Alberto Villoldo - The Shamans Book of Living and Dying

Dr. Alberto Villoldo has done it again by demystifying profound age-old wisdom in twelve stories of personal transformation and growth. The Shaman's Book of Living and Dying describes how a shaman utilizes energy medicine practices such as illumination, soul retrieval, and extractions to create the proper energetic conditions for health. Read and learn.

JOE DISPENZA, DC, author of New York Times best seller
You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter
and Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself:
How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

In this remarkable book, medical anthropologist Albert Villoldo, PhD, takes readers with him as he journeys into the core of shamanic practices to deliver profound change and healing to clients from different walks of life. Time and space lose their conventional dimensions in the shaman's world, and readers will find themselves transported into new dimensions, new realities, and new ways of unleashing potentials they never knew existed.

STANLEY KRIPPNER, PhD, professor of psychology
at Saybrook University and coauthor of numerous books,
including Healing States with Alberto Villoldo, PhD

The Shaman's Book of Living and Dying is a must-read for novices, professional healers, and shamanic practitioners alike. The intimate healing stories grasp the true essence, methods, and effectiveness of the shamanic wisdom our ancestors left us. It paves the way to show us how we can apply it to our modern lives. A rare book where the clients and the shaman share their captivating stories.

ITZHAK BEERY, author of The Gift of Shamanism and
Shamanic Transformations and publisher of shamanportal.org

In The Shaman's Book of Living and Dying, Dr. Villoldo shares the tools that will guide you home to a life of Love, Wisdom, and Grace.

ADAM C. HALL, author of The EarthKeeper:
Undeveloping the Future and chairman and
founding steward of EarthKeeper Alliance, Inc.

One of our most gifted teachers of shamanism and energy medicine offers us a fascinating book of profound and moving accounts of his clients' healing journeys. This is a powerful manual for healers and also for anyone wanting to fully embrace and embody their healthbody, mind, and soul. An extraordinary account of tapping into the inherent ability all of us have when we tune into the Spirit as our partner in healing. A classic.

COLETTE BARON-REID, author of The Map:
Finding the Magic and Meaning in the Story of Your Life

Copyright 2015, 2021

by Alberto Villoldo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages. Previously published in 2015 as A Shaman's Miraculous Tools for Healing by Hampton Roads Publishing, ISBN: 978-1-57174-737-2.

Cover design by Kathryn Sky-Peck

Cover photograph by iStock.com

Interior by Howie Severson

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

Charlottesville, VA 22906

Distributed by Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

www.redwheelweiser.com

ISBN: 978-1-64297-027-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

Printed in the United States of America

IBI

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter

For Joseph, the shaman who showed me the way with love.

For Dr. James Hamilton, healer and sage.

This book is intended to be an informational guide and is not meant to treat, diagnose, or prescribe. While we encourage you to explore the teachings in this book, neither the author nor the publisher accepts any responsibility for your health or how you choose to use the information contained here.

It is cold. When it's winter in the high desert, we get flurries of snow. I glance at the clock on my nightstand: 2:00 a.m. It's time. The words keep coming, demanding that I get out of the warm bed. I try not to disturb my sleeping husband as I pull on my thick woolen socks and heavy robe. Turning on the dim light in the hallway, I quietly make my way to the small office at the other end of the house. I have work to do.

But first, the candle. The work must begin with ritual, always. The top of a small bookshelf serves as my altar. There stands the candle surrounded by objects symbolic of my spiritual journey. I strike a match, asking for the protection of fire, and shadows begin to dance on the walls. Light and darknessthat is the nature of this shamanic work. Opening sacred space, I invite the spirits of the four directions, reminding them that I cannot do this alone. They are needed. Of course, I am the one needing the reminder.

The computer springs to life, and I sit there motionless, waiting, absorbing the stillness, the quiet so befitting the middle of the night. The phone will not ring; the doorbell will not ring. The only distractions will be of my own making. I must get centered. Who is the client that will be with me tonight? He said his name is Jered.

We had talked at great length, and his story is within me, all but memorized. I reach out to him, slip into his presence. What is he thinking... feeling... what are the words? It's like opening a door and stepping into another reality. This I must do if I am to speak for him, tell his story of healing. Ah, the trust! I do not take this lightly. In fact, it quite amazes me. I also understand it.

These are Alberto's clients whose stories I am to write. They are the ones who have come to him asking for help, for healing and light, ready for the shadows they must face.

I put my cold fingers to the keyboard.

This was my routine, flowing with the seasons over years. Story by story, A Shaman's Miraculous Tools for Healing took on life. Initially, I had interviewed the clients in-depth, followed by consultations, emails, and as many drafts as necessary leading to final approval on all sides. Always, Alberto was thereno word would escape his scrutiny. After all, this was his book, his creation. The sense of privilege to be part of the process as coauthor with this gifted shaman was always with me.

I have no idea just when this project was a mere spark in the eyes of the Shaman. I do know when the journey began for me. It was in July of 2001. That summer day, the day of my first meeting with the Shaman, is deeply etched in my mind. I was bringing to him a terminal disease wrapped in a spiritual crisis. Shamanism was unfamiliar to me and seemed foreign, strange, and mysterious. I was intrigued. A part of me believed without doubt that this man had something very important to give meand I better listen. I was exposing the wounds of my soul to him, wounds developed over a lifetime. Alberto was sitting across from me, notepad in hand, jotting notes. Suddenly, he stopped, reached out, and handed me his pen, saying, Here, Anne, take this and write for your life! Neither one of usat least that I am awarehad any idea just where that pen would take me. It became part of my mesa, my shaman's altar, and remains there to this day.