Nancy Connor - Shamans of the World: Extraordinary First-Person Accounts of Healings, Mysteries, and Miracles

Shamans of the World presents the transcribed words of respected healers from cultures around the globe. Though these elders represent the ancestral wisdom that preceded the worlds great religions, few of them get a chance to present their own voices. It is time for the Original People to be heard and for us to learn from them. The forthcoming chapters contribute to this mission.

I am most grateful to have been a part of this historically important project. I took a sabbatical over a decade ago to conduct the fieldwork that created these interviews. This work would not have been possible without the support of Nancy Connor and the Ringing Rocks Foundation. I express my deepest appreciation for their enabling me to do this work: to Nancy for her long-term commitment to the work; to Carey Zimmerman for all her patience and cheerleading, including helping me keep accurate records of goats given to African villages; to John Myers, whose dialogical voice kept the work honest and whose passion for soulful living assured everyone of the importance of both continual levity and trusting relations; and to Ed Rosner and David Robkin for overseeing the integrity of the institutional aspects of the foundation.

The original book series from which these interviews were taken was a partnership with others. Karen Davidson was the brilliant designer of the original books. She successfully found the most appropriate and aesthetic ways to present diverse cultural traditions. Karen and I worked closely together to transform raw footage from the field into beautiful texts. Kern Nickerson did most of the photography and brought a kind presence to his interaction with other cultures. My wife, Mev Jenson, volunteered for the audio recording and project management in the field while our son, Scott, contributed audio engineering and technical support. This work would never have been possible without the sacrifices and contributions of my family. And because of the friends we made around the world, our lives will never be the same.

I want to acknowledge the many consultants, technical assistants, guides, drivers, and interpreters who also helped in this long-term ethnographic work. In particular I am grateful for the support of Paddy Hill, operator of Pride of Africa Safaris, for his help and collaboration in the African bush. There were many other people who contributed in special ways to make this work possible. Blessings to all of you!

It is the shamans and healers who are the main characters of this work. I have done my best to allow their voices to come through the text. As I did in the original works, I will again minimize the presence of my own voice and understanding: I have told my personal story elsewhere ( Bushman Shaman, Destiny Books, 2005).

In this special compilation, Nancy Connor selected passages from the original books, doing so in a way that demonstrates how their contributions are both distinctive and connected in the greater fabric of collective wisdom.

Welcome to an archive of global wisdom, a conservatory of healing traditions, and a collection of remarkable stories. May this work inspire you to be good to others and relate to one another as you would hope others would treat you. Let us join our hearts together and celebrate this opportunity for learning from one another in a gentle and loving way.

Many years ago, I became ill and went to the local hospital, which misdiagnosed my appendicitis and sent me home. By the time I was admitted, I was very close to death from sepsis and required nearly a week of intravenous antibiotics to reduce the infection to the point where my burst appendix could be removed. A week after I was released, I found myself back in the operating room due to an abscess formed by infectious material that was left behind during the first operation.

A year or so after this event, I found myself very sick once again, suffering from terrible headaches, weight gain despite eating very little due to a lack of appetite, constant ringing in my ears, menstrual disorders, and many other problems. I went from internists to specialists, who all ran their own batteries of invasive and often painful tests. Each came up with a common diagnosis: Our tests show that nothing is wrong with you; your problems are all in your head. See a psychologist for some stress-management techniques.

After several years of this, I began to think that they might be right and it all might be in my head. Then a friend of mine told me that she had been diagnosed with and treated for a systemic candida infection. She told me that my symptoms were similar to hers and suggested I look into it. Sure enough, all of my symptoms came down to a common cause, which was easily treatable. Within three months, I was back to normal and feeling great.

When I returned for a follow-up visit with my endocrinologist, who was treating what she considered the hormonal imbalances causing my menstrual difficulties, I was in for a shock. She told me that she had suspected I had a candida infection, but she believed that this had nothing to do with the symptoms she was treating, so hadnt bothered to mention it. When I explained that all of my symptoms had disappeared, she said that shed have to run all of her tests again so that she could see where the problems now lay. Nothing I said about how each of my problems had disappeared would satisfy her. Needless to say, I left the office extremely disappointed and feeling very hurt by her attitudenever to return.

This series of incidents, as well as several other minor issues over the following years, led me to a deep feeling of mistrust of our modern medical system. Dont get me wrong; if I were seriously injured in a car accident, there would be no place in the world Id rather be than in a modern hospital. However, it seemed to me that when a health crisis was involved, modern medicine did pretty well, while when it came to chronic disease or subtle problems that tests couldnt easily and accurately diagnose, the system was lacking. I began to see our system as one of disease management, not health care. Instead of looking deeper to understand the fundamental cause of a medical problem to resolve it, modern medicine simply treats the symptoms of the suspected disease with drugs and surgery until all of the symptoms disappear. I also began to see that doctors were disinclined to believe their patients, despite the fact that a patient is more familiar with his or her own body than a doctor looking into it with diagnostic tools could ever be.

I began to look into various aspects of alternative health care techniques and systems: where they originated, how other cultures looked at health and disease, what alternative diagnostic tools were available and how they worked, as well as how successful they were. At the same time, I began to explore my own beliefs about how healing worked and the power of the mind and spirit in achieving physical health. I became a certified Reiki practitioner and found that I seemed to have a natural talent for the work. I also attended quite a few meditation retreats to explore my spiritualityand often the lack thereofalong with its possible effect on my health.