Shamans, Healers, Authors – Page 2

Shipibo Ayahuasca Shaman Leoncio Garcia Interviewed

Submitted by Howard G. Charing

The Shipibo are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Peruvian Amazon. These ethnic groups each have their own languages, traditions and culture. The Shipibo which currently number about 20,000 are spread out in communities through the Pucallpa / Ucayali river region. They are highly regarded in the Amazon as being masters of Ayahuasca, and many aspiring shamans and Ayahuasqueros from the region study with the Shipibo to learn their language, chants, and plant medicine knowledge. In this article we interview the Shipibo maestro Leoncio Garcia.

We interviewed Shipibo maestro Leoncio Garcia, a man in his mid seventies but with the appearance of a man twenty years younger. Again a testimonial to the youth giving qualities of Ayahuasca and the plant medicines of the Amazon Rainforest.

Interviewed at Mishana Private Retreat Centre, Amazon Rainforest with Peter Cloudsley August 2005.

Leoncio Garcia

I didn’t become a shaman until I was 50. I am now 74. I was always so busy working in the chacra, or cutting wood, it was only when I began to get a bit older. Until then I had taken Ayahuasca for all the usual reasons of health, but that was all. After deciding to do the diet I drank Ayahuasca seriously but I didn’t see anything and didn’t think I would learn anything but still I kept on drinking every night and didn’t sleep. With just one day to go before completing three months’ diet, I had a tremendous vision and I began to chant and continued all night until dawn. I saw under the earth, under the water, and into the skies, everything. Probably I was learning from the sprits during the diet but I didn’t understand. After that I could see what the matter was with people. I dieted pinon Colorado and tobacco first and then tried all the other plants.

This was in San Francisco, a Shipibo community on Yarinacocha, Pucullpa where I was born. After this I went to Huancayo for six months to try my medicine. Then I went to Ayacucho and then a Senor took me to Lima to heal his wife. After two months I was taken to Trujillo and then Arequipa, Cusco, Juliaca, Puno. Everything worked out well and I worked with a doctor once who was not very successful and soon there were people queuing outside her consultancy. Eventually I came to Iquitos in 2000 and I haven’t had time to return to my family since then, I just send them money.

When I go round to people blowing tobacco smoke it is to give them arcanas, to protect them so that when things happen around them it doesn’t hurt them or make them ill.

Leoncio tells a Shipibo (cautionary) myth?

There was once a wise man called Oni who knew what each and every healing plant could be used for. He knew all their names and one day he saw a liana and recognized it as Ayahuasca and he learned to mix it with Chacruna. One night he tried it and learned so many things that he carried on drinking it. But because he went on drinking so long and often he stopped eating and drinking, and just chanted day and night. Now he had two sons and they said ‘come and have breakfast Papa’, but he carried on drinking Ayahuasca and when they tried to pick him up, he was stuck to the ground and couldn’t be moved. So they left him chanting to all the plants everyday and night and they noticed that Ayahuasca was growing out from his fingers. So the sons went back to their chacras and after a month came back again, to see their father. Everywhere Ayahuasca ropes had tangled around him and still he continued chanting day after day and the forest carried on growing around him. After a few more months, he had merged with the forest itself and that is why it’s called Ayahuasca, rope of the dead and in Shipibo Oni.

Howard G. Charing is a partner in Eagle’s Wing Centre for Contemporary Shamanism. His initiation into the world of Shamanism was sudden, which was caused by a serious accident, which resulted in severe injuries and a near-death experience. After many months of physical pain and disability, he had a transformational experience, which started him on a path to healing. If you like to know more about his work, Howard conducts “Plant Spirit Medicine” journeys to the Amazon Rainforest.

Alex Grey Artwork Sacred Mirrors

Alex Grey was born in Columbus, Ohio on November 29, 1953, the middle child of a gentle middle-class couple. His father, a graphic designer, encouraged his son’s drawing ability. Young Alex would collect insects and dead animals from the suburban neighbourhood and bury them in the back garden. The themes of death and transcendence weave throughout his artworks, from the earliest drawings to later performances, paintings and sculpture.

At the Boston Museum School – which he attended for a year – he met his future wife, the artist, Allyson Rymland Grey. During this period he had a series of entheogenically induced mystical experiences that transformed his agnostic existentialism to a radical transcendentalism.

Alex also spent 5 years at Harvard Medical School working in the Anatomy department studying the body and preparing cadavers for dissection. He also worked at Harvard’s department of Mind/Body Medicine with Dr. Herbert Benson and Dr. Joan Borysenko conducting scientific experiments to investigate subtle healing energies. Alex’s anatomical training prepared him for painting the Sacred Mirrors – a unique series of 21 life-size paintings – and for doing medical illustration. When doctors saw his Sacred Mirrors, they asked him to do illustration work.

Grey was an instructor in Artistic Anatomy and Figure Sculpture for 10 years at New York University, and now teaches courses in Visionary Art with his wife Allyson at The Open Center in New York City, Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, the California Institute of Integral Studies and Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York.

In 1972 Grey began a series of art actions that bear resemblance to rites of passage, in that they present stages of a developing psyche. The approx. 50 performance rites, conducted over the last 30 years move through transformations from an egocentric to more sociocentric and increasingly worldcentric and theocentric identity. The most recent performance was WorldSpirit, a spoken word and musical collaboration with Kenji Williams which was released in 2004 as a DVD.

The Sacred Mirrors series, take the viewer on a journey toward their own divine nature by examining, in detail, the body, mind and spirit. The Sacred Mirrors present the physical and subtle anatomy of an individual in the context of cosmic, biological and technological evolution. Begun in 1979, the series took 10 years to complete. It was during this period that he developed his depictions of the human body that “x-ray” the multiple layers of reality and reveal the interplay of anatomical and spiritual forces. After painting the Sacred Mirrors, he applied this multidimensional perspective to such archetypal human experiences as praying, meditation, kissing, copulating, pregnancy, birth, nursing and dying. Alex’s recent work has explored the subject of consciousness from the perspective of “universal beings” whose bodies are grids of fire, eyes and infinite galactic swirls.

To find out more and to purchase Alex Grey’s products click HERE or browse below…

Black Elk Speaks John G Neihardt

Black Elk Speaks is the story of the Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk, (1863-1950) and his people during the momentous twilight years of the 19th century. Black Elk met the distinguished poet, writer, and critic John G. Neihardt (1881-1973), in 1930 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and chose to tell Neihardt his story. Neihardt understood and conveyed Black Elk’s experiences in this powerful and inspirational message meant for all humankind. When Black Elk received his great vision, white settlers were invading the Lakotas’ homeland, decimating buffalo herds, and threatening to extinguish the Lakotas’ way of life. The Lakotas’ fought fiercely to retain their freedom and way of life, a dogged resistance that resulted in a remarkable victory at the Little Bighorn, and an unspeakable tragedy at Wounded Knee. Black Elk Speaks offers much more than a precious glimpse of a vanished time however. As related by Neihardt, Black Elk’s searing visions of the unity of humanity and the earth have made this book a venerated spiritual classic. Whether appreciated as the poignant tale of a Lakota life, a history of a Native nation, or an enduring spiritual testament, “Black Elk Speaks” is truly unforgettable. The new edition below, features 2 additional essays by John G. Neihardt that further illuminate his experience with Black Elk; an essay by Alexis Petri, great-granddaughter of John G. Neihardt, that celebrates Neihardt’s remarkable accomplishments; and a look at the legacy of the special relationship between Neihardt and Black Elk, written by Lori Utecht, editor of “Knowledge and Opinion: Essays and Literary Criticism of John G. Neihardt”.

Healers Shamans And Psychic Surgeons Of The Philippines Part 2 Jun Labo

Submitted by Howard G. Charing

Together with my colleague Patrick Hamouy (of Alternative Therapies) , we met with Jun and were his guest recently at his residence in the mountain regions of northern Luzon, its location and altitude in the Cordiella mountain range keep it cool and pleasant during the hot and extremely humid summer months. His house is somewhat of an Oriental palace, with pagodas, roof gardens, terraces within terraces, large statues of lions, eagles, frogs, gnomes, and with an eclectic mixture of painted murals and bas-reliefs of ancient Chinese symbols, and warriors in combat. The gardens are filled with beautiful blossoms, and exotic tropical trees, and of course the local mountain pines. Jun has also dedicated a ‘shrine’ to his first car (a VW Beetle) in the grounds.

Jun is an enigma within the enigma, on the one hand he was (and still is) a political figure of significant influence. He was Mayor of Baguio City, and twice Governor of the province. He is world famous in the area of healing, and featured in the film ‘Exploring the Unknown’ (1977) narrated by Burt Lancaster. Jun is also proud that he has been ‘officially’ tested by doctors in the USA. He was wired up to all kinds of monitors, at Wisconsin University, and observed by a team of medical doctors and surgeons, and his healing was proclaimed genuine.

So on the one hand there is the man Jun Labo, an extrovert personality, extremely confident, very flamboyant, a former playboy, politician and celebrity, and on the other hand there is the extraordinary powerful healer Jun Labo. Prior to a healing sessions, in which any number to 40 people receive individual healing, Jun starts with his prayers which includes facing what in shamanism would be calling in the powers of the ‘four directions’ and burns incense to raise the energy and vibration of the healing room. It is at his prayers and meditation which preclude the healing session, that you feel a perceptible shift, Jun changes in some way, and you can feel that you are in the presence of ‘something’ or ‘other-worldly’. Jun at that moment becomes (and not just figuratively speaking) a true ‘walker between the worlds’, a shaman in all but name.

Jun always insists that it is the ‘holy spirit’ that is working directly through his hands, and that he is only an instrument. Again we come to this situation where we attempt to describe in words the mystery of the spiritual forces which carry out the actual healing. What is the ‘holy spirit’, without question it has the characteristics of an external force or power. However to simply say that it is an invisible or incorporeal being is not fully satisfactory, even though my experiences have indicated that is what it is!

I recall a particular incident back in 2000 when I was working with the psychic surgeon Roger Delin in Baguio. I would go everyday to Roger’s house and sit with him just chatting and drinking tea, and then he would abruptly stand up and say let’s start. Anyway on this particular day, we seemed to be sitting around waiting for longer than usual. So I asked Roger why we were waiting for so long, he said “the spirit has not arrived yet, I get a nudge from the spirit when he is here” It was at that moment, it felt as if someone had given me a massive shove in the back, I looked around but there was no one there, behind me was empty. I looked at Roger; he smiled and said “time to start!”

Jun was born on 23 December 1934 in Dagupan City in Pangasinan, Philippines. His parents belonged to the “Union Espiritista Christiana de Filipinas” (a spiritualist church that has taught numerous healers in the Philippines). Jun’s mother was a psychic dentist and she forced Jun to go to church on Sundays. Jun was not keen on spending part of his Sunday in church and used to sneak out to play with his friends. As an interesting note, all the Philippines psychic surgeons I have met, even though they may practice in Baguio or Manila, all come from Pangasinan province, yet another enigma.

One Sunday, he became paralysed during a church ceremony. In a state of shock and with fear, he witnessed his first apparition of Jesus. This was Jun’s first encounter with Jesus who was to become one of his spirit guides for all healing.

His first healing experience came when he was accompanying his mother on a religious walk. One woman collapsed and Jun instinctively began rubbing her chest. Blood spurted out and Jun ran away in fear. The crowd brought him back and asked him to finish the healing. Jun carried on rubbing the woman’s chest and she fully recovered.

Jun’s diagnosis techniques

In order to find out the condition of a patient, Jun holds a sheet in front of the patient and uses it as a form of psychic x-ray. Through it, he is able to see spots inside the patient’s body. If the spots are dark, then the disease is serious (location and number of tumours are shown to him). If the spots are bright, it is not so serious.

In the film I mentioned earlier, Jun was operating on a Filipino patient suffering from eye problems. To diagnose the patient, Jun used his sheet as an X-ray and doing so, spotted something in the throat of Alan Newman (the producer of the documentary) who was standing behind the patient. After a successful operation on the Filipino, he asked Alan to lie down and operated on his throat, removing a large quantity of pus from it. Newman later confirmed that he had had problem with his throat for the past 8 years but had not told. After the surgery, Newman was able to breathe freely for the first time in 8 years.

My personal experiences with Jun Labo

I first met Jun three years ago, I was experiencing an ongoing lethargy, and lack of energy. He put a white sheet a few inches above me, and then quickly without any words, opened my body with his hands. There was no pain or discomfort, just a sensation of being touched. He took out a tangled mass of tissue from my chest. I looked back again and my skin had resealed. I then mentioned to him that my sinus area was blocked, he immediately and without any words, inserted his finger in my nostril and pushed it up. He then withdrew his finger with a piece of solid rubberised snot about 3 inches in length, and the thickness of my thumb attached to it. And that was it, a procedure which took about 10 minutes if that. I asked him what the problem was with my chest, and he said that one of my heart valves was blocked. I left his house breathing clearly, and filled with energy, a moment of true elation.

On my recent visit with Jun, I mentioned that my throat was feeling blocked. He removed a non cancerous growth the size of a tangerine from there, and then made another opening, and significant amount of thick pus and phlegm poured out. Patrick who was videoing all of this, was making some comments with regards to the ‘yeech’ factor as this was going on!

I witnessed and videoed a number of operations on Patrick. And as the platitude goes ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ we will be releasing some of our video footage so people can see (and hear) for themselves.

When I talked with Jun about shamanism, and how the shamans heal, he very much resonated with that and felt very much at home with that, even though he doesn’t define himself as a shaman.

Jun has a desire to teach healers, and has co-founded with Patrick (as Vice President), the International School of Metaphysical Healing and Development. This school will be based in Baguio. I have been invited to be an Associate Vice President and both Patrick and I will be bringing people interested in receiving healing from Jun, as well as learning and being trained in this form of metaphysical healing. Jun conducts a test on the apprentice or aspiring healer (I’m glad I passed!). He takes the index finger of the person, blows on it, makes a prayer and then runs the persons finger of a patient’s body. The finger running along the body makes an opening and draws blood. The opening is instantly closed as soon as the finger moves (I also have this on video).

Spiritual Traditions Of The Andes Doris Rivera Lenz Howard G Charing Peter Cloudsley Part 2

Submitted by Howard G. Charing

Part 2: A look at the rich and powerful spiritual legacy of the Andean civilization which is only now being properly recognised after 500 years of obscurity. This interview of Doris Rivera Lenz, was conducted by Howard G. Charing & Peter Cloudsley. This interview appeared in Sacred Hoop Magazine Issue 57, and the book Plant Spirit Shamanism (Destiny Books USA).

Are people who come to you for coca divination often unwell?

If you ask me if people are unwell, the majority are unwell, in their spirit or mind, there are lots of problems today. They are particularly afflicted in the stomach, the solar plexus, and the belly button. It’s the place of emotional pain, and also where we are joined to life. This is what ayahuasca is, the rope that connects us to life.

What about people who sense that their bad luck is caused by someone putting a hex on them. What do you do? Can you send the hex back to its place of origin?

The first thing is to discover what is going on in the present. The wife had an accident, the husband was unfaithful, they haven’t got a job, the house is falling down… Then I look to see their capacity to accept a criticism, to listen to the mother leaf ticking them off saying: you have done this, you are insecure, weak, a drunk, or a prostitute. What is the story? Is it karmic or something that they are doing?

When there is jealousy in the jungle the black brujo might send out virotes (poisoned darts in the spirit world) while a good shaman blows mapacho tobacco smoke, and cleanses you with his shacapa leaves, but this sounds like a more psychological approach, you are seeing what people are doing themselves. How do you make sense of the belief that the problem is caused by sorcery?

You have to show the person he is not the victim of sorcery and that he is creating the problem in his mind. They need to go back over it; talking about it brings it out and is the first part of becoming well again.

It is true that some people will take vengeance through black magic when they feel prejudiced or offended in some way, because they are sick. When people think they have power and feel superior, the ego can become very negative. The first thing I do is to wake up the consciousness of the person who has been harmed and tell them that evil does not exist! ‘You are inventing it’, I tell them. Black brujos do exist of course, but you need to use a bit of psychology.

The power of black magic does not exist?

Neither good nor bad exists, it is a universe, and we create the good and the bad. But I recognise that the person may feel attacked. When someone falls ill it means they are weak and the curandero must speak positively and encourage them to shine light on it. Then they can create positive thoughts for themselves. If I agree and say they are bewitched its makes them worse.

I see you are trying to shift that person’s reality around but do you recognise that it can exist?

Of course, but the act itself is not so powerful as white magic, it is the negative spirit of the black brujo which creates the power of the spell. If you get hold of a chicken and take off its feathers, put a toad inside, and hang it in the doorway of a hated neighbour, you can give them a nasty fright, but without a powerful negative spirit nothing will happen. But if the intentions are very negative and the person is weak they will pick it up quickly.

The most powerful brujos are found in the jungle where there are powerful plants for healing just as there are dangerous plants that can paralyse your body and so on. But plants have much more wisdom than people. Do you think that if I go to a floripondio and say I want help to do harm to so and so, that it will be at my disposal? You have to make a pact with the spirit.

Do people need to believe that your ceremony has done something?

When people trust that you are a white curandero they open up, you have special permission to go into their soul, and work with suggestion. Lets say you give them a bath in a herb with spines, and you ask permission from the spirit of that plant to heal the person with fright or a bad spell – you bathe them, you put them on a diet, you cleanse them and purify them. You call their soul and give them strength and they get well.

You are a psychologist?

Its OK to say that.

A lot depends on the mind and education of the person. Some curanderos hardly speak to their clients, do they?

Yes, I talk a lot, but there are times when I can’t say anything.

Is there something similar going on when you pass eggs over people?

There are several ways of working with an egg. We know that an egg is the union of the masculine and the feminine. We should recognise that this union is supremely sacred. We are the product of an egg too. So the egg is the total energy of the mother’s and the father’s cells. You take the first egg of a hen, which is virgin, and ask the ‘angelic’, elemental spirit to take away the illness of a person, you ask the spirit for permission to do it. Then you pass it over their body, its like an X-Ray. You can also do it with guinea-pigs or rabbits, but I don’t like doing it with animals.

Is it a mechanical process or is there a link between you and the client?

There is a link, a connection with the spirit of the egg, because I don’t have X-Ray eyes. When I break the egg into a glass of water, there is no set interpretation that says that a bubble here always means this or that. The moment the human mind comes into the passing of the egg or a coca leaf reading, the process goes out of balance. If I want to comfort you, and I say: you’re not going to die, you’ll be OK, its spoiled.

The fact that there is a long tradition behind these methods of divination helps you?

Of course, its an ancestral thing.

What is different about people from the West? What do they need?

Their heads cutting off! No, its only a joke!

To be serious though, their religion has failed them, the church authorities have kept vested interests and institutions going. Eventually people have thrown the baby out with the bath water. In Peru, the campesinos have never really believed in the European religion, the Pope, sin, guilt etc. which has only confused them.

When the Inca Atahualpa was told by the Spanish he should be baptized, he replied: ‘No, I won’t change my God, for a God which has died already. I believe in one with never dies.’ Mother Earth is the feminine aspect of God, and father Sun is the masculine aspect, and we are a product of that. We are Gods and we should believe in ourselves first. Its fine to have Gods; the Oriental ones, an Inca, an extra-terrestrial, Buddha or Crishna, but there will never be anything like Mother Earth and the Sun, or the moon. Think what would happen if we lost them? That is God!

All Gods come through Nature. You can have as many Gods as you want, it doesn’t close any doors, no one is being judged, but what has become of Western religion? Materialism, loss of identity, loss of customs. How can we help people in the face of the avalanche of problems being created today? Cut off their heads? Give them a heavy dose of positive cosmic radiation?

There is so much struggle today. Take the climatic changes, for example, it shouldn’t be raining at this time in Cusco, yet it is pouring down, so people are no longer thinking about nature but money and the help they need. People have become completely insecure. Imagine if we went to live in nature again, surrounded by mountains, or in the rainforest, in nature.

Yet the tendency today is for everybody to want to move into the cities everywhere, to live like America, build motorways.

Its sad. I’ve spent time with people in the Andes. I have seen people leaving their traditional clothes and customs for the Maranata religion. They are a group that says why do you believe in the Earth, the Sun, the puma and the condor? Again religion controlling the Andean campesino. These people go to the city and see a TV and think, ‘what a beautiful TV!’ They sell their llamas and buy one. I am sad to see their children who are so pure, being contaminated.

They learn negative habits and are hypnotized, and no longer want to work their land. It really hurts in my soul to see a Q’ero curandero obsessing about dollars meanwhile forgetting his power. This loss of values for material things is happening so fast, its incredible! It’s the Western influence which has been working over 500 years.

They see on TV the huge kinds of potatoes which can be produced using fertilizers, and they think ‘how beautiful, I want that’, but they don’t know how the earth is ruined by fertilizers.

What do you see happening in the future on a planetary level?

People will get a nasty shock from seeing the increasing changes and natural disasters on the earth and we will be shocked into changing.

The only way we can change?

Unfortunately yes. To avoid the fear we need to work daily to balance ourselves, so that the collective fear will not infect us. Even if those around you are overcome you must be a maestro and maintain your centre. We have forgotten the power that an offering has, look how we are eating this chocolate and we have forgotten to give a little to the Earth.

Every body worries about their future, no? But there will come a time when no one will want to consult about it any more, they will have finally woken up to the realisation that there is no future in the way we are going. They will be shocked into living in the present and this will create a new human being. We will realise that individualism doesn’t work and this will unite us in a shared future.

The desperation will show the necessity of love. Who will want to do harm or be aggressive when money and material things have become useless? We will come back to a new kind of community consciousness. We are beginning to anticipate all this and becoming more conscious, but we are swerving about. However, people who see only the material world, are blind to it and live isolated from humanity. What happens to them when there is an earthquake or tidal wave? This is what Pachacuti is about, an awakening of a new consciousness, a return.

There is so much wisdom in nature, she rears us like her children, teaches us to ask permission, to care for her like ourselves.

Bonnie Glass Coffin The Gift Of Life Female Spirituality And Healing In Northern

Posted by Ina Woolcott

Based on over 5 years worth of field work Gift of Life is a gift to anyone who is fascinated by different cultural ways of knowing, and the forms of cultural resistance and adaptation that enable a society to endure. In this uniquely personal account of the lives and healing arts of female shamans in northern Peru, Glass-Coffin alternates journal style writings about her personal experiences with ethnographic description. Her analytical essays explore the concepts of sorcery, shamanism, witchcraft, case studies of Peruvian women and their ritual healing techniques, the healers’ religious and symbolic space, and the healing attributes unique to women. They alternate with chapters in which Glass-Coffin describes her introduction to Peru as a high school student, the traditional roles she adopted in her host family, the crisis that rocked her identity, her first ritual contact with a female healer, and her own tumultuous but in the end rewarding healing journey under two female shamans. Male shamans, she concludes, sally forth into the spirit world to do individual combat with the sources of spiritual illness, and female shamans try to involve their patients more directly in their own healing.

This is a very readable and enjoyable book that introduces the reader to the pre-contact world of the Peruvian Indians, and links that reality to the post-contact trauma of the people today. The Gift of Life brings a wonderful combination of beautiful storytelling and academic, anthropological research.

Hermana Mari Interview Spiritquest Iquitos Peru

Held at Spirit Quest, Iquitos, Peru

January 2, 2001

Conducted and redacted by Victoria Alexander Translator: Howard Lawler

Victoria can be reached at Kwanitaka@aol.com

VA: Hermana Mari, how do you prepare for an ayahuasca ceremony?

HM: I call the spirits to bring the medicine and to help the brothers and sisters here on earth.

VA: Do you know what each participant is experiencing during an ayahuasca ceremony?

HM: Yes. I can communicate with all the elements: The water, the earth, and the air in the heavens and all the aspects of the body that the healing can be applied to. In the case of each person present in the ceremony we sing an icaro [a power song] that is special for their needs. So in some cases don Romulo and I sing an icaro for more than one person because it may appropriate for more than one person. But in many cases, we sing different icaros for each person.

VA: During the second ayahuasca ceremony, one participant, Tom, appeared to be having grave difficulty. What happened to him?

HM: Tom was very out of his body. He had transcended his body. He left his body. Don Romulo and I called for power so that Tom would not hurt himself – or his body would not hurt itself – while he was in that state. He was re-uniting with a lot of his friends back home through soul flight. What he was experiencing is called soul flight. He hadn’t lost his consciousness. To the contrary, he was quite conscious. He just wasn’t conscious within the confines of his body. You can fly into the stars, into the moon.

VA: So Tom’s situation wasn’t a crisis. You did not perceive Tom as being in any kind of trouble.

HM: No. It was just a state one can arrive at with this, and everyone should. It’s more frightening to the inexperienced observer than it is to the person experiencing it, or to a person who doesn’t know where they are.

VA: Is there a qualitative difference whether you know or don’t know you are having an out-of-body experience?

H. LAWLER: Yes. There is a qualitative difference and these are aspects of the universal shamanic experience. The soul flight is a fundamental component of the shamanic experience, however attained. This is one way that facilitates this profoundly. There are other ways. One can attain this same state through trance rhythm, such as drumming. But it takes more concentration and it usually takes longer. Sometimes it’s an easier path than this. Ayahuasca is initially not an easy path for many. But it can help one achieve access to shamanic realms sooner than later if you are well prepared and properly guided.

VA: Last night’s ceremony was quite different than the previous two. It seemed to be directed towards healing the participants.

HM: It was pure healing. It was pure medicine. It was intended to be calmer last night. To bring everyone together into a calmer mode so that you could see the power of ayahuasca and the power of the plants of the forest. The purpose was to see that they are pure medicine. If you had the same kind of visions like the previous night it would have distracted you from this purpose. Heavy visions would have distracted everyone from the true focus of the ceremony. Ayahuasca is not all about visions. There are powerful dimensions to it.

VA: What about the dosage given to each participant. I asked for a small amount more.

HM: And what happened to you? What was the effect of taking more ayahuasca?

VA: It was difficult for the visions to come on. It was more physically painful.

HM: The direction of the ceremony last night was for pure healing and understanding.

VA: Is the experience dosage independent?

HM: Yes, yes. However, we vary the dosage from person to person. Some more, some less, to bring a person into the right level of the experience. Because what is the right level is not the same for everybody. It varies.

VA: Does the intensity of five-hour ceremonies exhaust you?

HM: All kinds of doctors come into my body. Many times during the ceremony spirits come into my body until its over. But we don’t surrender (to weariness).

H. LAWLER: Hermana Mari and don Romulo are mediums while in the ceremony. When they take flight they still have knowledge of what’s happening in their body. But they are not there. And when they are not there the invited spirits – the spirit doctors – which could be the spirit of a plant or is often the spirit of a deceased shaman – come into their bodies. With some shamans it’s an animal. It could be animal, plant, human, or ethereal spirit that has never had a corporeal body. They have allied with these spirits in the spirit world and call them with the icaros. Each icaro has a purpose in terms of what spirit ally is summoned and what is the intent of the curandero. The curanderos, by their very name and nature, are pure healers. They evoke these spiritual powers principally for the purpose of healing and divination. Whereas, brujos may use malevolent powers summoned in the same way but for different purposes harmful to others. There are different spirits for different purposes. Some are not beneficial or benevolent.

VA: How do you distinguish the difference in spirits?

HM: The spirits I want to work with – the good spirits – come to me just in the forefront. I do not consent to the arrival of bad spirits. I can tell the difference. For me, I invoke the protection of Christ. During the ceremony when I’m working I see The Shining Cross. This is for everyone’s protection: La Cruz Luminosa.

VA: How did you begin your work? Who did you study with?

HM: Jesus is my teacher. Jesus is all powerful. I was born with this mentality. At the time I was eight years old I began my work. I began to hear prayers and I began looking for people who were ill in order to heal them by prayer. You can feel when enemies or friends come. You feel palpitations in your muscles. If you get that, it means an enemy is coming. An enemy is coming to you and you mentally begin to pray. And this prayer weakens the enemy. I use prayer and the sign of the cross.

VA: Do you ever advise someone not to take ayahuasca?

HM: We embrace everyone who comes and we give them the medicine and send them out on the path of their choice. We don’t have any separatism or judgment regarding whatever path one comes to.

VA: Do you ever take ayahuasca outside of the ceremony environment? Do you ever use it for your own purpose?

HM: No. I always take ayahuasca in the context of my work.

H. LAWLER: Hermana Mari works with another shaman when she’s not working with us in SpiritQuest. Don Romulo lives a rather long distance away – nearly four hours away by boat and he’s not in Iquitos often – so when we are not working here Hermana Mari maintains her neighborhood healing practice. She works with another shaman who is also a good curandero and a man of high integrity. However we usually work with don Romulo and Hermana Mari in SpiritQuest.

VA: Hermana Mari, tell me about your neighborhood practice.

HM: It is my main practice. Working with SpiritQuest is the exception to my practice. SpiritQuest is the only work I do with people outside my culture. Tuesday and Friday nights are ceremonial nights for me. If there are people who are gravely ill, I will work any day. Whatever day is needed for the healing I’ll work, but my scheduled healing ceremonies for the local people are Tuesday and Friday nights.

VA: And each ceremony, as I have experienced, is 4 to 5 hours long.

HM: Sometimes the ceremony lasts even longer if there is a lot of people. Sometimes there might be 15 or 20 people.

H. LAWLER: This characteristic is the key, defining characteristic of a true shaman – to do community service. If there is not a service component then it’s deviating from the bedrock tradition of the role of the shaman in society and in the community. The role of the shaman is to do what they do. This is why they are here with us at SpiritQuest because they are truly traditional and uncorrupted shamans.

VA: Do you have any apprentices? Are you training others?

HM: Yes. I’m training Howard, a young woman named Mera, and another man who lives in the village I grew up in.

H. LAWLER: Hermana Mari was born in Lamas in the department of San Martin. She spent her youth in a very remote, rural village in the higher jungle. The jungle begins to break at a little higher elevation as you enter the Peruvian Sierra.

HM: My ancestors were curanderos. My grandfather and my grandmother worked with stones. Their medium was enchanted stones. My father was a camalongero. He didn’t use ayahuasca.

H. LAWLER: Camalonga is a very interesting element in shamanic practice. It is one of the very few things not grown or native here. It’s used widely by Amazonian shamans and its one of the elements in the ointment that smells like salad dressing. It consists of white onion, garlic and the seed of the camalonga – soaked in aguardiente. The aguardiente extracts the essence of these plants. The camalonga has a visionary quality as well. Shamans who are specialists in the use of camalonga are called camalongeros.

VA: Are Hermana Mari’s shamanic gifts hereditary?

H. LAWLER: There are really two categories of shaman. There are natural shamans and there are made shamans. Made shamans are people who decide to pursue the path who may not have a particular gift for it but want to learn it like any other skill or knowledge. The natural shamans are the ones who are gifted people and they usually come through a lineage. Both Hermana Mari and don Romulo are in a lineage of shamanic healers. Some of their ancestors used different techniques and mediums in their healing work though.

VA: What is your neighborhood practice like? Do people come to you primarily for healing or divination?

HM: Primarily, people come to me for healing. Often people come to me seeking healing from a witching spell that has been cast.

H. LAWLER: This is very, very common.

VA: How do you know you’ve had a witching spell?

H. LAWLER: Well, your life starts falling apart. Disruptive, sometimes catastrophic events occur. Things start happening to you that are not explainable rationally. Then the suspicion arises that its brujeria. Of course, a medical doctor can do nothing for that. There are numerous conditions in the Amazonian culture which are unique compared to the western world. It is convenient and sometimes reassuring to simply assign it to ‘superstitious nonsense’ but there is more at work here.

VA: What have you learned from ayahuasca?

HM: My spirit continues to grow stronger but as I get older my knowledge wanes. But my knowledge is being carried on by those I teach. It makes me very happy that you have come with love and affection to experience Doctor Ayahuasca. Welcome to the center of the medicine in Iquitos.

VA: Is it necessary to drink a full cup of ayahuasca each time?

HM: Once you have experienced ayahuasca you have it in your body. Those who drink it often need to drink less to experience the same effect.

H. LAWLER: For example, I drank less than a half cup last night and relative to most of the accounts of last night’s experiences, I had a little stronger experience than those who drank more than a cup. I went into things I needed to go into. It was a lesson night for me. Through shamanic discipline and practice, one learns the pathways to access these visionary realms of truth and transformation.

VA: Not everyone attending the ceremonies drinks ayahuasca.

HM: Everyone present enters the dimension of Alpha and Omega. All those present are opening portals whether they drink ayahuasca or not. You are opening these fields.

VA: Have you ever seen extraterrestrial beings?

HM: These we call ovnis. The ones we call Martians are very, very small and very powerful. They generate much energy. When we work we see them coming to the earth. They have many colors and they radiate much energy. They know a lot.

VA: Do you see these beings in normal reality?

HM: This is outside ayahuasca. We travel to all kinds of places. We go to the deep forest and under the ground. I visit all the shamanic worlds: the upper world, middle world, and lower world. In dreams I fly. There I experience the Virgin Mary.

VA: There are many tales in Peru of UFOs.

HM: The name of this being is Iman de la Tierra. It doesn’t speak. It communicates through it’s mind and it’s eyes by telepathy. This being comes through the air when I am seeking a spell of witchcraft. Sometimes I have to call them and they are far away. In the waters live the sirens and the Yacurunas. The sirens are beautiful women with golden hair and white skin. They have very long hair. From the waist up they are human, from the waist down they are fish. They have breasts and have guitars that they play. Their icaros are very sad.

VA: Why, in your culture, are these people represented as being white, with blond hair?

HM: Yes, but also work with spirit healers that are Indian. There is a beautiful city at the bottom of the ocean.

H. LAWLER: Remember, you are getting very culture-bound feedback here. Hermana Mari’s response is not biased by knowledge of those things.

VA: Have you ever heard of Atlantis?

HM: No.

VA: It is believed to be a mythical city underwater.

HM: In the sea it’s the same as here. The tabaqueros [shamans who specialize in tobacco] can go into the water here and come out in the United States and other places.

VA: Tell me about the Sachamama.

HM: The Sachamama is real. It’s the size of a lupuna tree. It lives in the ground and on her back grows trees. She lies still and quiet for long periods of time. Even trees will grow on her back. The Sachamana feeds by charming animals that come near her. She draws them near by the power of her enchantment. It catches them and eats them. And where the Sachamama is you will find the bones of animals she has eaten and regurgitated. It’s the size of a giant lupuna tree. There are times, over a great period of time, when the Sachamama will become active, animate, and move. The spirit of the Sachamama is a king doctor. It comes and manifests in human form as a king in elaborate clothing. Also it manifests as a woman, as a queen. She is dressed like a bride. There are human manifestations of the Sachamama.

VA: Where do we find Sachamama?

H. LAWLER: It could be anywhere in the forest. The word “jungle” is rarely used here. The two words that are used are “la selva,” which is the more general word for all kinds of rainforest; “el monte” is the word generally reserved for wild unflooded ‘terra firme’ rainforest.

HM: Also, “chullachaki” is the king of the mountain and a very good doctor to take out witchcraft. He’s a very small elf that has one big foot and one small foot. This is how they are recognized. There is a chullachaki tree that is used as an aphrodisiac for men, as well as treatment for arthritis, rheumatism and intestinal infections. It’s also effective for treating AIDS. Men who have potency problems can elevate this by drinking a brew made from the chullachaki tree. Here in the forest we have all kinds of medicines for men and for women. The thing I see the most is daño [witchcraft].

VA: Do you have to be part of this culture to be attacked by witchcraft?

H. LAWLER: Contrary to wishful thinking, it’s not something that doesn’t exist if you don’t believe in it. There are people who are willfully conjuring negative things to direct towards people in the U.S. as well. It’s also possible for a person – through sheer animosity and intensity toward another person – to produce the same harmful effect as one who practices black witchcraft or ‘brujeria’.

VA: How come O.J. Simpson still walks the earth.

H. LAWLER: We don’t know what is still in store for O.J.

VA : Can you tell if someone has been a victim of witchcraft?

HM: Oh yes. In some cases it’s a point of pain or a physical thing like that is embedded in the victim. Whether psychic or physical, in the Amazon these are called ‘virotes’ or magical darts. It sets up a slow deterioration causing pain and can be life-threatening. The person is usually not able to relieve it by themselves.

H. LAWLER: Hermana Mari is a curandero who only works pure ‘curanderiso’ (healing). However, probably the majority of people practicing shamanism will work both sides. It’s very hard to find pure curanderos who are not tempted to work on the dark side for a price. You have to understand, within the culture, the practice of shamanism is more often than not a mercenary profession. For a majority of people (who practice it), they make their living this way. The true purely benevolent shaman dedicated to selflessly serving the people is very hard to find.

VA: I certainly understand the practical application of shamanism. Of all the shamans in this area, what percentage of shamans practice some form of witchcraft?

HM: Many, many. But shamans also have defenses against the brujos.

H. LAWLER: Hermana Mari does not consider what she does magic. It’s not witchcraft. Its pure forest medicine…”medicina de la selva.” Here, only ‘brujeria is considered witchcraft. There’s curanderismo and brujeria. White and Black. Light and Dark. In most cases there seems to be a firm clear line between good and evil defined mainly by whether it brings harm or ill to others or heals and brings good to others. Though all this seems like superstition to the western mind, there are psychic and spiritual aspects which, with enough experience here, are difficult to deny.

VA: Hermana Mari, do you believe in karma?

HM: Everything that brujos do comes back to them in the end. But they are not looking that far ahead. They are looking for the quick, short, immediate gain and that’s why they do what they do. They gain great power very quickly. One can come under study with a brujo and learn to do amazing things very quickly. But, at a great price. To become a curandero is very slow and very demanding. There’s no price to pay down the road. Down the road is glory and blessing.

VA: What happens when you die?

HM: The flesh is nothing. It doesn’t matter. What matters is our spirit. Our spirit never dies. When we die, we will come back in spirit and continue the work we are doing now. We call this “forgotten spirits” – the spirits of shamans who lived before and come back through us.

VA: What will happen when you die?

HM: I will incorporate into another body. I may come back into Howard’s body and work after I’m gone. I am preparing Howard for this.

VA: Who works in your body now?

HM: I knew a shaman who died but now comes and works through me. He was a Rosicrucian.

VA: Hermana Mari, thank you for setting aside time to talk with me and answer my questions. It has been an honor and privilege attending your ceremonies.

Spiritual Traditions Of The Andes Interview With Doris Rivera Lenz Part 1

Submitted by Howard G. Charing

Are people who come to you for coca divination often unwell?

What about people who sense that their bad luck is caused by someone putting a hex on them. What do you do? Can you send the hex back to its place of origin?

The power of black magic does not exist?

I see you are trying to shift that person’s reality around but do you recognise that it can exist?

Do people need to believe that your ceremony has done something?

You are a psychologist?

Its OK to say that.

A lot depends on the mind and education of the person. Some curanderos hardly speak to their clients, do they?

Yes, I talk a lot, but there are times when I can’t say anything.

Is there something similar going on when you pass eggs over people?

Is it a mechanical process or is there a link between you and the client?

The fact that there is a long tradition behind these methods of divination helps you?

Of course, its an ancestral thing.

What is different about people from the West? What do they need?

Their heads cutting off! No, its only a joke!

Yet the tendency today is for everybody to want to move into the cities everywhere, to live like America, build motorways.

They see on TV the huge kinds of potatoes which can be produced using fertilizers, and they think ‘how beautiful, I want that’, but they don’t know how the earth is ruined by fertilizers.

What do you see happening in the future on a planetary level?

People will get a nasty shock from seeing the increasing changes and natural disasters on the earth and we will be shocked into changing.

The only way we can change?

There is so much wisdom in nature, she rears us like her children, teaches us to ask permission, to care for her like ourselves.

Bringers Of The Dawn Teachings From The Pleiadians Barbara Marciniak

Posted By Ina Woolcott

The Pleiadians are multidimensional beings whom Barbara Marciniak claims to have channelled. The teachings challenge and inspire the reader to remember that we are a “Family of Light” in the midst of economic, social and environmental catastrophe. The teachings reveal sexuality as the body’s link to a higher frequency, love, show Earth as an ancient battleground between good and evil (positive and negative forces), and bring us information about extra-terrestrials. I have read the book several times since 2003 after attending a shamanic workshop in the Brazil. It is good material and definitely worth reading.

What one other reader said: When we realize the powers of thought and word we will no longer use them mindlessly. The doubting of this is another thought creation itself. Open your eyes and stop destroying you power by doubting that you have any. You have ability to manifest anything in life and when this is aligned with Divine will you are in for the most glorious of experiences. Total surrender in bliss and ecstasy. This will reverberate around the planet and awaken all who are ready. Think it. Know it. Live it. What do you want in this world, fear or love ?

Marciniak is also the author of 3 further books, which can be seen and purchased on the carousel below.

To hear Marciniak speak go to my blog. Click HERE This is video 1 of 18 of Barbara Marciniak talking. I find the material so useful. I often listen to the videos whilst writing.

Horizons Perspectives On Psychedelics Conference

Submitted by Xi Wang

The waves of mass psychedelic utopianism have come and gone, the hippie movement of the late ’60s and its electronic terpsichorean echo in the rave scene of the ’90s. But there’s a small but devoted community of scientists, spiritual seekers, artists and grown-up hedonists exploring the value of these drugs.

The “Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics” conference, held in New York Sept. 19-21, sought to present an older and wiser psychedelic movement, focusing on medicine, art, spirituality, and culture. It drew around 300 people, a mix of academic and hippie types, with the white button-down shirts slightly outnumbering the dreadlocks and the NASA T-shirts.

Psychedelics are “the most powerful psychiatric medicine ever devised,” says psychotherapist Neal Goldsmith, who curated the speakers. But because the way they work as medicine — when used in the proper setting — is by generating mystical experiences, “science has to expand.” Solid research, he adds, could change government policy, which classifies psychedelics as dangerous drugs with no accepted medical use.

The most promising current medical research, said Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, is in coupling MDMA (Ecstasy) with intensive psychotherapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Preliminary studies, he said, have had “very encouraging results” with patients who did not respond to talk therapy and conventional medications.

The group hopes to win FDA approval within 10 years. But pharmaceutical companies aren’t interested — the MDMA molecule is in the public domain, the number of pills used in the therapy is unprofitably low, and the drug is controversial. So the model for developing it, Doblin said, will probably be along the lines of Planned Parenthood’s support for RU486.

Why are the FDA so quick in giving the green light to anti depressants for expectant mothers and ‘drugs’ to keep kids, er, ‘drugged up’ in classrooms with apparent ADHD etc, and yet chemical and non-chemical compounds are categorised as illegal because they actually genuinely help people. Who’s in it for profit huh?

For the full article What Happens When You Put 300 Experts on Psychedelics in the Same Room? HERE