Betsy Bergstrom
Workshops and Trainings

Shamanic Mediumship and Seidr

The greatest spiritual healers of our time are mediums. Many of the greatest artists, musicians, counsellors, oracles and mediators of our time are mediums. And it is without dispute that the greatest shamans and medicine people of our time practice mediumship, for it is a key underpinning of shamanic traditions the world over.

Mediumship is understood to be a partnering of human host and spiritual ally that can facilitate healing, wisdom and knowledge. In the words of the British medium, the late Harry Edwards, mediumship can “host miracles”.

Mediumship, attunement and entraining are natural and daily aspects of our human experience. Consequently most of the mediumship experienced in the world is unintentional and often unconscious. This training is an exploration of intentional mediumship and its practical partnering with shamanism. 
Working with a wide range of compassionate allies, this experiential training will be focusing on:

• The art of mental and physical mediumship, being the basis for divination, oracular work and the accessing of wisdom and healing.
• Awareness of the body’s tendency to attune to emotion and vibration, and the phenomena of exteriorized spiritual substances such as ectoplasm, and materialized objects or apports.
• Grounding and personalising a protocol for staying grounded & aware whilst engaging in intentional mediumship and in daily life.
• Intentional attunement skills for potentialising and empowering mediumistic attunement for speech and healing.
• Exploring conscious versus unconscious mediumship and developing protocols for and explorations with solo, dyad, and group mediumship.
• The Norse shamanic mediumship ways and ceremony of Seidr: Working with song & staff within this Northern European form of shamanism and exploring staff journeys, oracular mediumship and healing.
• The art of skilled embodying and the Cosmic Kiva healing ceremony

The Shamanic Rites of Chöd

Lama Tsering Wangdu

Chöd is an ancient initiatic and ritual practice that dates from the early 10th century, tracing its origins to the great yogini-dakini Machig Labdrön of Tibet and the tantric adept Padampa Sangye of India. The rites themselves are traditionally transmitted from teacher to student and are engaged with as a personal spiritual practice and as a healing praxis within the shamanic Bön tradition of Tibet. And it was this tradition that in 1978 was finally recognized as the Fifth Wisdom School of Tibet by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama.

Furthermore, His Holiness the Dalai Lama authorized the renowned Tibetan yogi, Lama Tsering Wangdu to share the rites of Chöd to Westerners. Lama Wangdu subsequently taught this Buddhist version of the Chöd practice to Betsy Bergstrom, bestowing upon her the authority and authorization to teach and transmit this lineage practice to those in the West who are called to engage with this remarkable body of work. Though Chöd has in the past been a rare and at times a secret practice, Betsy Bergstrom has reflected that the Dalai Lama may consider that because of the shamanic elements and tantric power held within the rites, it is an especially important practice to be shared to Westerners during these delicate times that we live in.

The rites themselves focus on tantric practices that empower the practitioner to safely offer their body as blessed food to compassionate allies and ‘demons’. The purpose of the offering of one's own body in this ritualized fashion is to cut through fear, to pacify the ‘demons’ (internal and/or external) and liberate them, and to free the ego/mind in order to know the true nature of reality. The rites contain strong shamanic elements that include transferral of consciousness; merging with compassionate allies; dismemberment; offerings and re-memberment, with the outcome bringing both a profound peace and profound healing.

This is the first time that Betsy Bergstrom will be sharing this body work in Europe and it offers a rare opportunity to be tutored by an authorized lineage holder and carrier of an authorized lineage transmission.

Basic Compassionate Depossession Training

This training will be exploring the following themes in detail, in both theory and practice:

• Connecting with and calling in protector spirits and power animals prior to depossession work.
• Merging with our Divine, true self-the Divine light which protects us.
• Calling in our personal Angels and Archangels.
• Guiding the client as a channel for the suffering being.
• Strategies to communicate with possessing spirits and move them to the light.
• Tracking the divine light that resides in all suffering beings to compassionately heal them.
• Healing the residual tears in the luminous field left after depossession is completed.
• Curse unravelling for both negative thought forms and generational curses.
• Clearing a curse at its inception, and unwinding the energy through its course.
• Tracking through the family lineage of a curse.
• How to deal with the random intrusions of spirits wanting to cross over.

Advanced Compassionate Depossession Training

This training offers the opportunity to move more deeply into the work and will focus on:

• Dealing with high potency possessing spirits and powerful negative beings.
• Unravelling complex sorcerous workings and thought-forms.
• Extraction of elemental beings.
• Powering up protection and maintenance in high intensity shamanic practice.

Please Note: Participants should have extensive experience with shamanic journeying to attend either of these trainings. These residential trainings are running back to back and priority will be given to those people who wish to undertake both the Basic and the Advanced components.