The Accidental Shaman

A story of awakening to remarkable shamanic powers, teachings, and techniques • Describes the author’s work with plant spirits, entheogens such as ayahuasca, and indigenous shamans during his 20 years of fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon • Explores the practice of soul retrieval and shamanic work with feathers, stones, and sound • Includes techniques for exploring non-ordinary reality, exercises for expanding sensory perception, and practices to open your creative artistic visionary potential After surviving a serious elevator crash in London, Howard G. Charing found he had developed healing touch as well as the ability to hear voices and experience visions--just as a healer in Italy had predicted only a week before the accident. He began using his abilities to heal but felt he needed more guidance and training. He first connected with a national spiritual healing organization, only to be told he was doing everything wrong. Then, through a friend, he discovered shamanism. Sharing profound teachings and extraordinary experiences from his more than 30 years of shamanic healing work, Charing explains how he accidentally became a shaman and completely changed the course of his life. He describes his work with plant spirits, entheogens such as ayahuasca, and indigenous shamans during his 20 years of fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon, including his studies with the late visionary artist Pablo Amaringo. Investigating altered states of perception, he provides visionary techniques for exploring non-ordinary reality, exercises for expanding sensory perception, and practices to open your creative artistic visionary potential. Detailing the practice of soul retrieval, the author discusses why it is one of the most effective and profound spiritual healing practices and shares emotionally charged stories of successful shamanic healings he has attended. He also includes shamanic wisdom on working with feathers, stones, and sound and compares current research in physics with the vast body of experiential knowledge from indigenous spiritual traditions. From the accident that started his journey to the many remarkable spiritwork encounters that have happened since, Charing’s story will empower readers to begin exploring the realms of consciousness and energy that surround us and welcome the dissolution of the boundary between the physical and the spiritual.

An in-depth look at the role of plant spirits in shamanic rituals from around the world • Shows how shamans heal using their knowledge of plant spirits as well as the plant’s “medical properties” • Explores the core methods of plant shamanism--soul retrieval, spirit extraction, and sin eating--and includes techniques for connecting with plant spirits • Includes extensive field interviews with master shamans of all traditions In Plant Spirit Shamanism, Ross Heaven and Howard G. Charing explore the use of one of the major allies of shamans for healing, seeing, dreaming, and empowerment--plant spirits. After observing great similarities in the use of plants among shamans throughout the world, they discovered the reason behind these similarities: Rather than dealing with the “medical properties” of the plants or specific healing techniques, shamans commune with the spirits of the plants themselves. From their years of in-depth shamanic work in the Amazon, Haiti, and Europe, including extensive field interviews with master shamans, Heaven and Charing present the core methods of plant shamanism used in healing rituals the world over: soul retrieval, spirit extraction, sin eating, and the Amazonian tradition of pusanga (love medicine). They explain the techniques shamans use to establish connections to plant spirits and provide practical exercises as well as a directory of traditional Amazonian and Caribbean healing plants and their common North American equivalents so readers can ex-plore the world of plant spirits and make allies of their own.

A “highly readable ethnographic study” of the resurgence of shamanism among nomadic Mongolians in a time of radical political and economic change (The Journal of Asian Studies). Winner, Francis Hsu Book Prize from the Society for East Asian Anthropology Shortlisted, ICAS (International Convention of Asia Scholars) Book Prize The collapse of socialism at the end of the twentieth century brought devastating changes to Mongolia. Economic shock therapy—an immediate liberalization of trade and privatization of publicly owned assets—quickly led to impoverishment, especially in rural parts of the country, where Tragic Spirits takes place. Following the travels of the nomadic Buryats, Manduhai Buyandelger tells a story not only of economic devastation but also a remarkable Buryat response to it—the revival of shamanic practices after decades of socialist suppression. Attributing their current misfortunes to returning ancestral spirits who are vengeful over being abandoned under socialism, the Buryats are now at once trying to appease their ancestors and recover the history of their people through shamanic practice. Thoroughly documenting this process, Buyandelger situates it as part of a global phenomenon, comparing the rise of shamanism in liberalized Mongolia to its similar rise in Africa and Indonesia. In doing so, she offers a sophisticated analysis of the way economics, politics, gender, and other factors influence the spirit world and the crucial workings of cultural memory. “An excellent addition to studies in the area . . . emotive, accessible and well-researched.” —London School of Economics Review of Books

One of the main tenets of shamanism is a belief in the power of ceremony to manifest change in the physical world. Virtually all shamanic traditions use a variety of ritual practices as tools for personal transformation, healing, and celebration. Now, in this exciting and practical book, Toltec shaman and New York Times best-selling author don Jose Ruiz introduces and explains a wealth of these shamanic rituals and ceremonies, and provides a detailed and accessible guide to performing them on your own. This book will teach you how to::: Choose and create power objects Build a personal altar and medicine wheel Align your life with the cycles of nature Find and work with your spirit animals Honor your ancestors, undertake power journeys, and much more Like the medicine bag itself, this book is a potent tool kit of spiritual practices meant to open you to a world of beauty, exploration, and transformation. By offering step-by-step instructions in each chapter, don Jose Ruiz has made these rituals and ceremonies accessible to everyone who feels called to travel the shamanic path.

Come Quiet Your Mind, Warm Your Heart, & Lift Your Spirit! We all need a book that we can reach for that will make us smile and cry and laugh in joy – words that can give us hope that we can survive the hard days that will come in anyone’s life. These pages will guide you to deeper levels of acceptance and letting go, no matter what's happening in your life. The Shaman & His Daughter takes us inside the world of a 35 year veteran master shamanic healer/spiritual teacher and his powerful apprentice daughter three years after a devastating loss. Their journey will inspire and touch you in a deep part of your soul. Through these 18 tender tales you’ll learn how to trust that there is always a way out of tragedy, out of the deepest sadness and a way out of not understanding why life can sometimes feel so unfair. Come Experience a Journey of Recovery, Hope, and Magic! What reviewers are saying: ★★★★★ “This is a book I will keep on my bedside to read over and over again." – D. Thaler ★★★★★ “The Shaman & His Daughter is a wonderful, heartwarming and insightful book.” – J. Renfro ★★★★★ “I have things I want to underline so I can go back quickly and receive the wisdom Gregory has shared.” – Gloria Larimar ★★★★★ “An Indescribably Beautiful Treasure of a Book.” -- Heather Uva ★★★★★ “So blessed with the heartwarming love, deep intimacy and sacred wisdom and sensitivity you have expertly shared in these pages. Hard to put down!!” – Chris Cago ★★★★★ “This book warms my soul and emboldens me to look further, dream bigger and DO more. Highly recommended!” – Angela Pugh ★★★★★ “Excellent and awe inspiring moments. Can't wait till the sequel!” – Marti Jo Caldwell ★★★★★ “This book completely enthralled me - I laughed, I cried and I held the book close to my heart as if it were one of Angel Girl's bear friends.” – C. Ward ★★★★★ “This was a beautiful and gentle book that I read all in one sitting.” – Mandy Spay The Shaman & His Daughter is a moving deeply emotional book. If you like stories of inner strength, spiritual warriors in-training, and the beauty of a powerful father/daughter bond, then you’ll love Gregory Drambour’s inspiring saga. Buy The Shaman & His Daughter to discover the real world of shamanism and the value it can bring to your life!

In 2017, Anne Bokma embarked on a quest to become a more spiritual person. After leaving the fundamentalist religion of her youth, she became one of the eighty million North Americans who consider themselves spiritual-but-not-religious, the fastest growing “faith” category. In mid-life she found herself addicted to busyness, drinking too much, hooked on social media, dreading the empty nest and still struggling with alienation from her ultra-religious family. In response, she set out on a year-long whirlwind adventure to immerse herself in a variety of sacred practices—each of which proved to be illuminating in unexpected ways—to try to develop her own definition of what it means to be spiritual. In My Year of Living Spiritually, Bokma documents a diverse range of soulful first-person experiences—from taking a dip in Thoreau’s Walden Pond, to trying magic mushrooms for the first time, booking herself into a remote treehouse as an experiment in solitude, singing in a deathbed choir and enrolling in a week-long witch camp—in an entertaining and enlightening way that will compel readers (non-believers and believers alike) to try a few spiritual practices of their own. Along the way, she reconsiders key relationships in her life and begins to experience the greater depth of meaning, connection, gratitude, simplicity and inner peace that we all long for. Readers will find it an inspiring roadmap for their own spiritual journeys.

A distinguished anthropologist–who is also an initiated shaman–reveals the long-hidden female roots of the world’s oldest form of religion and medicine. Here is a fascinating expedition into this ancient tradition, from its prehistoric beginnings to the work of women shamans across the globe today. Shamanism was not only humankind’s first spiritual and healing practice, it was originally the domain of women. This is the claim of Barbara Tedlock’s provocative and myth-shattering book. Reinterpreting generations of scholarship, Tedlock–herself an expert in dreamwork, divination, and healing–explains how and why the role of women in shamanism was misinterpreted and suppressed, and offers a dazzling array of evidence, from prehistoric African rock art to modern Mongolian ceremonies, for women’s shamanic powers. Tedlock combines firsthand accounts of her own training among the Maya of Guatemala with the rich record of women warriors and hunters, spiritual guides, and prophets from many cultures and times. Probing the practices that distinguish female shamanism from the much better known male traditions, she reveals: • The key role of body wisdom and women’s eroticism in shamanic trance and ecstasy • The female forms of dream witnessing, vision questing, and use of hallucinogenic drugs • Shamanic midwifery and the spiritual powers released in childbirth and monthly female cycles • Shamanic symbolism in weaving and other feminine arts • Gender shifting and male-female partnership in shamanic practice Filled with illuminating stories and illustrations, The Woman in the Shaman’s Body restores women to their essential place in the history of spirituality and celebrates their continuing role in the worldwide resurgence of shamanism today.

A trailblazing anthropologist and an indigenous Amazonian healer explore the convergence of science and shamanism “The dose makes the poison,” says an old adage, reminding us that substances have the potential to heal or to harm, depending on their use. Although Western medicine treats tobacco as a harmful addictive drug, it is considered medicinal by indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest. In its unadulterated form, it holds a central place in their repertoire of traditional medicines. Along with ayahuasca, tobacco forms a part of treatments designed to heal the body, stimulate the mind, and inspire the soul with visions. In Plant Teachers, anthropologist Jeremy Narby and traditional healer Rafael Chanchari Pizuri hold a cross-cultural dialogue that explores the similarities between ayahuasca and tobacco, the role of these plants in indigenous cultures, and the hidden truths they reveal about nature. Juxtaposing and synthesizing two worldviews, Plant Teachers invites readers on a wide-ranging journey through anthropology, botany, and biochemistry, while raising tantalizing questions about the relationship between science and other ways of knowing.