The Shamanic Odyssey

Download or read book The Shamanic Odyssey written by Robert Tindall and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-11-16 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals the striking parallels between indigenous cultures of the Americas and the ancient Homeric world as well as Tolkien’s Middle Earth • Explores the shamanic use of healing songs, psychoactive plants, and vision quests at the heart of the Odyssey and the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien • Examines Odysseus’s encounters with plant divinities, altered consciousness, animal shapeshifting, and sacred topography--all concepts vital to shamanism • Reveals how the Odyssey emerged precisely at the rupture between modern and primal consciousness Indigenous, shamanic ways of healing and prophecy are not foreign to the West. The native way of viewing the world--that is, understanding our cosmos as living, sentient, and interconnected--can be found hidden throughout Western literature, beginning with the very origin of the European literary tradition: Homer’s Odyssey. Weaving together the narrative traditions of the ancient Greeks and Celts, the mythopoetic work of J. R. R. Tolkien, and the voices of plant medicine healers in North and South America, the authors explore the use of healing songs, psychoactive plants, and vision quests at the heart of the Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Tolkien’s final novella, Smith of Wootton Major. The authors examine Odysseus’s encounters with plant divinities, altered consciousness, animal shapeshifting, and sacred topography--all concepts vital to shamanism. They show the deep affinities between the healing powers of ancient bardic song and the icaros of the shamans of the Amazon rain forest, how Odysseus’s battle with Circe--wielder of narcotic plants and Mistress of Animals--follows the traditional method of negotiating with a plant ally, and how Odysseus’s journey to the land of the dead signifies the universal practice of the vision quest, a key part of shamanic initiation. Emerging precisely at the rupture between modern and primal consciousness, Homer’s work represents a window into the lost native mind of the Western world. In this way, the Odyssey as well as Tolkien’s work can be seen as an awakening and healing song to return us to our native minds and bring our disconnected souls back into harmony with the living cosmos.

Download or read book Shamanic Odyssey written by Jay Miller and published by Menlo, Park, Calif. : Ballena Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Aya written by Rak Razam and published by . This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When experiential journalist Razam sets out to document the booming business of Amazonian shamanism in the 21st century, he quickly finds himself caught up in a culture clash between the old world and the new.

Download or read book Aya Awakenings written by Rak Razam and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experiential journalist Rak Razam sets out to document the thriving business of 21st-century hallucinogenic shamanism starting with a trip to the annual Amazonian Shaman Conference in Iquitos, Peru, where he meets a motley crew of "spiritual tourists," rogue scientists, black magicians, and indigenous and Western healers and guides, all in town to partake of the ritual--and the medicine--of ayahuasca, "the vine of souls." Combining his personal story with the history of Amazonian shamanism, Razam takes the reader along on an entertaining, enlightening adventure. In areas of Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru, the traditional herbal brew known as ayahuasca or yajé is legally used to heal physical ailments and to cleanse and purify the spirit by connecting it to the web of life. Sting and Tori Amos have admitted sampling it in Latin America, as has Paul Simon, who chronicled the experience in his song "Spirit Voices." Aya Awakenings works as a cautionary tale, a travelogue, and a memoir, but primarily acts as a portal through which readers are able to gain more information about the perils and the promise of spiritual reconnection through ayahuasca. "A memorable--and deeply personal--journey into the hearts and minds of those who carry on the shamanic traditions of ayahuasca."--Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Contents Foreword by Dennis McKenna Preface by Rak Razam Departure 1 Seekers of the Mystery; 2 Wheel of Fortune; 3 Jungle Fever; 4 Space Cadets; 5 Cosmovision; 6 Hamburger Universe; 7 Surfing; 8 Ayahuasca Disco; 9 Logos; 10 Night of the Black Puma; 11 Downtime; 12 Seeds; 13 Beasts Initiation; 14 Shaman School; 15 Snakes and Ladders; 16 Heart of Darkness; 17 Return to the Source; 18 The Love Creek Session; 19 The High Frontier; 20 Stairway to Heaven; 21 Going Down to the River to Pray; 22 The Hero's Journey Return 23 Secret Women's Business; 24 The Prime Directive; 25 One River; 26 When Stones Dream; 27 Paying the Earth; 28 Talking with Kevin; 29 Illuminated; 30 Final Flight Index Bibliography Author's Note

Download or read book Ema's Odyssey written by Sandra Harner and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follow the fantastic odyssey of one woman as she explores shamanic realms, encountering spirit animals and other teachers who answer her deepest questions and provide her with life-changing guidance and healing. Widowed, childless, and alone, 60-year-old Ema bravely decides to expand her self-knowledge by embarking on a spiritual adventure. She meets with author Sandra Harner, who leads her through five sessions of Harner Shamanic Counseling (HSC), a highly effective system of personal problem-solving in which counselors help clients enter a shamanic state of consciousness using a specific sonic rhythm. While in this state, clients seek out helping spirits, who offer insight, wisdom, and healing. By the end of her sessions with Harner, Ema has discovered her own innate ability to find answers to pervasive personal questions, overcome inhibitory fears, and acquire self-confidence and wisdom. She has found a sense of personal empowerment and a newfound joy in existence--and decides she wants to continue her journeys independently. From 1999 to 2011, Ema ventures on a total of 64 journeys, each one chronicled in this book, thanks to taped recordings of her simultaneous narration. In addition to serving as an invaluable resource for students and practitioners of shamanism, psychology, and alternative modalities of therapy, Ema's Odyssey enchants us with its lyrical poetry and unique wisdom, and inspires us with its demonstration of courage, curiosity, persistence, and humility. Perhaps most importantly, we come away with the added assurance that we are not alone, that there are oft-untapped resources we all can access, given the tools and trust in our own experience.

Download or read book The Jaguar that Roams the Mind written by Robert Tindall and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journey into the deeper workings of indigenous healing in the Amazon • Explores the three pillars of Amazonian shamanism: purging, psychoactive plants, and diet • Shares the experiences of apprenticing with an Ashaninca master shaman • Reveals the intimate relationship between shamans and plant spirits The Jaguar that Roams the Mind is a journey into the vanishing world of Amazonian shamanism--an adventure of initiation and return--that explores the unique reality at the heart of the Amazonian healing system. Robert Tindall shares his journeys through the inner and outer landscape of the churches of ayahuasca and with the Kaxinawa Indians in Brazil; his experiences at the pioneering center for the treatment of addiction, Takiwasi, in Peru; and his studies with an Ashaninca master shaman deep in the rainforest jungle. Moving beyond the scientific approach to medicinal plants, which seeks to reduce them to their chemical constituents, Tindall illustrates the shamans’ intimate relationships with plant spirits. He explores the three pillars of Amazonian shamanism: purging (drawing disease out of the body), psychoactive plants (including the ritual use of ayahuasca), and diet (communing with the innate intelligence of teacher plants). Through trials and revelations, the subtle inner logic of indigenous healing unfolds for him, including the “miraculous” healing of a woman suffering from a brain tumor. Culminating in a ceremony fraught with terror yet ultimately enlightening, Tindall’s journey reveals the crucial component missing from the metaphysics of the West: the understanding and appreciation of the sentience of nature itself.

Download or read book Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love written by Will Roscoe and published by Lethe Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Originally published by Suspect Thoughts Press, 2004; Updated by the author and re-released by Lethe Press, 2013."