Ted Andrews (1952-2009) was an award-winning author and deeply respected teacher in the metaphysical and spiritual fields. Through his seminars, symposiums, workshops, and lectures, he was committed to making esoteric material comprehensible and practical for everyone.

Ted Andrew's many gifts included clairvoyancy, aura interpretation, past-life analysis, dreams interpretation, numerology, and Tarot. He wrote many books on these subjects, but is best known for his work with animal mysticism and for his bestselling Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small. Certified in basic hypnosis and acupressure, Andrews was also involved in the study and use of herbs as an alternative path in health care, focusing strongly on esoteric forms of healing with sound, music, and voice. In addition to his interest in metaphysics, Ted was a trained pianist and often used the Celtic harp, bamboo flute, shaman rattles, Tibetan bells, Tibetan Singing Bowl, and quartz crystal bowls to create individual healing therapies and induce higher states of consciousness.

Ted Andrews is the author of The Healer's Manual; Animal-Speak, How to See & Read the Aura; Enchantment of the Faerie Realm; Crystal Balls & Crystal Bowls; How to Uncover Your Past Lives; How to Heal with Color; Sacred Sounds; Simplified Qabala Magic; and many other New Age titles. He passed away on October 24, 2009. 

 

CHAPTER ONE: THE SPIRITUAL AND MAGICAL ROLES OF NATURE
There was a time when humanity recognized itself as part of nature, and nature as part of itself. Dreaming and waking were inseparable realities; the natural and the supernatural merged and blended. People used images of nature to express this unity and to instill a transpersonal kind of experience.

In the past shamans, priests, and priestesses were the keepers of the sacred knowledge of life. These individuals were tied to the rhythms and forces of nature. They were capable of walking the threads that link the invisible and visible worlds. They helped people remember that all trees are divine and that all animals speak to those who listen.

The early priest/ess-magicians would adopt the guise of animals―wearing skins and masks―to symbolize a reawakening and endowing of oneself with specific energies. They performed rituals in accordance with the natural rhythms of the seasons to awaken greater fertility and life. To them, every species and every aspect of its environment had the power to remind them of what they could manifest within their own life. It was an aid to bridge the natural world to the supernatural, awakening the realities of both within the environs of their own lives.

Though these rituals and behaviors may seem primitive and even silly to the rational minds of modern society, they are no less powerful today. And the laws that govern them―physical and spiritual―are no less viable. Different societies expressed these laws in their own unique ways, but probably the most distinctly expressed is the ancient Hermetic Law of Correspondence: "As above, so below; as below, so above."2

This principle teaches that all things are connected and have significance. We cannot separate the physical from the spiritual, the visible from the invisible. "This Principle gives one the means of solving many a dark paradox and the hidden secret of Nature. . . . The ancient Hermeticists considered this principle as one of the most important mental instruments by which man was able to pry aside the obstacles which hid from view the Unknown . . . (it) enables man to reason intelligently from the Known to the Unknown."3

It is for this reason that a study of Nature Totems is essential for understanding how the spiritual is manifesting within our natural life. A totem is any natural object, being, or animal to whose phenomena and energy we feel closely associated with during our life.

We can use animal imagery and other nature totem images as a way to learn about ourselves and the invisible world. We do not have to believe that these images and totems are beings of great intelligence, but there are archetypal powers that reside behind and oversee all manifestations in Nature. These archetypes have their own qualities and characteristics which are reflected through the behaviors and activities of animals and other expressions of Nature. When we pay attention to and acknowledge a nature totem, we are honoring the essence that lies behind it. We are opening up and attuning to that essence. We can then use it to understand our own life circumstances more clearly. We can share in its power or "medicine." Nature totems―especially animals―are symbols of specific kinds of energy we are manifesting and aligning with in our life. The animal becomes a symbol of a specific force of the invisible, spiritual realm manifesting within our own life. The characteristics and activities of these totems will reveal much about our own innate powers and abilities. By studying the totem and then learning to merge with it, we are able to call upon its archetypal energy whenever needed.

2 Three Initiates, The Kybalion (Chicago: The Yogi Publication Society, 1940), p. 28.

3 The Kybalion, Ibid., pp. 29-30.