of cosmic symbolism—antlers, mirrors, and iron bells that protect and transform. They fly in soul-flight to other realms, communing with ancestral spirits and elemental beings to diagnose and heal. Theirs is a path of endurance and ecstatic communion.
Art by Oscar Howe (Yanktonai Dakota,) “Dance of the Heyoka”
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INDIGENOUS MONOTHEISM? INDIGENOUS DISPUTES OVER SPIRITUAL BELIEFS?
Can any Indigenous spiritual traditions be considered monotheistic?
Have Native Americans’ disputes with each other ever involved spiritual beliefs?
I’ve written up some preliminary answers to those questions here: https://tinyurl.com/IndigenousSpiritualDetails
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Art by Australian Indigenous artist George Dean: “River Serpent”
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week of June 19
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Tides don’t ask for permission. They ebb and flow in accordance with an ancient gravitational intelligence that obeys its own elegant laws. Entire ecosystems rely on their steady cyclical rhythms. You, too, harbor tidal forces, Cancerian. They are partially synced up with the earth’s rivers, lakes, and seas, and are partially under the sway of your deep emotional power. It’s always crucial for you to be intimately aware of your tides’ flows and patterns, but even more than usual right now. I hope you will trust their timing and harness their tremendous energy.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Some jewelers practice an ancient Korean art called keum-boo, in which they fuse pure gold to silver by heat and pressure. The result is gold that seems to bloom from within silver’s body, not just be juxtaposed on top of it. Let’s make this your metaphor for the coming weeks, Leo. I believe you will have the skill to blend two beautiful and valuable things into an asset that has the beauty and value of both—plus an extra added synergy of valuable beauty. The only problem that could possibly derail your unprecedented accomplishment might be your worry that you don’t have the power to do that. Expunge that worry, please.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Some Indigenous cultures keep track of time not by clocks but by natural events: “the moon when the salmon return,” “the season when shadows shorten,” “the return of the rain birds.” I encourage you to try that approach, Virgo. Your customary rigor will benefit from blending with an influx of more intuitive choices. You will be wise to explore the joys of organic timing. So just for now, I invite you to tune out the relentless tick-tock. Listen instead for the hush before a threshold cracks open. Meditate on the ancient Greek concept of kairos: the prime moment to act or a potential turning point that’s ripe for activation.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Botanists speak of “serotiny,” a plant’s ability to delay seed release until the environment is just right. Some pinecones, for instance, only open after a fire. What part of you has been patiently waiting, Libra? What latent brilliance has not been ready to emerge until now? The coming weeks will offer catalytic conditions—perhaps heat, perhaps disruption, perhaps joy—that will be exactly what’s needed to unleash the fertile potency. Have faith that your seeds will draw on their own wild intelligence.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): One of your superpowers is your skill at detecting what’s unfolding beneath the surfaces. It’s almost like you have X-ray vision. Your ability to detect hidden agendas, buried secrets, and underground growth is profound. But in the coming weeks, I urge you to redirect your attention. You will generate good fortune for yourself if you turn your gaze to what lies at the horizon and just beyond. Can you sense the possibilities percolating at the edges of your known world? Can you sync up your intuitions with the future’s promises? Educated guesses will be indistinguishable from true prophecies.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarius-born Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) got a degree in law and economics and began a career teaching those subjects at the university level. But at age 30, he had a conversion experience. It was triggered when he saw a thrilling exhibit of French Impressionist painters and heard an enthralling opera by Richard Wagner. Soon he flung himself into a study of art, embarking on an influential career that spanned decades. I am predicting that you will encounter inspirations of that caliber, Sagittarius. They may not motivate you as drastically as Kandinsky’s provocations, but they could revitalize your life forever.
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WHAT'S TO COME?
BRAINSTORM ABOUT THE BIG PICTURE OF YOUR LIFE
with my Expanded Audio Horoscopes for the Second Half of 2025:
What will be the story of your life during the coming months? How can you exert your free will to create the adventures that will bring out the best in you, even as you find graceful ways to cooperate with the tides of destiny?
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CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The ancient Egyptians revered the River Nile’s annual flooding, which brought both disruption and renewal. It washed away old plant matter and debris and deposited fertile silt that nourished new growth. In the coming weeks, Capricorn, I suspect you will experience a metaphorical flood: a surge of new ideas, opportunities, and feelings that temporarily unsettle your routines. Rather than focusing on the inconvenience, I suggest you celebrate the richness this influx will bring. The flow will ultimately uplift you, even if it seems messy at first.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Medieval stonemasons worked not just in service to the immediate structures they made. They imagined eternity, laying foundation blocks in cathedrals they knew they would never live to see completed. I think you are being invited to do similar work, Aquarius: soulful construction whose fruits may not ripen for a while. A provocative conversation you have soon may echo for years. A good habit you instill could become a key inheritance for your older self. So think long, wide, and slow, dear Aquarius. Not everything must produce visible worth this season. Your prime offerings may be seeds for the future. Attend to them with reverence.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In the frigid parts of planet Earth, some glaciers sing. As they shift and crack and melt, they emit tones: groans, pulses, crackles, and whooshes. I believe your soul will have a similar inclination in the coming weeks, Pisces: to express mysterious music as it shifts and thaws. Some old logjam or stuck place is breaking open within you, and that’s a very good thing. Don’t ignore or neglect this momentous offering. And don’t try to translate it into logical words too quickly. What story does your trembling tell? Let the deep, restless movements of your psyche resound.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries writer Joseph Campbell was a world-renowned mythologist. His theories about the classic hero archetype have inspired many writers and filmmakers, including Star Wars creator George Lucas. As a young man, Campbell crafted the blueprint for his influential work during a five-year period when he lived in a rustic shack and read books for nine hours a day. He was supremely dedicated and focused. I recommend that you consider a similar foundation-building project, Aries. The coming months will be an excellent time for you to establish the groundwork for whatever it is you want to do for the rest of your long life.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In Japan, komorebi refers to the dappled sunlight that streams through tree leaves. It names a subtle, ephemeral beauty that busy people might be oblivious to. Not you, I hope, Taurus! In the coming weeks, I invite you to draw on komorebi as an inspirational metaphor. Tune in to the soft illumination glimmering in the background. Be alert for flickers and flashes that reveal useful clues. Trust in the indirect path, the sideways glance, the half-remembered dream, and the overheard conversation. Anything blatant and loud is probably not relevant to your interests. PS: Be keen to notice what’s not being said.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In Finnish folklore, the Sampo is a magic artifact that generates unending wealth and good fortune. Here’s the catch: It can’t be hoarded. Its power only works when shared, passed around, or made communal. I believe you are close to acquiring a less potent but still wonderful equivalent of a Sampo, Gemini. It may be an idea, a project, or a way of living that radiates generosity and sustainable joy. But remember that it doesn’t thrive in isolation. It’s not a treasure to be stored up and saved for later. Share the wealth.
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Bob!
This review of spirits is so brilliant. I am bubbling with excitement and ever so grateful for your insights. I sense a gathering of Comanche nunnupi by an elder mesquite tree who roots are entangled with Kaku( Grandmother) They enjoy tequila and honey and wax poetic at times.
Thank you for all of your hard but inspirational work - much appreciated.