How shamans are formed. Villoldo: “True knowledge, the one that counts in practice, has been preserved through oral tradition”
Shamanic training is based on essential practices passed down orally for thousands of years, directly from teacher to student. “True knowledge, that which matters in practice, has been preserved through oral tradition”, explains Dr. Alberto Villoldo, shaman and anthropologist. Even in Tibet, where there are written texts, the essence of wisdom remains oral. In the Americas, writing never played a central role, with the exception of codices and some Mayan symbols, such as the Stella. “Traditions, however, have always been transmitted orally and are still preserved today” he adds.
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Healing practices are considered essential in shamanic training. At the center of these are the process of enlightenment, which clears disease patterns from the energy field, and the practice of extraction, meant to remove intrusive energies or presences, according to his statements. Next comes the recovery of the soul, a process by which the shaman says that lost parts of the self can be brought back, sometimes detached very early, right from birth, other times at key moments in life. Added to these are the great rites of passage, especially those related to death, which support loved ones in their transition to the spirit world with clarity and reconciliation. “Essentially, enlightenment remains an act of cleansing the patterns that mark us.”
“People often ask me if these patterns refer to cancer or heart disease. But shamans don't work with diagnoses. While in the West there are over 14,000 diseases, in shamanic traditions disease as a separate entity does not exist. There are only people who suffer.” explains Alberto Villoldo.
Practically, he adds, in the illumination process the blocked energy is cleared, which can gravitate towards an organ. “When this energy stabilizes in a tissue or organ, it manifests as what Westerners call heart disease, an expression of energy imbalance, not a separate entity. “
In his view, the source of the imbalance is energetic: a dark, stagnant and toxic energy that lacks vitality. “Through the extraction process, energies that do not belong to the client are removed. In Western thinking, it is often assumed that all the energies we feel belong to us, but this is not the case. Sometimes these energies come from jealousy or envy, other times they are psychic attacks. Anyone who has been through a difficult breakup knows how the energy body can take over the energies of a loved one, even if they do not belong to them. In addition, there can be intrusive entities. For example, deceased relatives who they have become attached to children, which we must be able to extract and guide back to the spirit world. The process of soul recovery is so effective that in a few sessions it can produce changes that psychotherapy only achieves after years of work.”he continues.
Next come the great rites of passage, essential for authentic transformation, the shaman adds. The idea is simple, he says: “you can't change the way you think without changing the way your brain works. And the same neural circuits that got you into a deadlock can't be used to get out of it. The brain changes through ceremony, through rites of passage. The archaic side, dominated by fear, scarcity and survival mechanisms (fight, flight, hide) responds only to such experiences. Hence the presence of rituals in all cultures of the world: they mark the transition between the stages of life, close a chapter that has ended and open the entrance to a new one”.
After these fundamental practices follow the initiations. “Tradition is initiatory and passed down through the generations. It connects you to healers, male and female, and to 'light' beings who, according to tradition, have transcended death and continue to exist in some form of presence that can guide you.” Villoldo declared.
Recently, Alberto Villoldo confesses that he was asked if these “luminous” beings can be compared to angels. His answer was nuanced: They are angelic, he said, but belong to shamanic traditions. “Each culture has its own way of transmitting spiritual knowledge. In Judeo-Christian traditions, for example, angels have names that end in “el,” such as Michael, Ariel, or Gabriel, and are part of a well-defined spiritual chain.”
In the shamanic view, he explains, there is another kind of light beings, dedicated not to a particular people, but to the care and protection of the Earth as a whole. “The commitment of these light beings is to the planet, not to a small group of people. Those who learn and follow these traditions consider themselves connected to these beings as well as healers and keepers of ancient wisdom. They thus become protectors of the Earth, but also of the cosmic order, bound to the stars, solar systems and galaxies, present to support and protect humanity.”
According to him, the initiations, called Carpies, transmit power, wisdom and connection to tradition from the teacher, either in person or at a distance. These initiations mark belonging to the tradition and open access to experiences and practices that cannot be understood only theoretically.
Mentoring is an essential part of the process. It is built in the relationship with the teachers and guides who accompany you: they help you to recognize personal projections, to go through the healing processes and to stay focused on a complete transformation. Villoldo uses the metaphor of the snake shedding its entire skin: genuine change, not just a series of small interventions on traumas that can remain active for a lifetime
These are the building blocks of the shamanic journey. Each of them has its role and complements each other: mentoring turns theory into practice; initiations without healing can feed the ego; and healing without wisdom risks making you want to fix everything around you, he warns.
“As you move forward on this journey, you will see that all of these practices underlie a solid outlook on life that you can apply in the real world and live as a genuine responsibility to Earth and life” concludes Alberto Villoldo.
