Destiny: P.D. Newman, The Afterlife Journey in Native American Mound Cultures

Earth Ancients

Cliff Dunning

Society & Culture, Social Sciences, Science

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2025

⏱️ 94 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Exploring psychedelic spiritual practices and afterlife beliefs among the Mississippi mound cultures

• Examines the Path of Souls or Trail of Ghosts, a Native American model for the after-death journey

• Demonstrates how psychoactive plants were used to evoke the liminal state between life and death in initiatory rites and spirit journeys

• Explores the symbology of the large earthwork mounds erected by the Indigenous people of the Mississippi Valley and how they connect to the Path of Souls

The use of hallucinogenic substances like peyote and desert tobacco has long played a significant role in the spiritual practices and traditions of Native Americans. While the majority of those practices are well documented, the relationship between entheogens and Native Americans of the Southeast has gone largely unexplored.

Examining the role of psychoactive plants in afterlife traditions, sacred rituals, and spirit journeying by shamans of the Mississippian mound cultures, P. D. Newman explores in depth the Native American death journey known as the "Trail of Ghosts" or "Path of Souls." He demonstrates how practices such as fasting and trancework when used with psychedelic plants like jimsonweed, black nightshade, morning glory, and amanita and psilocybin mushrooms could evoke the liminal state between life and death in initiatory rites and spirit journeys for shamans and chiefs. He explores the earthwork and platform mounds built by Indigenous cultures of the Mississippi Valley, showing how they quite likely served as early models for the Path of Souls. He also explores similarities between the Ghost Trail afterlife journey and the well-known Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead.

P. D. Newman has been immersed in the study and practice of shamanism, alchemy, hermetism, and theurgy for more than two decades. The author of Theurgy—Theory and Practice: The Mysteries of the Ascent to the Divine, Angels in Vermilion: The Philosophers’ Stone from Dee to DMT, and Alchemically Stoned: The Psychedelic Secret of Freemasonry, he lives in Tupelo, Mississippi, with his wife, Rebecca, and his youngest son, Bacchus.

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Transcript

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0:53.6	It's about keeping
0:54.4	everything secure. Welcome to Destiny.
1:11.6	Now here's your host, Cliff Dunning. That's the funerary chant or death champ of Seneca Indians recorded July 22, 1913, over 100 years ago.
1:58.0	And this is an important ceremony that we are going to be discussing today
2:03.2	here on Destiny. Hey, this is Cliff, your host. Welcome to the program. And today we're looking at
2:10.2	the afterlife rituals that the Native Americans in the mound cultures of the United States were involved in. My guest today
2:20.6	has written an important book on the ceremonies and how psychedelics were used to help journey,
2:28.3	help the shaman's journey to this next level, and to report back with the various elders and others leaders how,
2:38.3	what things were like on the other side. We don't talk a great deal about death in our current
2:44.6	culture, but we know now that our ancestors, we're talking the Egyptians, the Maya,
2:53.6	and other ancient cultures, we're talking the Egyptians, the Maya, and other ancient cultures, were very much involved in and taking action in understanding what happens when we leave our body.
3:01.9	And as we'll learn today, a lot of information was coming through these ceremonies. The shaman was bringing
	...

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