What Real Shamanic Healing Requires: A Conversation with Dr. José Stevens

In this episode of Untold Medicine, Dr. Michele Burklund sits down with Dr. José Stevens, co-founder of The Power Path School of Shamanism, to explore what shamanism actually is beyond the stereotypes, trends, and commercialization. With more than 40 years of teaching and practice, a doctorate bridging shamanism and psychology, and 10 years of apprenticeship with traditional shamans in Mexico, Dr. Stevens brings rare depth to this conversation.

Together, they discuss the many roles of the shaman as healer, ceremonialist, teacher, leader, artist, and wisdom keeper; the discipline required in long-term apprenticeship; the relationship between spirit, nature, and healing; and the difference between authentic practice and the modern performance of “shamanism.” They also explore how true healing happens, why discernment matters when seeking a practitioner, and what is lost when sacred traditions are turned into trends.

This is a thoughtful conversation on healing, humility, spiritual practice, and the enduring value of ancient wisdom in a modern world.

Want to watch the video version of the interview? Click here.

Transcript

Dr. Michele Burklund 0:44

Welcome everybody today. I'm Dr. Michele Burklund, and this is the podcast of Untold Medicine. Today we have Dr. Jose Stevens with us, and I'm super excited. So, welcome, Dr. Stevens.

Dr. Jose Stevens 0:57

Oh, thank you very much.

Dr. Michele Burklund 1:00

So, I'm going to read a little bit of your background for our viewers really before we get started. Um, Dr. Jose Stevens is the co-founder of the PowerPath School of Shamanism, an international school dedicated to sharing shamanic wisdom in a grounded practical way. He trained for 10 years with traditional shamans in Mexico and has since studied healing traditions in the Amazon, the Andes, and Europe. Jose has a doctorate that bridges shamanism with modern psychology. And for more than 40 years, he's taught, consulted, and guided people around the world to understand their purpose, expand their awareness, and live with greater clarity. He's also the author of more than 20 books on shamanism and personal transformation. Wow, that's quite a biography, too. I'm I'm glad, I'm very excited to have you on today.

Speaker 2 1:55

Yeah, that's uh, you know, it's been a while, but I've had plenty of time to write lots of articles and books. I'm older in my life, so which is great.

Speaker 3 2:06

And when I was really looking for somebody to interview, you know, I did a lot of research and a lot of background digging to find you and to find your extensive background. So I think it's going to be great for everybody on the podcast to really hear your knowledge today, too.

Speaker 2 2:22

Well, I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 3 2:24

So to start with one of the most basic questions, but I think it can be one of the most confusing too, is really what is shamanism? You know, could it be a doctor, a healer, a teacher? How do you define that to people?

Speaker 2 2:39

Well, there's a difference between what academics say about shamans and what uh ordinary people think of in terms of shamans. So I'm gonna stay away from the academic side because they have those very specific definitions of what a shaman has to be. And I don't tend to see things that way. It's there's a lot of overlap in life, and things don't conform to little narrow boxes. So uh shamans, um, first of all, shamanism is a cross-cultural uh uh phenomena. It's all all over every continent of the world has its shamans, maybe except for Antarctica, and you know, uh uh shamans uh play many roles, and it's all those things that you mentioned. So shamans were definitely the first doctors. They knew about how to set bones and they knew about how to reduce fevers and they knew about plants and how to administer those plants in such a way as to heal people and those kinds of things. They knew about um uh, well, if I wanted to be specific here, I could give you like seven uh main areas that shamans uh specialize in. So, first of all, there's the the shaman is the, as I mentioned, is the healer. Um, but also shamans are ceremonialists, so they're trying they're trained in all these ways, and they're trying their apprenticeships are long, sometimes 20 years long, to learn all these things. So they they learn about ceremony, they learn how to run ceremonies, they learn about sacred time and sacred space and power places and where to do certain ceremonies and when to do them and all those kinds of things. They're also artists, so they're gifted in, for example, uh singing and dancing, which are also part of their healing uh processes. Uh, they they make their own um sacred objects, uh usually colorfully and all that. So they they have to be, you know, creative. Um, they're very good storytellers. That's part of their training. They have to learn to tell stories because the shamans uh from way, way back were often the people in their tribes that knew the history of the tribe and would teach the people where they had come from, their origin stories and their myths and their legends and all that. And usually they're very funny people, so they had you know great humor and they could tease people and uh all of that. They also uh in many tribes, they were also the chief or the leader of the tribe. In fact, some of the emperors of um there was a time when all the emperors of China were trained shamans, and that's generally not known. So they they know about leadership and they know how to run big operations or little operations. Uh, in some tribes, there was a chieftain that was other than the shaman, and then there was a shaman who sort of oversaw the more spiritual aspects. So uh the the shaman, uh shamans are always uh teachers, like you mentioned, but they're also students of life. Um, they're they've always been really good psychologists, and they study people and they understand human nature, so they're able to help people that have always had mental illness and um depression and uh grief and the kinds of things that humans have always struggled with. They were the people that uh someone would go to to help them with that. And sometimes it was just talking to them, but sometimes it was prescribing them some kind of uh healing process, like, well, go over to this waterfall, stay by the waterfall for two days, be in the sun, and you'll feel better. And of course, that worked. So they they knew about that. So um, so shamans perform many roles, they're also uh warriors in terms of that they they know how to fight the inner demons, and um sometimes they they talk about the demons as being external, but uh the more advanced shamans understand that the demons are interior, that we each have our own demons, you know, our fear patterns and struggles and our addictions and things like that. And so they were they were very knowledgeable about those things and they could fight those things off in themselves and help other people to fight their demons. So that's the kind of the warrior aspect of them. They're also really good prophets, they could they could predict things, they could see far, they could tell the hunters where they would find the animals so that when they went hunting, they wouldn't waste their time going in the wrong direction. They would find them two days that way, there's a herd of elk, you know, that's where you'll find them. And yeah, they it worked. So those are the main areas that shamans usually perform in and have training in. But every shaman is better at one thing or a couple things than other things. So maybe one shaman is a really good healer, maybe not such a good singer. Another shaman might be like a really good singer, but not so good at running ceremonies. But they all know something about all of that.

Speaker 3 8:34

So they're all kind of like wisdom keepers in a way. They have different knowledge and it's based on like the lineage given to them.

Speaker 2 8:44

Right. They're kind of like a uh they're the keeper of the library, so to speak, you know, not that it's a physical library, but you know.

Speaker 3 8:53

Right, right. Yeah. And so let's get back to kind of how you found this path, too, because it's a very interesting path to go on, and especially for so many years and to so many different tribes, too. So how did you get started? What was kind of like the seed that was planted and and how you found this path?

Speaker 2 9:15

Well, that's a uh uh that's a good question. You know, it really takes me all the way back to the very uh beginning of my life. So when I was a child, my mother uh was born in Mexico, my grandmother was born in Mexico. Uh, they were Mexican, and my father was American, so I'm uh bicultural. And when I was a small child, my grandmother, who lived with us, she took care of me. Uh my parents went off to work, and she was raised, she she goes back a long way. My grandmother was born in something like 1880. So she was born in uh an hacienda in northern Mexico, and in those days, the the servants were all indigenous peoples, and the servants raised the children. So she was raised by indigenous people, even though she wasn't one, she was raised by them, and so when I was small, she would regale me with the stories of these indigenous peoples and their practices, and they had taught her uh some things about healing and how to how to work with energy and those kinds of things, and she passed those on to me. So that was sort of my earliest education. Then I went off to school and did the usual things. Um I was born and raised in Hollywood, California, so that's kind of a strange combination of things, but uh I was uh I went to Catholic schools, had a Catholic education. Um so you know, I drifted off from that body of knowledge, but uh I never forgot it. It was always in the background, and I was always very personally, I was always very psychic. So even when I was a little kid, I knew what people were thinking, I could see things, I could, you know, and I thought that everybody could do that, but then I found out that no, it wasn't the case, so I kind of kept that to myself. Um, and then uh I was still interested in that. So when I uh got into my 20s, I I started pursuing uh I read all the Carlos Carlos Castaneda books, for example, and because that was what was out at that time, you know, and there was a great interest in um uh you know psychedelics and hallucinogenic medicines, and LSD was out there, and so I was uh curious, and I was an experimenter, and I tried all these things and got quite an education just from personal exploration, and then I began to study more specifically. I went to um the uh to CIIS, which is a uh university in San Francisco, and that was dedicated to um studying world religions. But as part of their coursework, that included shamanism. And so I began to meet anthropologists, I began to meet people who had studied with shamans in their different countries. I studied with Angelus Arian, who is a Basque uh shaman, and uh so it just kept developing, and pretty soon I was on this path. But I was also trained at that time. Uh, I went to UC Berkeley and got my master's degree in clinical social work as a psychiatric social worker for 10 years. I worked in mental health centers and all that, but meanwhile I was studying shamanism over here, studying psychotherapy over here and clinical work, and and they were they were separate. And I I couldn't stand that for them to be separate. And I thought, this gotta be a way to bring these things together. You know, the they're both healing, but they're going in different directions. So I spent a lot of time thinking about that, talking to people. I finally did my doctoral dissertation, bridging the two. And in the course of all that, um, I my wife and I met this um uh Wisharica, which is also known as Huichol, which they don't like that name because the name translated means he who runs away. That name was given to them by the Spaniards because the Spaniards were taking over in Mexico, and of course they ran away. Yeah, they ran into the mountains to avoid being assimilated into the whole Catholicism and all that, so they maintained their traditions. So we met this Washaric uh uh yarn painter because they're famous for their yarn paintings and they're just beautiful. They're uh they're yarn pressed into honey, and the honey, the honey comes from hives that are sacredly taken care of for that very purpose. So he he was such a good yarn painter that he has yarn paintings in lots of museums around the world, and so it turns out that he had this brother who was a shaman, which are in that tradition called marakames, because every tradition has their own name for these people. So marakames are the Wisharka shamans, and he said, You should meet my brother. Uh he said, The only thing is, my my brother has never been to the United States, he's never been outside of the mountains in Mexico. And uh, so one time he brought his brother up to, I was we were living in Berkeley, California at the time, and uh and we met him, and he was doing some healing work uh at a local place there, and he he was dressed in his native garb, and he was a very tiny little person. And I just thought, wow, this is this guy, he's powerful. I felt his power. He was very gentle, very quiet. He only he he only spoke Spanish poorly because uh he spoke his own native language, which was uh no offshoot of Nahuatl, which is a Toltec language that comes from Mexico. Anyway, long story short, uh he let it be known that he was looking for some couples uh to train. And um subsequently we found out that it wasn't politically correct for him to do that, but he felt that it was the right time for people outside their village to start to know what they knew, and uh and he read that correctly because this is the time. So he without knowing what we were doing, my wife and I uh agreed that we we wanted to do this, you know. So we embarked on, he said, well, it'll take five years, uh uh, because they they do everything in fives. So five years for this, five years for that. So it's gonna be a five-year training, and we had to go down to Mexico to do this training. And he would come up a couple times and you know, help us. So that's how we began our training. We had no idea what we were in for. Everybody else, there were other couples. By the time we were done, there was nobody left but my wife and I, because it was very challenging, very difficult. And it ended up taking us 10 years, not five years, because in the meantime we were having kids, and so we were trying to raise babies at the same time as keeping this training going, and he understood that, and so that's that's why it was 10 years. And uh during that time, he said, You can't tell anybody that you're doing this with me, so you have to keep that a secret. So that was one of the most challenging parts of it is for 10 years keeping this training secret from everybody, or yeah, like explaining where you're going all the time. People said, Well, you're going to Mexico a lot, you know. It's like, well, we really love Mexico. And of course, I'm half Mexican, so it sort of made sense that we were going to Mexico. So uh anyway, that's the you know, that's the crazy story of how that all uh went down. And um the training itself was rigorous, and it involved uh going down to Mexico, going out into the desert, very, very um uh harsh desert terrain, and doing ceremonies in their peyote fields out there. And uh these were all night ceremonies, and we would go in November, and so it was extremely cold. And um, you know, by the morning our ice would be all over us, and the wind would be howling, and uh and we had been, you know, taking peyote all night. And um uh, you know, at the first I just got sicker than a dog. I was just, you know, in the bushes mostly throwing up. And uh so it wasn't easy. And then the next that was an all-night ceremony. The next day, uh part of that was that we had to climb a 10,000-foot mountain and do some ceremonies on the top of the mountain, uh, all you know, without sleep and without food and no water.

unknown 19:29

Wow.

Speaker 2 19:30

So it's pretty rigorous stuff. And uh, and that went on for 10 years. So, and other ceremonies and other things, and we visited him in his village and got to know some of the people and his tribe and all that eventually, and then uh around about the time that we were completely coming to an end, um, he got sick and he passed away, and that was really rough on us because he was our guide, our teacher, or you know, and we had spent so much time with him. And uh at first, uh during that 10-year period, he he would only talk to my wife, he wouldn't talk to me at all. So for the first two years, he never addressed me.

Speaker 3 20:20

Interesting.

Speaker 2 20:22

That was really hard on me.

Speaker 3 20:24

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 20:26

Okay, and he it was a test. He wanted to see how I would handle that and how I would respond to that, and I stuck it out. So he he he he let me know at the end of about two years, he would he he nodded and said, Okay, you're you're ready.

Speaker 3 20:45

Wow, that's amazing.

Speaker 2 20:47

Yeah, there's some tough stuff along the way. Well, he knew that I had some ego, and yeah, that's a great test.

Speaker 3 20:55

That's a great test for sure.

Speaker 2 20:57

Well, he he was poking me, he was provoking me, challenging me around that. I learned a lot. Um, I at that time, you know, I was an academic. I was he had a I had a doctorate, you know. And so I wanted to know, I I wanted to ask questions and have him answer all my questions, and he wouldn't do it, and he would just go, uh you know, you'll see. And it turned out to be completely right. And I found out that really I after the end of 10 years, even though he didn't answer a lot of my questions, I knew a hell of a lot. And it was all by osmosis. It just like it it just was being with him. It was the teaching, was the learning. These things are very hard for other people to understand. So when I talk about these things, they they just go, what? They don't, they don't, it's hard to put to put into words, really.

Speaker 3 22:01

So yeah, and I might I think especially like the conventional education system teaches us in a very specific way. So we get stuck on that route and we can't see any other route. And so having a different point of view and and getting information because everybody did way before universities existed or different schools. So explaining that, uh yeah, I can understand that can be very hard. And trying to teach it to other people, which I guess we'll get into in a little bit too.

Speaker 2 22:35

Yeah. Well, I don't teach the same way he does because I have the bridge to this uh culture. Um So, but but I understand the academic world and I understand that world. And I I'm a bridge person, so that's what I do.

Speaker 3 22:52

Mm-hmm. So, and then you and your wife, your relationship, and then raising your kids during that time. I bet that was an amazing experience because you're learning so much about yourself and going deeper within at the same time. You're raising humans and you're like building that relationship too.

Speaker 2 23:11

Well, it helped enormously in raising our children because we were able to sort of use that um way of seeing the world and pass that on to our kids. And so to this day, that well, my daughter works with us. She's like a you know, one of the faculty in our in the power path. And uh, you know, I learn from her every day. She she she's a powerhouse, and she she knows all kinds of things. And I, you know, I I love uh listening to her talk because I learn stuff. So um my son is uh also very, very uh he he's an animator actually in in LA. Uh he's a director of animation. And uh he he uses this whole approach to the world in creating his animations. So it's really interesting. We we spent a lot of time on the phone talking about different stuff.

Speaker 3 24:21

Yeah, if you could define that time, like that 10-year period of how it changed you, how would you? I know there's so many ways it changed you. So this is the this is a very condensed question, but um like what would be like your takeaway when you look back at that period in time? Like what how did it mold who you are today and and what did you kind of learn as an overall essence?

Speaker 2 24:53

Well, um, I first of all, I I one of the things I learned was that there's many ways to look at reality and that they can all be coexisting, they can be, they can all be right in their own way, and yet they can be entirely different. And as part of that, of course, I had a Catholic education, which was more conventional in terms of like, you know, God is up there and God's watching everything and judging and sending people to heaven and hell and things like that. That's one outlook. Um, but what I learned mostly from uh the Wisharica people and Guadalupe, my teacher, was that uh spirit is in everything. And that uh, you know, our conventional views of uh God as a kind of like guy with a beard and all that is is uh you know not at all how they think of they they think of God as spirit, and spirit is everywhere all the time, in everything, and within each of one of us. And the the um challenge, I don't know if they'd call it a challenge really, is to allow spirit to express through us and to get out of the way. And so that was just a huge revelation to me. It was like, save my ass, save my life, you know, to make that jump to that because it made so much more sense than my conventional um upbringing, you know. That that just seemed like uh child's play compared with what they were, how they were seeing the world. And um uh I would say that that was the most important thing that I learned of all, but I did learn lots of important things. I learned that everything is medicine. That's one of their points of view. Everything is medicine, the sun's medicine, the moon's medicine, people's voices are medicines. Uh, there's nothing around that isn't can't be used as medicine. So that's a different way of looking at reality and looking at the world. Oh, it's all medicine, it's all here for me to heal and to um become the best that I can be, and you know.

Speaker 3 27:26

So those are a few things that yeah, that's really powerful too. And I mean, the idea of getting out of the way to have spirit come in is amazing. I guess the hardest part is getting out of the way and learning to get out of the way to spirit too.

Speaker 2 27:45

Yeah, well, unfortunately, our culture uh conditions us, programs us to actually get in the way all the time. So it's unlearning, a lot of it's unlearning all the bad habits, really, is what I found. And so I I that's a a lot of what I teach now and these days to people is like, you know, is unlearning and and getting out of the way of letting a very natural process take over. Because it's not like you go out there and you learn shamanism out there somewhere. Shamanism is about learning about yourself, it's it's about clearing away the obstacles so that you just are the way that you naturally are. It's actually very simple. So one of the the um one of the things I learned from Guadalupe and other shamans that I've worked with is um uh the sim simplicity of practices. So uh one practice is you know getting up in the morning and going outside and saying hello. It's a very it's like a kindergarten process, right? It's like what you teach in kindergarten. It's like say hello to the trees, say hello to the sun, say hello to the sky. Uh and so I began to do that on a regular basis, and I've done it for years and years and years now. And to me, it just seems like how could a person not do that? You know, after all this time, it's like it's it's very rude to like not say hello to the world, you know, in spirit. It's like we say hello to each other, you know, but but we don't think that we need to acknowledge uh all the other life that's around us. And what I found is that when I can greet the the environment and the natural world, um that it responds. So the world responds to us uh in ways that are hard to understand. Like uh I'll say, for example, hello to the breeze, hello to like the air, and it's really brisk outside, it's cold. I go out there and hello cold, and and right at that moment a raven flies by and cause. Or uh there's a big uh gust of wind. There's ways that nature speaks to us and responds instantly when it feels acknowledged. It's it that's its way of acknowledging us back. It says, I heard you. Here's my little gift to you. So that's a wonderful process. I always really enjoy that. So it's a it is a very, very simple thing, but it's it's uh an entire education. And that's yeah, that's very much what how I think of shamanism is that uh, you know, uh we live in a very complex world, uh, layers of complexity. And uh I've had to learn to simplify, simplify, simplify. And uh that's what I've learned from shamanism is is to be simple in the world, uh like a kid in some ways, you know, having that sort of innocence and having that kind of like uh looking at everything brand new, like I've never seen it before. That's the shamanic way. So it's getting rid of jargon, it's getting rid of all the things that obscure, and a lot of that's ego-driven. You know, especially in academia, people use a lot of jargon, their specialized jargon for their specialty. And it actually is just another barrier getting in the way of being with other people and communicating to them. There's ways of talking about things that you don't have to use jargon, you can just find really simple ways to explain things, and and then people go, Oh, I always wondered about that. I never understood that before.

Speaker 3 32:35

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 32:36

And it's just like, oh, because it was being obscured by complexity. But you know, it is challenging in our world today, that um is very, very complex. It's challenging keeping simple because it you know, you have to deal with the world, taxes and you know, banks and all those things.

Speaker 3 33:03

Right. I mean, even how we're meeting now virtually on different sides of the world and taking advantage of technology for them like that would be a beautiful thing. But at the same time, and I'm sure this is like probably a lot in your practice, right? Is how much the digital world is within people where they're on social media all the time or scrolling or checking their email every five minutes, and so many things that put them into this system and take them away from nature, from going outside. And so um that would be interesting to hear from you. I know, like um, when I have a patient, I tell them to go outside every morning too, but for a different reason to, you know, reset their melatonin and cortisol and ground themselves for a second. But I might, you know, add a little more in and have them communicate with nature. But even doing that and getting them to be like, hey, can you go outside in the morning and like within the first 15 minutes of waking up and they're like, oh, you know, it's there's so much of a disconnect now of nature and technology. How do you how do you like um teach a you know, like a regular person that's on using technology hours and hours a day? How do you bring them back or or communicate these concepts to them if they're so stuck kind of over here?

Speaker 2 34:27

Well, it is challenging. It you know, it's not an easy thing. A part of our program is putting people out on the land and leaving them there. So we call those solos, you know, in Native American terms, those are vision quests, but we don't use that terminology because that's theirs. You know, they vision quests is a very specialized thing. You you usually do it when you're a young person. And uh many of the people that come and work with us are old later in their lives, you know. So um a vision quest is not exactly what they need, they just need the peace and quiet of being out in nature. So we stick them out there for from anywhere from 24 hours to three days and three nights. And uh, you know, they they it's not rigorous because they're allowed to drink water and they're allowed to have a snack or two just if they have um, you know, like blood sugar problems. Um, but we send them out pretty sparse. They they they can have a little pad and uh, you know, they they can even have a little tent if they need it because the sometimes the weather is rough. Um, but they're they have to maintain silence and spend, you know, like up to three days and three nights, even five nights and five uh days we've done. Uh personally, I've done ones that are up to a week long, you know, seven days and seven nights. And uh, like I like to tell people, like the first 24 hours are rough. So usually people are so glad it's over. And then they go out there for three days and they're like, Oh, do I have to come back? And if they're out there for seven days and seven nights, it's like, I definitely don't want to go back. So it there's a process of letting go, letting go, releasing, not having any books, not having anything to write with.

Speaker 1 36:28

That's what I was gonna ask.

Speaker 2 36:30

Any distractions, none. And the note-taking is really rough for some people. You know, it's like, can I take notes? No, because it's another distraction. And uh, it can be really hard for some people. Some people absolutely fall in love, their heart opens, they're they're like, wow, this is the best thing I've ever done in my life. Uh, so you know the people are different. Um, but I find that to be very, very helpful in terms of like uh learning very quickly about how you can really get along with nothing and be perfectly fine. And of course, people go out and they're have their fears come up. They struggle with boredom, they struggle with anxiety because what about wild animals? And you know, and there are mountain lions and bears and things like that out there. Um, they never bother anybody, but um, people think about that, and uh they have they they go through their stuff, and little by little they let it go, let it go, let it go, until they're kind of in a blissful state, you know, by the end. So, and people have many people that repeat over, they come back, they want to keep doing that. So once a year they come back and they do another one. So that's one of the ways to deal with complexity in the world that works, but on a daily basis, it's harder. You know, it's not so easy to talk people out of their addiction to their phones and all their technologies. And uh when we have advanced, we have workshops out on our land and things like that. We usually have people uh we have a basket and we have people put their phones in the basket and just pick them up at the end. It's that that's hard for people.

Speaker 3 38:36

Yeah, yeah. I can imagine just like the idea that you can't check in or what if something happens, or but I mean before cell phones, it was like people went and they used payphones or the landline. I mean, there's we got through.

Speaker 2 38:54

If there wasn't any, then they didn't hear about stuff.

Speaker 3 38:57

Exactly. Yeah, well, that's that's definitely a big detox, but it I can imagine the the addiction to distraction too, right? Always doing something at the house, grabbing a book, writing, doing things that it might not be on technology, but it's that idea of constantly doing something that would be hard to detox from, too.

Speaker 2 39:23

Well, when people are still, they don't have the distractions, they start to pay attention to how just uncomfortable they are. And it's not unusual for people when they go out to sleep a lot, you know, the first 24 hours, because people are exhausted, they don't know how fatigued they are from the culture and all their all the stuff going on. And they just get out there and they just go, Oh, I gotta lie down. And they just sleep, and I say, Fine, sleep, you're tired, rest. And then after they wake up and they're a little rested, then they can start to you know spend a little time awake and noticing their environment and all of that. But um uh people start to notice that they're uncomfortable, they're just antsy, they're like can't quite get comfortable in their bodies, and so they they kind of look at that and they sit with it. And of course, I give them instructions ahead of time and say, don't ignore those things, actually pay attention to them, like notice uh, you know, what is uncomfortable, who is being uncomfortable, and and what's this all about? What's this coming from? And you know, that kind of thing. So it's the it becomes like something that they observe, notice instead of ignore, and that can be a huge teaching, because once they start to notice and pay attention, it releases. So just by observation, by observing something, it begins to unwind and release. Just that very simple process of of witnessing something, which is um a really uh a power that we all have, but most people don't know anything about that. That just witnessing something can have the power to heal it. And and then we get into the whole whole topic of trauma and all that, which we don't have to get into, but you know, that's a big deal.

Speaker 3 41:40

Yeah, we can we can save that for another episode because that sounds interesting too. And I have a I mean I have a lot of patients also that are like, I know what I have. How do I release it? Right? That's that's like the million-dollar question, too, that everybody's trying to find, but maybe we can save that for another.

Speaker 2 41:59

Yeah, yeah, don't start me.

Speaker 3 42:06

But um, let's go into a little bit more. So besides this 10 years, then you took it and you went and you studied under different tribes around the world, too.

Speaker 2 42:18

Yeah, we started to develop this um, you know, what we call school of shamanism, which uh is kind of silly because there is no school in the world, there's no schools of shamanism, but we've got to call it something. So it's a place that people can come and study about shamanism, you know. And um uh so we had the opportunity. I won't get into all the details, but we had the opportunity to go down to Peru and um go to the Amazon jungle and meet the Shepibo tribe. The Shipibos are a tribe in Peruvian upper Amazon, and they're uh and it was with the blessings of Guadalupe, our teacher. Sometimes they're very insular, and they, you know, these teachers uh they say, you only can study with me. Don't, you know, don't go and study with other people. But he was very, very enlightened guy, and he said, Hey, you have the opportunity to do that, go do it. You know, learn as much as you possibly can, expose yourself to everything. So that was great. And so we did that, and we went down to to meet the Shipeibo and we began working with them um 35 years ago, and we still work with them. We go down there twice a year, and uh they are a tribe of people that um that they uh their cosmology includes uh designs. So they they see the world. I I mentioned that everything is medicine. For them, everything is a song, which means medicine. So it's the same thing. Everything is a song, the bird in the on the branch, this plant over here, this little little ground cover, that big tree, all of it is singing all the time. It's singing its song. And so what they do is they they listen carefully and they they hear the song, they learn the song, and it's usually a melody. And then they ask permission if they can use that song to put into another person who might need the help that that plant can give them. And so they've developed this into a science. I mean, just millions of plants. And animals and uh and what they call ikaros, sacred songs. And they they have these ceremonies where they sing these songs for hours and are healing everybody. And they they bring people up to individually heal them of whatever maladies they happen to have. They sometimes do that just on a one-to-one basis, but often they do it in these ceremonies where they take uh a hallucinogenic uh plant, uh which is known as ayahuasca. It's actually a a number of plants that are brewed up together. Very hallucinogenic, very powerful, very uh revealing, and they do it while you're under the influence of this plant medicine. And the the um combination is really, really powerful. Um, I'll give you an example. One time I was in the jungle visiting them, and there was a ceremony, but I was starting to feel bad. I had a sore throat, and this happens a lot in the jungle. You there's a lot of bacteria and stuff. So by the time the ceremony rolled around, I had a fever, I was feeling terrible, sore throat, coughing, my lungs felt congested, the full works. And I could barely sit up in the ceremony, and I you know I had taken this medicine, so I was feeling really bad because it was sort of exaggerating the you know the symptoms. So I crawled over to the awesome, the shaman, and I said, I'm feeling really terrible. Uh, I feel really sick. Can you help me? And he said, I'll I'll be with you in a moment. And so he did. He came over and he sat in front of me, and he uh he sort of checked me out a little bit. I said, Oh yeah, okay. And so he he started singing an Icaro. And as he sang the Icaro, I felt the sore throat leaving. The pain, the all the soreness in my throat just went out. And then I felt my temperature coming down. And by the time he was finished with his song, which lasted maybe, I don't know, five or eight minutes or something like that, I felt great. I felt completely fine. And he said, How's that? Of course, he said that in Spanish. And I said, I feel great. Thank you. And he said, Yeah, that was a that was a pretty vicious little demon, but I chased him away. And I was perfectly fine the next day, you know, it lasted. I've had many, many experiences like that with them. So that wasn't an anomaly. That wasn't just like, oh, that happens once in a blue moon, you know. Um that's a regular thing for them. That they're used to miracles, it's just their way of life. It's for them, that's normal. So um, so you can see why I go down there and have kept my relationship myself, you know. I've gone down there many times. We take groups of people down there to work with them and introduce them to the Shipebo people. So that's been a wonderful thing. We have a little compound down there now, and uh, but they're not the only ones. We worked with the uh the Cato people in the Andes, they're they live way high, um, 16,000, 17,000 feet. So you have to go way, way up in the Andes, and uh they they're carriers of the Incan tradition, learned a lot from those guys. Um I I've been to Australia and uh spent a little time with the Aboriginals back in the you know in the bush, as they say. And um, you know, one of the things that I found is that uh even though uh every tribe has its like um garb, you know, the way they dress and all that, um uh they don't particularly, you know, the shamans don't particularly show up with all their danglies, you know, like like a shaman uh in the picture.

Speaker 3 49:33

Like what we think, yeah.

Speaker 2 49:34

What we think. You know, when I was back in the bush with the with the uh the bushmen, uh, you know, they'd show up in like a torn t-shirt and some shorts and bare feet. That's that's the way the shamans work, look there. And I uh you know, mostly they show up in blue jeans or they show up in a blouse or they show up in whatever they're wearing. You know, it's just like regular old ordinary clothes. It's like they don't they don't advertise themselves. And so there's I love the humility of that. It's just like they're plain old folks, and you ask them, uh are you a shaman? Or you know, and they go, oh no, no, no. I'm just an herbalist, I'm just uh you know, I'm a fisherman, and yet you see them in ceremony, and you know, this is not just a fisherman. So uh I've learned a lot from that. So, you know, in our culture, uh especially because shamanism has become kind of sexy, uh, like yoga. And um, so people think uh, like, well, you know, I've got to get my tattoos and I gotta get my all my stuff so I can look like a real shaman. Well, that's not the way shamans look. So you can often just right away tell whether you should just turn around and walk the other way.

Speaker 3 51:08

And and that was that was kind of a big question I have for you too. And I'm sure a lot of listeners are interested in this is let's say somebody's searching for a shaman, right? You can go online, you can Google it. A whole bunch of people can come up in America and you know, maybe even your neighbor down the street these days. And how do you, I mean, when when I was doing research and finding you, it took me a while to sift through so much stuff to read backgrounds and everything. But um how do you feel about that? And and what could you tell the people of knowing how to find the right person? And and what do you think about what's going on kind of with that in the States and the trendiness of it that makes it harder to find the real thing, too?

Speaker 2 51:58

Well, you know, there it's a mixed picture. Uh it's good that people are starting to learn about shamanism, but with that comes a lot of distortion and craziness, and that's what you have to kind of like uh deal with. Uh, if you get benefit, then there's often a challenge that goes with it. All in all, I think it's a good thing that people learn are learning about shamanism. And um so first of all, you have to trust your own intuition, you have to trust your heart, you have to you you have to feel good with this person. You it may be that I mean, traditionally, shamans are kind of like, uh, oh, leave me alone, get away from here, and uh you know, come back tomorrow. And the person keeps coming back, and finally the door opens, and you know, that's the whole story, right? And that's true. So sometimes it can be a little gruff, but but even if they're gruff and even if they're kind of difficult, like Guadalupe was with me, I just loved him from the beginning. You know, I just felt like, oh, here's the guy, I want to work with him, you know. I just really felt it here, and that made a huge difference. So I think that you can you have to begin there. It can't be a like a mental thing, like, oh, this person is wearing the all the stuff. That must mean they're a shaman. You know, that'll lead you astray. So it's it starts with feeling, and then um uh you sometimes you have to check people out. There's been numerous times when I've met someone uh down in the jungle, for example. Um, we we met this uh shaman, ayahuasca, and we worked with him. We went to a couple ceremonies, and very quickly it was evident that uh he was a shyster, and he was only interested in the women, and he was only interested in money, and he was on he was wearing a Rolex watch, and you know, like what's this? And so we just like, you know, like as soon as possible, backed away.

Speaker 3 54:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2 54:24

And that you have to do that sometimes. You don't know at first, especially if you're in another country and you're checking things out, so you have to keep your ears open and your eyes open and pay attention to all the little cues. And if it doesn't feel right and something smells like a rat, then you need to get out of there like as soon as you can. There's never for a real bona fide um uh shaman or healer, there's no room for hanky panky. There's no room for manipulation, there's no room for like you, I'm the only one that can heal you, but that'll cost you. You know, if you hear that, run. Or if the person um uh you know is seductive and uh has there's a there's a sliminess. I don't know how to put it any other way. There's just a sliminess that you can feel, and if that that shows up, you know, you need to go find somebody else. Uh there's unfortunately there's a lot of corruption. For example, Peru, there's lots of people that go down there for the medicine plant experiences, ayahuasca and all that. And um, there's all kinds of people cashing in. They look indigenous, sometimes they are indigenous, but they're just business people, they're just entrapping tourists and they're giving them Wachuma one night and ayahuasca the next night, and something else the third night, and mixing them all together and creating like these kind of things for the tourists. And if you know anything about medicines, you know that you have to have huge respect and that you do not take two different medicines on two different nights ever. You have to leave plenty of space between them, like weeks, sometimes months, because that's a vibration and they're very powerful, and what they can clash with each other. And when they clash with each other, it can leave you in a very bad state. And I've had many people come back from, say, Peru, and they're a mess. They're a mess because they've done these tourist things, and you know, it's a little bit of a challenge to get them back into balance again. So um you you can mess yourself up in this shamanic world if you don't know what you're doing and you don't uh work with trustworthy people.

Speaker 3 57:17

So Yeah, and um I want to jump on that for a second just because I have so many patients. So I've I've dealt with a lot of people who've had terminal illness, right? And they're looking for somebody to heal them. And this is the tricky part because I do believe that people can have special powers or something, but it's extremely hard to find, and you have to find them in the right circumstances and this and that. But so there's so many people in the world that have cancer, terminal diagnosis, that are searching desperately for somebody to heal them or to clear the energy. And what would you tell them? What do you really think on that too? Do you believe that's the shaman's place to do that? I mean, you you were kind of discussing earlier how your cold was removed from your body, but I guess how deep does that go in the shaman's role versus our role in our own health? And and well, that's a great thing about that.

Speaker 2 58:17

Well, you know, first of all, you know, any any shaman worth their salt is uh knows that they don't heal anybody, that it it's spirit that comes through them and and does the healing work, and they just become a vehicle, which is called the hollow bone. In Native American traditions, it's called being a hollow bone. It's like uh being a pipe, uh allowing the healing to come through them. Spirit knows how to heal. Okay. Now, the shaman himself or herself might have some techniques or might know the right songs or whatever, but they're very aware that spirit is giving them those songs and giving them those movements or actions with feathers or whatever. Um uh so uh it it it's not it's not the person that's the healer, it's always spirit that's the healer. Now, spirit knows everything. So if spirit knows that it's your time and you're done, then no amount of healing is gonna save you. You know, it's okay if you die. I know that sounds a little ruthless, but everybody's gonna die sometime. Sometimes we have short lifetimes, sometimes we have long lifetimes. When it's your time, it's your time. Some people uh about with illness is just a lesson, and so they can heal, and maybe that changes their life and causes them to wake up in some way, and so we can't just say, Oh, you're sick, you're gonna die. Okay, so let's at least do what we can here, because maybe maybe this isn't about your leaving, maybe this is about you learning something. So you always do what you can, okay? And then you see, you know, if the person dies, they die. And if they don't, then wonderful. Spirit healed them. And you know, I don't want to draw some kind of big dichotomy here because spirit is in everyone, so it's not like spirit's something else. So, in that respect, we're gonna say that the person heals themselves. So the person always heals themselves, no matter what. So, all we can do is be a facilitator or catalyst for healing, and the more we can get out of the way of that, the better the results often. So um uh just knowing that can be helpful in terms of like uh understanding how you can be healed. You know, it starts at home, and you know that. I mean, you're a healer, so you know that. Um, it starts at home, and then uh they they may or may not give you permission to um be the vehicle that uh healing comes through, but it's really their own. So that that's that's a little bit paradoxical and hard to understand, but that's the way it is with shamanism.

Speaker 3 1:01:49

Right. Yeah, and I I think that's a very good solid way to answer it too, because there is no one way and how healing comes, it's very individual and it's based on their journey, whatever that journey is. And I think that's the hardest part too, is it's not like this person is healed or everyone is going to be healed by the healer because everybody's journey is different and healing well, or they would be healed, but that outcome might be different for different people. That could mean death, that could be recovery. So I guess the definition of healing or the outcome, too, which is confusing.

Speaker 2 1:02:32

Well, you know, uh I mean, in the in the biggest picture of all, death is a healing. It can be the most healing event of your life. So we we shouldn't be so frightened of you know that uh initiation. It's an initiation, it's a passing, you know. Uh it doesn't end with death. I mean, that's just a transition. So uh that that can be very helpful to people when they understand that.

Speaker 3 1:03:03

Yeah, that's I mean, that's a hard concept. That takes a very, very long time to understand, too.

Speaker 2 1:03:10

Yeah, yeah. And our culture doesn't exactly make that easy.

Speaker 3 1:03:15

No, no. No, I mean for well, for me personally, my my first husband, he passed away from cancer. Um, but he always said, when it's your time, it's your time. I mean that he was deeply spiritual. And for me, it was never arguing that no matter what occurred, there was no question that that was the next step. I mean, that took me a long time to accept too, but I I definitely get it to make a very long story short on that subject.

unknown 1:03:42

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:03:44

When it's your time, it's your time.

Speaker 1:03:46

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:03:49

So um just um, I guess we have we have a little more time, and I want um you to tell everyone listening what you what services you're offering now and and where people can find you if they want to learn more and go deeper on this.

Speaker 2 1:04:06

Sure. Um, well, the easiest way to find uh the powerpath is just to go to thepowerpath.com. It's thepowerpath.com. And uh that'll take a person to our website. The website's got a ton of stuff on it. So there's lots of free articles, archives of articles from years about all kinds of things. You can get a complete education, you know, just wandering around our website. But there's also uh notices about workshops, things that are happening. Um I never post anything on the website related to ceremonies, um, because ceremonies are uh a kind of word of mouth thing, and they're uh if a person is interested in particular ceremonies, then they can contact our um office manager, Daisy, and they can ask about that, and uh they that they'll go on a separate um mailing list of you know, where they get notices about those things. Um uh and we always screen everybody for that kind of work. Um, but there's plenty of workshops and things that happen, uh, and and podcasts and lectures and things like that that are all available through the website. There's some downloadable webinars that are for a fee that some of them are actually rather extensive. I if somebody's new to the to shamanism and they want they don't know anything and they want to know more, a really good webinar is called The Foundations of Shamanism. And it just takes people through much of what we talked about today, but but more in more detail. And it's uh I forget how many sessions it is, but it's a multiple session webinar. And I really recommend uh downloading that. Uh that's a great place to start, and then at least somebody has like some notion of what this is all about, and then they can go from there. There's also the shaman's directory. Are you familiar with them? Shaman's directory?

Speaker 3 1:06:25

I'm not, no.

Speaker 2 1:06:26

Okay, the shamans directory is a really good new, fairly new service. I really like what they're doing. Um, they are promoting mostly indigenous shamans, but the everybody is um uh screen. Uh for bona fide and uh of all different traditions, Inuit and Shipibo, and you know, you name it, and uh from all over the world, and they're all teacher teachers and they all provide services and they're all represented on the shaman's directory, and you can hook up with a a good teacher or a good practitioner through the shaman's directory. So, in fact, I just did an interview yesterday with the shaman's directory. So you know, they spent some time talking to me. So um uh that's another resource that is um is uh trustworthy, uh as best as I know. I I would be very wary of uh things uh that uh you know are online that are uh overdramatized and you know talking about like uh making things seem like uh going to Disney World. You know, if it if it's got a lot of flashing lights and all this stuff, I I would kind of stay away from that because it's it anything that's overmarketed is not it's not gonna be trustworthy. So um uh one of the things that we offer through our site is a year-long uh shamanic studies program. That's an in-depth one where it goes for a year, it meets five times, but each time for a number of days. It includes some solo time out on the land, it includes some travel. Um and it's basically people describe it as uh uh fabulous fun, but uh really rigorous and um uh a great adventure uh that's sometimes really scary. So they use all these adjectives to talk about usually they say it's the best thing they've ever done. So we're actually just in the process of we're almost finished with our screening for people for this next year, but I think there's a couple of spaces still available. There's usually about 30 people in it. So that's a a wonderful way to immerse yourself in learning about cross-cultural shamanism. So those are some ways to play.

Speaker 3 1:09:27

Yeah, that sounds great. And I'll be sure to put all of your information and your website and stuff on the podcast and on the video and everything that we do now so everybody can find you and look you up and and know how to search properly and and see what you're doing as well.

Speaker 2 1:09:43

That's great. I really appreciate that.

Speaker 3 1:09:46

Yeah. So thank you so much for having you. I think we're gonna have to have you on again because I have so many questions too, but these only can go around an hour to keep people's interest and everything. So we'll have to see you again. But thank you so much for coming on today. And and it was very, very interesting too.

Speaker 2 1:10:04

Thank you for the opportunity. I I I'd really love to just you know talk about shamanism. So thanks for your questions and the thought that you put into it.