How to be an Elder

How to be an Elder: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

What makes an elder, a heartfelt spirit, a clear mind, a talented heart, one who is young while old and old while young, an activist for the Soul? Is it formulae, schemas, lexicons? It could be. But also, and often more so, I think it is very like the flowering of the trees in the forest, as we gather more years: we straggle and stride onward in our better learned ways to give out even more seeds for new life, and to blossom wildly in so doing for self and others. The old ones are yet traveling underground and overland toward us as we meet one more time: La Vidente, the Seer; La Que Sabe, the Knowing Woman; La Levantadora, the Lifter of Curses, the Dangerous Old Woman in her many likenesses calls to you to 'get down to business.' (Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD)

How to Be an Elder presents the culmination of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés' masterwork, inviting us to 'come into our own as wiser and wild souls,' through six sessions of teachings, stories, poetry, and blessings. In this fifth and final volume of Dr. Estés' landmark series, we will explore how it is that through the gathering of our years we become a beautiful refuge for ourselves, our Souls, and for those who come after us.

"Did I mention, dear brave souls," reminds Dr. Estés, "that you came with all the seedlings needed to do your work, to take your venerable places in life? Now is the just-right time, like Sleeping Beauty, to break the enchantment, to truly awaken and awaken others, as either a rookie Dangerous Old Woman, or a mid-career Dangerous Old Woman, or as Crone with Crown complete.

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Drinking the Four Winds: A Shamanic Love Story

Drinking the Four Winds: A Shamanic Love Story, by Ross Heaven

When Ross Heaven, a psychologist and ex-pharmaceutical industry consultant, embarks on a shamanic apprenticeship in the rainforests and mountains of South America his intention is to unlock the secrets of San Pedro, the mescaline cactus that has been used as a sacrament and teacher plant in Peru for millennia, and to learn about love and healing. What he finds is more remarkable, painful, enriching, liberating and extraordinary than he could have imagined.

Ross Heaven was described by Guardian newspaper journalist James Shreeve as "the Joseph Campbell of our times". The director of The Four Gates Foundation for spiritual and shamanic wisdom, Ross is a psychologist, presenter, and the author of more than 10 books on shamanism, plant medicines, and the healing traditions, including The Hummingbird's Journey to God (the first book to be written about shamanic healing with the plant teacher San Pedro), Plant Spirit Shamanism (about ayahuasca and San Pedro healing and the therapeutic uses of other plants), Plant Spirit Wisdom (about healing traditions and practices with native European plants), and The Sin Eater's Last Confessions (about the folk-healing practices of Wales).

As well as his work with native shamanism, Ross has visited Peru since the 1990's to work with the ayahuasceros and curanderos of the Amazon and Andes, and with ayahuasca and San Pedro, the two legendary sacraments and teacher plants used by the shamans of these regions to heal the mind, body, and soul, and to unlock new levels of expanded consciousness.

He now offers the same opportunity for others, with retreat programmes and journeys to Peru where participants can work with indigenous healers and explore and expand their awareness through shamanic encounters with visionary plants. He has also worked with the shamans and plant healing traditions of Haiti and his experiences in this area are recorded in his book Vodou Shaman, of which Publisher's Weekly said "This stands out as one of the most articulate and well-intentioned guidebooks available".

In his workshops, Ross draws from his cross-cultural knowledge of shamanism and its healing possibilities for creating new ways to understand ourselves, our connections to the Earth, and the journeys we are on. Order from Amazon

Wisdom of the Plant Devas: Herbal Medicine for a New Earth

Wisdom of the Plant Devas: Herbal Medicine for a New Earth, by Thea Summer Deer. Each plant has a story to share with us, a healing story to guide us in trying times, a spirit medicine for the New Earth that is presently unfolding. Herbs are some of the most powerful allies we have for these transitional times--we just need to learn how to listen as they share their knowledge with us.

In Wisdom of the Plant Devas, Thea Summer Deer reveals a new dimension of herbal medicine, one where the plant’s spirit is consulted for guidance and healing beyond the physical. Examining the botany, modern and traditional uses, history, and folklore of 13 special herbs, such as rosemary, uva ursi, and datura, she shares divinations and messages from their devas, or plant spirits, explaining how these stories carry the herbs into our lives, letting them work their magic on us. Exploring herbal medicine from an energetic perspective, she reveals that by communing with the deva of a plant, we can call on the plant’s physical, psychological, and spiritual medicine and guidance--without ingesting it or even being in its presence.

Detailing the sacred space of a Medicine Wheel Garden, whether in a backyard or our imaginations, she connects us with the devas and empowers us to seek our own answers with their much-needed spiritual guidance and divinatory advice. Creating a bridge between botanical medicine and plant spirit medicine, she shows how by coming into community with the devas and co-creating with the world of nature, we can gain tremendous insights to help heal our hearts, our minds, and our spirits and consciously evolve as together we birth the New Earth.

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Thea Summer Deer is a clinical herbalist, singer-songwriter, midwife, and childbirth educator. Raised with the Seminole Indians in South Florida until the age of eight, she lives surrounded by Cherokee ancestral land in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina.

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The History of White Flour

Shamanism for the Age of Science

Shamanism for the Age of Science: Awakening the Energy Body, by Kenneth Smith. A practical guide to understanding and awakening the human energy body. At a time when consciousness and other aspects of our energetic anatomy are finding their way into modern science, Kenneth Smith blends traditional shamanism with cutting-edge research in bioenergetics, neuroscience, and psychology to offer this user’s guide to the energy body--explaining what it is, what its capabilities are, and how to harness it as a vehicle for higher consciousness and heightened awareness.

For more than 5,000 years, shamans of the Toltec tradition have worked with the energy body, learning its structure and perceptual capacities as well as mapping it as an objective, measurable part of our anatomy. Drawing from his decades-long involvement in this tradition and his work in the field of bioenergetics, Smith explains how the energy body shapes our perceptions, determines our state of consciousness, and forms our reality from the infinite possibilities presented by our thoughts, feelings, and those around us. Illustrating our energetic anatomy and its connections to the nervous system, chakras, and meridians, he provides step-by-step exercises to awaken the energy body, expand awareness, and begin consciously building a creative life.

“If you want to change your life, simply change your mind. This simple truth is perhaps the greatest tool for personal change that remains unknown by most of the contemporary world. My hope is that Shamanism for the Age of Science might contribute to the understanding that we truly have a major role in co-creating our lives and our world, and it is a role that we can no longer neglect to take seriously.” - Kevin J. Todeschi, author of Edgar Cayce on Vibrations

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Kenneth Smith, writing under the name Ken Eagle Feather, has published several books on Toltec philosophy, including On the Toltec Path and Toltec Dreaming. He apprenticed with Toltec shaman don Juan Matus and has served on the staff of the Association for Research and Enlightenment and The Monroe Institute. The executive director of The Institute for Therapeutic Discovery, a medical science research institute, he lives in Richmond, Virginia.

The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide

The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys, by James Fadiman. Called “America’s wisest and most respected authority on psychedelics and their use,” James Fadiman has been involved with psychedelic research since the 1960s. In this guide to the immediate and long-term effects of psychedelic use for spiritual (high dose), therapeutic (moderate dose), and problem-solving (low dose) purposes, Fadiman outlines best practices for safe, sacred entheogenic voyages learned through his more than 40 years of experience--from the benefits of having a sensitive guide during a session (and how to be one) to the importance of the setting and pre-session intention.

Fadiman reviews the newest as well as the neglected research into the psychotherapeutic value of visionary drug use for increased personal awareness and a host of serious medical conditions, including his recent study of the reasons for and results of psychedelic use among hundreds of students and professionals. He reveals new uses for LSD and other psychedelics, including extremely low doses for improved cognitive functioning and emotional balance. Cautioning that psychedelics are not for everyone, he dispels the myths and misperceptions about psychedelics circulating in textbooks and clinics as well as on the internet. Exploring the life-changing experiences of Ram Dass, Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, and Huston Smith as well as Francis Crick and Steve Jobs, Fadiman shows how psychedelics, used wisely, can lead not only to healing but also to scientific breakthroughs and spiritual epiphanies. Click here for more information or to order.

“James Fadiman’s manual offers helpful and well-informed guidance for those who seek ‘the divine within’ through sacred plants and psychedelic substances.” - Daniel Pinchbeck

“Approaching his subject from intimately historical, psychological-cultural, and accessibly authoritative perspectives, Fadiman’s psychedelic magnum opus establishes the benchmark reference for anyone interested in understanding, experiencing, or supervising the effects of this unique family of psychoactive substances.” - Rick Strassman

James Fadiman, Ph.D., did his undergraduate work at Harvard and his graduate work at Stanford, doing research with the Harvard Group, the West Coast Research Group in Menlo Park, and Ken Kesey. A former president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and a professor of psychology, he teaches at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, which he helped found in 1975. An international conference presenter, workshop leader, management consultant, and author of several books and textbooks, he lives in Menlo Park, California, with his filmmaker wife, Dorothy.

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Zen and the Art of Bowling

Be Your Own Shaman

Be Your Own Shaman: Heal Yourself and Others with 21st-Century Energy Medicine, by Deborah King. This fascinating book takes you on a one-of-a-kind journey into the esoteric world of healing. You might not realize it, but just about everyone is a natural-born healer! In fact, you probably already have some of the paranormal abilities related to this gift. For example, you may know who’s calling before you answer the phone, or be able to sense what others are thinking or feeling. But you can further develop your inner talents and become your own shaman, capable of healing whatever ails you and effecting change in someone else’s energy field and body.

In Master Healer Deborah King’s uniquely informative work, you will learn both Eastern and Western concepts and techniques from the earliest recorded healing practices some 5,000 years ago all the way up to modern times with John of God in Brazil and King’s own powerful cutting-edge approach. You’ll find out how to protect yourself from psychic attack, and how to get beyond any limiting beliefs you may hold. Self-knowledge leading to self-mastery is the ultimate quest, the pivotal adventure of a lifetime. Become the person you always knew you could be by taking this magical tour into the heart of healing!

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Master healer and teacher Deborah King was a successful attorney in her 20s when a diagnosis of cancer sent her on a search for truth that radically changed her life. Unwilling to undergo invasive surgery, she turned to alternative medicine and experienced an amazing remission at the hands of a healer. Along the way, she conquered the alcohol and drug addictions she had used to bury an abusive childhood. Leaving the corporate arena for the mysterious world of healers, sages, and shamans, Deborah mastered ancient and modern healing systems, ultimately developing a powerful healing technique of her own.

Combining her personal history and wisdom, Deborah wrote the national bestseller Truth Heals: What You Hide Can Hurt You, which explores the powerful relationship between the suppression of painful emotions and their impact on our health and happiness.

Deborah travels worldwide, helping thousands of people transform their lives through her experiential workshops. She offers a yearlong online training course, the “21st-Century Energy Medicine Program,” for those who are interested in healing themselves and others. She also hosts a popular weekly Hay House radio show.

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Illumination: The Shaman's Way of Healing

Illumination: The Shaman's Way of Healing, by Alberto Villoldo. Illumination guides the reader on a healing journey, forged by the timeless wisdom of indigenous cultures and the latest theories of neurobiology. Through various stages in this journey of initiation, we grow to understand the causes of our suffering and how to free ourselves from the pain and drama of our unhealed emotions. Life itself invites us to be initiated through many means—the possibility of love, the loss of a parent or friend, the birth of a child, or a serious health crisis. True initiation is empowered by facing personal challenges and experiencing the spiritual rebirth—or illumination—that follows.

Unifying this book is the sacred process of transforming toxic emotions into sources of power and grace. Illumination shows us how to bid a joyful goodbye to the people and places we have met, discovering a sacred space where the spirit inhabits, uniting the body and soul. When we learn to let go from difficult situations and problems, to accept our lives as they are, we can begin to identify with a self that is eternal.

Recounting his own experiences, tracing the mythologies of an array of cultures, and expanding his inquiry into the field of neurobiology, Alberto Villoldo shows readers how they can benefit from these sacred practices. Click here for more information or to order.

Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., is the author of several books, including Shaman, Healer, Sage; Courageous Dreaming; The Four Insights; and Mending the Past & Healing The Future With Soul Retrieval. A psychologist and medical anthropologist, Villoldo has studied the healing practices of the Amazon and Inka shamans for more than 25 years. While at San Francisco State University, he founded the Biological Self-Regulation Laboratory to study how the mind creates psychosomatic health and disease. Dr. Villoldo directs The Four Winds Society, where he trains individuals in the U.S. and Europe in the practice of energy medicine and soul retrieval.

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Einkorn: Recipes For Nature's Original Wheat

Way of the Ancient Healer

Way of the Ancient Healer: Sacred Teachings from the Philippine Ancestral Traditions , Virgil Mayor Apostol. Way of the Ancient Healer provides an overview of the rich tradition of Filipino healing practices, discussing their origins, world influences, and role in daily life. Enhanced with over 200 photographs and illustrations, the book combines years of historical research with detailed descriptions of the spiritual belief system that forms the foundation of these practices. Giving readers a rare look at modern-day Filipino healing rituals, the book also includes personal examples from author Virgil Mayor Apostol’s own experiences with shamanic healing and dream interpretation.

The book begins with an explanation of Apostol’s Filipino lineage and legacy as a healer. After a brief history of the Philippine archipelago, he describes the roots of traditional Filipino healing and spirituality, and discusses the Indian, Islamic, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and American influences that have impacted the Filipino culture. He presents a thorough description of Filipino shamanic and spiritual practices that have developed from the concept that everything in nature contains a spirit (animism) and that living in the presence of spirits demands certain protocols and rituals for interacting with them. The book’s final chapter thoughtfully explores the spiritual tools used in Filipino healing–talismans, amulets, stones, and other natural symbols of power.

A healing arts therapist and certified Holistic Health practitioner, Virgil J. Mayor Apostol is the coauthor of Healing Hands of Hilot. He was encouraged by Deepak Chopra to teach Filipino healing worldwide through workshops. He lives in Southern California. Click here for more information or to order.

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Psychedelic Healing

Psychedelic Healing: The Promise of Entheogens for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Development, Neal M. Goldsmith Ph.D. Banned after promising research in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, the use of psychedelics as therapeutic catalysts is now being rediscovered at prestigious medical schools, such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, NYU, and UCLA. Through clinical trials to assess their use, entheogens have been found to ease anxiety in the dying, interrupt the hold of addictive drugs, cure post-traumatic stress disorder, and treat other deep-seated emotional disturbances. To date, results have been positive, and the idea of psychedelics as powerful psychiatric--and spiritual--medicines is now beginning to be accepted by the medical community.

Exploring the latest cutting-edge research on psychedelics, along with their use in indigenous cultures throughout history for rites of passage and shamanic rituals, Neal Goldsmith reveals that the curative effect of entheogens comes not from a chemical effect on the body but rather by triggering a peak or spiritual experience. He provides guidelines for working with entheogens, groundbreaking analyses of the concept--and the process--of change in psychotherapy, and, ultimately, his own story of psychedelic healing. Examining the tribal roots of this knowledge, Goldsmith shows that by combining ancient wisdom and modern research, we can unlock the emotional, mental, and spiritual healing powers of these unique and powerful tools, providing an integral medicine for postmodern society.

“Written with personal warmth and passionate engagement, Psychedelic Healing makes a compelling case for the medical and social benefits of a therapy practice that encompasses substance-induced experiences of transcendence. With scrupulous care, Neal Goldsmith explores the great promise of this reemerging field, while proposing a path forward that avoids the mistakes made a generation ago. This book is valuable reading for those who would like to see a crucial new chapter open in consciousness studies and the mental health field.” - Daniel Pinchbeck

Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist specializing in psychospiritual development. A frequent speaker on spiritual emergence, drug policy reform, and postmodern society, he lives in New York. Click here for more information or to order.

The Religion of Ayahuasca: The Teachings of the Church of Santo Daime

The Religion of Ayahuasca: The Teachings of the Church of Santo Daime, by Alex Polari de Alverga. An insider’s experience and personal transformation with ayahuasca and the religious philosophy surrounding it and an intimate account of the genesis of the Santo Daime tradition. In search of something to restore his spiritual connection to life after his release from captivity as a political prisoner in Brazil, Alex Polari de Alverga had a transformative encounter with Padrinho Sebastiao Mota de Mela, one of the two revered founders of Santo Daime. A potent synthesis of Christianity and indigenous Amazonian practices of entheogen use, mediumship, and healing, the Santo Daime church provided Alverga with an alternative to his disillusionment with modern society. His quest for spiritual initiation eventually led him deep into the heart of the rain forest to Mapiá, one of the spiritual centers of Santo Daime, where he became a teacher and leader of the Daime community.

The Religion of Ayahuasca is a story of a classic spiritual encounter comparable to the Tibetan Saint Milarepa’s search for his teacher Marpa. It is also an intimate account of the genesis of an important religious tradition from its modest beginnings in Brazil to its growth throughout the world, offering an inside look at the spiritually centered village of Mapiá--a model for communities in the 21st century--and at the religious leader who helped create it. Providing insight into the spiritual path the Daime offers, Alverga’s tale reveals the new depths of Being made available through the sacred use of ayahuasca.

Alex Polari de Alverga spent years as a political prisoner during the rule of the military junta in Brazil, enduring torture, brutality, and deprivation. On his release from captivity, he encountered the Santo Daime religion and is currently a padrinho (spiritual father) in the spiritual community of Mapiá.

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A Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tibet and the Destiny of the Western World

A Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tibet and the Destiny of the Western World, by Peter Kingsley. Revealing a forgotten truth in the present day, this account illuminates the crumbling political and economic structures of the West, shedding light on an ongoing and arduous search for a sense of purpose. Recounting a true story, this exploration tells of a wandering Mongol shaman who made a dramatic appearance around the Mediterranean centuries before the time of Christ. Highlighting how this nomad came as an envoy on a mission of purification, this study records how he met with a man who became tremendously influential in Western science, philosophy, culture, and religion: Pythagoras. The essence of Western civilization is said to have originated from this meeting and this examination argues that today’s conflicts and tensions have stemmed from taking this monumental occasion for granted, forgetting that there must be a greater meaning to life than everyday efforts and struggles. Reflecting on a time when Eastern and Western cultures were one, this evocation contends that there is still a common spiritual heritage to all civilizations. A unique collaboration between the author and archaeologists, historians, and shamans from around the world, this document has the potential to change the future for all.

“Piercing. Peter Kingsley is a master of adamantine prose and peerless scholarship. His work is truly worthy of that overworked term wisdom. And he is a master stylist: he turns you upside down and inside out without your knowing it is happening. This book will inspire, delight and enlighten many but will also challenge others because it is a mirror that reflects our most stubborn prejudices about the origins of our most sacrosanct cultural beliefs. And for that, Peter Kingsley deserves the highest praise.” —Larry Dossey, M.D.

Peter Kingsley is an honorary professor at both Simon Fraser University in Canada and the University of New Mexico. He is the author of Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic; In the Dark Places of Wisdom; and Reality. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

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Tantra: Cult of the Feminine

The Bushman Way of Tracking God: The Original Spirituality of the Kalahari People

The Bushman Way of Tracking God: The Original Spirituality of the Kalahari People, by Bradford Keeney. The Kalahari Bushmen are the keepers of the world’s oldest living culture. In spite of colossal challenges and never-ending crises, they have survived for over 60,000 years with joy and peace—yet their spiritual teachings, the source of their enduring wisdom, have never been fully presented.

For the first time, these ancient oral traditions have been put down onto paper by a researcher so unique, he was featured in American Shaman: an Odyssey of Global Healing Traditions, which won a Best Spiritual Book award from Spirituality & Health magazine. Bradford Keeney takes the reader through the veil of original spirituality, connecting the fragments of world religions to a source that is unlike any other. Through this wisdom, readers can find the deepest meaning, fullest purpose, and highest joy in life.

The Bushman’s Way to Tracking God is articulated through twelve original mysteries, including: activating the non-subtle universal life force (what the Bushmen call n/om), heightening emotional experience, vibratory interaction, direct downloading and absorption of sacred knowledge, extraordinary healing, activation of the ecstatic “pump,” spontaneous ways of rejuvenation, attending the spiritual classrooms, so-called telepathy, an uncommon range of mystical experiences, and last but not least, total bliss.

Professor Bradford Keeney, PhD, is an internationally renowned scholar, author, and therapist. He is presently Hanna Spyker Eminent Scholars Chair in Education and Director, Institute for Creative Transformation and Virtual Pedagogy, University of Louisiana, Monroe, and President, Louisiana Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.

As a fieldworker, Keeney has been called "the Marco Polo of psychology and an anthropologist of the spirit" by the editors of Utne Reader. As the author of over thirty-one books, Keeney presently is practicing and teaching what he has learned from the arts and sciences across diverse cultural traditions to help individuals, couples, and families transform their challenges and suffering into growth and more meaningful lives.

Apart from his work with the Kalahari Bushmen, he has served distinguished careers that span and connect the disciplines of social cybernetics, anthropology, and therapy. He has extensively researched and published information about various healing traditions around the world.

Shamanism: The Book of Journeys

Shamanism: The Book of Journeys, by Robert Levy and Eve Bruce. This wonderful book launches the reader onto a comprehensive journey through the many worlds of the shaman. Eve Bruce and Robert Levy are experienced guides who lift the veils and allow us to open ourselves to the wisdom, power, and energy of these most ancient and very contemporary practices. Shamanic journeys are doorways to parallel realities. Within these worlds, the journeyer will find helping spirits capable of guiding us towards the goals or dreams we have for ourselves, personally and collectively. These worlds will offer you information about existing dilemmas and show you new possibilities for living a more fulfilling life. This is also a healing world and can help heal and soothe your mind, body, and your personal spirit or soul. The text will assist those of you who are learning on your own with the help of your spirit guides and provide continued study for those who have begun the path. It is for beginners and seasoned practitioners alike. It is for healers who wish to introduce shamanic healing into their practice and it is a self guided tour because the true teachers of shamanism lie within and around you.

Robert Levy has been a Reiki Master and shamanic practitioner in the US for over a decade. He has studied with many western shamans as well as those from Brazil, Peru and Ecuador. Eve Bruce has studied with indigenous elders from several continents. She was the first non-indigenous woman to be inducted into the circle of Andean Birdpeople Shamans or Yachaks.

World of Shamanism: New Views of an Ancient Tradition

World of Shamanism: New Views of an Ancient Tradition, by Roger Walsch. After decades of being demonized by clergy, diagnosed by psychiatrist, and dismissed by academics, shamanism is thriving. So, what is fueling the West's new fascination with shamanism? You'll find the answer and more in this objective exploration of shamanism and its place in contemporary life. Dr. Roger Walsh leaves no stone unturned as he examines shamanistic traditions throughout history, and how they intersect with modern psychology and metaphysical studies. Are shamans enlightened or psychotic? Decide for yourself as Dr. Walsh unveils the life and mind of this revered figure. Delve into shamanic practices-healing, altered states of consciousness, journeying, channeling, vision quests-and discover if, how, and why they actually work. This cross-cultural, all-encompassing perspective will help you understand shamanism-its impact throughout history and its significance today.

Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self

Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self, by Sandra Ingerman. With warmth and compassion, Sandra Ingerman describes the dramatic results of combining soul retrieval with contemporary psychological concepts in this visionary work that revives the ancient shamanic tradition of soul retrieval for healing emotional and physical illness. This revised and updated edition includes a new afterword by the author. Sandra Ingerman is today's leading practitioner of soul retrieval and conducts workshops around the world. In the course of her career she has created an international alliance of shamanic practitioners and teachers. Sandra has an MA in counseling psychology and is a licensed therapist. She is the author of other books on shamanism and healing the environment.

2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, by Daniel Pinchbeck. This literary and metaphysical epic unifies the cosmological phenomena of our time - from crop circles to quantum mechanics to the worldwide resurgence of shamanism - in support of the Mayan prophecy that the year 2012 portends an unprecedented global shift. Cross Umberto Eco, Aldous Huxley, and Carlos Castaneda and you get the voice of Daniel Pinchbeck. And yet nothing quite prepares you for the lucidity, rationality, and informed audacity of this seeker, skeptic, and cartographer of hidden realms.

In tracing the meaning of the end of the Mayan Calendar in 2012, and the imminent transition from one world to another prophesied by the Hopi Indians of Arizona, Pinchbeck synthesizes indigenous cosmology, alien abductions, shamanic revivalism, crop circles, psychedelic visions, the current ecological crisis and the Judeo-Christian Apocalypse into a new vision for our time. The result is an unprecedented and riveting inquiry into where humanity is immediately headed - and its strange and startling congruence with the ideas of the mysterious civilization of the Classical Maya.

Throughout the 1990s, Pinchbeck had been a member of New York's literary select. He wrote for publications like ArtForum, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine. Critics acclaimed his first book, Breaking Open the Head, as the most significant contribution to psychedelic literature since the work of Terence McKenna.

But the unexpected occurred: Pinchbeck found himself increasingly pulled into the shamanic and metaphysical realms he was reporting on as a journalist. As his mind opened to new and sometimes threatening experiences, disparate threads and synchronicities made new sense: Humanity, every sign suggested, faces an imminent decision between greater self-potential and environmental ruin. The Mayan "birth date" of 2012 could herald the close of one way of existence and the beginning of another, symbolized by the prophesied return of the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl, the mysterious "Plumed Serpent" of ancient myth. In just the nick of time, the skeptical modern mind can reclaim the suppressed psychic, intuitive, and mystical dimensions of being, and institute a new planetary culture. But it is only - and by no means assuredly - possible if we confront the environmental catastrophe staring us in the face.

Something is in the air: many, if not most, of us feel that real change - for good or ill - is afoot. Pinchbeck's journey - a metaphysical opus that takes the reader from the endangered rain forests of the Amazon, to the stone megaliths of the English plains, to the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock desert of Nevada - tells the tale of a single man in whose trials we ultimately recognize our own secret thoughts and unease over modern life. And a redemptive vision of where we are heading.

Four Seasons of Mojo

Four Seasons of Mojo, by Stephanie Rose Bird. The changing of the seasons can feel magical-greens changing to browns and golds, snow melting to show fresh buds. We all recognize these tell-tale signs, but few are aware of the powerful impact each season has on our spiritual lives. Four Seasons of Mojo infuses ancient techniques, rituals, and methods from around the world to use each season's inherent energies to supplement body, mind, and soul. Designed to further spiritual practices by learning from neighboring cultures, this book provides readers with useful ideas unrestricted by geographic borders, ethnicity, religion, or magical path. Included are recipes and concepts from the Caribbean, African American soul food, Buddhist Meditation practices, sacred Hindu rites, Old European traditions, Australian Aboriginal dreaming lessons, and Native American wisdom.

Stephanie Rose Bird is a hereditary intuitive, contemporary rootworker, solitary green witch and visionary. She has been involved with mysticism, symbology, spiritualism and the occult for thirty years. Bird is inspired by her ancestors, in particular her grandmothers, one of which was a psychic and the other a spiritualist minister and herbal healer. Her uncle, a Santeria priest, Babalawo of Shango, taught her the Ifa traditions of the Yoruba people. Bird studies healing, magical and divination traditions of indigenous people around the world with a focus on Africa. Her passions include keeping the ancient traditions alive and updating them so that they evolve with us, suiting our current environment and lifestyles. She is a member of the American Folklore Soceity, the Herb Research Foundation and the Handcrafted Soap Maker's Guild. Bird holds a BFA cum laude from Temple University and an MFA from UC San Diego, and has received multiple academic awards. Bird was an assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1986-2002. Bird is active advising masters' and doctoral candidates, giving lectures, conducting goddess rituals, and writing for numerous publications.

Shamanic Christianity: The Direct Experience of Mystical Communion

Shamanic Christianity: The Direct Experience of Mystical Communion, by Bradford Keeney. When the missionaries came to North America to “save” the American Indians, they were perplexed to discover that while they talked about Jesus, some of the Indians claimed to talk directly with him. Among Christians there is almost complete silence on the subject of the place of shamanism in experiencing the divine, yet shamanic experience is at the root of all mystical communion. Shamanic Christianity offers a chance to rekindle the shamanic practices of Christianity to those who wish to restore their direct connection to the spirit world. In the tradition of contemplative practice, this reconnection takes the form of devotions. Presented in four forms, these devotions begin with a specific contemplation, followed by a meditative focus, then a parable from the author’s own visionary experiences, and finally an active mystical practice to help ground the meditations and contemplations in a ritual or ceremony that involves active participation. These four forms serve to reintroduce Jesus, Mary, and the historically renowned saints as shamanic teachers of divine mysteries whose spiritual presence is readily available to contemporary lives. The author also presents specific directives for handling everyday challenges in a shamanic-inspired manner, drawing upon creative activities and resources that encourage approaching the world with the imaginative and playful spirit of a child, whose personal freedom and creative expression is always wide open to possibilities. Bradford Keeney, Ph.D. is president of Southwestern College in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Woman in the Shaman's Body

Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion & Medicine, by Barbara Tedlock, from Bantam Doubleday Dell, ISBN 0553108530. A distinguished anthropologist reveals the female roots of the world's oldest form of religion and medicine, and celebrates women's role in the worldwide resurgence of shamanism today. Reinterpreting generations of scholarship, Tedlock explains how and why the role of women in shamanism was misinterpreted and suppressed, with illuminating stories, illustrations and evidence. She also describes her own shamanic training among the Maya of Guatemala and the rich record of women warriors and hunters, spiritual guides, and prophets from many cultures and times.

Bushman Shaman: Awakening The Spirit Through Ecstatic Dance

Bushman Shaman: Awakening The Spirit Through Ecstatic Dance, by Bradford Keeney. ISBN 0892816988. In Bushman Shaman, Bradford Keeney details his initiation into the shamanic tradition of the Kalahari Bushmen, regarded by some scholars as the oldest living culture on earth. Keeney sought out the Bushmen while in South Africa as a visiting professor of psychotherapy. He had known of the Kalahari "trance dance," wherein the dancers' bodies shake uncontrollably as part of the healing ceremony. Keeney was drawn to this tradition in the hope that it might explain and provide a forum for his own ecstatic "shaking," which he had first experienced at the age of 19 and had tried to suppress and hide throughout his adult life.

For more than a dozen years Keeney danced with Bushmen shamans in communities throughout Botswana and Namibia, until finally becoming fully initiated into their doctoring and spiritual ways. Through his rediscovery of the "rope to God" in a Bushman shaman dream, he offers readers accounts of his shamanic world travels and the secrets of the soul he learned along the way. In Bushman Shaman Keeney also reveals his work with shamans from Japan, Tibet, Bali, Thailand, Australia, and North and South America, providing new understandings of other forms of shamanic spiritual expression and integrating the practices of all these traditions into a sacred circle of one truth.