Books

Inspiring hope, solace, and courage in living through our losses, author Martín Prechtel, trained in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, shares profound insights on the relationship between grief and praise in our culture--how the inability that many of us have to grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living. In modern society, grief is something that we usually experience in private, alone, and without the support of a community. Yet, as Prechtel says, "Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses." 

Prechtel explains that the unexpressed grief prevalent in our society today is the reason for many of the social, cultural, and individual maladies that we are currently experiencing. According to Prechtel, "When you have two centuries of people who have not properly grieved the things that they have lost, the grief shows up as ghosts that inhabit their grandchildren." These "ghosts," he says, can also manifest as disease in the form of tumors, which the Maya refer to as "solidified tears," or in the form of behavioral issues and depression. He goes on to show how this collective, unexpressed energy is the long-held grief of our ancestors manifesting itself, and the work that can be done to liberate this energy so we can heal from the trauma of loss, war, and suffering.

At base, this "little book," as the author calls it, can be seen as a companion of encouragement, a little extra light for those deep and noble parts in all of us.s.

With the rise of urban living and the digital age, many North American healers are recognizing that traditional medicinal knowledge must be recorded before being lost with its elders. A Cree Healer and His Medicine Bundle is a historic document, including nearly 200 color photos and maps, in that it is the first in which a native healer has agreed to open his medicine bundle to share in writing his repertoire of herbal medicines and where they are found. Providing information on and photos of medicinal plants and where to harvest them, anthropologist David E. Young and botanist Robert D. Rogers chronicle the life, beliefs, and healing practices of Medicine Man Russell Willier in his native Alberta, Canada. Despite being criticized for sharing his knowledge, Willier later found support in other healers as they began to realize the danger that much of their traditional practices could die out with them.

With Young and Rogers, Willier offers his practices here for future generations. At once a study and a guide, A Cree Healer and His Medicine Bundle touches on how indigenous healing practices can be used to complement mainstream medicine, improve the treatment of chronic diseases, and lower the cost of healthcare. The authors discuss how mining, agriculture, and forestry are threatening the continued existence of valuable wild medicinal plants and the role of alternative healers in a modern health care system. Sure to be of interest to ethnobotanists, medicine hunters, naturopaths, complementary and alternative health practitioners, ethnologists, anthropologists, and academics, this book will also find an audience with those interested in indigenous cultures and traditions.

Offering a practical guide to understanding and navigating relationships with the spirits of those who have passed, Daniel Foor, Ph.D., details how to relate safely and effectively with your ancestors for personal, family, and cultural healing.

He provides exercises and rituals, grounded in ancient wisdom traditions, to help you initiate contact with your ancestors, find supportive ancestral guides, cultivate forgiveness and gratitude, harmonize your bloodlines, and assist the dead who are not yet at peace. He explains how to safely engage in lineage repair work by connecting with your more ancient ancestors before relating with the recently deceased. He shows how, by working with spiritually vibrant ancestors, individuals and families can understand and transform intergenerational patterns of pain and abuse and reclaim the full blessings and gifts of their bloodlines.

Ancestral repair work can also catalyze healing breakthroughs among living family members and help children and future generations to live free from ancestral burdens. The author provides detailed instructions for ways to honor the ancestors of a place, address dream visits from the dead, and work with ancestor shrines and altars. The author offers guidance on preparing for death, funeral rites, handling the body after death, and joining the ancestors. He also explains how ancestor work can help us to transform problems such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious persecution

By learning the fundamentals of ancestor reverence and ritual, you will discover how to draw on the wisdom of supportive ancestral guides, heal family troubles, maintain connections with beloved family after their death, and better understand the complex and interconnected relationship between the living and the dead.

This book is a practical how-to guide for living your own unique conscious and awakened life, and becoming the powerful manifestor that you are. It is a map leading to the doorway opening to the other side. Awakening and becoming a Spiritual R-Evolutionary is the most powerful personal and political act. Individually, we can change the planet. You may laugh, you may cry: you will come away transformed.

The best-selling anatomy guide for yoga is now updated, expanded, and better than ever! 

Yoga Anatomy, Third Edition, brings the relationship between yoga and anatomy to life with detailed, full-color anatomical illustrations. This book provides a deep understanding of the structures and principles underlying common movements in yoga and offers an inside look into each pose.

From breathing to inversions to standing poses, see how specific muscles respond to the movements of the joints; how alterations of a pose can enhance or reduce effectiveness; and how the spine, breathing, and body position are all fundamentally linked. Whether you are just beginning your journey or have been practicing yoga for years, Yoga Anatomy will be an invaluable resource--one that allows you to see each movement in an entirely new light.

Experience the Primal Spiritual Path of Ancient Egypt. The spiritual traditions of Ancient Egypt are well documented and are at the forefront of the Western Mystery and Magical Tradition. But they are a gloss over a more primal "shamanic" tradition which gets to the essence of Nature and its relationship with humanity, life and death. This book is a practical manual for those who wish to explore that primal spirituality using Egyptian symbolism. As Egypt was one of the village cultures, so Egyptian shamanism was one of the first to operate in an urban environment, making its techniques suitable for modern times.

Egyptian Shaman paints the picture of what it was like to be a village priest in ancient Egypt before describing the practical techniques which would have been employed during those times. These techniques, which have never been revealed before, have been adapted for modern minds with the intention of making this a practical spiritual path. The book controversially contains a chapter on exorcism and dealing with the dead, which many have claimed are subjects which should not be published. It shows how later Egyptian texts, such as the Book of the Dead, were Shamanic guide books to the Underworld. This is a book containing the keys to transmute, not only the self, but the whole planet.

A Yaqui way of knowledge.

The Teachings of Don Juan is the story of a remarkable journey: the first awesome steps on the road to becoming a "man of knowledge" -- the road that continues with "A Separate Reality" and "Journey to Ixtlan.

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"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel, looking, looking, breathlessly." -- Don Juan

In this guide to sacred plant initiations, medical herbalist and shamanic practitioner Carole Guyett explains how to commune with plants and their spirits through the traditional shamanic method of plant dieting. A plant diet involves ingesting a particular plant over a period of time so you regularly receive the plant s vibratory energy as well as its medicinal actions.

Adding a ceremonial element to plant dieting offers a sacred initiation by the plant world, allowing you to connect deeply with all aspects of a plant, receive its sacred teachings, and forge a relationship for guidance and healing, benefitting both yourself and others.

Part celebration of the natural world, part spiritual memoir, and part how-to guide, Rewilding is a must-read for anyone who wants to embrace their wild nature and essential place in the living earth. 

Kripalu director Micah Mortali brings together yoga, mindfulness, wilderness training, and ancestral skills to create a unique guide for reigniting your primal energy--your undomesticated true self--and deepening your connection with the living earth.

Discover the power of sacred ceremony! Stepping outside of your daily life and into sacred ceremony is an invaluable tool. Ceremony is a beautiful and active prayer that allows you to commune with the spiritual world in an incredibly meaningful way. When you are weighed down by challenges, these practices offer a powerful way to disperse and transform negative energy. When the beauty of life shines through, ceremony becomes a celebration of gratitude and an invitation for more blessings.

Living Sacred Ceremony is filled with unique and beautiful practices that empower you to heal and transform your own life. Whether you are looking for assistance in the realm of love, money, family, health or beyond, there is a ceremony for you to become a powerful change maker and find deeper fulfillment. Inspired by the Peruvian shamanic tradition and fused with modern day practicality, this book will show you just how beautiful life can be when you are Living Sacred Ceremony.

Based on more than a decade of the author’s successful workshops, this resource expands and refines the unique combination of the hands-on healing modality of Reiki with the life-changing shamanic journey. The resulting knowledge is presented clearly and concisely, making it possible for those with no previous background in Reiki or shamanism to understand, appreciate, and enjoy the teachings while those more experienced can glean new insight for their own healing work. Providing generous examples of shamanic journeying beyond ordinary reality and citing hundreds of case studies from the author’s own private practice, this reference also lists internet references for further research.

The first book written about Mongolian and Siberian shamanism by a shaman trained in that tradition.- A thorough introduction to Mongolian and Siberian shamanic beliefs and practices, which, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, were banned from being practiced.- Includes rituals for healing and divination techniques. In traditional Mongolian-Buryat culture, shamans play an important role maintaining the tegsh, the "balance" of the community. They counsel a path of moderation in one's actions and reverence for the natural world, which they view as mother to humanity. Mongolians believe that if natural resources are taken without thanking the spirits for what they have given, those resources will not be replaced. Unlike many other cultures whose shamanic traditions were undermined by modern civilization, shamans in the remote areas of southern Siberia and Mongolia are still the guardians of the environment, the community, and the natural order.

"Riding Windhorses" is the first book written on Mongolian and Siberian shamanism by a shaman trained in that tradition. A thorough introduction to Mongolian/Siberian shamanic beliefs and practices, it includes working knowledge of the basic rituals and various healing and divination techniques. Many of the rituals and beliefs described here have never been published and are the direct teachings of the author's own shaman mentors.

Healing States is a journey into the world of spiritual healing and Shamanism.

Healing States: A Journey Into the World of Spiritual Healing and Shamanism is a colorful and compelling examination of evidence for the mind's ability to heal, taking a step into the fascinating world of psychic healing and shamanism.

Native American lineage holders have long been cautious about sharing their spiritual truths because the essence of this wisdom has been so often misunderstood. In Walking with Grandfather, authentic Lakota lineage holder and award-winning storyteller Joseph M. Marshall breaks this silence with the very best from a lifetime of lessons passed on to him by his grandfather. With him, you will gain access to the timeless teachings that until now remained largely unheard outside the culture of the Lakota people.

"When we began our search for consultants for Into the West, we were looking for individuals with a deep knowledge of the culture and history of the Lakota people. In Joe Marshall, we found that person, but the happy surprise was that we also found a poet, a storyteller, and an educator who led us through challenging terrain with great patience and wisdom."

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.

Over 30 contributors share their expertise on the chemical, biological, cultural, psychological, and experiential dimensions of psilocybin mushrooms

• Describes in vivid detail the consciousness-expanding experiences of psychoactive mushroom users

• Provides firsthand accounts of the controversial Harvard Psilocybin Project, including the Concord Prison and Good Friday studies

Teonanácatl was the name given to the visionary mushrooms used in ancient Mesoamerican shamanic ceremonies, mushrooms that contain psilocybin, the psychoactive agent identified by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD. The rediscovery of these visionary mushrooms by the Mazatec healer Maria Sabina and mycologist R. Gordon Wasson ignited a worldwide mushroom culture that inspired the consciousness revolution of the 1960s.

This book describes in vivid detail the consciousness-expanding experiences of psychoactive mushroom users--from artists to psychologists--and the healing visionary inspiration they received. It provides firsthand accounts of studies performed in the controversial Harvard Psilocybin Project, including the Concord Prison study and the Good Friday study. It describes how the use of the psilocybe mushroom spread from the mountains of Mexico into North America, Asia, and Europe by seekers of consciousness-expanding experiences. It also details how psilocybin has been used since the 1960s in psychotherapy, prisoner rehabilitation, the enhancement of creativity, and the induction of mystical experiences and is being studied as a treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).