The following is excerpted from issue 2-82 of The Source publication--channeling by Maia (then Christine Hayes), now within the Thoth Archival material. I have edited this material  where the meaning does not seem clear in the original. I have also included a few sentences  to bring it into a fine-tuning with my current akashic perspective - Maia

SHAMAGICIANS
 

In Subterranea there is the Gathgwana--Hall of the Shamagicians. Situated in the Valley of the Sun (of the Triskilon Wilderness), this mysterious structure is a receptacle for magical issue. Cast upon the ground like a salamander bronzed in the flame, its clay walls are indented with leaf-like designs, carved in the clay and seeded with minute copper beads. From a distance the glinting and flickering of its reflection in the sun is so fragmented and elusive as to give the on-looker the sense that he / she is not actually seeing with physical eyes but with the inner sight of the soul's beauty.

Gathgwana is not built on a grand scale outwardly.  Made of reinforced clay, it's serpentine body  curves effortlessly through the valley, coming to press against Mount Dhura as a vine surround it's wellspring. However, what one sees from the outside of Gathgwana is deceiving. The "Hall" of Shamagicians is actually composed of many hallways and chambers, reaching inside the mountain itself.  Mount Dhura is riddled with natural caves. The Shamagicians have carved additional tunnels and modified natural ones, polishing the smaller caverns with their shamanic tools.

A Shamagician is forever in the process of initiation into the deeper layers of his own Spirit Journey. Once having entered the mountain through the outer serpent tunnel, the  Shamagician may continue to the  innermost chamber of Gathgwana. This is known as the "Pica," which means the "Chamber of Transformation."  The room is shaped like a kiva with the ceremonial hole at the center of the ceiling replaced by a gemstone called the "Lasbalah."  Thoth often refers to this type of crystal as "Golden Jasmine."  This particular Lasbalah is the size of an ostrich egg and multi-faceted to reflect whatever light is cast into its prismatic depths. The walls, floor and ceiling of this chamber are of a type of powdery sandstone. The walls are covered with a thin layer of substance resembling cobwebs. This material is actually produced from a very large worm, the Suka, who creates this webbing for the primary purpose of collecting energy from sources in it's environment. The collected energy is maintained within the web for the worm's sustenance and reproductive nest. The Suka does not take energy away from anything. It merely uses the host (i.e., sun, wind, water, fire, animal, vegetable) as a conductive body to receive universal energy through it. The Suka does not live solely in the caves. It comes into the sunlight to collect it's energies through the inner sun and all life surrounding it, and then returns to the caves to construct it's webs from the stored energy within a membrane about  its body. 

The energy web shimmers in the dark caverns as it sustains and nurtures the Suka and its offspring. The Shamagicans often call these worms into their sacred kivas. Through the Suka's web, or "Weeka," the Shamagician can empower his/her morphing transformations for a longer period of time.

Directly beneath the Golden Jasmine in the Gathgwana Pica chamber, a mystical design has been painted on a large circle of stone, positioned like a flat plate on the floor. Upon this stone, the Cadabrauethax or  "One who is to Become", kneels in preparation for the Changing. The paint of the design on the stone has been mixed with a "holy" substance, the molecules of which have been re-aligned, just as water are oils have their molecules re-aligned when the are blessed or prayer over. the "prayer" in this instance is for the "One who is to Become" to relax the cellular energy in the body. This is a fragile moment, for the electric current of the cells keeps them  creating down a certain path. Relax or disrupt the current and undesirable mutations can occur. The Shamagican has gone through many years of training so that when the relaxation of his cell energy takes place he/she immediately "fills the cup" with the re-directing current of universal energy amplified and specifically patterned through the Golden Jasmine crystal above him. This crystal begins an explosion of prismed light as it is activated by the energy body of the "One" kneeling beneath it. The tattoos on the body of the Shamagican match the patterns of the light prisming from the crystal.

(a note: Some Shamagicans do not have tattoos. Illuminaries such as Thoth, who belong to many gates of spirit expression, do not mark themselves for one specific practice.)

At this point in the transformation process, the Shamagican kneeling within the mystical circle has merely brought his / her body into a condition of malleability. He / she must now begin the actual morphing of his cells within a very specific pattern and intention. It is important to realize that although "shape-changing" will occur, the Shamagician will not violate the true etheric form of his / her body. The physical composition is temporarily brought into a facile state. Like a stretched rubber band, it will expand  to encompass a particular aspect of the "All" that is to be found in every particle of existence in the universe. In every cell of our bodies we have the "potential of force"  which inscribes the shape and context of a beetle, a fox or STAR. As with the rubber band, the presence of the original form (assumed in that incarnation / experience) can always be re-established out of the original etheric body, which is beyond the form it is assuming in the current incarnation / experience.

In linear time, the object ( i.e., human) is the traveler and movement through space is the journey. In the world of shape-changing, motion becomes the traveling message and the object is the journey. As the messages are received by the object, so that object re-arranges it's space between particles accordingly. Through the spiritual oneness of the Shamagican with the All, so the One who is to Become ascends to the summit of his free flight among the stars of Being. Depending upon the particular Shamagicans Totem, his body has now either partly or completely assumed the form of that totem. "Burning Man," a shamanic mentor of mine, "grows" marvelous wings of light capable of supporting him in flight.

The Shamagician enters the shape-changing state, not for deception or power, but instead to experience the Oneness of the Nature-Self with all life. The shape-changing act,  called the "Wulzadak,"  is but one aspect of the whole "Cosmorphia" of the Interior Shamagician. The greater art of Cosmorphia, the "Hatha," is the transformation of the human form into an exalted state of essence so beatific as to shimmer upon the threshold of the Angelic Body. In assuming his "wings of light," Burning Man moves through the Wulzadak, to alight upon the golden bough of Hatha, brightly reflecting the Eternal Sun.