Georg Lhotsky & Eva-Maria Stelljes, Vienna in the summer of 1985.
We met Professor Alberto Villoldo 3 years ago, in 1982, at the seminar "HEALING AND SHAMANISM" in Alpbach, Tyrol. He is a consciousness researcher at San Francisco State University. He has studied the extraordinary healers of the world for 15 years, becoming a student of the Inca Shaman Don Eduardo Calderon. Don Eduardo Calderon is a 56 year old healer and shaman, equally well known as a ceramicist and sculptor. He lives in a small fishing village in northern Peru.
In the same year, 1982, we went to Peru with Alberto Villoldo to get to know by experience the so-called "Ancient Knowledge", guided and supported by the fisherman, artist and shaman Eduardo Calderon Palomino. He is one of the most studied shamans. As a result of many years of field research, the book "Magicians of the 4 Winds" has been published about him by Hermann Bauer Verlag. The author is the anthropologist Douglas Sharon.
What is shamanism? Shamanism is a 100,000 year old knowledge that was secret until some time ago. There are no written records and the knowledge was only passed on as experiential learning from master to disciple. Shamanism is a state of mind that heals - in the broadest sense. It is a healing method that thinks in synthesis and thus helps to imagine the whole. However, the shaman's technique and worldview not only heal the sick individual, but also affect the entire healing process of the tribe. Thus, the shaman also has a social significance. If it is true that in the individual all social energies are condensed, necessarily the individual healing must have a radiation on the whole. "Healing is self-healing" says Don Eduardo Calderon. Shamans often come from the lowest strata of the social fabric of the world. From African tribes, Tibetan monasteries, Australian aborigines, the Siberian tundra, the Eskimos, the Indians of North and South America.... Why do the shamans publish this knowledge now? There are consistent prophecies: "The planet Earth is in danger. The new shamans are coming from the West - together with them we have the power to save the planet." The thought world of shamanism influences the consciousness of many people and has become the favorite subject of modern science: Psychology, brain research, biology, systems theory, theoretical physics.... Deep behind this process lies the longing for healing. The shaman shows us the methods to do this.
Don Eduardo led us to the "places of power", in Machu Picchu and in the shar images of Nasca. In nightly rituals we learned to perceive the power and energy in and around us and to control it consciously. Don Eduardo works with the 4 cardinal points, the 4 winds, trance techniques, spiral and mesa. Mesa means table, altar. Don Eduardo's mesa is made up of ancient power objects that he himself calls "mediators", or "antennas" that connect him to cosmic forces. We have had the opportunity to access this ancient knowledge through experience and to integrate our experiences with our Western-trained way of thinking.
Shamanism became for us the intense experience of a conscious further development of the evolutionary consciousness of man.We decided to make a second journey of experience - this time with the camera. As participating observers. This resulted in the 12-part series HEALING STATES Doorways to the spirit world The original version is in English. The series is presented in the American version by the consciousness researcher Dr. Alberto Villoldo. The German title: HEALING AND SHAMANISM Documents of other realities 1 - 12 We produced this 12-part documentary as independent producers. Filming took place in Brazil and Peru. The book for the series will be published by Sphinx Verlag, Switzerland. Authors are psychologist Professor Alberto Villoldo and parapsychologist Professor Stanley Krippner, who describe the phenomena of healing and the attitude of shamanism from a scientific point of view. Georg Lhotsky and Eva-Maria Stelljes contribute their experiences as participants. We originally wanted to call our documentary series ALTERNATIVE HEALING. But the more we looked into the subject, the clearer it became to us that it is not about an alternative - about something different, something opposite, but about the connection of "western knowledge and eastern wisdom". The series develops from the healing of the sick by spiritual power - accompanied by unusual phenomena - to the "healing of the healthy", the expansion of consciousness. The series begins in Brazil. What makes it special is that the most spectacular parapsychological healings are performed by conventional doctors who, in addition to their "normal" practice, offer their unusual healing abilities without remuneration. "The Occident has simply forgotten this knowledge," they think. These spiritualistic orthodox physicians are anxious to get their abilities out of the "miracle corner". It is not about alternatives to today's conventional medicine, but about a synthesis of modern natural science with ancient knowledge.
In Peru, a group of very diverse, scientifically trained, Westerners are openly and critically embarking on the experiential learning of a shamanistic initiation journey, and some of them are being initiated by Don Eduardo. We just want to point out these unusual things, not to prove anything - the doctors and scientists may check if this knowledge is transferable and what of it is still available in Europe - even if buried. From the experience with our series we know that more and more people are interested in this subject. In the summer of 1985, RTL - the commercial private station in Luxembourg - broadcast the series 12 Sundays in a row at 10 p.m. and had high viewing figures, very many letters from the viewers and an additional telephone service also had to be set up.
Our perception is that more and more physicists, biologists, system theorists discover that the mysticism, the ancient knowledge, the "secret teachings", find their correspondence and confirmation in the new physics, in biology, in a contemporary natural science. According to Prof. Herbert Pietschmann, full professor for theoretical physics at the University of Vienna, the natural sciences have reached a turning point. Their great achievements, based on the interplay of logic and experiment, presuppose the elimination of contradiction. Now, however, an age has dawned in which we must allow contradictions to be valid in order to finally do justice to human beings within an expanded world view.
Herbert Pietschmann has also written the sensational book "Das Ende des Naturwissenschaftlichen Zeitalters“ ( English: "The end of the scientific age") Published in 1980 by Zsolnay. Fritjof Capra, an Austrian who studies theoretical physics at Stanford University, U.S.A., has written the book "THE TAO OF PHYSICS" What is represented in physics as the perpetual movement of infinitely small elementary particles around the atomic nucleus, corresponds to the Eastern conception of a perpetual "cosmic dance," a round dance in which man, constantly changing, is involved. The universe is in him, as he is part of the universe, writes Fritjof Capra.
"Everything flows", the famous word of Heraclitus has also proved true in modern research. Capra has succeeded in portraying the transformation in Western consciousness as an exhilarating adventure of the mind. He sketches a contemporary view of the world which scholars of such diverse provenance as Werner Heisenberg, Lama Anagarika Govinda, and the American cultural philosopher Alan Watts declare to be pointing the way to the future. Probably it may be said in general that in the history of human thought often the most fruitful developments have occurred where two different kinds of thinking have met.
These different kinds of thinking may have their roots in different areas of human culture or in different times, in different cultural environments or different religious traditions. If only they really meet, that is, if they relate to each other at least to the extent that a real interaction takes place, then one can hope that new and interesting developments will follow.
Georg Lhotsky & Eva-Maria Stelljes, Vienna in the summer of 1985.
Comments