Inquiry · “You Are Not Your Thoughts”
Connecting with the Oversoul
Use the shamanic journey to seek conscious relationship with one’s transpersonal Higher Self / ‘Oversoul’ for guidance, perspective, and a sense of continuity beyond the everyday ego.
Oversoul connection: With one clear intention, drum into a light trance and journey upward to the Upper World to meet your Higher Self (and its teacher, your Spirit Guide). Greet it, ask, and receive its wider perspective; thank it and return on the call-back. Ground and journal. Build the relationship over many visits. Read the “immortal Oversoul” as a frame for your own deeper wisdom and continuity — counsel to weigh, not a proven external being.
What it is
This is Hank Wesselman’s practice of seeking conscious relationship with one’s transpersonal higher aspect. Drawing on the Hawaiian kahuna model of three souls, Wesselman taught that we are not a single self but a layered one — an animal-body self, the everyday conscious mind, and an immortal Higher Self, whose larger field he called the “Oversoul,” described as the immortal source of the self in each lifetime.
The practice uses the shamanic journey (typically to the Upper World) to make contact with this Higher Self and, beyond it, one’s Spirit Guide (which Wesselman framed as “the Higher Self’s teacher”).
The aim is not to become the Oversoul but to open a working relationship with it — drawing on its perspective, continuity, and guidance. He developed this most fully in The Bowl of Light (2011), built around the teachings of the Hawaiian elder Hale Makua.
This is the distinctly transpersonal, self-relational thread of Wesselman’s work, separate from his journey and garden practices.
The Method
A faithful representative protocol:
- Set the intention clearly: “to meet and build relationship with my Higher Self / Oversoul.” Approach with humility, not demand (All Is One).
- Prepare a dim, quiet space; lie down, relax, and adopt the witnessing, observing attitude.
- Begin monotonous drumming to shift consciousness, as in any shamanic journey.
- Journey upward. Picture rising — a tree, mountain, column of light — through a threshold into the Upper World, the realm Wesselman associated with the Higher Self and spirit teachers.
- Seek contact. Let a presence come; meet your Higher Self or Spirit Guide in whatever form appears. Greet it, ask your question, and listen.
- Receive perspective. Take in what comes — often a wider, calmer, longer view of your life and choices than the everyday mind holds.
- Express thanks and ask to deepen the relationship over time, then return on the call-back beat.
- Ground and journal. Re-orient to your body, write down the encounter and its guidance, and notice how it reframes a current concern. (Sourcing note: a faithful generalised description synthesising Wesselman’s three-souls teaching in The Bowl of Light and his Upper-World journey instruction; the honest mechanism is in Section 4.)
Source & Lineage
The three-souls/Oversoul framework is articulated in Hank Wesselman’s The Bowl of Light: Ancestral Wisdom from a Hawaiian Shaman (2011), grounded in conversations with the kahuna elder Hale Makua, and threaded through the Spiritwalker trilogy.
The journey mechanics follow his Core Shamanism / kahuna-influenced teaching (see Awakening to the Spirit World). → Voice node. This relational, transpersonal emphasis is Wesselman’s own and is not a focus of the Harner or Ingerman journey entries.
Common refinements
Inflation / grandiosity. The goal is relationship with the Higher Self, not claiming to be a superior being — keep humility.
- Demanding answers. Ask and listen; forcing blocks the imagery.
- Treating contents as infallible decree. Hold guidance as inner counsel to weigh, not literal external command.
- Skipping the relationship over time. Like the garden, this deepens with repeated, patient visits.
- Over-literalising past-lives material. If “many lifetimes” imagery arises, treat it as meaningful symbol, not verified history.
- No grounding/journaling. Always return, re-body, and record.