Spirit Medicine: Healing in The Sacred Realms

Shamanic healers view illness as caused by negative internal states--disharmony, fear, and soul loss. An illness may follow an external "intrusion" (e.g., bacteria), but the real problem is "the diminishment of our personal power or the holes torn in the fabric of our soul that allowed the intrusion to enter." The concept of spirit medicine, while foreign to most Western health practitioners, is familiar to indigenous peoples. A guide to facilitating self-healing, Spirit Medicine starts by examining the perspective of Hawaiian kahumas (healers) and concepts such as soul cluster, spirit soul, and body soul. Wesselman and Kuykendall lead you through the principles of spirit medicine and gently invite you to explore. Experiential exercises--"healing journeys"--include creating a sacred garden and the spirit-medicine dance. This is no instant self-help plan; rather, an introduction to journeywork, which takes commitment and patience. Wesselman, an anthropologist, has worked with indigenous peoples and documented his visionary experiences. He is the author of The Journey to the Sacred Garden. His wife Kuykendall is a physical therapist and transpersonal medical practitioner who worked for 20 years in Western medicine and now specializes in soul retrieval. This content-packed, little book includes an hour-long CD of drumming/ rattling. The authors explain that the steady, rhythmic sound enables the body soul to respond and consciousness to expand into spiritual realms, with practice. --Joan Price