Reflections on my journey into life

WHERE AM I? WHERE DO I COME FROM?

​Today I see myself as a physicist, mediator, energy worker and shaman with very extensive Buddhist knowledge. I used to be a program and network manager, moderator, project examiner and evaluator, trainer and project and communication manager in intercultural and international EU projects. Even earlier, I was an astrophysicist, a fluid mechanic, and a scientific assistant who researched and taught and aspired to be a university professor.

FROM PHYSICS TO SHAMANISM

​Yes, science and spirituality, physics and shamanism go together. Not that easy and not for everyone. Let me tell you about the path I took. A path along which I learned to interweave these two very diametric world views and finally bring them together in a synthesis.

As you read the following lines, keep in mind that such an undertaking has its price. That for a while it can take on confusing, chaotic, problematic and even destructive traits. That the clarity, insight and stability that is mine today arose precisely from overcoming these challenges, abysses and obstacles.

Let us begin.

MY JOURNEY INTO LIFE

​1999 - 2004

​1999-2004 is all about astronomy and astrophysics, mathematics and quantum mechanics. I am particularly fascinated by the debate about the nature of reality initiated by the greats of quantum physics. Why is that? Because I encounter the inexplicable, the mysterious and the paradoxical. Exactly what I long for so deeply in my completely disenchanted everyday life.

I am fascinated by the history of science, philosophy of science, epistemology and the debate about the limits of scientific reasoning. Is there perhaps more than what we can measure? For me quantum physics becomes a portal into metaphysics. For others it is the quest for enlightenment or the healing of their traumas, for me it is the question of the nature of reality that opens the door to a larger and more comprehensive world.

2004 - 2009

​2004-2008 are the years of my scientific coming of age. The end result is a doctorate on pattern formation and self-organization in gases and liquids. While I research and teach at the university, I am completing training to become a registered mediator. This opens up the world of psychology and psychotherapy to me.

​But soon my heart is drawn elsewhere, because in 2005-2007 I encounter Buddhism, body and energy work and shamanism more or less at the same time. Completely inconceivable realities open up: Realities I continue to explore in the following years. My view of the world and understanding of reality are thrown out of whack. An experience that I find at the time to be both problematic and fascinating at the same time.

As a physicist, I feel more and more like Alice falling through the rabbit hole into Wonderland. The fall seems to have no end, the rabbit hole seems to have no bottom. But the physicist wants to know how deep the rabbit hole truly goes, what is real and how all my experience can be united in to a comprehensive whole. As a mediator, I have a healthy respect for the experience and insight of those I talk to. Yet, what bothers me is that my experience and that of others don't seem to match. I delve deeper and deeper into the kaleidoscopic nexus of human experience.​

2009 - 2010

​In 2009 I go on a vision quest in the Nockberge. This marks the beginning of my first major shamanic initiation. More will follow. But at the time I don't know that is what I have coming.

I try to continue my career as a scientist. But the questions that I try to devote myself to seem irrelevant and too impersonal. Even with the greatest effort of my will, I can no longer devote myself to my scientific career. My mind is in disarray. The deep layers of my psyche bind energy and awareness. What's more: my world view has shattered, my understanding of what it means to be a human being has fallen apart and my self-image is upside down.

How to restore lost wholeness? How can one secure one's professional existence if one's mind is not available to the usual extent? In a flash of insight I realize that I have come to the end of my academic career. Today I would articulate it like this: I am standing at the graveyard of the myth of my old life. Back then, no one understands my situation. Neither do I.

Looking back, it is easy to see that 2009/2010 were the years of my great spiritual crisis. Years in which deep inner processes rule the roost. Years in which I painstakingly and temporarily put together my view of the world, being human and self. In a way I am forced into taking a creative break from normal everyday life.

2010 - 2021

​In mid-2010, my professional career takes me from university sciences to a state agency at the intersection of business, science and politics. In the following 12 years I am a spectator of technology development and innovation processes in almost all academic disciplines and in numerous economic sectors. I encounter a new world. Working with my colleagues expands my intellectual horizons enormously. Many prejudices disappear into thin air. Eventually I mature into political consciousness.

Over the years, the question of the nature of reality keeps knocking on the door without compromise. The vision quest in the Nockberge and the intensive years 2005-2009 have left their mark. Some of what I have experienced seems impossible to digest. It is not so easy to bring everything together into an integral worldview that also leaves room for what has been learned and experienced at university. The tension between the worldviews of physics, Buddhism and shamanism remains as a contradiction in my system and requires a sort of intellectual bridge that cannot be built so easily.

As I continue on my professional path, I consciously open myself up to reasoning of academic disciplines that are foreign to me. I want to know whether I can learn something from those whose reasoning I know next to nothing about that will allow me to find my way back to wholeness.

At conferences and workshops I encounter a completely fragmented academic world. The break between the natural and the social sciences seems absolute. Unsurprisingly, at first I don't understand anything. I hear words of academic jargon whose meaning I cannot understand. I'm holding out. And little by little I am becoming able to join the conversation. I interact with people from all over the world. Talk to sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, ethicists, philosophers and finally theologians. In my attempt to find my way back to wholeness, I encounter completely divergent views of the world, being human and the self. Sometimes it feels like I am witnessing realities that seem to have nothing in common. To my surprise I meet no one on a similar path.

Both professionally and privately, I am penetrating ever deeper into the living, pulsating heart of today’s society. I encounter light and shadow with unexpected intensity.

​2021 - 2025

​Looking back, I realize that 2009-2021 were the years of incubation of my first vision quest. With the phases of extreme states of consciousness typical of shamanic initiation crises, triggered by spiritual experiences that cannot be integrated and complexity that cannot be managed. The button in the brain won't come off until 2021. While writing the laudatory speech for the doctoral supervisor.

​The synthesis of the world views of physics, Buddhism and shamanism is successful. The question of the nature of reality sinks into complete insignificance from one day to the next. I fall through language, out of culture and into my body.

In 2022 my wife and I start our journey. Two months are planned. Eventually there will be 18. The journey takes us to Denmark, Sweden, Utah and back to Denmark. In 2023 I do another vision fast. This time in Utah. In 2024 I find my spiritual home in Scandinavian shamanism. After 18 years of intensive work with body, energy, consciousness, sound and imagination, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

​I have been back in Austria since July 2024.​