The Huicholi Way of Healing

It is difficult to write about the shamanic tradition because it is not intellectually based. Many of the spiritual traditions have turned into theologies which are entirely intellectual. This is especially true of Western Civilization. We try to find enlightenment through the mind by using logic. Rationality has stepped into spirituality and pushed it aside. Since shamanism is not a mental path, it is either neglected or condemned. The mind is a good and proper tool for conducting our lives in the mental world. But, to use it as our primary spiritual path is like driving a car across the ocean.

Intellectuality creates religion. Religions are like photo albums of spiritual experiences. Religions are divisive creating artificial differences and magnifying apparent differences between people. True spirituality is inclusive, drawing people into unity, one heartedness. Through religions, people grow to believe that they have found the true belief and that anyone who disagrees is lost. True spirituality erases the lines of distinction between theology, race, sex, class. True spirituality leads us to recognize a unity with every aspect of this world and all worlds. Perhaps, it is not that we lose our sense of ourselves, but more that this sense grows to recognize our connection with all creation. Intellectuality leads to debate. Great minds spend their lives arguing over the syntax of scripture and other paradigms of reality and thus are diverted from their real task of remembering their eternal and infinite existence. They may agree that there is only one path, but they will not agree on what it is.

True spirituality is the path of the heart. It is a path that looks to the truth within diversity. If all the spiritual traditions and religions were accepted as being true with incongruities being accepted as keys to the door of the mind, then we would realize the rebirth of this plane at a far higher vibration. If we look at the individual spiritual traditions as not separate, but being one growing path of sentient beings evolving together in unified enlightenment, we would hit the critical mass necessary for the birth of the new world.

In this growing path, the shamanic tradition is the foundation stone. The shamanic tradition is the most ancient and universal tradition in this world. It is the ancestor of all spiritual traditions and religions. It is the great grandparent sitting at the back of the wedding ignored by all. The younger generations full of education, confidence and vigor assume that the old ones have nothing of value to share. These old people may be hard to communicate with requiring a strength of patience that few people exercise in these rapid times. But their ancient wisdom, added to the other assets of youth, furthers the powers of the yet unborn generations and to lose that wisdom is a shame. Fortunately the shamanic wisdom is eternally available through the power spots, prayer and ceremony.

The great avatars of this world fully integrated the principles of shamanism in their spirituality. Shamanism is the heart and basis of all spiritual traditions. To know and understand the shamanic is to better understand the nature of the path that one is pursuing. Christianity is an excellent case in point. The Old Testament is difficult to believe, hard to understand and distant from our modern experience. This leads to much debate. But from a shamanic understanding, the meaning is clear and apparent. It is the history of the shamans from a certain part of the world. The two stories of creation tell of three worlds and their connection. The story of Ezekiel, a priest, whose name 'May the El strengthen' is a shamanic prayer, is a perfect example of a shaman's journey to another world. Modern scholars now debate whether he was mentally off balance, whether one needs to be mentally off balance to have experiences as he did or was he balanced and exaggerated his story to make it more impressive. The shaman hearing this story would know immediately that Ezekiel was telling the exact truth of an experience of another world. Moses listened to a burning bush. His communication skills with the spirit world were extraordinary. The events of his life make this is one of the great shamanic tales of all time. Few people of any time or place have been given this magnitude of power, but all have the capacity to communicate with the Creator and all the powers.

The story of Jesus was the story of the Creator endowing the entire world with new powers and the commandment that these powers be spread out through the world. Jesus was sent to open new worlds. He went into the underworld and freed the souls lost there. He tore open the curtains between the worlds opening the naarika called the Christ by the Greeks. The Shaman of Shamans, Jesus' story was understood and believed around the world by people who still practiced the shamanic tradition. The tragedy was that the bearer's of the news didn't have a clue to the true meaning and depth of the power they bore. Early on, the intellectuals created a religion trying to take out every aspect of shamanic tradition and power from the history of the events. The power prevailed. The ceremony and the powers, eternal and universal gifts that Jesus brought have triumphed over the persecution of those who understood the connection between this world and all the worlds. The incongruity between the good news of these gifts and the racist, violent, heartlessness of the messengers traveled to every land looking like a lamb with a vicious snake about its neck. When the Spanish came to Mexico and Central America, the people of this land quickly accepted the story of this great shaman who was providing his power through a wafer of bread. This was part of a tradition that they had learned as infants, 'that the Creator sent food'. They knew that the Corn Maiden brought corn that they may survive. The knew that Quetzacoatl brought chocolate that they would have a proper offering and a divine sustenance. And now, the Creator sent his son's body that their spirit body would grow in the realm of the Creator. This they understood. The religion that followed Jesus, devoid of shamanic teaching, is an empty jar. The spiritual path described and magnified by Jesus is the same universal and eternal path of healing. It is greater than the evils done in his name.

Rudolf Steiner used a shamanic shift of attention in order to communicate with the spirits of the plants in his garden. Those that followed him were successful because they were following the advice of spirits similar to those in their own garden. However, to truly have a biodynamic garden where the spirits are much different, would mean to actually communicate with the resident spirits. Accepting the presence of these spirits, making offerings for them, invoking the power of Grandmother Growth and shifting the attention from the mind to the heart will lead to a true biodynamic garden.

Homeopathic medicine is another case where a man has used shamanic power to connect the spirit realms to this world and provide healing with the power of the spirits. S. Hahnemann wrote several books and some of them contradict each other. This leads to debate over what was truly his teaching. When the homeopathic doctor learns to shift her/his attention to the herbal spirit and the spirit of the person needing healing, homeopathy is being a part of shamanism.

It is not a matter of whether things are true or not. It is a matter that we remember how to shift our attention to become aware on a first hand, intimate level with the spirit world that surrounds us. We are meant to experience the Creator personally every breathing moment, to experience the reality that all creation is sending love and strength to each and every person on earth. To walk by a shrub and feel its loving caress is surely greater than just being brushed by a limb. To lie upon a large stone on top of a mountain feeling the love of the sun and the mountain and the rock and the air and earth and the birds and the whole of Creation is the gift of the shamanic tradition.

People who are removed from nature have reduced their magnitude of power to a sterile condition. If they have no touch with the great forces of the Creator, their spirituality will be empty. And if, as with many people, their attention is centered on the intellect rather than the heart, the rational more than the intuitive they will follow a mental maze. Often such people make ridiculous statements. They may sound profound because they are mentally logical to a point and then become lost in a confused mist. This confusion is mistakenly called paradox. Paradox is the end of logic and the doorway out of the mental world. And it is important to use logic, it is a power given by the Creator. But, logic based on false assumptions does not lead to the truth. The modern hubris of assuming that we are the creator, the master of our own destiny is something that people grounded in the shamanic path cannot comprehend. If one has not experienced the powers of the Creator, one might easily be mislead to this state of hubris. Shamanism helps to understand the need we have of our spiritual allies in every aspect of life.

Don Jose was remarkable, a shaman from a distant land more rooted in the ancient than the modern, yet completely able to transfer his attention to function in the mental world better than those of us who have grown up to know little else. He made fun of those who took notes because his memory was so keen that he could remember every event vividly. Instead of being in the moment and actually listening to him, they were taking notes. But, Don Jose loves all and came to us to remind us of what we have available. He placed his hope in us that we can bring harmony, balance, peace and healing to the earth and each other. Thus we know with the help of the our spiritual allies we can connect with each other, we can bring greater power to our spiritual practices and be part of the healing path. Don Jose said that to be a Huicholi is not a matter of where you were born, what you wear or who your parents are, rather it is a matter of walking the healing path.