Can you say more about how negative beliefs affect us?
In the Andes, shamans talk about “good” and “bad ideas” and these are, in a way, what I mean by thoughtforms. When someone says, for example, that you have “good ideas”, they don’t mean you are a creative genius! They mean you have good or spiritual thoughts or that you are at one with the truth and goodness of the world.
Sometimes they talk about a “good” or “bad wind” as well. These “winds” are an accumulation of thoughts or energies which are attracted to each other and share a common affinity. The good energies of many people having positive and uplifting thoughts can create a good wind but, by the same token, negative thoughts can band together to create a bad wind. In both cases, they are a sentient force which circulates in the world.
Thoughts like these have physical effects. I recently took a horse ride with a friend, for example, to visit the Q’ero of the high Andes and, some way into our journey, miles from anywhere and from medical help, my friend swooned and fell from her horse. She lay on the ground shaking and not of this world at all.
Luckily, we had a shaman with us who knew what had happened and, taking out his coca leaves, he placed them on her and blew through them into her crown. She stopped shaking straightaway and then began to come round.
When I asked him what had happened, he just shrugged and said “a bad wind”. She had been hit by a thoughtform which had, in a way, possessed her. He had blown a different energy into her to remove it and fill her with light.
But, imagine: if stray thoughts can do this much damage, how much