Back when I was a kid there used to be a Saturday morning cartoon called "The Arabian Nights". One of the characters, simply by clapping his hands and saying "Size of an Elephant" or whatever, turned into the named creature in a puff of smoke and the heroes escaped the clutches of the wicked Sultan of Baghdad yet again.

Now even as a seven year old I thought how marvellous it would be if you could really do that. I devoured all the legends of shapeshifters and human hybrid creatures I could find; Charon the wise centaur became my tutor as I read of Nordic wizards who could take the form of wolves and bears, of Zeus and his strange propensity for seducing mortal females whilst in the guise of bulls and swans and so on. It was as I read the tales of Taliesin and Ceridwen's shapechanging duel and of Coyote the Trickster then I began to understand what these stories represented they were not just exciting tales of clever and magical beings but they were a key, a key to understanding and appreciating the richness of what lay all around me. The idea of going beyond ones physical reality into a deeper communion with the forces of nature around oneself, to be able to shed the weight of a society that had taught us from day one that "cats don't go to heaven, they just die", to be able too look upon this world and others with new wonder through the eyes of creatures with a different perspective on what we think of as reality, for this reason alone I earnestly believe that it's a worthwhile exercise.

It's also great fun, exciting, a little bit scary sometimes but never, ever dull.

Another good reason for developing this ability, and it's an ability that everyone has, is that the ability to think, feel and see as another creature can be a staring point for a journey; a journey that I think everyone should take. That journey is to discover the energy, force, spirit, guardian angel - it has been called many things - that dwells within and without us. In his book "Celtic Shamanism" John Matthews gives the reader full instructions on how to get in touch with your totemic animal:

The ultimate aim of out-of-body shifting is to temporarily discard with the direct physical realm and to concentrate instead in projecting the will, the spirit and all the other intangible parts of the self into a state whereby these forces can be given shape that is not that of the physical being that serves as a repository for them. This does, like all shapeshifting, involve a loss of a part of the identity of the self, the physical body in this case, but with strength of will and wholeness of spirit this loss is compensated for and the essential self is retained. Freed from the trappings of a physical nature it then becomes possible to give a new form to the self, in essence to change its shape.

The actual techniques for doing this kind of spiritual exploration are quite well known to virtually everyone who's been involved in pagan or magical practice for any time or has read a few books: Astral projection, dream incubation and lucid dreaming, pathworking... these are all names given to methods of altering our perceptions under some form of control. In certain cultures psychoactive chemicals such as peyote were and indeed still are used but my own thoughts are that for westerners not wise in the ways of such people and where drugs are too often used as an escape from the self rather than as an exploration of the self, that it's best to leave the pharmaceuticals alone when doing shapeshifting work.

Initially my experiences are that once you've done your grounding and centring you can proceed pretty much as John Matthews suggests. However I suggest that you use whatever imagery you find works for you, within reason of course; if you intend to attempt to change into a horse form, a mountain top is probably not the greatest location to pick.

Now this will probably sound like glib advice and I'm not a great fan of the "magic by numbers" approach of many books but I can perhaps give you a few pointers from my experiences. Whilst you are attempting to affect these changes it's probably best if you imagine yourself lying down - this way you're not going to shock yourself if you fall over. Start to picture yourself creating a creature, I'll use a horse as an example. Try to create it around yourself, clothing your spirit in its flesh and blood. Remember that you're not invoking a separate entity but you are striving to be this creature. The sensations can feel peculiar at first, your perspections may change; as a horse you have a wider field of vision and you're probably not seeing in colour any more. You probably won't be able to rationalise this at the time and it will come to feel "normal" very quickly. As you continue many people suddenly find that they're there, it's not really necessary to build up muscle layer on muscle layer in a perfect anatomical model. Often I've found that just by thinking and willing yourself "I am a horse" you are.

Now take a look at your new body: what colour is it, look how the hair lies, start too feel through your new senses, your vision might be better or worse, likewise your sense of smell - have a sniff at yourself, what you smell like? Now you were lying down when you started all this weren't you? Now try to get up. This will most likely mean getting up onto four legs - something that you probably haven't done before and probably you don't know how to do. I certainly didn't the first time I realised that I'd "turned myself into a horse" but couldn't stand up. In the early days, getting used to your new shape, you'll feel very wobbly and you'll probably fall over a lot, sometimes shocking yourself back to waking consciousness and your own body. Don't be disheartened, it's all part of the experience, just keep trying and you'll get it right.

It is quite possible to move your new spirit form from the world you have placed it in back into the real world, either taking into your physical body or to go exploring the area where you are. Freya Aswynn has spoken of her experiments with shapeshifting magic when she "projected" herself in the form of a cat to get into places her human form could not go. There are also accounts of people changing themselves into birds and the like to divine information from places that they could not get to by normal means and it is these accounts of shapeshifting I think that occur in tales and legends when we read that a wizard or hero turned himself into a creature to travel a great distance.

A question I've been asked sometimes is "Well aren't you fooling yourself and isn't this all so much wishful thinking?" At one level it is wishful thinking, but with a purpose in mind. I have asked myself sometimes whether this is just me making it up as I go along but I can only say when it happens, and you look down and you have hooves instead of hands and the only way to get to that itch is to nibble it, it all feels and seems very real and in the present tense. As to how do you know when you've got there I'm afraid to say that the answer is you'll know it when it happens. It can be a gradual realisation or it can be sudden. But when you're there and you struggle to stand on four feey, you'll know.

This brings me neatly onto something I consider a prerequisite for shapeshifting, a knowledge of the creature you're attempting to become. This need not be a knowledge of how the bones and muscles all go together from an anatomy textbook but an idea, gained from simply watching a creature as it moves, eats, rests and just is. How does it get up, for instance, fore legs first or hind legs? How does it slow down or stop? (As an aside I spent a lot of time watching horses transitions from walk to canter, not so much time on watching canter to walk though - you can probably guess the results) How the creature communicates with others of its kind or with humans, how it displays emotions, all these you should really be familiar with you as you won't have another of your new found species to help you - or will you?

Up until now I've looked at a spiritual, esoteric, you might even say comf ortable shapeshifting; shapeshifting in the privacy of your own living room. Al tered state shapeshifing is rather more physical activity but it essentially inv olves similar techniques and attitudes to out of body shapeshifting. It does, h owever, express the animal spirit in a more direct form. As a magical technique this has a long and rather chequered past and even boasts a scientific name, Ly canthropy. Certain medical conditions and mental illnesses can result in the su fferer believing that they have become an animal or that they are physically abl e to assume an animal's form - in the case of werewolves to become a wolf. Magical shapeshifting can possibly be viewed as a "controlled delusion" in which the practitioner not only changes their mental and spiritual being into animal form but also to will their physical being: senses, perceptions and behaviour, to behave as though they were indeed those of a wolf. As well as cloaking the will and spirit in the flesh and bones of the desired creature the practitioner will be likely to project the image of this creature over his own, in essence swapping his body for that of another. This physical body can then move and interact with the everyday world. Now although the will is telling the body that it's a wolf, a horse or whatever the body is constrained by the fact that it's still human. From information I've gathered from various sources it's possible that physiological and chemical changes do occur, limbs seem to sometimes be able to move in ways that would be painful to a person normally, digestion, stamina, strength, sense of taste or hearing alter. In an impromptu experiment I carried out recently I was having a problem in keeping pace with a clock on a cycle exercise machine, just as an experiment I called on my horse form, picturing myself in that shape cantering with ease up a hill. When I looked down I found not only had I caught up with the machine but I was ahead by some twenty percent. A minor victory perhaps but certainly I feel an everyday application of shapeshifting. However most of the time the shapeshifter just has to do the best he can with the tools available to him and your body is still human - albeit that you feel it as being something quite radically different. As a fox for example you can walk through a wood and see and smell things you most likely never would as a human, your senses sharper, your spirit uncluttered by the trappings of humanity. It can be a very uplifting and enlightening experience.

A close friend of mine in the United States, Kayotae Blackwolf has done much work with this kind of shapeshifting both in solitary and group workings. He is of Native American descent and has the wolf, the timber wolf in particular, as his family totem. He's also been lucky enough to have occasional access to real wolves and some of his most vivid and successful shapeshiftings have occurred whilst with wolves. Many of his experiences are quite personal to him and it would not be proper for me to go into great details but he tells me that the change from a human consciousness to a lupine one occurred very quickly. He was aware that some form of change had happened but reports that the experience was a very intense one, he had effectively become a wolf, interestingly enough over two occasions first as a dog wolf, then as a bitch. In all these experience the she-wolf he was with acted towards him as a wolf - from which we have surmised that possibly other creatures see, or more accurately "comprehend" more than just an outer physical form. His other experiences have been with a small group of friends he refers to as his "pack". Together they have done collective shapeshifting magic, the technique they used was just to be together in a room and initially acting as wolves, such things as not using human language but snarls and whimpers, touching each other, sniffing and so forth, all the while keeping a "wolf consciousness" to the fore of ones mind. After a time they found that a transformation could be affected and that they saw each other and themselves not as human but in their new form.

This is not to say that such shapeshifting cannot be practised in a solitary manner or, as Blackwolf has shown that your group must be fellow shapeshifters - they can be the creatures themselves. Another friend of mine in the United States who has also worked with equine shapes - so much so that he prefers to be known as "Centaur" these days - tells me that he often "gets morphic" as he calls it, around his three horses; running round the paddock with them, "talking" to them in equine gestures and sound - becoming to all intents and purposes a horse himself. He often speaks of the comfort he feels when doing this, the burden of daily living shed and of the clarity and direct contact with the "spirit of the horse" he experiences. His horses seem to accept him as one of them too, the leader of his small herd making sure that he knows his place.

It can be difficult to practice this form of shapeshifing in this country, lacking as we do the wide open spaces of places such as Canada and North America, not to mention the potential problems being seen charging naked around a field with a herd of horses might bring! However there still are quiet and private places, all to few regrettably, where you can carry out this work in the open.

As you can imagine altered shape shapeshifting can quite a physical activity and it's quite suited to group work as Blackwolf's experiences show. However I would certainly recommend being on very good terms and having complete trust in the people with whom you are working as almost by necessity the restraints and conventions of our society are lost and new conventions and rules will almost certainly apply - again there's no substitute for knowing and studying and knowing your creatures, in this case studying their herd or pack behaviours concerned. It's generally also not a good idea to decide who's going to be "alpha wolf" or "herd matriarch" beforehand as these decisions will tend to sort themselves out as the shapeshifing exercise progresses and you experience some time in your new forms. New patterns of "leaders" and "followers" can emerge, the results possibly being surprising. I've little experience of this kind of group working directly but I'm told that the emotions released and experienced can be very intense and rather scaring if viewed in the cold light of day. I have heard enough to urge caution before embarking on a group shapeshifting working, it's certainly not to be entered if you have any major hang-ups about any aspects of your personality.

I'd like to ask you a question now. Do you have a favourite animal and if you do what is it? I've had some odd answers to that question, "Pelican" springs to mind. The next question is "why?" Often it takes a little longer to answer but often the answer will be something along the lines of "Well I just rather like them, always have done, just something about the way they move." Almost always the people who answer that question mention a particular physical attribute of the creature concerned (one person had otters as her favourite creature as she said "I like the way they scratch themselves, it looks like it feels so good") and have usually had this attraction, which in some people I've known is a very deep and intense one, for quite a long time if not an innate knowledge of it's existence for their whole lives.

Often young children will have an "imaginary friend" who they play with, talk to and even invite to tea, becoming very disgruntled if mummy forgets to set a place for them! Equally there was, certainly in Victorian times, a strong belief in "guardian angels" - members of the ranks of cherubim and seraphim each assigned to look after their person - children were often told that if it was raining it was their guardian angel who was crying because they'd been naughty.

Among many tribal societies, especially those of the Native Americans, the belief in animal deities and tribal totems which were assigned particular properties, called zoolatry by the anthropologists, was quite widespread. Tribal legend would often tell of how the first people were born of say, a deer made pregnant by a magical human, and so the tribe would know themselves as "The people of the Deer". These types of stories are quite common throughout the world.

Also common was the belief that each person carried with them, or had the power to find, their spirit animal. This is a belief that I hold too. In the rather good book "The Flight of Winged Wolf" by Heather Huges-Calero a process of finding that spirit animal within the self, giving it shape and voice and meaning, is portrayed. This journey of discovery often starts with the realisation that there is a particular animal form that is appealing to you, maybe you exhibit certain physical or mental traits associated with the animal. These obviously vary from culture to culture but often show remarkable consistency. The fox for example shares the reputation for cunning and quick wits with the coyote of the Americas. Various workings and exercises can be carried out to find your spirit animal: meditation and pathworking are fine but to my mind the best way is to meet him or her on their own level and in their shape. It's been my experience and that of others that it's quite possible for your spirit animal to come into contact with you very early on in your work with animal forms and quite often to act as a guide and tutor. It could be though that you find that you are being watched quietly by your totem animal as you perform your work - it varies from person to person.

It's been my experience though that once you have found your animal or animals, it's quite possible to have more than one, that you will find them cropping up in your everyday life. They can be called on too for advice or help and they will often give it - I find myself thinking "If I were Fox now, how would I do this" and more often then not the swapping of mindsets into my animal form will show me a problem from a different light and perhaps show a solution. It's almost like discovering your childhood "secret friend" all over again - someone to talk to, to confide in, explore the worlds of both matter and spirit with and, in essence, just to be there.

Now opinions are divided as to whether the animal spirit that attaches itself to a person is a separate entity or a projection of the subconscious, something created within our own minds. Personally I'm not sure, although I'm inclined to believe in the former. In the end though it doesn't really matter. That they are there and that you can learn from them is enough.