by Bob Thomson
Bob Thomson was a regular contributor to alt.religion.shamanism in the mid-2000s, a French-based practitioner writing in precise, analytical English about his experiences in the spirit worlds. He had undergone formal shamanic training and brought to the group a methodical temperament balanced by genuine wonder.
In this March 2007 post, Thomson poses a question he has been carrying for some time: are there two fundamentally different modes of navigating the spirit worlds? The first is the common approach — walking without a map, guided by intuition and spirit helpers, accessible to most practitioners. The second is something stranger: a theory of gates and gatekeepers, specific locations in the spirit worlds that function as thresholds and require what Thomson calls spiritual passports to enter.
Thomson is not speaking theoretically. He discovered a small golden key on a thin chain fixed to his neck during a journey — a key he had not noticed placed there — and used it at least once to gain entry to a place a fellow shaman spontaneously named the Wizards' Annual Fair. His reflection is careful and honest about the limits of his certainty. He received the key without witnessing its gift; he does not claim to fully understand the system he is describing. What he offers instead is a set of empirical clues, personal experiences he cannot explain away, and a genuine question for anyone else who has encountered something similar.
Hi everybody,
One of Allan's last posts made me want to start a new thread about something I wanted to talk about since some time already...
You're already doing what I, and many others on the group, are already doing. An altered state of mind is exactly what it says on the tin. You open the tin by basic meditation techniques. Remove your own thought by concentrating on breathing. That takes around a week, to ten days, depending on the individual. Once thoughts of this world are controlled, then what remains in your head is not yours, there you go, you are no longer in Kansas, Dorothy. Your own path, not someone else's, walking without a map is, paradoxically, the safest way of navigating the spirit world.
OK, now, here is the issue I have in my mind.
I have already heard — sometimes expressed by the same seasoned folks — two opposite points of view. I myself followed the "without a map" technique and my experience certainly shows that this way of seeing things is not too bad — it works, at least to quite some extent. I believe that this is more or less how most of us people here work.
The other theory is that there are gates, and gate keepers. I will not try to detail here all that was said to me about it, and maybe some things are best left undisturbed. But here are a few things that come to my mind in terms of empirical clues, if not proofs.
Some spiritual objects that were given in spirit to me — a few other people told me about similar events happening during dreams or journeys — seem to work like passports or master keys. For instance, I once noticed that I had been given (without being able to know when and how) a small key in gold that was fixed to my neck via a small and thin gold chain. I used it at least once in order to be granted access to a weirdo (and crowded) event, up above, which a fellow shaman spontaneously named the Wizards' Annual Fair. I'm not sure it's annual, though — it could be every couple of years or so. It was worth seeing anyway. I gave this not so standard example only because I can clearly tell a "passport" was needed in order to access this place in the spiritual world.
So my point is that according to this theory, there are indeed some places in the spiritual worlds that work as gates, and which number could be quite limited. It's needless to say that some people could be quite interested in trying to control all that. I do know that some are trying.
The most paranoid explanation that I could be tempted to give about the fact that many people simply seem to ignore it all could be that there are many people who try to stick strictly to what they are taught — they don't have the curiosity to try to go just a little deeper at times — or who are already very busy doing what they happen to do, or whose skill level remains average, and simply could miss this and remain happy with the portions of the Multiverse that are accessible with no master keys, or with entry level ones.
The last thing I'd like to say is that I do not pretend to be smarter about it all, if only because I already learned that I am given those keys when my guides feel I need them, and in the moments where I'm not supposed to go to such places, life can be very boring, by comparison.
OK, well, I'd appreciate reading any of you on this.
Colophon
Posted to alt.religion.shamanism on 1 March 2007 by Bob Thomson, a practitioner based in France who trained formally in shamanic technique and contributed regularly to the group through the mid-2000s. The post opens a discussion about two competing theories of spiritual navigation — guideless journeying versus gate-and-key access — grounded in Thomson's own experience of receiving a golden key in spirit and using it to enter a gathering his companion named the Wizards' Annual Fair. The thread generated a rich exchange with Allan and other regulars about spirit passports, restricted spiritual travel, and the question of whether shamans can or should push past gatekeepers.
Original Message-ID: [email protected]
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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