Spiritual Forum

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  Avatar May 25, 2014 at 3:15pm

  Feather...where did you get that picture of us? LOL
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  Stick May 24, 2014 at 6:36am

  Terence McKenna's brother, Dennis, has also played a significant role in the Entheogenic movement... here's some interesting Multidimensional food for thought...

  

  Celebrity Ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna Shares Psychedelic Wisdom 

  by, Zoe Helene

   “Nobody can have your psychedelic experience for you; you just have to screw your courage up and raise the cup to your lips or smoke the pipe or whatever it is and face what’s in there.” - Dennis McKenna

  Celebrity ethnobotanist and ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna and his late brother, Terence, began their lifelong curiosity-driven quest for exotic hallucinogens in Amazonian jungles in 1971. Terence, a leading authority on shamanism who was known as the “Timothy Leary of the ‘90s,” chronicled the so-called “experiment at La Chorrera" in his book True Hallucinations (Harper San Francisco, 1993), and Dennis tells the full story in his newly published memoir, The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss: My Life with Terence McKenna (North Star Press 2012).

  I recently met Dennis McKenna at the Harvard Natural History Museum to view the Glass Flowers exhibit. During our walkabout, McKenna pointed out psychoactive and psychedelic plants and shared his insights about the sacred healing plant ayahuasca, “La Medicina.” McKenna is one of the world’s foremost experts on the South American hallucinogenic beverage prepared from the bark of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the leaf of Psychotria viridis, (often called chacruna) that is used for healing in shamanistic ceremonies. People from all over the world and from all walks of life are heading down to the Peruvian Amazon to experience the consciousness-expanding journey of ayahuasca.

  Zoe Helene: You first saw these glass flowers (lifelike botanical models made entirely of glass) in 1974?

  Dennis McKenna: I saw them in ‘74 when I first made a pilgrimage to visit R.E. Schultes at Harvard, so the glass flowers became emblematic of my visit to Schultes. I made a point to go see them on every subsequent visit.

  Zoe: Schultes looms large in your book. Why is he so important?

  Dennis: R. E. Schultes is a god, in fact. Andrew Weil and Wade Davis were two of his notable students. He’s sometimes called the Father of Ethnobotany, and he was the director of the Harvard Botanical Museum for many years. Schultes was known mainly as the world’s expert on hallucinogenic plants, but he was also known for his expertise on rubber and orchids. He spent thirteen or fourteen years continuously in the Amazon.

  Zoe: In his field research, didn’t he conduct bio-assays—trying plant remedies on himself?

  Dennis: Oh yes, he tried them. But he was very quiet when he was at Harvard—very straight-laced. He studied ayahuasca from his earliest days in the Amazon, in the ‘30s and ‘40s and he claimed that he tried all these things, but all he’d ever say was that he “saw colors.”

  Zoe: Tell me about your own research with ayahuasca?

  Dennis: I went through a lot of different phases with my scientific and professional ambitions to make ayahuasca an object of study. The chemistry, pharmacology and ethnobotany of ayahuasca was the focus of my doctoral research and ever since has never been far from my scientific interests. For a long time I wrote proposals and lobbied to do an IND (Investigational New Drug Application), which you have to do if you want to do an FDA-approved protocol to conduct clinical investigations of a new medicine.

  Unfortunately, the FDA makes it ten times harder to study botanical drugs than to study pharmaceutical drugs. The problem is quality control because you have to be able to quantify the doses and all that. Ayahuasca is doubly difficult because not only is it a botanical preparation, but it contains DMT, a Schedule I controlled substance.

  Zoe: You’re working to establish a center in Peru that could address this.

  Dennis: If we want to bring ayahuasca to the wider world, we have to publish in peer-reviewed journals. My idea is to set up a center in Peru, where we could actually do rigorous science. We could just step out of the whole FDA regulatory morass and work with physicians in the States to bring people with the right diagnoses down there and put them through maybe twelve to fifteen sessions and extended residential treatment. We’d have a medical doctor, a shaman and maybe also a psychologist or psychiatrist, keep careful notes, measure outcomes and publish in peer-reviewed literature.

  Zoe: Ayahuasca is illegal in the U.S. but legal in Peru.

  Dennis: We’re interested in bringing the benefits to people, but it may be that, with ayahuasca, the people have to go to the medicine.

  Zoe: Are other countries more accommodating?

  Dennis: Jordi Riba, a pharmacologist who has done a lot of clinical work with ayahuasca in Spain, where regulatory restraints are looser, has been able to get approval. He imports the brew from Brazil and freeze-dries it, then he can standardize it to what it is supposed to be for each of the active ingredients.

  But I have to say, this is not ayahuasca.

  Zoe: How so?

  Dennis: Synthetics and freeze-dried ayahuasca lack the purging quality that can trigger that all-important “loosening” of mental and physical blockages that's often the first sign that the work has begun. Ayahuasca is one of those plant medicines, like bitters, that you have to taste to get the full effect. It starts working as soon as it hits the tongue.

  I feel personally that purging, as in vomiting, is a part of the healing. In some ways ayahuasca is a “cathartogen” (causes a catharsis). Catharsis is like a spiritual shock that leads to a sense of renewal. I think that actual physical purging is linked to getting rid of bad energy that can take residence in the body as well as the mind.

  Zoe: Ayahuasca is a mystery. You can drink a tiny bit and have a huge experience and down a large dose and have a quiet experience.

  Dennis: And isn’t that strange? It doesn’t follow any of the rules. Es una medicina muy mysterioso!

  Zoe: I meet people who use the term “plant spirit” as a matter of course. Initially I thought they were all rather woo-woo, but as I met more brilliant, accomplished plant spirit thought leaders, my thoughts started to shift to, “What am I missing here?”

  Dennis: This is the crux of a lot of the questions about the nature of plant intelligence. The shaman would say, “Well, of course the world is permeated with spirits and non-human intelligences,” but the reductionist scientist will say, “This has to be part of my personality that has split off and is reflecting back on me. It’s all the self.”

  Zoe: Do these plant spirits have personalities?

  Dennis: A lot of people do have this experience, but when you get into the territory of these things having personalities—well, then the rational reductionist part of me says, “This is ridiculous; this is just an aspect and projection of your personality, and you’re reading it into yourself. Your mind is creating this experience.” But the shamans, of course, will say it is not projection but personalities, intelligences, and they will ask, “Why do you need to over-analyze it, you Western gringo dog? Just take it for what it is!”

  Zoe: My father is a scientist, so I grew up with that “reductionist” way of thinking.

  Dennis: All these reductionists that say, “That’s ridiculous! Plants can’t have nervous systems; they don’t have brains!” Well, I say they have a serious lack of imagination.

  Has your father ever taken psychedelics?

  Zoe: Oh no. No, no, no.

  Dennis: He’s got to put that on his map. He’s a scientist. He is obliged to do that before he can say anything else about it. It’s like making a pronouncement about telescope optics without having looked through a telescope.

  Zoe: My father is concerned about what he calls “losing touch with reality.”

  Dennis: That’s a conversation you have to have with your father. Reality is just as much a hallucination as any drug-induced experience. We know this.

  Zoe: Where do you think visions and other realities come from?

  Dennis: I think I don’t know. At some level everything is the self. We’re immersed in this hallucination that our brains are generating all the time. Ayahuasca and other psychedelics seem to open the portals to a realm where you interact with non-human intelligent entities who teach you things. Are they “real?” Definitely—in that you experience them, and in some sense anything you experience is real.

  Are they constructions of your own brain/mind without any objective existence off in some “weird entity zoo” somewhere? That's where it gets tricky. Part of the challenge for science—and really I think this is the big challenge for neuroscience in this century—is to devise an experiment or a hypothetical construct that will enable this question to be answered. Definitive evidence of a non-human realm of intelligent entities would hands-down be the greatest discovery ever made.

  Zoe: But you don’t believe it’s “all in our heads?”

  Dennis: I do not think that the brain entirely generates them. I think that consciousness is a primary part of the structure of reality, and I think that our brains are as much detectors of consciousness as they are generators of consciousness. So consciousness is a property of the continuum. It’s like part of the quantum foam. In this world of illusion, the brain is essentially a very sensitive channel tuner, and you can encourage different states of consciousness by taking different drugs or practicing different types of mental disciplines.

  Zoe: So, do the plants speak to us?

  Dennis: You do get this sense and of an “I/thou” kind of dialogue.

  Zoe: I know other animals have consciousness we don’t understand and communicate with each other in ways we don’t understand. So why not plants?

  Dennis: Plants communicate with everything in their environment through chemical messengers. Their language is chemistry—the molecules and compounds that we value as drugs and medicines and fragrances. The way that they present to communicate with a fungus in the soil that they want to form a symbiotic relationship with, for instance, will be different from a hairless upright primate that may want to eat them...

  read entire essay at: http://realitysandwich.com/218389/celebrity-ethnopharmacologist-den...
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    Avatar > Stick May 24, 2014 at 3:46pm

    Thank you so much, Stick for sharing this info...very informative and interesting. We really need to open our minds in more ways than one. Of course mainstream science and governments would be against the expansion of the mind so do everything in their power to prohibit it...you cannot control an open mind.

    

    

    https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8115080097?profile=original
    • 

      Stick > Avatar May 26, 2014 at 1:16am

      AsAbove

      

      SoBelow

      Another Green World: Psychedelics & Ecology

      by Daniel Pinchbeck

      I tend to view the naturally occurring psychedelics as emissaries from the larger community of life, bearing elder-species wisdom. As the herbalist Morgan Brent has proposed, it is almost as if the vegetal world assigned certain plants to be the diplomats and teachers to our young and confused species, to help put us on a different path than the one we have chosen, racing to ecological decimation and self-extinction. How else to explain the consistent messages received in mushroom, ayahuasca, iboga, and peyote visions of a world out of balance, of the need to take responsibility, of the vast empathic sentience of the Gaian mind?
      
      In the same way that we garden plants, teacher plants like ayahuasca seem to garden us when we ingest them. During shamanic sessions, people often get direct messages about how to transform their lives. Sometimes, their explorations lead to radical revelations of their attachment to mediocre diets, relationships, jobs, and so on. In many cases, they eventually take the advice and purge these negative influences from their lives.
      
      There seems to be a link between the loss of shamanism and initiatory experience in the West and the genesis of a human culture able to treat nature as something alienated, outside of itself. The recovery of psychedelic awareness in the 1960s coincided with the birth of the environmental movement, and perhaps helped to inspire it. Believing in an objective world of material facts whose apparent reality was constantly reiterated by mass media and science, modernizing humanity lost access to the primordial and participatory modes of awareness known to indigenous cultures. We denied our innate knowledge of our reciprocal relationship with the natural world that not only surrounds but also constitutes us, as even our bodies are dense microbial environments.
      
      My first mushroom trips in college helped to decondition me from my socialized personality and called into question my naïve assumptions that the civilization surrounding me was enduring and inevitable, that the air-conditioned nightmare of the American empire would continue forever. Later journeys confirmed this understanding, stripping away layers of acculturation. In West Africa I underwent initiation into the Bwiti spiritual discipline, taking iboga, their visionary sacrament. I was taken through a life review during that trip. It seemed as if a benevolent spiritual intelligence was guiding me, revealing how my negative and compulsive behavior patterns were formed by patterns set in my childhood.

      I was also given the faith that these patterns could be changed, that the splinters in my soul could be removed one by one, if I found the will to do so.

      Gregory Bateson famously coined the phrase “ecology of mind.” Along with the outer ecology we see in nature, there is an inner ecology that consists of our thinking process and emotional tendencies. It seems that our inner and outer ecology reflect and reinforce one another. On the macro level, our current society is a projection of the collective thoughts and ideas developed by past generations.
      
      In order to change our society from imminent doom, we need to clear out the old garbage and evolve new pathways of thinking and feeling as quickly as we can—to revamp our mental and emotional ecology. Psychedelic substances—visionary plant teachers—seem to play a crucial role in this process. Several books have come out recently revealing the importance of psychedelics in the development of the personal computer and the internet. Many crucial insights in biology and physics were psychedelically inspired. The almost stereotypical psychedelic gnosis of interconnectivity, unity of all being, and infinite fractal unfoldings may indicate the potential for a quantum leap in human consciousness, to a new stage of awareness that transcends and includes previous levels, or what the philosopher Jean Gebser called “consciousness structures.”
      
      I suspect that psychedelics play a part in the process of our species evolution—a movement from one structure of consciousness to the next. One hypothesis is that we might be on the threshold of a shift from the biological and physical phase of our evolution to the psychic phase. Whatever comes next, any future for our species will be ecologically strict, and the gnosis we gain from communing with our botanical elders can provide us with crucial insights.

      this article appears in Manifesting Minds: An Anthology from the Multidisciplinary Associat...
      • 

        Avatar > Stick May 26, 2014 at 9:51pm

        I did a little research today and have found that modern day shamanism is alive and well.

        10 Of The Most Influential People In Shamanism Today (U.S. Edition)

        Who are the most influential people in shamanism in the U.S. today? Who shares their knowledge in a way that the most people are able to absorb the information and use it in their lives?

        I’ve started a list of folks I think qualify, with links to more information about them and their teachings. Whether or not you believe in their methods (and I’m staying out of those debates here), I hope this will introduce you to some new teachers and teachings you might not have known about before. Keep in mind that this isn’t about who is the “best” shaman, but rather those with the broadest reach and their teachings are taken in and acted on.

        I’d be interested in hearing your additions and comments--after all I’m new to the field compared to many of you--so leave your thoughts in the comments!

        Here’s the list--in no particular order.

         

        Sandra Ingerman 

        Sandra's seminal book "Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self" is a must read for anyone interested in shamanic healing as it brought soul retrieval into the foreground of healing techniques for practitioners. And her book, "Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner's Guide" is a still a must read for anyone starting out on the shamanic path. Sandra teaches many classes and has published many other books.

        From her site:

        Sandra teaches workshops internationally on shamanic journeying, healing, and reversing environmental pollution using spiritual methods.  She has trained and founded an international alliance of Medicine for the Earth Teachers and shamanic teachers.  Sandra is recognized for bridging ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern culture addressing the needs of our times.

        Sandra is devoted to teaching people how we can work together as a global community to bring about positive change for the planet.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, quotes, and sites we have for ....

        Here's a full list of Sandra's books on Amazon.com

         

        Hank Wesselman 

        We are lucky enough to have several of Hank's articles published on this site. Hank is a fantastic writer with many published works and the shamanic work he is doing in Hawaii is amazing.

        Below is part of Hanks bio from his own site, SharedWisdom:

        Paleoanthropologist Hank Wesselman is a cutting edge scientist who walks in many worlds. He did his undergraduate work and his Masters Degree in Zoology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He then served in the US Peace Corps, living among people of the Yoruba Tribe in Nigeria in the 1960s where he first became interested in indigenous spiritual traditions. He then went on to receive his doctoral degree in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley. For much of the past 40 years, he has conducted research with an international group of scientists, exploring eastern Africa's Great Rift Valley in search of answers to the mystery of human origins. His fieldwork has allowed him to spend much of his life living with tribal peoples rarely, if ever, visited by outsiders, among whom he first encountered traditional shamans.

        Dr. Wesselman is also a shamanic practitioner and teacher, now in the 29th year of his apprenticeship. The books in his autobiographical trilogy Spiritwalker, Medicinemaker, and Visionseeker have been published in 13 languages and reveal the nature of his initiation into the shamans world of mystery and magic, documenting his investigations into a hidden reality that most of us have heard about, but few have experienced directly. Hank is also the author of The Journey to the Sacred Garden book with CD; Spirit Medicine (with Jill Kuykendall)book with CD; The Spiritwalker Teachings (with Jill Kuykendall)--a six CD set with booklet; and Little Ruth Reddingford and the Wolf (with Raquel Abreu) a story for children.

        Last year he co-authored Awakening to the Spirit World with a fellow shamanic practitioner--Sandra Ingerman.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, quotes, and sites we have for Hank on this site.

        Here's a full list of Hank's books on Amazon.com

         

        Michael Harner 

        Harner's seminal work "The Way of the Shaman" was a key factor in the re-imergence of shamanism in western culture. His idea of Core Shamanism identified the similar components in use throughout shamanic communities all over the world and labled those as being core to the idea of shamanism. His school, The Foundation For Shamanic Studies is one of the largest shamanic schools in the world.

        From his bio on the FSS site:

        The founder and president of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, Dr. Michael Harner (Michael J. Harner) pioneered the introduction of shamanism and the shamanic drum journey to contemporary life and is recognized as the world leader in this movement.

        -----

        In his half century of anthropological fieldwork, cross-cultural studies, experimental research, and firsthand experience, Michael Harner arrived at the core methods of shamans worldwide. The applicability of this core shamanism to contemporary Westerners has been substantiated by the experiences of his thousands of students. The experiential methods are simple, safe, and have been used successfully by them with positive life-changing results.

        Honoring the oral tradition of indigenous shamans, for the last quarter of a century Dr. Harner has conveyed his shamanic knowledge first-hand through teaching and experiential work rather than through writing. Today he and his staff annually teach thousands of students internationally who, in turn, introduce thousands more to shamanism.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, quotes, and sites we have for ...

         

        Alberto Villoldo 

        Alberto is a prolific author who spent many years in South America learning the ways of shaman elders. His book, "Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Ener..." covers many of the key healing practices he learned and now teaches in his Light Body School of The Four Winds Society. The Light Body school is one of the largest shamanic shools in the world with classes in many countries.

        From Alberto's bio on The Four Winds site:

        My own journey into shamanism was guided by my desire to become whole. In healing my own soul wounds, I walked the path of the wounded healer and learned to transform the pain, grief, anger and shame that lived within me into sources of strength and compassion. I was able to feel for another’s pain because I knew what it was like to hurt. In the Healing the Light Body School every student embarks on a journey of self-healing in which he or she transforms soul wounds into  sources of power. Participants learn that this is one of the greatest gifts that they will later offer to their clients; the opportunity to discover the power within pain.

        I went back to the roots of the Inka civilization itself to collect the vestiges of a five-thousand-year-old energy medicine that heals through Spirit and light. Scattered throughout the remnants of the empire were a number of sages who remembered the ancient ways. I traveled through countless villages and hamlets and met with scores of medicine men and women. The lack of a written body of knowledge meant that every village had brought its own flavor and style to the healing practices that still survived. I traveled to the Amazon and for more than ten years I trained with the jungle medicine people. Later, I trekked the coast of Peru, from Nazca, site of gigantic markings on the desert floor that depict power animals and geometric figures, to the fabled Shimbe lagoons in the north, home to the country’s most renowned sorcerers. In Lake Titicaca, the Sea on Top of the World, I collected the stories and healing practices of the people from which, the legends say, the Inka were born. What I discovered was a set of sacred technologies that transform the body, heal the soul, and can change the way we live and the way we die. They explain that we are surrounded by a Luminous Energy Field (LEF) whose source is located in infinity. The LEF was a matrix that maintains the health and vibrancy of the physical body.

        Today, I have come to understand that the experience of infinity can heal and transform us, and that it can free us from the temporal chains that keep us fettered to illness, old age, and disease. Over the course of two decades with the shamans in the jungles and high mountains of the Andes, I would discover that I am more than flesh and bone, that I am fashioned of Spirit and. This understanding reverberated through every cell in my body. I am convinced that is has changed the way I heal, the way I age, and the way I will die.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, quotes, and sites we have for ...

        Here's the full list of Alberto's books on Amazon.

         

        John Perkins 

        John Perkins burst on the scene with his stunning tale of greed and corruption in "The Economic Hitman" and followed it up with some of his learnings from the Jungles of South America in "Shapeshifting: Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation". John continues to write and teaches shamanic classes all over the world.

        From his web site:

        John is a founder and board member of Dream Change and The Pachamama Alliance, nonprofit organizations devoted to establishing a world our children will want to inherit, has lectured at more than 50 universities around the world, and is the author of  books on indigenous cultures and transformation, including Shapeshifting, The World Is As You Dream It, Psychonavigation, Spirit of the Shuar, and The Stress-Free Habit. He has been featured on ABC, NBC, CNN, NPR, A&E, the History Channel, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Der Spiegel, and many other publications, as well as in numerous documentaries including The End of Poverty?, Zeitgeist Addendum, and Apology of an Economic Hit Man.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, quotes, and sites we have for ...

         

        Christina Pratt

        I LOVE Christina's weekly podcast, "Why Shamanism Now?" It is consistently some of the best shamanic conversations found anywhere and has a very wide reach. Christina's ability to talk from a space of experience and awe helps bering a better understanding of the work to many of us listeners. Christina also runs a school for shamanic healing and has written the definitive encylopedia for all things shamanic. More from the bio on Chistina's web site The Last Mask Center For Shamanic Healing:

        Shamanic healer, teacher, and author, Christina Pratt, opened the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing in New York in 1990. She has been serving clients on both coasts since then, opening the Center in Portland in 2001. Pratt, a teacher of exceptional clarity, humor, and inspiration, has taught at The Omega Institute, Rowe Center, Hollyhock, Breitenbush Hot Springs, and Sleeping Lady Retreat Center in addition to the workshops produced by Last Mask Center. She is a frequent and honored speaker for the American Holistic Medical Association and local salons. Pratt's book, An Encyclopedia of Shamanism, was received with good reviews. It is available in paper back through our website or in hard cover from Rosen Publishing Group.

        Pratt's training began in 1986 amid a lifetime of dance. Her shamanic work is a synthesis of studies with Ecuadorian, Tibetan, Tamang, and African shamans, the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, the Center for Intuitive Energy Processing, and personal shamanic experience. Masks of Illusions and the Authentic Self was first offered in Hawaii in 1992. The Cycle of Transformation has continued each year since, providing opportunities for transformation and initiation.

        Here's a link to the podcast in iTunes. I recommend this highly.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, quotes, and sites we have for ....

         

        Steven Farmer 

        Farmer has published several books and oracle card sets including one of the best books I've come across on ceremony, "Sacred Ceremony: How to Create Ceremonies for Healing, Transitions,...". He also wrote several books on power animals. More from his bio on his site:

        Dr. Steven Farmer is world-renowned author, Soul Healer, shamanic practitioner, and spiritual teacher. He is the author of the best-selling Earth Magic®, Earth Magic® Oracle Cards, Animal Spirit Guides, Sacred Ceremony, and many other publications, as well as the soon-to-be-released Children's Animal Spirit Cards. He’s also host of his own radio show, Earth Magic® Radio. He conducts workshops on a variety of topics related to Earth Magic®, Soul Healing, shamanism, and Earth-centered spirituality, and offers private consultations one-to-one or by phone for Soul Healing, shamanic therapy, and/or intuitive Earth Magic® Readings.

        As a life-long healer and teacher, he has extensively studied and explored spiritual transformation, trauma recovery, shamanism, hypnotherapy, breathwork, and energy psychology. Dr. Farmer brings a wealth of skills and experience to his writing, teaching, and healing work. He offers clients a unique and powerful synthesis of his many years of experience as a spiritual psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Soul Healer, and shamanic practitioner to afford quick and effective results. His dynamic and entertaining teaching style helps workshop participants fully engage in the experiential learning process.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, and sites we have for Steven o....

        Here's the full list of Farmer's books on Amazon.

         

        Tom Cowan 

        I first came across Tom's work when I read "Shamanism As A Spiritual Practice For Daily Life". Tom is also an editor for "The Journal of Shamanic Practice" the bi-annual journal published by the Society of Shamanic Practitioners. I have really enjoyed Tom's editorial pieces in the journal. This post titled "Building Shamanic Community" is based on his writing in the Fall 2010 issue and includes the paragraph:  

        "Who is practicing shamanism today?" The answer is simple. Us. And we are practicing in ways that are both old and new. We continue to walk into the future adapting our shamanic knowledge, practices, and wisdom in changing times.  We are the indigenous people of this century, this place. Whatever communities form around our work are the right communities.

        More on Tom from the bio on his site, Riverdurm:

        Tom Cowan is a shamanic practitioner specializing in Celtic visionary and healing techniques.  He combines universal core shamanism with traditional European spirit lore to create spiritual practices that can heal and enrich one's own life and the lives of others.  He is an internationally respected teacher, author, lecturer, and tour leader.  He has taught training programs in England, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy; and most recently he was the first American shaman to teach in Slovakia.

        Tom is the author of Yearning For The Wind, Fire in the Head: Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit, Shamanism as a Spiritual Practice for Daily Life, The Pocket Guide to Shamanism, The Book of Seance, The Way of the Saints: Prayers, Practices, and Meditations and Wending Your Way: A New Version of the Old English Rune Poem.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, and sites we have for Tom on t...

         

        Robert Moss 

        Moss' speciality is the world of dreams. He has published 7 books, has several blogs (including on my favorites DreamGate), and teaches courses around the world. More from the bio on his site:

        Robert Moss MA is the pioneer of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of shamanism and modern dreamwork. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming and a lively online dream school. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His seven books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Three "Only" Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence and Imagination and The Secret History of Dreaming.

        Moss describes himself as “a dream teacher, on a path for which there has been no career track in our culture.” He identifies the great watershed in his adult life as a sequence of visionary events that unfolded in 1987-1988, after he decided to leave the world of big cities and the fast-track life of a popular novelist (already the author of four New York Times bestsellers) and put down roots on a farm in the upper Hudson Valley of New York. Moss started dreaming in a language he did not know that proved to be an archaic form of the Mohawk language. Helped by native speakers to interpret his dreams, Moss came to believe that they had put him in touch with an ancient healer – a woman of power – and that they were calling him to a different life.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, quotes, and sites we have for ...

         

        Malidoma Patrice Some 

        Malidoma grew up in Burkina Faso, West Africa in a village where ritual and honoring of the ancestors was a key to their survival. His books tell the amazing tales of how he, and his village, were always learning the importance of this work. Malidoma now gives trainings around the world sharing his stories and teaching people the importance of ancestral work and ritual in any society. More from Malidoma's web site:

        Malidoma, as representative of his village in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and an initiated elder, has come to the west to share the ancient wisdom and practices which have supported his people for thousands of years.

        At this critical time in history, the earth's people are awakening to a deep need for global healing. African wisdom, so long held secret, is being called on to provide tools to enable us to move into a more peaceful and empowered way of being, both within ourselves, and within our communities. The indigenous spirit in each of us is calling for cleansing and reconciliation. The ancestors are responding.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, quotes, and sites we have for ...

        Here's a full list of Malidoma's books on Amazon.

         

        Four Shamans Who Are Still Highly Influential Years After Their Deaths

        Castenada and Eliade are still two of the most widely read shaman in the U.S. and still have a great influence on those walking the path. It just wouldn't have been right to make this list and not have them on it. For many Castenada's work was their first look at shamanism.

        Psychedlic visionary Terrence McKenna, while widely appreciated when he was alive, is now a YouTube sensation.

        And Ayahuascero Pablo Armaringo's art work continues to connect to people, and the work of the vine, throughout the world.

         

        Carlos Castenada 

        Castenada's works are still highly popular some 13 years after his death. More from Wikipedia:

        Starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that describe his training in sorcery. The books, narrated in the first person, relate his experiences under the tutelage of a Yaqui "Man of Knowledge" named don Juan Matus. His 12 books have sold more than 8 million copies in 17 languages. Critics have suggested that they are works of fiction; supporters claim the books are either true or at least valuable works of philosophy and descriptions of practices which enable an increased awareness.

        ----

        Castaneda was the subject of a cover article in the 5 March 1973 (Vol. 101 No. 10) issue of Time. The article described him as "an enigma wrapped in a mystery." When confronted by correspondent Sandra Burton about discrepancies in his personal history, Castaneda responded by saying: "To ask me to verify my life by giving you my statistics...is like using science to validate sorcery. It robs the world of its magic and makes milestones out of us all". The interviewer wrote that "Castaneda makes the reader experience the pressure of mysterious winds and the shiver of leaves at twilight, the hunter's peculiar alertness to sound and smell, the rock-bottom scrubbiness of Indian life, the raw fragrance of tequila and the vile, fibrous taste of peyote, the dust in the car, and the loft of a crow's flight. It is a superbly concrete setting, dense with animistic meaning. This is just as well, in view of the utter weirdness of the events that happen in it." Following that interview, Castaneda retired from public view.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, quotes, and sites we have for ...

        Here's the full list of Castenada's book on Amazon.

         

        Mircea Eliade 

        Some 25 years after his death, Eliade's book "Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy" is a must read for many folks starting out on the shamanic path. More from Wikipedia:

        Eliade's scholarly work includes a well-known study of shamanism, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, a survey of shamanistic practices in different areas. His Myths, Dreams and Mysteries also addresses shamanism in some detail.

        In Shamanism, Eliade argues for a restrictive use of the word shaman: it should not apply to just any magician or medicine man, as that would make the term redundant; at the same time, he argues against restricting the term to the practitioners of the sacred of Siberia and Central Asia (it is from one of the titles for this function, namely, šamán, considered by Eliade to be of Tungusic origin, that the term itself was introduced into Western languages). Eliade defines a shaman as follows:

        he is believed to cure, like all doctors, and to perform miracles of the fakir type, like all magicians [...] But beyond this, he is a psychopomp, and he may also be a priest, mystic, and poet.

        If we define shamanism this way, Eliade claims, we find that the term covers a collection of phenomena that share a common and unique "structure" and "history".[135] (When thus defined, shamanism tends to occur in its purest forms in hunting and pastoral societies like those of Siberia and Central Asia, which revere a celestial High God "on the way to becoming a deus otiosus".Eliade takes the shamanism of those regions as his most representative example.)

        In his examinations of shamanism, Eliade emphasizes the shaman's attribute of regaining man's condition before the "Fall" out of sacred time: "The most representative mystical experience of the archaic societies, that of shamanism, betrays the Nostalgia for Paradise, the desire to recover the state of freedom and beatitude before 'the Fall'."[133] This concern—which, by itself, is the concern of almost all religious behavior, according to Eliade—manifests itself in specific ways in shamanism.

        Here's the blog posts, links, books, quotes, and sites we have for ....

         

        Terrence McKenna 

        11 years after his death McKenna's YouTube videos explaining his world views, the details of how psychedelics heal, and 2012 are wildly popular. Here's a description from Wired magazine highlighting the wild ride that was his life:

        McKenna got his 15 minutes of fame when four of his books came out in rapid succession. His 1991 collection of essays,The Archaic Revival, is particularly influential, especially among ravers and other alternative tribes attracted to the idea that new technologies and ancient pagan rites point toward the same ecstatic truths.Food of the Gods, published in 1992, aims directly at the highbrows. In it, McKenna lays out a solid if unorthodox case that psychedelics helped kick-start human consciousness and culture, giving our mushroom-munching ancestors a leg up on rivals by enhancing their visual and linguistic capacities.

        Though anthropologists ignored his arguments, the time was right for McKenna's visions. He was tempted with movie deals, got featured in magazines, and toured like a madman. He hobnobbed with Silicon Valley hotshots like interface gurus Brenda Laurel and Jaron Lanier and performed at raves with techno groups like the Shamen. Timothy Leary called him "the Timothy Leary of the 1990s."

        McKenna also was a popularizer of virtual reality and the Internet, arguing as early as 1990 that VR would be a boon to psychedelicists and businesspeople alike. But unlike Leary, who planned to use the Net as a stage for his final media prank, McKenna realized that the Internet would be the place where psychedelic culture could flourish on its own. "Psychedelics were always about information," McKenna observes. "Their very existence was forbidden knowledge at one point. You had to be Aldous Huxley to even know about them."

         

        Pablo Amaringo 

        An acclaimed ayahuascero (practitioner of ayahuasca ceremonies) who put his ayahuasca visions on canvas, Pablo's legacy continues to grow. From Pablo's site:

        Although he had a brief formal education, most of Pablo's hard lessons were learned simply from living. He experienced difficulty conforming to the conventions of a small jungle village and he had problems with his health. Yet Pablo was always able to retreat into nature and commune with the spirits of plants and the beings of the forest. A powerful healing tool available to Pablo was the visionary botanical brew ayahuasca. Born from experience, his direct understanding of the spirit realm led him to become a shaman, a doctor, and a maestro.

        When he stopped practicing shamanism, Pablo declared: "Ayahuasca is not something to be taken lightly. It can kill not because it is in itself toxic, but because the body may not be strong enough to receive so much knowledge and wisdom." After this, he discovered a mission that lasted the rest of his life: to communicate the teachings of the spiritual world beyond language, by painting his visions.

        Pablo's art school, "USKO-AYAR", became his instrument for teaching love and understanding of the Amazonian culture and environment–and no one can love something that he or she does not know. Pablo's lines were faultless. The forest and the plumage of birds inspired his colors. His paintings materialized out of an invisible world, yet one that is our home, our habitat, our planet.

        Pablo's most famous book, "Ayahausca Visions":

        http://www.shamanswell.org/shaman/famous-shamans-influential-writer...
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        Avatar > Stick May 26, 2014 at 2:15am

        Stick, I often think with sadness of all the Native American shamans who were destroyed and what they could have taught us. I am proud to be descended from Geronimo an Apache shaman...I wish I would have paid closer attention to the stories my mom used to tell us about him.

        It's my hope is that one day the earth will once again be as it once was where we can partake of the psychedelic herbs, opening our minds to all of our possibilities...without the wars of course. :)

        Thank you for sharing this article...very interesting.

        <3,

        Avatar
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  Stick May 24, 2014 at 5:37am

  AsAbove

  

  SoBelow

  “It's clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. These are the two things that the psychedelics attack. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it's not easy.”... “This is why the shaman is the remote ancestor of the poet and artist. Our need to feel part of the world seems to demand that we express ourselves through creative activity. The ultimate wellsprings of this creativity are hidden in the mystery of language. Shamanic ecstasy is an act of surrender that authenticates both the individual self and that which is surrendered to, the mystery of being. Because our maps of reality are determined by our present circumstances, we tend to lose awareness of the larger patterns of time and space. Only by gaining access to the Transcendent Other can those patterns of time and space and our role in them be glimpsed.” ~Terence McKenna
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  Michael May 24, 2014 at 4:21am

  .......that brings some memories back. I dont do psychedelic medicine due to personal awakening , I had experienced but advocate it to those who need to find personal self, and its awakening to the truth of self evolution. I dont do acid, shrooms but delight in ganja as it is lesser high for me. Truth ~ i cant handle anything else................that everything else might be good for many folks to experience.

  .....( one of these days , I'll have a special shaman tea thou )
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    Avatar > Michael May 24, 2014 at 4:51am

    It's interesting, Michael but I cannot drink alcohol...even a sip and I used to be able to put it away. I have not done shrooms or acid in years and do not think my body could handle that either. I wish I could get my hands on some ganja but lost all connections so am without that. When I was younger I liked speed but cannot stand that now...I'm into clam and relaxed. My high is meditation but when you get that shaman tea going let me know...I might like to try that. ;)
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      Michael > Avatar May 25, 2014 at 1:59pm

      ........when I was younger I drank massive amounts of alcohol , Avatar , which actually landed me in mental hospital for depression and suicidal tendencies. My entire life was engulfed by feeling sorry for my self and my challenging childhood I had experienced. I thought that alcohol will take that pain away however how wrong was I ........I remember my first time I puffed on mary~jane and when my entire life changed. But shrooms and acid dont work for me at all , they make me do stupid things and for that reason I havent done any in yrs. Last time I did shrooms I blacked out and have no recolection of 48 hrs and my neighbors found me sleeping in the middle of dirt road next to my property in Missouri ( kinda scary ). Last time I did acid , I was at second Loolapalooza where I thought entire show was happening in the astral levels but what I didnt like about it , was the fact that I lost control over my body and mind.................I like my pot, its kind, its easy, calming and gives me still clear picture of my reality. Its good medicine for bipolar, manic depressive surviver like me.

      great picture feathers