James Endredy - Advanced Shamanism: The Practice of Conscious Transformation

ADVANCED
SHAMANISM

... a rich and fascinating journey intended to culminate in increasing levels of shamanic mastery. As the title implies, this is not a book for dabblers but is for advanced practitioners who have the grounding and patience necessary to work through and digest these exercises and resulting experiences over a period of months, even years.

HILLARY S. WEBB, PH.D., AUTHOR OF TRAVELING BETWEEN THE WORLDS: CONVERSATIONS WITH CONTEMPORARY SHAMANS

James Endredy births another book that provides theory, personal background, and teaching stories that illuminate shamanic practices and exercises that can produce a meaningful path in life. It makes for powerful medicine, if you use what he offers in a respectful and humble way. He expands our notions of self and what is possible at a time of cultural crisis that calls for us to meet the challenges of todays world with expanded vision and empowerment to create life-affirming ways of living with all our relations.

TOM PINKSON, PH.D., AUTHOR OF THE SHAMANIC WISDOM OF THE HUICHOL AND FRUITFUL AGING

This remarkable book provides readers already proficient in basic shamanism a rare glimpse into the deeper universe of traditional healers and their most powerful practices. With precision and integrity Endredy provides step-by-step guidance for learning the advanced healing arts of world shamanism, such as interacting with Sacred Fire, recapitulating energy drains, creating animal-spirit jicara bowls, a personal death/rebirth ceremony, lucid-shamanic dreaming, and quantum healing through direct shamanic viewing. If you are ready to fully step through the portal of conscious transformation, this book will be your treasured companion and guide.

JEFF NIXA, J.D., M.DIV., FOUNDER OF GREAT PLAINS SHAMANIC PROGRAMS AND AUTHOR OF THE LOST ART OF HEART NAVIGATION

James Endredys Advanced Shamanism weaves together practices he has learned and used over many years, and his transparency about their origins adds to their validity. There are skills for improving your ability to practice shamanism as well as valuable tools for benefiting your community. A must-have for any shamanic practitioner seeking a solid practical text to learn from.

LUPA, AUTHOR OF NATURE SPIRITUALITY FROM THE GROUND UP AND CREATOR OF THE TAROT OF BONES

PREFACE

Why Advanced Shamanism?

My father, who was truly my hero, passed away when I was fourteen years old. It was tragic, a battle with brain cancer that he gallantly lost. A Hungarian immigrant new to this country, my father went from sweeping floors to becoming president of a multinational corporation. Probably because of his driven and protective nature, he loved his family with the ferocity of a mountain lion. I loved him back in the same roaring way. So when he died, I was devastated on both a cellular and a psychic level. The deep questions prevailed in my adolescent heart: Who am I? Why do I exist? What am I to do with my life?

With this in my head, I took off for the freedom of the road, and by the time I was eighteen, I had been through more than twenty-five statesseeking shelter in stolen cars, mountain shacks, and cheap hotels. Through all my travels, I maintained my continuous love for nature, which both my parents had instilled in me. I attribute this passion for the outdoors for saving me from the downward spiral I was experiencing after such loss and for keeping me from being pulled into el camino perdido (the lost path).

My mother was my grounding force during this time and still is: I talk on the phone to her daily. Her feminine energy is an inspiration in my work. She has this effect on folks, particularly as an eighty-one-year-old voluntary caregiver at numerous nursing homes. She is, in my opinion, the embodiment of Tatai Urianka (Huichol for Grandmother Growth). As I grew up and settled more on accepting my fathers passing, I learned the importance of healing oneself on a quantum level. Since then, I have been a student of the existential, seeking answers to those deeper questions only humans ask. In trying to find answers, I learned many useful things.

I quickly decided organized religion was not for me, and I became drawn to more esoteric teachings and also the type of nature-based spirituality that indigenous cultures practice. During this period, I traveled extensively throughout the United Statesthen Mexico, South and Central America, and Europe. For many years I was a seeker, a sponge for knowledge of other cultures and how they dealt with these big questions I was asking myself. Year after yearpractice after practiceI gradually came to know on a deep level the lessons taught to me by elders of the Seneca, Lenni Lenape, Apurimac Inca, Arapaho, Minneconjou Sioux, Kanaka Maoli, Tuscarora, Tukano, Mazatek, Yurok, Navaho, Hopi, Yucatec Maya, and Huichol/Wirrarika tribes. It is from these tribes I developed the practices for this book, Advanced Shamanism.

During the past thirty years of my life, I have been privileged to be accepted and learn from shamans of many different cultures. With their shamanic vision they could see that even though I was a white Western man I was gifted with a spirit in my heart that could help make the world a better place. I came to know healers, shamans, kawiteros, lamas, siddhas, roadmen, and leaders in the modern fields of ecopsychology, bioregionalism, and sustainable living. I was especially interested in those that retained their ancestral traditions and were still directly connected to nature; they were the most fascinating, grounded, and mature humans I have ever encountered.

In 1998, while visiting the peyote desert with the Huichol, I received a direct message from the spirit of the desert concerning one of the tasks for my life. (Finding a path for their life is the main reason the Huichol make pilgrimages to the peyote desert on their first quests.) The message was delivered to me by the small sparrows that winter in the Chihuahuan desert as I sat in the shade of a tree. The experience was so amazing that at first I thought it couldnt possibly be real. But as I continued to listen, I realized the magic of the peyote desert was speaking to me through the little birds fluttering around. It wasnt a booming voice, like you might imagine the voice of God would be; it was a powerful telepathic message from a form I had never encountered before. The message was that I was to write a book. This was a rather confusing message because I wasnt a writer and never even thought about writing a book; and the message did not include what the book was to be about. I struggled for more than two years with the task of writing a bookI had no idea what to write aboutuntil during a day of rock climbing I had a near-death experience in which I received another message, this time from the spirit of a mountain in the Gunks of Upstate New York. I wrote about this encounter in my book Ecoshamanism: Sacred Practices of Unity, Power & Earth Healing.

As I climbed higher and higher up the sheer face of the mountain I knew that I was in big trouble. The route

At that moment, the spirit of the Gunks took me. I felt myself flying like Ebenezer Scrooge trapped in Christmas past. My perception was dual. On the one hand, I could clearly feel myself about to slip off the cliff and I could see my life blast before my eyes. On the other hand, I also felt myself hoveringwatching the whole incident with a feeling of detached awe. Meanwhile, during this duality I had a silent conversation with the ancient spirit of the mountain that was about to end my life. Everything happened so rapidly that I didnt have time to mentally analyze what was going on. I instinctively knew that this was the same spirit that had spoken to me during a three-day vision quest I had done a few months earlier on the same exact mountain in the Gunks. The spirit had spoken to me during the vision quest ceremony, when I had given the Gunks my offerings of blood, breath, and soul and had granted my vision of being one with Tatai UrianakaGrandmother Growth. The mountain knew my task in life even better than I did.