I Study Plasma Physics and Talk to Spirits. No, That's Not a Contradiction.

I have two business cards.

One identifies me as a researcher at the University of Cambridge, where I investigate the convergence of plasma physics, quantum entanglement, and conscious awareness. The other lists my work as a shamanic practitioner, initiated as a Shamanic Elder in the Andean tradition, also trained by Norse shamans, facilitating healing sessions and soul retrievals.

When I hand someone both cards, I can watch the cognitive dissonance play across their face in real time.

"So ... which one is the real you?" Both. And that's precisely the point.

The False Choice We've Been Sold

Western culture has spent the last few centuries constructing an elaborate fiction: that you must choose between rigorous scientific thinking and engagement with the spiritual or mystical dimensions of existence. It has taught that rationality and intuition are enemies and that empirical investigation and direct spiritual experience occupy fundamentally incompatible worlds.

This is nonsense.

And it's nonsense that's doing real harm - to science, to spirituality, and to our ability to understand the nature of reality.

Let me be clear about what I'm NOT saying. I'm not claiming that quantum physics proves shamanism, or that spiritual experiences should replace empirical investigation, or that every mystical claim deserves scientific credence. That kind of sloppy thinking does everyone a disservice.

What I AM saying is this: the insistence that scientific inquiry and spiritual practice are mutually exclusive is based on outdated assumptions about the nature of reality - assumptions that our own scientific discoveries are actively undermining.

What Plasma Physics Taught Me About Certainty

Here's something most people don't know about plasma physics: plasma is often called the fourth state of matter (aside from solid, liquid, and gas), but it's actually the most common state of matter in the universe and may have given birth to the other three states. Stars, including the sun, are plasma. The space between stars is filled with plasma. Most of the ordinary matter in the cosmos exists in a state that most humans never directly experience on Earth.

Working with plasma means working with something that defies our everyday intuitions. It responds to electromagnetic fields in complex, non-linear ways. It exhibits collective behaviours that can't be predicted just by understanding individual particles. It exists at the boundary between matter and energy.

This work has taught me epistemic humility, the recognition that reality is far stranger than our common sense suggests, and that the universe doesn't organise itself according to categories that feel comfortable to the human mind.

Now add quantum entanglement to the mix.

Two particles can be correlated in ways that seem to transcend space and time. Measure one, and you instantly know something about the other, regardless of the distance between them. Einstein called it 'spooky action at a distance' because it violated his intuitions about how reality should work.

But here's the thing: it doesn't matter that it violated Einstein's intuitions. Nature doesn't care about our intuitions. The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.

The Measurement Problem and Consciousness

The deeper you go into quantum mechanics, the weirder it gets. The famous measurement problem asks: why does a quantum system in superposition (existing in multiple states simultaneously) 'collapse' into a single definite state when observed?

Some interpretations suggest consciousness plays a role in this collapse. Others propose parallel universes, hidden variables, or various mathematical frameworks. The honest truth? We don't know. The most fundamental level of physical reality remains mysterious.

I'm not saying this proves anything about spirits or shamanic journeys. I'm saying that if physical reality at its most fundamental level is this strange, this resistant to our everyday categories of understanding, why would we assume consciousness and subjective experience are simple?

Why would we assume that the ordinary waking state is the only valid mode of perception?

Why would we be so certain that consensus reality is the only reality?

Two Ways of Knowing

When I work in the laboratory or with equations, I'm using one mode of investigation: empirical, analytical, third-person, focused on what can be measured and quantified.

When I journey in shamanic practice, I'm using a different mode: experiential, participatory, first-person, focused on direct encounter with non-ordinary reality.

These modes have different methodologies, different standards of evidence, different kinds of rigour. But they're both genuine ways of investigating reality.

Here's an analogy: Imagine trying to understand a forest. You could study it scientifically by analysing soil chemistry, measuring tree growth rates, mapping animal populations, understanding ecological systems. This gives you real, valuable knowledge.

But you could also walk in that forest at dawn, sit in silence, feel the quality of the light through the leaves, notice what arises in your awareness. This also gives you real knowledge - different knowledge, but not less real.

The mistake is thinking you must choose one or the other. The forest is rich enough to sustain both modes of knowing. So is reality.

What Shamanic Practice Actually Is

Let me clarify what I mean by shamanic practice, because the term has been badly diluted.

Authentic shamanism involves:

• Training with legitimate lineage holders who have deep roots in their traditions

• Learning specific techniques for entering altered states of consciousness

• Developing relationships with helping spirits and non-ordinary allies

• Performing healing work grounded in cosmologies refined over thousands of years

• Maintaining ethical guidelines and responsibilities to community

  
  

Shamanism is NOT:

• A weekend workshop where you buy a drum and call yourself a shaman

• An aesthetic or lifestyle brand

• A way to feel special or spiritually superior

• A rejection of critical thinking or evidence

  
  

I spent years training with Andean wisdom keepers and Norse shamans. I learned languages of symbols and relationship. I developed practices for journeying that are as disciplined and rigorous as any laboratory protocol. I'm just using different instruments (consciousness, drumming, ritual) to investigate different dimensions of reality.

When I Journey, Here's What Happens

In shamanic journey, I enter an altered state of consciousness, typically through rhythmic drumming or transcendental meditation, and navigate what practitioners call non-ordinary reality. I might retrieve lost soul parts, extract harmful energies, receive guidance from helping spirits, or gain insight into a client's situation.

How do I know this is real and not just imagination?

Here's the thing: that question already assumes a framework I'm questioning. It assumes there's a clear, unproblematic distinction between 'real' (objective, external, publicly verifiable) and 'imagination' (subjective, internal, private).

But consciousness itself troubles this distinction. Your experience of the colour red is 'real' to you in a way that no amount of explaining wavelengths can capture. Your love for your child is 'real', even though it can't be weighed or measured. The meaning you find in music is 'real', even though it's not a physical property of sound waves.

What I experience in shamanic journey is real in the sense that it:

• Produces consistent, repeatable results

• Correlates with observable changes in clients' lives

• Fits within a coherent cosmological framework

• Aligns with knowledge gained by practitioners across cultures and centuries

• Cannot be reduced to or explained away by my conscious intentions

  
  

Is it the same kind of real as an electron? No. But electrons aren't the only things that are real.

The Tyranny of Materialism

Here's what I find most frustrating about the supposed conflict between science and spirituality: it's based on philosophical materialism, which is itself a metaphysical assumption, not a scientific finding.

Philosophical materialism claims that only physical matter is fundamentally real, and that consciousness, meaning, and subjective experience are just byproducts of material processes.

But this is a philosophical position, not an empirical discovery. You can't prove materialism through science because materialism is an assumption about what kinds of things can count as evidence in the first place.

Many brilliant scientists have rejected materialism, not because they were irrational, but because their own investigations suggested reality is more mysterious than matter in motion. Wolfgang Pauli, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, David Bohm, all quantum physics pioneers, took seriously the possibility that consciousness might be fundamental rather than derivative.

I'm not saying they were definitely right. I'm saying the question remains open, and the dogmatic assertion that materialism is the only scientifically respectable position is ... unscientific.

What My Double Life Has Taught Me

Living at this intersection isn't always comfortable. I get skepticism from both sides.

Some scientists assume my spiritual practice means I've abandoned rigour. Some shamanic practitioners worry that my scientific training makes me too analytical. But I've learned something valuable from inhabiting both worlds: reality is more multiple, more mysterious, and more generous than any single framework can capture.

The plasma physics teaches me that matter is stranger than we thought. The shamanic practice teaches me that consciousness is deeper than we assumed. Together, they point toward a vision of reality that's richer, more complex, more alive than either scientific materialism or anti-intellectual spirituality would suggest.

The Integration We Need

We're living in a moment of crisis - ecological, social, and spiritual. We need the best of scientific thinking: rigorous, empirical, self-correcting. But we also need what indigenous wisdom traditions have always known: that we're embedded in a living cosmos, that consciousness is fundamental, that healing requires addressing spiritual as well as physical dimensions.

The either/or thinking - either scientific rationality or spiritual depth - is a luxury we can no longer afford. We need both.

I need both.

When I study plasma physics, I'm investigating the material structures of reality with tools designed for that purpose. When I practice shamanism, I'm investigating the experiential structures of consciousness with tools designed for that purpose.

These aren't contradictory projects. They're complementary dimensions of a single quest: to understand what is true, what is real, and how to live in right relationship with it.

An Invitation

If you're someone who's felt torn between your scientific education and your spiritual intuitions, know this: you don't have to choose.

If you're a scientist who's had experiences that don't fit the materialist paradigm, you're not losing your mind - you're encountering something the paradigm cannot accommodate.

If you're a spiritual practitioner who values critical thinking, you don't have to check your brain at the door.

The integration is possible. It's not easy; you'll face skepticism, misunderstanding, and the constant temptation to simplify by choosing one side or the other. But it's possible, it's worthwhile, and, I'd argue, it's necessary.

Reality is big enough for both equations and journeys, for both data and dreams, for both measurement and mystery.

The contradiction isn't in the territory. It's only in the impoverished map we've been given.

I'm Kathy Postelle Rixon, researcher at the University of Cambridge, Chair of The Philosophical Society: Oxford, and shamanic practitioner. I live and work from the mystical English countryside, surrounded by ancient burial mounds and stone circles, investigating the places where science and spirit meet. If this resonates, I'd love to hear from you at kathy@magicinharmony.com or explore more at www.magicinharmony.com.

What's your experience at the intersection of rigorous thinking and spiritual practice? Have you felt pressure to choose between them? Let's continue this conversation.