Villoldo - Shaman Healer Sage – How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the Americas

Table of Contents

To my mother Elena, with all my love

PROLOGUE

THIS BOOK IS THE RESULT OF MY TRAVELS AND TRAINING WITH THE Inka shamans. One of the great civilizations of the Americas and the builders of Machu Picchu, the Inka lived in cities in the clouds with cobblestone streets that were cleaned every night by releases of water from the citys canal system. Inka shamans practiced energy medicine for more than five thousand years, transmitting this knowledge from one generation to the next through an oral tradition. For twenty-five years I studied with the finest Inka medicine men and women. The rites I underwent in the high mountains of the Andes and the Amazon adhered to ancient tradition and sometimes required months of preparation. They freed the apprentice from living in the grip of fear, greed, violence, and predatory sexuality. My quest was guided by an old Inka named Antonio Morales. My adventures in the Amazon and the Andean highlands with Don Antonio are documented in my earlier books, Dance of the Four Winds and Island of the Sun.

The techniques for healing with spirit and light in this book are my contemporary reinterpretation of ancient healing practices. Versions of the shamans way of seeing that I call the Second Awareness and the Extraction Process are still in use in North and South America. The Death Rites originate in the Amazon and form part of a body of knowledge discovered by men and women who have transcended our notions of time and death. The Illumination Process I developed with my mentor Don Antonio from the remnants of a nearly forgotten Inka practice for healing through the Luminous Energy Field. These techniques are extraordinarily powerful and effective. They must be used only with the strongest code of ethics and integrity.

Part I provides a background of the belief system on which these techniques are based. Part II provides techniques for learning the shamans way of seeing and for creating sacred space and practices you can experiment with for your personal healing. Please do not use them with others without adequate training from a master practitioner. Part III describes advanced techniques that must be performed by a master practitioner, a person who has undergone an apprenticeship overseen by a skilled teacher. These chapters describe procedures used for unblocking the immune response, for extracting intrusive energies and entities, as well as assisting a loved one who is making his or her return journey to the Spirit world.

There are dangers associated with energy healing, both for the client and for the healer. Far too many poorly trained practitioners dispense energy healing without understanding the mechanics of the human energy field. I have seen people diagnosed with cancer receive energy healing on their tumor, only to have the cancer spread throughout their body. To their disbelief, they discovered that cancer thrives on certain forms of energy. I have also seen persons suffering from serious psychological conditions who have been treated by unqualified healers, only to have their conditions exacerbated and the symptoms of their neuroses or their dysfunctional worldview reinforced. In one case, a woman came to see me after losing her child in an automobile accident. She had been to a psychic who said that her little girl was always by her side, that all she had to do was to be open and she would feel the presence of her daughter. The woman felt an immediate sense of relief. Yet after a few days she began to suffer from insomnia. After a week of no sleep she came to see me. The first thing she said was that she wanted to die and was ready to take her own life. When I tested her for the presence of an intrusive entity (see Chapter 8), I discovered she tested positive. The girls spirit had attached itself to her mothers Luminous Energy Field, seeking refuge from the confusion and agitation one experiences after a traumatic death. The healers advice to be open, although well intended, was keeping both mother and daughter in emotional turmoil and psychic pain.

In our first session the mother released her daughter to the luminous healers who would carry her to the light of the Spirit world. It was difficult for her to let go. During the Illumination Process she saw death as a doorway to infinity; she experienced that her daughter was separated from her only by a thin veil. Shortly thereafter she began sleeping soundly again. We then sealed the opening in her Luminous Energy Field through which the girls spirit had entered. Like an open wound, this tear in her energy field was an invitation to opportunistic spirit entities and disturbing energies. We then spent the next few sessions healing her grief. I encouraged her to go to a psychotherapist who specialized in treating persons recovering from loss. Im convinced that the mother would have committed suicide had she continued to follow the psychics advice. Instead, she engaged her healing journey with courage and dedication. Today she is a gifted and compassionate healer, assisting others who have suffered loss and bereavement in their lives.

BLACK AND WHITE MAGIC

When I was in my early twenties, I was preparing for an expedition to the Amazon when I received a call from the foundation that sponsored my research. They needed an anthropologist to complete a study on Voodoo healers in Haiti. I was reluctant to go, as I knew very little of the African-derived healing practices in Haiti. The foundation officer explained that it would be for only ten days, to assist the senior anthropologist on the project, and persuaded me when he mentioned he was reviewing my grant application to return to the Amazon. Five days later I landed in Port-au-Prince. The senior anthropologist was a man in his late thirties who had spent the better part of a year in Haiti. He explained to me that the French who colonized the island had been the worst slave drivers in the New World. Whereas the average life expectancy of an African slave after he arrived in America was thirty years, the life expectancy of a slave who had the misfortune of landing in Haiti was only two years. He went on to explain that Voodoo was originally a healing practice from sub-Saharan Africa, and that in Haiti it was also used to harm ones foes, particularly the ruthless slave masters. The techniques were identical, he explained. The same practices you used to heal someone could be used to hurt someone. The same techniques that were used to stimulate the immune system to eradicate a cancerous tumor could be used to lay waste to the immune system so that your victim would die from pneumonia in a matter of weeks.

Being in my early twenties, I was convinced that I knew better. Black magic, I conjectured, could work only on those who believed in it. If you did not subscribe to the belief system, it could not affect you. I remember stating this matter-of-factly to the senior anthropologist as we sat at a small caf by the waterfront. He looked at me and smiled. Im willing to put my money on that, I said. Done, he replied. We agreed on a hundred-dollar wager that Voodoo could not affect me. We headed off to the home of the Voodoo priest he had been working with. The old man lived in a ramshackle wooden hut on a hilltop overlooking the town. After casual introductions in the local Haitian Creole, which my colleague spoke fluently, he proceeded to explain to the man that I was a nonbeliever, that I thought the old mans magic was all make-believe, and that he wanted to teach me a lesson. I understood enough French to pick up some of the words. Dont hurt him, he said. The old man turned to me and smiled. You want believe? he asked in broken English, and laughed loudly. We agreed that he would do his work on Monday of the following week, after I returned to California.