People ask me this more than almost anything else. Not 'does shamanic work actually work' and not 'what do you believe'. They want to know what happens in a shamanic session. What they're walking into. Whether they'll have to say a chant, hold a rattle, wear something, or believe something before we even begin. So let me answer plainly, the way I wish someone had answered for me the first time.

If the first task is knowing how to evaluate what we're told, the second task is harder and more personal: building the internal capacities that make evaluation possible in the first place. Three of these matter more than any technique or checklist.

We are living through a strange inversion. For most of human history, the problem was scarcity: too little information, too few books, too few witnesses to any given event. Now the problem has flipped entirely. We drown in claims. A question that once required a trip to a library now returns ten million answers in half a second, several of them contradicting one another, all delivered with the same calm, authoritative tone, whether generated by a Nobel laureate or an anonymou

Start with the domino. Push the first one and the rest fall in an order you could, in principle, predict if you knew the exact position, weight, and spacing of every tile. This is the picture that determinism offers us for the universe itself. Pierre Simon Laplace put it plainly two centuries ago: an intelligence that knew the precise state of every particle in existence, along with the laws governing them, could calculate the entire future and the entire past in a single equ

I watch people reach for their phones before they have even finished forming the question. What should I eat. What should I write. What should I feel about this. AI answers before the thought has settled into shape. I am not against the tools themselves. I am against what happens to a person who stops trusting their own instrument.

Watch enough Disney films and a pattern surfaces that most viewers feel before they name it. Bambi's mother dies in the first act. Nemo's mother is gone before the opening credits finish. Elsa and Anna lose their mothers at sea. The Lion King buries a father instead but strips the mother from the story entirely, as though her absence were simply background.

During a shamanic journey, I encountered an animal I did not recognise. It had a presence that was unmistakable, a distinct energy and character, and it communicated with me clearly. When I came back, I had to look it up to find out whether it existed at all. It did. It was a snow leopard. This is not the usual starting point for a discussion of the problem of other minds. The usual starting point is Descartes, or Wittgenstein, or the philosophical literature on analogy and i

When I first encountered the name Viracocha, I was immediately drawn to the mystery and depth surrounding this ancient figure. Viracocha is not just a name from the past; it is a symbol that resonates deeply with those seeking healing, peace, and ancient wisdom. In this post, I want to share with you the rich symbolism and significance of Viracocha, especially through the lens of shamanism and spiritual growth. Together, we’ll explore how this powerful figure can inspire pers

I want to be careful about what I claim here. I am not going to tell you that I have proof of an afterlife, or that I can offer you evidence that would satisfy a sceptic across a table. What I can tell you is that something in that room asked to be attended to, and that attending to it changed me, and that forty years of returning to that threshold has taught me more about how to live than almost anything else I have studied, including the philosophy I have spent my life stud

Have you ever felt drawn to something ancient yet alive, something that whispers of deep connection and healing? That’s the essence of shamanism. It's a timeless path that invites us to explore the unseen, to heal, and to grow. Today, I want to share with you the principles of shamanic healing, a beautiful blend of tradition and modern insight that can open doors to profound transformation.

One autumn night, the old stone bridge over the Weir collapses. Nobody is hurt, but the town is cut in two. By morning, there are two accounts of what happened. The local paper, the Ashbourne Sentinel, reports that decades of council underinvestment in infrastructure finally caught up with a structure that engineers had flagged as failing eighteen months prior. A newer outlet, Weir Truth, reports that the bridge was brought down deliberately, as part of a redevelopment scheme

There is a version of you that is extremely competent. It wakes at a considered hour, follows a system, tracks its inputs and outputs, and moves through the world with a practised efficiency that others sometimes mistake for calm. It has opinions about sleep hygiene. It is never more than two days behind on email. It has learned, through considerable effort, to respond rather than react, to pause before speaking, to sit with discomfort before getting on with being a high-func

I grew up in a Christian household where we prayed for everybody. Friends, strangers, people who had wronged us, people who had never asked and would not have wanted our prayers if they had been asked. This was not considered an ethical problem. It was considered an expression of love. The logic was simple and, within its own framework, coherent: prayer is good, God is sovereign, and offering something good on someone's behalf requires no permission from the recipient. Intent

Many people carry invisible burdens passed down through generations. These burdens often come from difficult ancestors whose unresolved pain, trauma, or harmful patterns continue to affect their descendants. Healing lineage trauma means facing these shadows and working through the complex emotions and stories tied to our family history. This process, known as shadow ancestry work, helps us understand and transform the difficult legacies we inherit.

We like to think of ourselves as rational beings who arrive at beliefs by weighing evidence. That is a comforting story. And like most comforting stories, it is largely false. In practice, human beings are far more tribal than rational. We do not simply ask, What is true? We ask, usually without admitting it, Who is saying this? Whose side is this on? Will agreeing with this strengthen or weaken my standing? Belief is often less a matter of reason than of belonging.

As someone who regularly experiences things that don't fit conventional frameworks, such as non-local knowing, spirit encounters, precognitive information, altered states where the normal rules of reality seem suspended, I rely heavily on direct experience as a source of knowledge. But as someone trained in rigorous thinking, I also know that "I experienced it" is not a get out of epistemology free card. Direct experience can be misleading, misinterpreted, or simply wrong.

Have you ever felt the gentle embrace of a forest, the soothing rhythm of ocean waves, or the quiet wisdom of a mountain? I have, and each time, it reminds me of something profound: Nature holds a unique kind of medicine. It’s not just about physical health but a deep, soulful healing that reconnects us to ourselves and the world around us. Today, I want to share with you how we can tap into this incredible resource, exploring nature's healing benefits in ways that nurture bo

In shamanic journey, you are fully present. Not chemically altered, not surrendered to a substance's trajectory, but consciously travelling into non-ordinary reality while remaining the author of the journey. This distinction is not merely procedural. It is the difference between being taken somewhere and choosing to go.

Every day, we face challenges that can feel overwhelming or narrow our view of what’s possible. The Andean principle of Eagle medicine offers a powerful way to rise above these difficulties and see life from a wider perspective. This ancient wisdom encourages us to look beyond immediate concerns and understand the bigger picture, helping us make clearer decisions and find deeper meaning in our experiences.

A few years ago, I caught the smell of a particular hand cream in a shop and was, for a moment, entirely somewhere else. Not remembering somewhere else. Somewhere else. My grandmother's kitchen, a specific afternoon, the quality of the light, a feeling in my body that I had not had in decades and that arrived whole, instantly, before I had time to think the word memory at all. I was not recalling the past. I was, in some sense I could not account for, back inside it.