On Tuesday a Germanwings plane crashed in a valley in the Alps. It is believed that the co-pilot who was at the controls deliberately crashed the plane and locked the first pilot out of the cockpit to be able to do so.
On board were 16 German high school students, their two teachers, as well as many other people, 148 in total plus the two pilots. They were flying from Barcelona to Dusseldorf. The students had been on a language exchange program.
Our own eldest son (aged 15) is doing a GCSE in Spanish (here in the UK) and he was offered a similar Spanish Exchange trip over the Easter Break – but decided against it. I will briefly mention this fact to explain why the new of this crash really tore at my mother’s heart. Why it feels “very close to home”. This could have been our son never returning from an exciting school trip to Spain. My heart goes out to all the families, parents, partners and other people affected by this tragedy. I hope you will allow me to hold prayerful space for you all.
In the Summer of 2014 I wrote a blog about another plane crash: Flight MH17 being shot down over the Ukraine.
In that blog I described how shamans have always performed a sacred task called “Psycho Pomp Work”. The word Psycho Pomp means ‘soul conductor’ and it refers to accompanying the souls of dead people to the right place in the Afterlife, the Land of the Dead.
I also described how such work is done (but please NEVER embark on this without thorough shamanic training, however well-intentioned!) and what I perceived and did, moving my awareness to the crash site.
This morning I performed the same task for the Germanwings flight 4U 9525. The event is still fresh and the energetic shock waves are still rippling out. Not everyone who dies in such a crash is ready to move on in the spirit world, even if they realise that they are dead (and not all do). Many will try to ‘find their way home’ meaning that relatives may have very vivid dreams in which dead loves ones appear, they may well try to pass messages. Many will try to attend any memorial service or future funerals that may be organised for the people who died in the crash.
So it is “early days” from the psycho pomp point of view, but colleagues and I will make the commitment of checking in at regular intervals and continuing to work with the site.
A lot has been written about the state of mind of the co-pilot who was at the controls and made the descent.
This speculation is only natural as crash investigators have started their difficult task. However, from the shamanic point of view, I have some observations to make about the way these things are viewed and presented in the media.
I had a quick scan of the news reports this morning and saw speculation that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz was mentally ill, that he may have crashed the flight on purpose so ‘the whole world would know his name’.
These are terrible allegations and we need to tread with some care concerning a man who can no longer explain to us what was really going on in his head. However, what we can do is use psychic ability to ‘tune in’ and see what information we receive.
What I receive tuning in (and I am not presenting this as ‘truth’, just as ‘food for contemplation’) is a very disturbed frame of mind. I perceive it as a severe piercing headache, a severe sense of ‘drilling and buzzing’ in the head that never eases. What goes with that is a ‘tunnel vision’, the whole field of perception narrowing to a desire to escape, to stop the pressure.
As I sat with that some more, what moved into view was a sense of immense suffering behind a very disturbed mind. And that takes me to an era in world history that we have not done enough to heal and learn vital life lessons from.
Mentally ill people often ‘hear voices’. Shamanic practitioners ‘hear voices’ too – but they are more in control of the process. They can engage and disengage. They can operate discernment. They have options when it comes to interpreting and handling what such voices are asking for. Mentally ill people do not always have the ‘luxury’ of this. For them those voices can become their ‘truth’, their ‘one and only living reality’. Such “voices” can also exert immense pressure on mental states.
And the word ‘voices’ is way too literal in this context. From my shamanic work I know that the voices of ancestors and the dead can manifest as health problems and life crises and destructive patterns that seem impossible to break. So I am not saying that this pilot “heard voices” in a very literal way. But I am saying that I sense great pressures on his state of mind, his mental health, in his psychic world.
For me then (as when I do healing work with clients) there are different questions we need to ask at this point: “Is there a larger tragedy or suffering that is asking for healing through the actions of one man?”
That question takes me personally to the World War II and the Holocaust. To bloodshed and ‘mass murder’ in “living memory” in Europe. My own mother remembers the war – she was a child then. There are still people alive who remember World War II and the people that died during World War II.
It is my observation that “the living want to move on” but sometimes “the dead cannot move on until healing occurs, forgiveness work is done and amends are made’.
So to me the word ‘mass murder’ – and I have seen it thrown about in the press this week – is more of a ‘clue’ than an ‘accusation’. For me the question is not: is Andreas Lubitz a mass murderer? Everyone can find their own answer to that question. For me the larger and more urgent question is: “What mass murders here in Europe, in Germany in particular, from a very dark period in European history, are still asking for healing, ceremony, honouring and amends?
People who are mentally ill sometimes hear “the voices of the dead” because their psychic boundaries are thin (even non-existent). And “the dead” are not asking for “more death” but they are asking The Living (us!) for an embracing and honouring of Death and The Dead. They are asking us to re-consider our relationship with Death and The Dead – and that is one area where our culture fails completely. We live in a youth-obsessed death-avoiding culture. We are in mass denial about death – and that is causing problems for the Dead because too few of us remember how to perform, what I will call, The Office of the Dead.
By “hating and reviling” Andreas Lubitz for what he did last week, we just create more pressure, more imbalance and more “shadow!. (He was ‘evil’ and we are ‘good’ – but it is not as simple as that!)
We then also “feed” any desire this misguided disturbed man may have had to be ‘famous’, to see his name in the papers and on TV.
As long as our media cooperate with this (because sensational stories and information sell newspapers and draw viewers to TV programs!!) we “feed the monster” and create a blueprint for a future mentally ill person to ‘stake a claim to fame’. And by ‘monster’ I am not referring to the pilot. I am referring to the process where all of us feed horror stories and shadows by not looking “behind the story” and by “refusing to look within ourselves and refusing to OWN our personal darkness).
So this blog presents my invitation to the world to “pay attention to this wake up call” (in a way I now believe we failed to do after the plane crash in the Ukraine) and re-vision our relationship with both Death and the Mass Murders that happened during the Holocaust (and more recent wars in Europe too, think of the Yugoslav Wars in the 90s, of what happened in Bosnia, Serbia and so forth).
To me this is the only way of honouring the deaths of 148 innocent people and the captain (first pilot) trying to break down the cockpit door and take the controls.
We will never know for sure what went on in Andreas Lubitz’s mind – but we can no longer run from looking at what needs healing in our own minds and the continent many of us live on.
Imelda Almqvist
Life Force TV Interview about shamanism with Imelda Almqvist
www.shaman-healer-painter.co.uk
Imelda Almqvist is a Dutch shamanic practitioner, teacher and painter based in London, UK
imeldaalmqvist 
Sounds to me like he had hydrocarbon toxins or mild carbon monoxide poisoning…
Maybe he did Mary, I think we need have an open min.d to all possibilities and not jump to conclusions
I think you’re right we are all guilty, and I include myself in this statement, of joining in on the feeding frenzy of suffering. We do live in a world were we continuously look outward to blame rather than to progressively improve our own intrinsic behaviour. I am new to the shamanic path and I read somewhere that a mental breakdown can actually be a spiritual breakthrough.
Thank you Zoe! And yes, in shamanism a mental breakdown is often seen as a breakthrough or even a spiritual awakening. I wish you many blessings on your path! Imelda
A large part of our responsibility towards the MSM is in reading between and behind the lines and the facts are hard to come by, so I wholeheartedly agree with the call you make here Imelda, as well as the above comments….
……with that in mind, while it is imperative to be aware of projection, facts do help in clarifying this process as well and we would do well to be vigilant and discerning in recovering as many as possible in making our own open minded assessments ~ it may be of interest to bring out a few of the more salient facts that have been exposed by researchers since the crash which will not be found in the mass media or ‘official’ narrative….
……first, the first of the two black boxes belonging to this flight has been found and contains recordings of the co-pilot showing that between the plane’s descent from 38,000ft to its impact his breathing was steady and regular ~ he was in all probability unconcscious – even if he were conscious this would be an irregular reaction to the event, in the extreme….
……secondly, high altitude beta radiation is at an accumulative high in the troposphere, at altitudes flown by most passenger jets, due to nuclear testing and accidents at nuclear plants such as Chernobel and, more radically, Fukushima and this can have several effects….it can over-ride the executive function of the human brain which normally prevents a person from ‘flipping out’, preventing them from actualising emotional overload in radical behaviour and, essentially, filters violent impulses, but, in respect of non-organic material, it has also been shown to cause degrading crystalisation and structural breakdown in metals and glass (witness the Belgian nuclear plant which was recently found to have 16,000 cracks in its superstructure). This is called the Wigner effect and is well known within the industry and related sciences, if little reported (if at all) in the MSM – incidents related to this effect are increasingly being documented and it is possible that the cockpit of the plane suffered structural damage, a cracked windshield for example, and is a possible factor in the co-pilot’s conscious state…..
……however, thirdly, and most importantly, all commercial airbuses have, since 1999, been fitted with uninterruptable auto-pilots – these allow the plane to be flown remotely from the ground, are justified as safety devices. These effectively over-ride pilot control and, while they can allow a plane to be safely landed if both pilots are unconscious, effectively also turn them into a ‘latent drone’ ~ while we all want to avoid projecting conspiratorial assumtions, malicious intent remains a highly present possibility in the midst of our uses of technology. I mention the latter as one must ask, given the fact of their abilities, why was this function not employed in the Germanwings flight? The answer is surprising ~ these units are designed and manufactured by Boeing and Honeywell, but, while they are installed within the E&E box of the plane, the contents of these installations is unknown to the flight crews. This is illegal, a point brought into the public arena by retired pilot Field McConnell in 2006-7, but, at the cost of his career.What you will see in the official narrative emerging now is that while Boeing holds the patent, suggestions will be made that all planes should carry these as preventions against future disasters or terrorist interventions……
……each of us can make of these facts what we will. Our responsibility towards the deceased extends far beyond what we may be aware of and, bearing this in mind, means that more than discernment on our part is necessary here ~ in this respect, our trust in spirit to bring the guidance and healing necessary may now, more than ever, be the essential option we have in avoiding allowing our actions to be coloured by our fears, projections and lack of insights, regardless the ‘known’ facts. Nevertheless, they will also effectively use what we do know as a part of what they can work with through us individually. Thanks for a great article…R
Hi Owl Mirror – thank you so much for adding more background information! It is another good thing that unspeakable tragedy can bring: that matters ordinary citizens give no thought (or cannot possibly be aware of because they require professional knowledge) now come into our awareness for further reflection (and soul searching). I welcome that and I am open to all sources of information and all possible angles on this. As you are so knowledgeable, one question for you: when one of the pilots leaves the cockpit (the captain in this case), does the door lock itself (as an anti-terrorism measure imposed perhaps?) or would the co-pilot have had to get out of his seat and perform the action of locking the door? Seems to me that this is a crucial question and nothing I have read so far has answered it. Thank you for the feedback and food for further thought!! Imelda
Cockpit doors in commercial airliners can only be opened either from the inside; however, in the case of emergency, it can be unlocked by entering a code known only to the flight crew into a keypad outside the door – the latter CAN be over-ridden from inside the cockpit for up to 5 minutes, unless an electrical fault intervenes in which case the door goes to unlock status…in most airbuses where this is the case it unlocks for a five second period that takes 30 seconds to actualise…..hope that helps
Mmm….. that is not immediately clear to me….. So one pilot leaves for a bathroom break, meaning that the co pilot then needs to let him back in OR the captain types in the secret access code (only flight crew has). I understand that part. But if I understand you correctly the co pilot at the controls must have decided to over-ride this…. (so he must have been conscious then? To decide to do so?) and I suppose that once this is done, 5 minutes is a long time for a plane making a rapid descent…. + a further 30 second wait for ‘unlock mode to actualise’…. To me that sounds like the co pilot knew he had 5 1/2 minutes…. not like the co-pilot was unconscious due to oxygen deprivation or beta radiation early on….. but set me straight if I get that wrong…. It’s ‘conscious intention and decision’ I am, trying to gauge…. – and many thanks for clarifying. As a frequent flyer I nowsuddenly realise there is so much a passenger is clueless about (not to mention powerless!) I feel immense gratitude to all the pilots who have safely landed planes I have been on, all over the world…… Thanks R!
If a pilot leaves the cockpit leaving the co-pilot at the helm the pilot must request re-entry into the cockpit which can only be activated from within the cockpit, this being standard proceedure as well as a physical necessity….over-riding the lock is not necessary on the co-pilot’s part to uphold the protocols of access….however, the emergency unlock can be activated by the crew on the outside of the cockpit should there be no response from inside the cockpit….it is the time delay that is the problem….whether this was the crucial factor here is the question, but, decompression of the cockpit may also make unlocking disfunction and the door difficult, if not impossible, to open….what we don’t know is if the red light at the top of the keypad outside the cockpit had come on which would have told the pilot that the lock had been over-ridden….a report from an onboard witness which has been retrieved (before the crash) has stated that the captain/pilot had resorted to using a fire ax to try and break into the cockpit…..we must all take the wisdom of flying into account at all times, but, the incident rate of mechanical failure in aircraft has increased enough over the last four years to warrant extra care be taken in our decisions whether to or not….I don’t want to increase anxiety over flying by saying this, but, I do want people to know that it is no longer one of the safest forms of long distance transport available….the Wigner effect is present wherever metal and glass structures are found….we take so much foregranted in our technologically ‘advanced’ world, and, for the most part, are simply using it on the assumption that it must be ok because it is in the public domain, myself included, but, with all that is happening in the world, on so many fronts, if anything we should now be thinking bigger and wider in ‘how we are living’, and addressing our reliance on technologies, especially long-term….
Have you been pilot or worked in the aviation industry R.?!! How do you know all this?!
I googled Wigner effect and that brought up some very interesting search results.
The following is interesting too (if anyone wants to read more):
http://climateviewer.com/2014/02/28/airline-anomalies-post-fukushima-interview/
So many thanks for this, I think I understand the aviation protocols much better now, but questions remain (and don’t expect you to keep on answering them!) .
Why would there be more decompression in the cockpit than the rest of the plane – unless there was a fracture due to the Wigner effect? But it that was the case, wouldn’t that have affected the breathing of the co pilot (extremely regular apparently)? Wouldn’t one gasp for air or show irregular breathing even when unconscious?
And as regards the reports from an on-board witness: do the flight crew send such reports to ground control as a matter of routine? Or how else would this information be known/retrieved??
Issues related to our carbon footprint already ought to make us all think again about flying as often and habitually as we do.
But thanks to your comments I am certainly also hearing quite a few things that cast doubt on the ‘co-pilot was a mass murderer’ conclusion. And my blog was questioning that assumption anyway for very different reasons.
You raise very thought-provoking points indeed. We are being invited to think again and look at wide variety of issues affecting our environment and space.
And I just hope and pray that this invitation will be answered. That this tragedy doesn’t just drop from view relatively quickly the way Flight MH 17 did. I still feel that flight too raised many questions (both spiritual and ‘worldly’) that have not been addressed even today.
Thanks again R. for the education in aviation issues! Imelda
great artical man looks like the website is coming toehgter good had a blast at the tourny cant wait till the next one and the next aticle