Shamanism

Healers and visionaries, food-finders and rainmakers―as intermediaries between the physical and spirit worlds, shamans have served a vital role in indigenous cultures for more than 40,000 years. The timeless wisdom of the shaman also holds relevance for the challenges we face today.

James Endredy explores shamanic paths from around the globe and discusses the tools, rituals, and beliefs that are common to most traditions. You'll discover how shamans are chosen and initiated, and how they establish a relationship with power animals, ancestors, and other inhabitants of the spirit realm. Along with many stories from his own experiences, Endredy shares insights from other scholars in the field, including Mircea Eliade, Michael Harner, and Holger Kalweit, and from indigenous shamans throughout history.

Shamanism for Beginners concludes with a thoughtful, empowering look at how shamanic practices can help restore balance and peace to our lives and the earth.

Imbue your mesa or sacred altar cloth with the spirit of the natural world. Our earth-toned hand woven mestana cloth features traditional motifs of animals, birds, stars and more. Woven by Q'ero women in the high Andes, this weaving makes a perfect ground cloth for your altar or sacred space. Can also be used as a wall hanging.

This sturdy mestana cloth is hand woven and features traditional Chincheros motifs in its bands. The designs are woven to produce an image with positive color and weave effect on one side and opposite color and weave effect of the same image on the reverse, making it beautiful on both sides. Makes a fitting mestana or altar cloth.

Edges are finished with the distinctive nawi awapa edging or eye border, which is believed to have special protective qualities. To the Inca, this eye represents a place of generation, like a seed in a furrow or a sprout on a potato. From the Chincheros of the high Andes mountains of Peru.

Measures 28 x 27.5 inches.

Spirit Woman, The Teachings of the Shields is book two of the Medicine Woman Series. (Originally published as Flight of the Seventh Moon, © 1984 by Lynn V. Andrews). Bestselling sequel to Medicine Woman in what has been described as 'a library of writing on the personal search for the sacred.' After her dramatic initiation into the Sisterhood of the Shields, Lynn Andrews tells the story of her struggle to understand and embrace the awesome power and wisdom bestowed on her by her Native American teachers, Agnes Whistling Elk and Ruby Plenty Chiefs. Through the creation of her own shield -- a powerful physical and spiritual tool -- Lynn learns the nature of her sacred path and the initiation ritual of a warrior woman. Spirit Woman continues to inspire and captivate a whole new generation of readers.

In this uniquely personal account of the lives and healing arts of female shamans in northern Peru, the author alternates diaristic writings about her own experiences with ethnographic description. Her analytical essays explore the concepts of sorcery, shamanism, and witchcraft, case studies of Peruvian women and their ritual healing techniques, the healers' religious and symbolic space, and the healing attributes unique to women. They alternate with chapters in which Glass-Coffin describes her introduction to Peru as a high school student, the traditional roles she adopted in her host family, the crisis that rocked her identity, her first ritual contact with a female healer, and her own tumultuous but ultimately rewarding healing journey under two female shamans. Male shamans, she concludes, sally forth into the spirit world to do individual combat with the sources of spiritual illness, whereas female shamans try to involve their patients more directly in their own healing.

This large mestana cloth is hand woven with added colorful embroidery. It features traditional Peruvian Andean motifs in its vertical bands.  Makes a fitting cloth for your personal or group altar. All four edges are finished with a simple sewn on edging. From the women weavers in the high Andes mountains of Peru.

This sturdy mestana cloth is hand woven and features traditional Chincheros motifs in its bands. The designs are woven to produce an image with positive color and weave effect on one side and opposite color and weave effect of the same image on the reverse, making it beautiful on both sides. Makes a fitting mestana or altar cloth. Edges are finished with the distinctive nawi awapa edging or eye border, which is believed to have special protective qualities. To the Inca, this eye represents a place of generation, like a seed in a furrow or a sprout on a potato. From the Chincheros of the high Andes mountains of Peru.

This large mestana cloth is hand woven with added colorful embroidery. It features traditional Peruvian Andean motifs in its vertical bands.  Makes a fitting cloth for your personal or group altar. All four edges are finished with a simple sewn on edging. From the women weavers in the high Andes mountains of Peru.

Please note: This mestana has a slight stain on the green edge (see photo). 

This sturdy mestana cloth is hand woven and features traditional Chincheros motifs in its bands. The designs are woven to produce an image with positive color and weave effect on one side and opposite color and weave effect of the same image on the reverse, making it beautiful on both sides.

Makes a fitting mestana or altar cloth. Edges are finished with the distinctive nawi awapa edging or eye border, which is believed to have special protective qualities. To the Inca, this eye represents a place of generation, like a seed in a furrow or a sprout on a potato.

From the Chincheros of the high Andes mountains of Peru.

This sturdy mestana cloth is hand woven and features traditional Chincheros motifs in its bands. The designs are woven to produce an image with positive color and weave effect on one side and opposite color and weave effect of the same image on the reverse, making it beautiful on both sides. Makes a fitting mestana or altar cloth.

Edges are finished with the distinctive nawi awapa edging or eye border, which is believed to have special protective qualities. To the Inca, this eye represents a place of generation, like a seed in a furrow or a sprout on a potato. From the Chincheros of the high Andes mountains of Peru.

Measures 28 x 27.5 inches.

This sturdy mestana cloth is hand woven and features traditional Chincheros motifs in its bands. The designs are woven to produce an image with positive color and weave effect on one side and opposite color and weave effect of the same image on the reverse, making it beautiful on both sides. Makes a fitting mestana or altar cloth.

Edges are finished with the distinctive nawi awapa edging or eye border, which is believed to have special protective qualities. To the Inca, this eye represents a place of generation, like a seed in a furrow or a sprout on a potato. From the Chincheros of the high Andes mountains of Peru.

Having been prepared by two years of astral journeys with an extraterrestrial guide, eight-year-old Tanis asks her parents for a family vacation in Peru's Sacred Valley. As a result, Tanis and her family visit sacred Inca sites and find that ancient wisdom traditions are still being practiced in the Andes. In the context of Andean prophecies and practices, the book suggests how readers both young and adult can cope with our unsettling times. During her family's journey, Tanis comes of age spiritually as she encounters talking stones, shamans, spirit apparitions, spirit guides, ETs, and UFOs. Because of her open heart, curiosity, and generous nature, she is initiated into the wisdom traditions of the Andean people and connects with the mystical essence of Self beyond self, the healing power of Mother Nature, and the truly magical power of love.

Dr. J. E. Williams gives us an unforgettable story of the sacred way of the Q'ero, an indigenous people of the Peruvian Andes. In the highest mountains and heartland of the Q'ero, and at immense personal risk, he is taught a beautiful, inexorable value system that goes back to a time before the Incas. The mystical landscape of the high mountain wilderness fosters personal transformation. As he ascends to the roof of the world, Williams weaves the true secret of the Andes into the archetypal personal spiritual pilgrimage, an authentic journey of the heart, and brings back the message for our times.

The first comprehensive guide to the shamans and tantrikas of Nepal. The Himalayan kingdom of Nepal may be the only culture in the world where both shamanic and tantric techniques are still alive and in full practice today. The result of eighteen years of field research, Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas presents for the first time a comprehensive overview of shamanism that is based on the knowledge and experience of the different tribes from that region. Included are original statements from the various ethnic groups and 135 color thangkas, which act as visual guides to the specific practices of the tantric tradition. In addition to the thangkas, the book is lavishly illustrated with numerous photos of different shamanic healing ceremonies, ritual objects, and culturally significant plants that have never been published before.

The book also contains a wealth of original recipes, smoking mixtures, scientific tables, charts, and descriptions of more than 20 plants whose psychoactive properties and uses by shamans have never before been researched or documented. 

• 605 color and black-and-white illustrations, including 135 color thangkas.

• Includes more than 20 psychoactives never before documented.

• The result of 18 years of field research.

Wizard of the Upper Amazon is an extraordinary document of the life among a tribe of South American Indians at the beginning of the 20th century. For many readers, the most compelling sections of the book will be the descriptions of the use of Banisteriopsis caapi, the ayahuasca of the Amazon forests. This powerful hallucinogen has long been credited with the ability to transport human beings to realms of experience where telepathy and clairvoyance are commonplace. Manual Cordova, the narrator of these adventures is a well-known as a healer in Peru.

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Shamanistic practices involve ancient traditions that have been found in similar cultures around the world. The roots of shamanism in practices of healing, prophesy, group leadership, art, and mythology reflect neuropsychological basese that underlie the often surprising effectiveness of its practice.