Embarking on a Mystic Journey: Exploring Shamanism, Spirit Communication, and Manifestation with Ben Molyneux

Prepare to embark on a mystical journey as we delve into the world of shamanism with our remarkable guest, Ben Molyneux.  An artist, photographer, and author, Ben's life took an unexpected turn when he became ill and turned to the spirit world for healing.  This life-altering journey has transformed not just his personal life, but his spiritual practice as well. Tune in as we navigate the expansive realm of shamanism, understanding its diverse global modalities, and learning how our intuition serves as the initial gateway to the spirit world. 

Together with Ben, we explore the wonderful mechanism of manifesting our deepest desires and how a clear vision can lead to astounding outcomes. But it's not just about getting what you want; it's about having the courage to invite something even beyond our imagination into our existence. We also discuss the intriguing concept of spirit animals, their significance in our life stages, and how they aid us through personal transformation. With insights from Ben's enlightening courses, this episode will leave you with a profound understanding of the magic that surrounds our lives. Step into the ethereal world of spirit communication, shamanism, and manifestation with us.

Ben is an artist, photographer and the Author of 'The Journey to the Edge of Reality- An Englishman's Shamanic Tale’ After losing his health, his businesses and his community, Ben turns to his spiritual path to help him recover from long Covid and rebuild his life. He embarks on a journey of a lifetime, letting go of everything, including his life partner and allowing the universe to guide him. In doing so, Ben becomes a nomad and a shaman, travelling Britain whilst learning and integrating ancient spiritual practices, in a search to find wholeness.

In this semi-autobiographical story, Ben is taken to the edge of reality and peers through the veil. There, in a heightened state of awareness, he discovers incredible insights and he experiences extraordinary synchronicities. This is an uplifting and inspirational spiritual story full of adventure, magic and romance.

Ben's book is available through Amazon and his artwork is on sale at the Marisa Arna Jewellery studio and gallery in Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex or via his website: www.benmolyneux.co.uk and www.benmolyneux.com 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:31

So hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Balm to the Soul. And tonight I have a guest, ben Mollinieu. And Ben is an artist photographer and he's also the author of the Journey to the Edge of Reality and Englishman's Shamanic Tale. So welcome, ben, and thank you so much for supporting Balm to the Soul.

Speaker 2: 2:52

That's great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 2:55

No, it's a pleasure. So I met you a couple of weeks ago at Spiritual Fair and you very kindly gifted me your book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I actually wasn't very well last week so I sat in bed and I had two days sort of headspace to just read the book, which is a nice way of doing it. So I really had that continuity and I was able to really get involved in it and I found it fascinating. I found it really really interesting. So just tell the listeners a little bit about the story, what the book's about really.

Speaker 2: 3:38

The first part of the book is just before the pandemic, so it's a semi-autobiographical tale, but it's my personal journey. I say semi-autobiographical as I'm a novelist and I really wanted to write this as a novel and maybe the timelines are different. I've changed people's names, but pretty much everything in there happened to me the way I've told it. We picked the story up at the beginning, where I'm just hecticly managing two businesses, I've got children, and life is really, really busy. And then I sense a really big change coming. The pandemic comes.

Speaker 2: 4:26

I have to close my businesses and at that point I get sick and that illness completely knocks me out and takes me to a very dark place where I actually, at the lowest point, think I'm about to lose my life. It was very difficult to move. I'm a spiritual person, a spiritual mindset, but sometimes the universe, the spirit world, wants to evolve us to the next stage, and for me it was a catalyst for massive change where the only one I could get while was to turn to my spiritual side. A powerful dream came through that sent me on a journey to let go of everything and embrace spiritual teaching. That would take me on an incredible journey.

Speaker 1: 5:31

Yeah, which is the story, basically the book. So when you talk about shamanism, in my head the image I have as a shaman is not an Englishman. So that was quite interesting in a red way, and I looked at the definition. So shamanism is about the practitioner interacting with the spirit world through altered states, mainly to do with healing, which triggered you off. But I thought that was really interesting because I would. I think if you said to most people you know, envisage a shaman, they wouldn't think of an English person.

Speaker 2: 6:17

Yeah, like you say, a shaman is an umbrella term that takes the global world and all of the people with their different modalities. You've got the storyteller shaman, you've got the witch doctor, the healer, the energy worker. In Britain, our ancestry, our history would take us back to the Druids and that would be the closest word locally. But my journey was very global.

Speaker 2: 6:58

What I picked up was stuff that comes from ancient India and China and so on, that was being taught to me by the spirit world, so I think the shaman is a good term in this instance.

Speaker 1: 7:13

Yeah and no boundaries, and I can't think of a better one.

Speaker 2: 7:16

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:17

Yeah, but very interesting. So do you think really all energy workers who connect with spirit could call themselves a shaman, or is there a different element that we need to add in?

Speaker 2: 7:32

I feel people need to find a term that they're comfortable with, yeah, and intuitively use that. So I wouldn't like to say that, but my understanding of the shaman is a translator for the spirit world. Working A witch, for instance, would be very different, because a witch is more of a, and the teaching that I've had is more of an individual journey, for instance, as is the magician, but the shaman is very much serving the spirit world for the good of the community.

Speaker 2: 8:13

So if that, is the journey you're on, then that's a term you could look into and see if that feels comfortable for you.

Speaker 1: 8:21

Yeah, I'm glad you talked about intuition as well, because a lot of your journey was guided by your own intuition and the fact that you were so strongly connected to your intuition, yeah, and I think that's something that anybody starting to want to do energy work or whatever has to connect into.

Speaker 2: 8:44

Yeah, I think intuition is a really great starting point and then to look for signs that back up. Sometimes our intuition is taking us along a path that makes our hearts sing but we haven't got the courage to follow it. But when that's backed up with very powerful synchronicities, messages, visions, dreams, it's a real green light to push us forward.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Yeah, something we could less likely to ignore.

Speaker 2: 9:17

Mm yeah, and of course, sometimes we're caught between the battle of is that intuition, or is that my?

Speaker 1: 9:23

mind. Is that my logic, that my ego, or is that my mind?

Speaker 2: 9:27

Yeah, and that really is hard to decipher.

Speaker 1: 9:30

Yeah, the other thing which was really interesting to me were your spirit animals and working with your spirit animals. So you had a bear and a leopard and an owl, didn't you? You had the three.

Speaker 2: 9:44

Yeah, they were the ones that made the book Right.

Speaker 1: 9:49

Well, I was going to ask you that because I was going to say to you do you think they change Do? You think they come in for different projects or different times.

Speaker 2: 9:57

I do feel that some will stay with you for life. Some it's an energy that we tap into as we move through a different phase, and it's really good to understand if we're connecting to a particular animal. What is the energy? What are their characteristics? Why is that coming to me now? It's usually coming to you as you have to go through some kind of transformation in your own life, and or maybe you're just going through something and yet you need to dig into a different part of you or energy.

Speaker 1: 10:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:35

I've been holding absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Yeah, I do as well and I very recently did some journeying and I was given two new spirit animals, yeah, which was really fascinating, and they were both insects, which was quite interesting. So it was given the moth.

Speaker 2: 10:54

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:55

And I see them flying, but in slow motion, Got to work that one out and then I was also given a cacada. A cacada, and I had to go away and Google it because I hadn't got a clue what was. We don't have them and it's sort of like gives an insect that sort of buries under the ground they have them in America definitely and sort of buries at the base of a tree and they can live underground for like 17 years and then they'll come out, feed off the tree and then die and give their nutrients back to the tree, if you like.

Speaker 2: 11:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:36

That sort of.

Speaker 2: 11:38

So that was. There's a crossover with the moth there, I feel with the Cacada. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Yeah, so that was very interesting. I'll have to delve deeper into that, but that's not my normal one, hence my question about you, know, obviously changing about something. Yeah, there was another couple of things in your book that really fascinated me as well, and it's not something that I've come across before. So one was using your dictionary to speak to spirit. I thought that was amazing. That was a really good gives an incredible language.

Speaker 2: 12:18

I've come across many people over the years who will pick up a book and just open it on a particular page and say, oh, it speaks to me. When I was younger, a friend who is a First Nation American, who I would give her the title of the shaman, she did a reading for me. She came to me and said, ben, I've got a message for you from the Ascended Masters. And I said, well, how did you do this? And she said, well, I channel into a dictionary and she showed me how.

Speaker 2: 12:53

And I tried at the time and I was just. It just came out Nothing, nothing that I could use. But that information stayed with me and as my energy changed and as I went through this change of working with spirit, my connection allowed me to just go into a trance, pick up the dictionary, close my eyes and put my finger on a page and then literally have a conversation with words, not necessarily the word my finger landed on, but the words around it, maybe the description of the word rather than the word, or it might have just been pinpointed on a particular thing. I found it to be a very useful tool for me to be able to communicate with the spirit world.

Speaker 1: 13:47

Yeah, I've done that. Fascinating, not something that I'd used before. Very interesting, and of course, you had your cards, didn't you? You may have a pack of a lot. There were a lot of them, weren't there?

Speaker 2: 14:04

Three thousand cards. I love these cards. I had this intuitively, this sentence that kept coming to me, which was tap into the wisdom of the greats, the past and present, and I just kept repeating in my head. I didn't quite know where it was coming from. And then, as I connected more and more with the spirit world, it was revealed to me that I was to gather this wisdom and put them into, effectively tarot cards, but homemade ones, and they would take me to books. I would go to the library and a book would just jump out of the shelf. I would read it. I would gather, in essence, lots of different pieces of wisdom that I could find from the books, a lot of spiritual books, but also quotes from people with different messages and a lot of psychology that's gone in books on psychology, books on the meaning of animals, and so and before I knew it.

Speaker 2: 15:18

I had a huge dictionary of cards and, in the same way as a terror reading, but I would take a card and then intuitively take the meaning and then take another card. And I started doing it for myself and it worked incredibly well and guided me back to my full health. And then I was encouraged to do it for other people, connecting to other people's guides through the cards, and we were revealing incredible truths through the cards that people would just unfounded that we could have this knowledge of what was going on in their life. So a first reading would always show them where they are, what's going on, what challenges they're facing Same way as a tarot, but I found more comfortable having this huge deck of 3000 cards because I could get very precise without having to spend a long time studying the tarot in the meeting.

Speaker 2: 16:17

I'm sure you can get to a similar understanding as somebody who's experienced tarot, but for me this was ideal and I found that working with people, often on a weekly basis with different people, it turned into a coaching session and people would be guided to find their path and their balance in harmony. They would be directed to what was best to let go of, what wasn't surfing them A lot of connection with nature, changing their vibration and so on. So I learnt so much by working with other people, and often the message would be double edged for me as well. What I needed to learn would come through when the person that came to me wanted a reading.

Speaker 1: 17:10

Yeah, excellent. So is that something that you still do?

Speaker 2: 17:13

Is that something, yeah, yeah, I mean often people now read the book and then they're interested and then they get in touch off the back of reading the book. Yeah, I do that Sometimes. It's just to help people in their path and find, you know, we get clouded, don't we?

Speaker 2: 17:32

Yeah, a lot of people know, but we just lose track and we've got so much noise and distraction and, in essence, it just helps people find what's inside them, what the heart is telling them, and often that is the most frightening thing for them to do and they're stuck because they're not taking that huge step forward that they need to take.

Speaker 1: 17:57

Yeah, and the other thing that you talk about in the book which, well, it's a major part of the book as well, but is how you are able to manifest by what you write. Wow, yes, that's pretty much a massive part of your story. You do that as well, anyway, don't you? That's something else to speak to people, how they can manifest.

Speaker 2: 18:26

Yeah, I mean, it was an incredible understanding for me.

Speaker 2: 18:31

I've done a lot of work in the past before I went on this journey with the law of attraction and visualising and people who are familiar with the law of attraction and visualising, and I should know that maybe to write is if you've already received something to be able to manifest it.

Speaker 2: 18:45

Well, what I found is a lot of my earlier writings and I won't give too much away from the book, but a lot of my earlier writings all started manifesting at once and as I discovered the stuff I'd written, but I'd written it not with the intention to manifest it. Now, whether or not I'd written it as a bit of a prophecy into my own life or not, I'm not sure, but there is huge power in what we write and whether we want to or not manifesting that into our own life. And I believe the stronger a manifester we are, the more in tune we are, more our chakras are aligned, the higher our vibration, the more we're able to do this. And what I've learnt since finishing the book and I may be just touching on it in the book it's not just about their writings, it's about what we create, whether that's poetry or paintings, and if you think about ancient cavemen and how they paint on the walls what they needed.

Speaker 2: 19:59

Or the shamans from Siberia would do this in the sand. They would draw a circle and they would sketch in to the sand the animals, the rain, everything that they needed. And, of course, if we're doing this intentionally writing or painting or poetry there's so much magic here to be able to transform our lives, our society.

Speaker 1: 20:25

And that.

Speaker 2: 20:26

Yeah, there's a big part of the book sharing the power that we have to be able to transform our lives by having a clear vision of what we want and communicating that to the universe in a way that isn't contradicting other things.

Speaker 2: 20:47

That we want, it's just knowing, because I think that's where we get stuck sometimes especially when I do coaching with people is they don't actually know what they want. They don't know the future that they want. I designed a course where people can manifest their future life and we break it down into different segments. And the starting point is very much what do I want my life to look like? And then really defining it and let the universe know. Of course, some people don't want to do that. They want to be able to just allow the universe to be able to create a beautiful life for them, and that's wonderful too.

Speaker 1: 21:31

Because I always struggle sometimes when because I've done lots of manifesting and positive thinking and thoughts and all the rest of it. But I do struggle sometimes because I almost feel like you know like if you're doing so, say you're trying to manifest a partner and you, you know there's a, there's a some task where you write down all the features and you, and in my head I almost feel like but I'm, that's my, I'm confining it with my own.

Speaker 2: 22:08

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:10

If you left it off out to spirit, it might be completely failed. But so I do struggle with that a little bit. Sometimes, you know, maybe I'll just leave it to spirit, whatever.

Speaker 2: 22:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:22

You know, that's bigger than my imagination sometimes, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 22:27

No, I agree, and I think that I had a business where I allowed the universe to just create this business. I didn't know where it was going, but I knew the universe would create something beyond my imagination. And it did, it did in a way that I couldn't have ever dreamed of, and I would marvel at the way it unfolded in. My job was just to stop it. Yeah, not to stop it, to not get in its way, and I feel that there is a higher a higher life that we can access for ourselves.

Speaker 2: 23:07

That is beautiful, but we just need to be very courageous and allow that to unfold.

Speaker 1: 23:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:14

But sometimes I think there is something missing in our life and we really do feel that's missing and sometimes maybe it's a good idea to just tell the universe OK, I've been waiting patiently, I really want that partner now and OK, well, if I'm choosing, you know why not have my partner look like this, yeah, and I mean, I was dating through my book and I share that experience and I found that wherever I was in my own vibrational state, I would often attract a partner in a similar place. But going through similar things, it was like my energy was a magnet connecting people of a similar energy going through a similar phase in our lives. So ultimately, the work we do on ourselves is the most important and you know when we're ready and if we're missing that connection that we're looking for, why not tell the universe in no uncertain terms yeah, I'm ready now. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 24:27

You know, see what it's a fun one to play with, isn't it? So just tell us about your courses, because I know that you do do some shamanic courses, don't you? You offer that, something that you offer? Yes.

Speaker 2: 24:42

So I mean, the book talks about a lot of different aspects that I went through when I was taught by the spirit world, and there's a lot here about letting go. There's a lot here about learning how to manifest magic and so on. So what I've done with the courses one course is, like I said earlier, to manifest the life.

Speaker 1: 25:10

That you want.

Speaker 2: 25:12

And it works very much in you know, let's look at all aspects of your life. Let's look at your health, your partner, your family, your home life, your career and map out exactly what you would like that to do and then raise your vibration and help you move towards those goals. The other part of the course, or everything people have got access to, is if they wanted to have readings with me and work with their soul guides to be able to do. Usually they will work. The guides will work how they want to work and they will. They will highlight the most important thing, and that sometimes is the career.

Speaker 2: 25:55

That's sometimes a relationship that's gone sour. It might be, you know, with a family member and that's the biggest energetic thing that they say look, let's work on this first and then other aspects. You know, we, some people, are called to go on a very unusual path by the spirit world and it might take them, let's just say, a spiritual transformation and they're trying to make sense of it and they don't understand and they just want someone to talk to who's been through it and can take a different perspective. That's another thing that I offer on there and I would have found incredibly helpful when I was going through my Shea Mani journey.

Speaker 1: 26:43

Yeah, excellent, and I will put up all your details and link to your website under the episode so if people are interested they can go and have a look and contact you.

Speaker 2: 26:55

Lovely, can I just say on that, because I think the link I sent through was just to the photography and the art one. But if they change the dot code, dot UK, to a dot com, they'll get the book and the coaching as well.

Speaker 1: 27:09

Okay, super so. Is there a book? Is there another? Are we having a follow up? Are you still on your journey? Yes, there is so.

Speaker 2: 27:18

I keep a very a lot's happened to me since I finished that book, and the most the magic that was in that book is continued and my understanding of what I went through is deepened and taken it to a different level. I'm very much still living the second book, the follow up book. It doesn't feel that I've reached its conclusion yet, but each day I write down all of the incredible things that happened to me, ready in place for when I do sit down and feel it's time to embark on that second follow up.

Speaker 1: 27:55

Excellent, well, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast and telling us about your adventures and what you can offer.

Speaker 2: 28:06

It's been lovely to have you. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 28:11

No problem at all, and if you've enjoyed listening to us, please like and share, and you can always subscribe to Balm to the Soul as well, and I'll be back soon.