Recently, substacker, KW Norton, has been exploring the benefits and the risks and challenges of Artificial Intelligence and the various GPT formats. You can check out her posts here at https://substack.com/@kwnorton? I began to wonder if our explorations, our questions and our gathering information with AI might be a kind of modern technological mirror of the shamanic journey that the shamans have been doing for centuries. In a shamanic journey, the shaman goes into trance and journeys into non-ordinary reality, outside of time and space as we know it, and meet spirit guides, power animals and the wisdom of the universe and nature spirits where there are unlimited possibilities for experiences, answers, guidance, insight and even healing that is directly related to the shaman’s target of exploration, question and intention.
Admittedly, I have very little knowledge of AI and have only used it minimally a few times until this exercise. As I understand it, when I ask a question to an AI platform, it processes my text using natural language processing to understand the intent and context, then generates a response by drawing on its training data, which includes massive amounts of text and information from the internet and other sources. AI analyzes my prompt, identifies keywords and concepts, and uses machine learning algorithms to predict the most relevant and accurate information to form a coherent, structured answer.
I decided to do an experiment. I decided to do a traditional shamanic journey on a specific question and document the answers. I would then pose that same question to GPT-5 to see how AI answered that same question. Would there be similarities? The question I chose was “How can I use my creative energy to create a positive present and future for myself?”
I opened my Medicine Bag, opened sacred space and drummed for several minutes to enter an altered state for journeying. I placed my intention to journey to the place of the elephants to ask them my question. As I arrived at the place of the elephants, I saw an elephant from behind walking down a path. It was a small, perhaps younger elephant. I called to it. The elephant turned around. I said, “in a previous journey to this place of the elephants, I was told to visit you often because you are the drumbeat of the future. Since you are the drumbeat of the future, that must include my future. I have a question for you. How can I use my creative energy to create a positive present and future for myself?”
I immediately heard, “stay focused on your mission.” Then I saw a herd of elephants in a huddle with their heads together in the center and rear ends turned outward standing in the form of a circle. After a short time, they turned and formed a circle with their heads pointing outward. In the middle of the circle on the ground were gemstones of different kinds and colors arranged in a pattern. The design reminded me of how the stars in the Big Dipper are arranged. I was told, “these are the vibrations of your energy centers. Maintain a balanced relationship with each of your centers for they work together to manifest a positive, healthy and vibrant energy in you and that energy vibrates out from you into the world around you so that whatever you choose to do will create a positive present and future. The energy you vibrate creates your present and your future.” I thanked the elephants and returned from the journey.
While still in sacred space, I then posed this question, “How do I use my creative energy to create a positive present and future for me” to GPT-5. Here is AI’s answer to my question:
“Your creative energy is a powerful resource — not limited to artistic expression, but extending to problem-solving, vision-building, and self-reinvention. The way you channel it today will actively shape the quality of your life tomorrow.”
What stood out to me that seemed similar to the answer I got from my journey to the elephants is “The way you channel it (your creative energy) today will actively shape the quality of your life tomorrow.” In other words, the way I channel my creative energy now will determine my present and my future.
I decided to ask GPT-5, “How does how I channel my creative energy relate to my energy centers?” Here is AI’s response.
How you channel your creative energy is directly linked to the flow, balance, and interplay of your energy centers (chakras). When you align creative expression with your energetic body, you move from “just making things” to intentionally creating from your whole self. This not only shapes your outer work — like your healing mission — but also heals and fortifies you from within.
AI’s answer seemed to mirror what the elephants told me in my journey: “Maintain a balanced relationship with each of your centers for they work together to manifest a positive, healthy and vibrant energy in you and that energy vibrates out from you into the world around you so that whatever you choose to do will create a positive present and future. The energy you vibrate creates your present and your future.”
However, AI went on to describe how my creative energy connects with each of my energy centers.
AI asked me to define more clearly “my mission.” I defined it as “to create and hold space for healing.” I asked AI how the energy centers relate to that more defined mission. Here is AI’s answer.
Since your purpose is to open and hold space for healing, your creative flow works best when:
Root & Sacral are strong → You feel safe, resourced, and connected to your joy before giving to others. This ensures you don’t drain your own well.
Heart leads your creation → Your offerings transmit genuine care and love.
Throat remains open → You confidently share your healing mission without fear of judgment.
Third Eye & Crown inspire direction → Your sessions are infused with vision and guidance beyond the mental mind.
AI then presented some practical ways to channel creativity through the energy centers
The key insight from GPT-5 is “If your creativity feels blocked or scattered, look at which energy center feels “dim” or depleted. Balancing that center often unlocks a fresh wave of creative flow — not just for art, but for life decisions and your healing work.” This suggestion by AI corresponds to the shamanic journey’s instruction to “maintain a balanced relationship with each of my energy centers.”
I found it fascinating that in my shamanic journey the position of the gemstones representing my 7 energy centers was in the shape of the big dipper. My own exploration on the spiritual and symbolic meaning of the Big Dipper found that the Big Dipper symbolizes different things across various cultures, including navigation and freedom for its use in finding the North Star. Its consistent placement in the night sky makes it an indispensable tool for navigation. The Big Dipper holds spiritual meaning, from representing a path to freedom to embodying balance in the cosmos. When the Big Dipper is upright, the Little Dipper is upside down, creating a yin-yang orientation that symbolizes balance and the connection between mother and child.
I decided to ask GPT-5 if there was a relationship between my energy centers and the Big Dipper. Here is AI’s answer.
This question takes us into the intersection of your inner energy centers and celestial archetypes.
The Big Dipper (Ursa Major) appears in many ancient traditions as a cosmic compass, spiritual guide, and transmitter of higher frequencies — especially in Daoist, Vedic, Tibetan, and Native American teachings. In some lineages, its seven main stars are seen as cosmic mirrors to the seven energy centers in the human body.
AI further amplifies on how the Big Dipper Relates to the energy centers. Think of the Big Dipper as an external star map that reflects your internal energy map.
AI further expands this Energetic Relationship between the Big Dipper and the chakras saying, just as the Big Dipper turns in the night sky through the seasons, your energy centers shift in activity, balance, and alignment throughout your life cycles. The two “pointer stars” (Dubhe & Merak) guide you to Polaris (the North Star), symbolizing your core purpose. Similarly, balancing your Root and Sacral centers often helps point your creative mission toward your inner North Star. Ancient star-mapping systems (especially Daoist Bei Dou practice) teach that meditating on each star can awaken corresponding qualities in the body’s energy centers, much like tuning musical notes.
AI then offered a suggestion on how this all relates to my mission of "Holding Space for Healing.”
Aligning your Root (Dubhe) and Heart (Megrez) gives your healing spaces safety + love — essential for deep transformation.
Keeping Third Eye (Mizar) and Crown (Alkaid) open lets inspiration for your work be guided from a higher source rather than only the mind.
When you creatively express (Throat / Alioth) what you sense from these higher channels, your community will deeply resonate.
AI then offered a Simple Big Dipper–Energy Center Meditation
Ground: Visualize the Big Dipper above you in a dark, clear night sky.
Connect: Imagine a line of light from each of the seven stars flowing into the matching chakra in your body.
Activate: See those centers glowing with the star’s color and quality.
Align: Let the “handle” of the Dipper pour cosmic light down through your chakras into the Earth.
Close: Place your hands on your heart, sealing the connection between your cosmic purpose and embodied creativity.
According to AI, the Big Dipper can serve as an outer archetypal map to check the health, balance, and flow of your inner centers. By meditating on or symbolically working with its stars, you can tune your creative energy to both Earth and Sky, making your healing work feel both grounded and guided.
I could have made this experiment more informative if I had first journeyed to the chakras and asked them how they were related to my creative energy to see what their answers would have been and how their answer compared to AI’s answer. I could have also journeyed to the Big Dipper first and asked it about its relationship with my energy centers. I wonder what information I might have gotten directly from the Big Dipper. Would it have told me that its seven stars were connected to my 7 chakras?
This experiment with AI provided additional ways for me to use my creative energy to create a positive present and future for myself by (1) maintaining a practice of balancing my energy centers and (2) meditating on the archetypal map reflected in the stars of the Big Dipper. When AI said “Think of the Big Dipper as an external star map that reflects your internal energy map,” it confirmed what I was told in a journey several years ago, “Look inside you and you will find the wisdom of the Universe.”
Conclusion: Exploring my shamanic journey with AI confirmed and supported what was given me in my journey to the elephants. AI also expanded my journey by providing additional information that I find useful. However, as with all the answers whether given in a shamanic journey or by AI, it is now up to me to make that my practice if I am going to use my creative energy to create a positive present and future. The future is up to us!
It is amazing how this stuff seems to work together. Synchronicity- I wonder if the energy you were working with actually affected the AI response.
Thanks for this post.