The Way of the Urban Shaman
The Way of the Urban Shaman: An Introduction to Huna
Interview with Flint Flintoft (2010 Updated Version)
for"Chikyu-no-Kimochi" - Dec 1995 and Jan 1996 issues
Part One - Huna Basics
(I): Interviewer (F): Flint
I: To begin, could you briefly explain what Hawaiian Shamanism and Huna is?
Flint: There is a long and fascinating history to Huna that goes back to the dawn of man and our evolving consciousness. We know that the knowledge was used in Atlantis and Lemuria and was taught in the Egyptian, Mayan and Tibetan mystery schools, among others. Shamans also have used parts of this knowledge to heal and counsel others, and to communicate with nature around them.
So the Huna teachings are truly ancient. Many of them remained hidden for thousands of years — passed on to certain members of various cultures, from one generation to the next. Some cultures cloaked them in complexity, and buried certain truths within religions, yet the teachings themselves are very simple, with profound depth once they are assimilated.
Huna flourished in Hawaii and Polynesia, thousands of years ago, where the knowledge was kept intact in its simplicity by shamans known as "Kahuna" — meaning "Keepers of the Secret". The secret knowledge was encoded within the deeper meanings of the Polynesian language itself — for example, the word "Huna" means HU - hidden/secret and NA - power/energy. The Hawaiian greeting "Aloha" means to share joy and affection in this moment. At a deeper level, this is an expression of unconditional love. It is this "Aloha Spirit" that is one of the main keys to Huna.
Many people equate Huna with Hawaiian Shamanism. However, Huna is a spiritual teaching that can benefit anyone, and leads to greater awareness, understanding and sharing of our Heart as humanity.
Any civilization that lost its appreciation for its spiritual aspects has fallen. This fact has been proven throughout history. Today as we reach another threshold in our evolution of consciousness, the great secrets of the past are now being unveiled. Yet the knowledge itself is timeless — it comes from a place that is beyond time, a place where our Higher Self resides.
I: How did you first become acquainted with Huna?
FF: When I look back over my childhood, I was slowly convinced that there was something far greater than myself and my daily awareness operating in my life — there was something that was watching over me. It came in the form of dreams at night, and coincidental circumstances during my daily life that led me to certain spiritual advisors, who told me to study Huna. So I studied all I could from the few books that were available then. It turned on many lights in my mind, and many mysteries suddenly started to make sense. I also began to see that I had used it in past lives.
After college, I set out on a world journey, and during five years of travel around the planet, I compared many of the world's religions and philosophies within their own cultures. I found that none of them could explain human consciousness and its mechanism as simply and practically as Huna, and get the results that are so evident when it is practiced. I found many parallels within the Tibetan, Mayan and Egyptian teachings. The Haida and Maori are also linked, and of course Japan has many interesting connections within the older Shinto traditions.
After my travels, I became deeply involved in channeled studies of Huna, long before channeling was generally accepted. I spent several years in Vancouver in the early 80's, transcribing and absorbing the depths of discourses from a soul-group of approximately 7,000 spiritual entities regarding Universal Huna. This material still forms the foundation of my teachings of Huna to this day.
Around this time in the late 80's, Serge Kahili King began to teach in Hawaii and I practiced with him as often as possible, learning Huna from the Hawaiian perspective. The 'tools' I learned with him, and many of them are included in his books, were among the best I've found to learn about shamanic abilities and practice the inner journey.
This led to further studies with Serge and other teachers in Hawaii, and an extremely challenging seven-year spiritual practice with Brazilian shamans. It can never all be learned in one school. Huna is vast and expansive; as we discover more of ourselves and our connections, it never really ends. It leads to a deeper understanding about the Heart.
I: What exactly is Huna? Could you explain in relation to your workshops? How do you practice it?
FF: Huna is a practical knowledge that teaches that each person has three selves or minds — the conscious, subconscious and superconscious minds. Huna teaches about the connections between the three selves and the world around us. With understanding and practice, you can increase synchronicity in your life and enable transformation through deeper contact with Higher Self, or your inner guidance. Huna is not a philosophy or a religion, it is an art — the art of uncovering and discovering more of you — the real you.
Huna begins with an understanding of the inner workings of the subconscious mind and its hidden potentials. This understanding is an important tool to begin working with yourself, and can be elucidated through a set of simple principles. It is a conscious means of clearing beliefs that may be limiting your own natural expansion and expression; and this is necessary to step into higher consciousness and deeper harmony with your being. Through special exercises that expand the inner vision through imagination and visualization, you can increase the flow of energy through multi-dimensions. Thereby, you open the doors to your own inner journey. With the above in focus, the introductory workshops unfold.
I: What does it mean to be in contact with your Higher Self?
FF: To be in contact with your Higher Self or inner guidance requires trust in your own being, in your own sense of heart and spirit. And through this trust, a harmony with life begins to develop. From my own experience, trusting and learning from this inner guidance has brought valuable results in many forms — walking on fire, getting in touch with nature, finding new sources of income and natural livelihood, exploring past lives and other dimensions, meeting inner teachers, changing relationships, and helping others through healing and counseling. There are no limits, no boundaries. You are always more, you are never less.
I: To conclude this portion of the interview, it is interesting that you are a computer software designer by profession, Flint. How does that fit in with your "shaman" work?
FF: That is exactly the power of Huna. It is extremely practical. It would be a mistake to think of Huna as being effective only within shamanic practices. In fact, many people use their intuitive perception and inner guidance in everyday life, to varying degrees of awareness.
To give you some examples: There is a real estate agent I know who can "size you up" and find the perfect place for you every time - it's amazing. Those whom we call great doctors and artists and inventors also have this acute sense of intuition. It is not necessarily a psychic power, but a power that is innate within all of us, that can be developed.
And along with this, the ability to visualize and to hold a thought-form clearly in mind is useful to architects and designers of any kind, including computer software. It is the conscious practice of these abilities, and the manifestations that they lead to, that is so closely related to Huna.
I: That's great. Thank you for taking time today. We look forward to our next meeting.
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Part Two - Resonance
As sequel to our December issue's interview, we will further explore the realm of Huna. In our last interview, we learned that Huna is a practical art, based on the knowledge that each person has three selves or minds - the conscious, subconscious, and the superconscious minds; and that by understanding the workings of the subconscious, and by consciously expanding our inner vision, we can increase our flow of energy and synchronicity, and step into higher consciousness and deeper harmony with our true being.
I: To continue our interview, we would like to focus on the concept of harmony and resonance as it is used in Huna. Perhaps you could explain this concept in brief?
Flint: Yes, the Principle of Resonance is very important in Huna — to become aware of how resonance works in our lives. Harmony, affinity and rapport are words that describe aspects of resonance. At it's simplest — it is a phenomenon of vibration. When two objects are vibrating at the same frequency, energy is exchanged between them.
If you strike one tuning fork and hold it close to another tuning fork of the same musical key, the second fork will begin to vibrate, due to the energy being exchanged, and the fact that both forks are tuned to the same resonant frequency.
Imagine yourself pulling on a rope that is attached to a large bell, that is hidden high above you. In order to get the bell to ring, you must pay attention to the movement of the rope, and pull in a steady rhythm — in harmony, or "in tune" with the bell's movement. In this example, the bell's sound is the energy that is exchanged.
Some other simple examples of resonance are friendship between two or more people; a person with a "Green Thumb" that has a special affinity or rapport with plants; a musical chord played by an orchestra that sends a pleasant energetic chill down your spine each time you hear it.
Many of the things you like in your environment are concerned with your personal resonances. A special place or even a country that you like to visit, the colors and fabrics that you choose to wear, the food that you enjoy, even the recurring experiences that you attract. Some part of your being is in tune with all of these.
I: How do you practice "tuning in" through Huna?
FF: Everything in the universe vibrates. Atoms and molecules are vibrating at their individual frequencies. Light and sound vibrate at higher frequencies. Even thought vibrates at certain frequencies. The universe is a sea of mutually interacting vibrations, and a change in one ultimately affects all others.
Being in touch with nature, and being able to "tune into" a plant, a crystal, an animal, a person or a location in order to pick up a "feeling tone" or vibration is the beginning of this practice. From this practice, the ability to communicate with and influence the environment on many levels can be developed. For example, the ability to find hidden objects, water and minerals is an innate ability that all humans share, but must be practiced and developed.
Human consciousness is a very powerful resonance instrument, with its ability to tune into vibrational frequencies. With practice, the conscious mind can expand and deepen its awareness through the senses and begin to perceive that we are connected to all things through vibration.
I: So the Huna concept of resonance is similar to that of the Buddhist "Indra's Net"?
FF: Yes, that's an interesting point. As was mentioned in the former interview, Huna principles have been taught in the Tibetan mystery schools, and in particular, the knowledge of resonance when practiced, can transform the concept of time and space, as well as the mind itself.
I: That sounds very interesting. Could you explain in terms of time travel and parallel lives, the journeys you lead in your workshop?
FF: Beginning with time travel: using inner focusing methods, we practice the ability to resonate or tune into our deep past and potential future. The concept of time travel within the mind is not difficult when it is recognized that the subconscious, with its connections to the superconscious, holds all information and all experience in accessible memory — including past lives. With practice, it is simply a matter of relaxing deeply, setting the intent, and allowing these past memories to surface at will.
Past events may not be altered themselves, but your reaction to them, and perception of them that you still carry in memory can easily be altered. For example, you can review them from a different perspective and redecide how you want to feel about them.
The subconscious views every event as NOW, much like a CD or a book - all tracks or pages are available now, although they were recorded as linear events. The conscious mind can choose to focus on one event at a time, much like a flashlight focusing on a piece of furniture in a vast warehouse. All the furniture is there now, it is a matter of choosing which piece to focus on.
In viewing your past through Huna journey work, you can also influence it. By choosing to view a past trauma, you can step into that event as your present self and create mental and emotional change. The past self that you encounter may feel you as an energy, or see you as a daydream. You, as the future self, (which you relatively are) can offer your reassurance to the past self, creating some extremely interesting psychic phenomena.
I: Sounds like Spielberg's "Back to the Future".
FF: That's right. The key to this work is consciously deciding NOW to go back and visit and reassure your past self. Then you begin to alter the concept of time itself which has seemingly appeared linear up to this point. Now that you know that time is a relative illusion, you can also decide to influence more of your future, through redecision now. It is YOU simply deciding to help YOURSELF.
I: What about parallel lives? Could you please comment?
FF: At certain times in your life, you may have reached very strong turning points. You made a decision to follow a certain path through a choice of education, marriage, job choice, for example, that committed you in a certain direction. This choice of one path left the other path "dangling" in your conscious mind. But if the other path was also strong, it also lives on — as a parallel life.
Through relaxed focusing on the point of decision, this parallel life can be encountered, and the results of choosing that other school, mate, or activity can be seen and followed in your mind.
What is remarkable about this is that at certain cyclic points through your present life, you may have an overwhelming urge to do something that would be more in keeping with that other choice, that other life.
If you had given up art, for example, to be in business, you may have an almost compulsive urge, at times, to sit and paint or draw, for no apparent reason. This is your parallel life now "crossing" at a point in your present life where there is an exchange, like two sine waves crossing at an axis. The artist lives on in another dimension and meets with you with influence. You can also communicate with it through journeying inward and offering help, advice and healing as necessary. Respect it as a part of your totality.
I: So, there's more to us than meets the eye.
FF: Definitely. Huna is the art of communicating with all parts of your being. Time is useful only to the conscious mind where schedules must be met, and events coordinated. The subconscious and higher mind exist outside of time, where all experience is brought together to form a consensus of vibration and resonance, that dictates who you are on an energy level. It is a matter of consciously improving the resonance and communication between all three selves, developing to a point where you can communicate both ways, through more than dreaming.
Huna also has a deeper meaning of "the transmissal of light". Huna is turning inward to the light that already exists within the heart and higher mind, and learning to trust that inner flame even more.
I: Communicating in harmonious resonance with all parts of our being - could we call it the "Aloha Spirit"?
FF: Yes, because the Aloha Spirit is really the Joy of Life that can be felt when you are in touch with more of your being. And it is through practice with focused resonance, and trust in your heart that this can be learned.
The ramifications of the Principle of Resonance are immense. In the coming years , the study of resonance itself will take on new and important meaning, where physical, mental, emotional and spiritual sciences will begin to find common ground. We are already discovering in the field of nuclear physics that atomic particles and their movement can be influenced by interaction with the consciousness — an aspect of resonance. Many new health therapies and aids also operate through resonance principles.
The Age of Aquarius is upon us now. Its astrological symbol is two waves in resonance with each other. This is the Age of Resonance, and the rediscovery of our connection to all things — through the Heart.
I: Thank you for all your good energy, and I hope your Huna work will find light within us, in powerful and joyous resonance. Aloha.
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