​In many indigenous traditions the Heart is the reflection of the Cosmic Fire, the place in the universe where all what exists is continuously destroyed and regenerated. It is also the place where all the things are One. The heart connect us with the supreme love.

The Heart is, or it should be, the center of our being. If it is weak, all our body and the other souls will be weak. It warms up our life: the Hearth allows us to perceive and feel in depth the Big Dream, which in the Shuar tradition represent the main purpose that people have in life.

The Hearth give us the power of discernment and the capacity to choose a path between may potential directions. I remember a story in one of the books of Carlos Castaneda. He was trying to understand how to identify the best possible path for himself. His master was instead teaching him that there is not the best path and he was showing to Carlos how what is really important is to choose a path with a heart, a path that follows something that we can love. This sentence can be misunderstood but it is the closest way to describe what I want to share. Our lives are like a wild jungle: when you start walking in it you can take infinite paths, sometime you are obligated to pass in determinate places, such as in a valley, to pass a river, a path to avoid the mud. But all over the rest of the journey we can take many paths. Some of them can be rich in fresh water, tasty fruits, smooth, other paths can be full of mud, with lack of resources and full of beasts that try to kill you. The Shamanic Way can help us to choose and follow paths, and to learn how to take responsibility in our hands. Spirits can inform our decisions, they can show us dangers or opportunities, but it is us who will make a choice eventually. A strong Heart is the basis to be able to feel and take with courage these choices, even when they are the hardest. 

In the Shamanic tradition of the Lakota, there is an additional power that nourishes our heart and it is called Wind Horse. They say that when the Wind Horse is big, we are able to catch our dreams, to leave a track in this world. A Heart nourished by a big Wind Horse will be brave and magnanimous. 

A story from a Hearth Shamanic Healing

I’m walking with all my Spirit Helpers: Pásuk, Animals of Powers, Stones, Crystals. The road is dark, full of mud. The forest that surrounds us is bleak and worrisome. The night  is thick. We march like an army. We keep walking until we reach a valley, where a small house appears. We arrive closer and there is a young woman waiting outside; she has a worried look. The light that comes from the window of the woody house is faint, but strong enough to see the beautiful features of the woman. We ask if we can enter in the house and she invites us in. Immediately after the entrance there is a cosy living room, with a colorful carpet in the center and a fireplace. We look the flames, they are not strong enough to keep the house warm. The wood is burning without oxygen, producing a lot of smoke. With the Pásuk, we work to make a better fire. We re-balance the flames, we add wood and we open the window in order to let some wind to come inside in order to vivify the flames. 

The girl is waiting in a corner. She still looks worried. We ask what is the trouble and she says that dark birds, probably some crowns, always fly over her house frightening her. We look outside and these birds are actually there. I and the Pásuk start the hunt: before we ask the birds to leave the house and fly somewhere else, but without success. hence, we need to attack them with aggressive Tséntsak that transform themselves in little, sharp and decorated arrows. We kill the birds around. We know that their power is strong also when they are dead and it is dangerous to leave them around the house. Therefore we start looking for a safe place where to bring them. We walk few minutes in the forest when a little church appears in front of our eyes. There is a hole in the ground beside the church; a coffin is in the hole. From the coffin comes out an aggressive green snake. Another battle starts and we kill it and then I ask one of the Pásuk, that of the Eagle, to bring the snake far away. We put all the dead birds in the hole over the coffin. We close the hole and we return to the girl’s house. Now the sun is rising, the wind fresh and pleasurable. On the table outside the house there is a pot of flowers, which smell very good. The girl ‘s appearance changed, she looks much more relaxed and she thanks us. We say goodbye and we say that we may come back again.  We take the road back to the forest from where we came. 

Did you like the story? What you just read is a vision that I had during a Shamanic Heart Healing. The body can be seen in vision as a natural territory and this is a practical example of it. Every single element that appears in the vision has a meaning for the patient’s life. The capacity to interact and change the environment comes from a tough training with the Spirit Helpers, mainly the Pásuk and their Téntsak. The changes made in the body-territory will be reflected in the life of the patient, sometimes immediately, sometimes in few days or even few months. Often the Shamanic Hearth Healing requires a cycle of intervention to be completed; in every occasion, there could be interventions made in the house, on the fire, but also different areas of the body-territory can be visited and healed. The healing can be extended to the territory of the stomach and of the throat (but we will see these other areas in detail in another article).

In order to translate the visions and understand their meaning, it is necessary to study and to accumulate a large bag of experience. Some knowledge about the elements that you encounter in a vision and their meaning comes from the tradition )in our case from the Shuar tradition, the European Popular tradition. See article on Dreams and Visions). When in dreams or visions, unknown elements appear, those they must be understood through experience or with the help of the Pásuk. As an example, the fire in the house is the core of our heart, in this case the heart of the girl. The weak flames were index of a lack of warmth, passion and strength in her heart. Possibly this condition followed a break-up and a loss of vitality. The night switching into day showed the passage from difficult conditions and fears to the beginning of a new cycle with good, new chances (the rising sun).

In conclusion, we can say that the Hearth of many modern people is often in a suffering condition. The inability to love and to have satisfactory relations, the exaggerated individuality and the solitude of living alone, the extremely expanded ego are all related to a weak and sick heart. They are symptoms and causes at the same time. The spread of heart diseases between very young people within our Western society is a signal of these issues. We are cultivating unhealthy values that are in contrast with the desires of our Heart. The Shamanic Heart Healing can be of great support, not only as a cure for  diseases affecting the cardiovascular-system, but also as a way to increase the connection to our Hearth and to learn how to better act in our lives to keep the Heart stronger, vital and full of courage and love. 

L'articolo Heart Healing proviene da The Drum of the Shaman.

But, as is often the case, a more difficult and dangerous technique is also far more powerful. Obviously, taking poisonous energy in the mouth is very risky. The shaman can only do this if he has strong protection in his mouth. The power animal is not enough.

The only valid protection I know of is to have the power animal itself as one’s ally.
The shaman has allied spirits, usually more elemental than a power animal, but which, unlike a power animal, remain permanently with him, in his stomach or under his skin or in a medicine bag. Many of these spirits are plant spirits, but they also communicate with the shaman in another form, which can be an insect, a spider, a fish, a reptile, but also a stone or something else. These allies are called tzentzak by the Amazonian shamans. I will describe in another article how they are acquired.
If the intruder is e.g. a wasp, and the shaman has the Wasp as tzentzak, before sucking it out he will call his allies Wasps (he usually always has a couple) inside his mouth. If he holds his allies in his stomach the shaman regurgitates some gastric juice into his mouth until he feels the two wasps settle, one near his lips, the other at the mouth of his throat.
If, on the other hand, the wasp allies are under the skin he will call them with a song of power until he feels them rise under the skin until they reach the inside of his mouth, or he will see them leave his body and move around him, until attracted by the song they will enter his mouth. Similarly if they are kept outside the body, free either in a medicine bag or in simulacra. If the spirits are contained in small simulacra the shaman can also put them directly into his mouth. Some shamans place two pieces of leaf of the ally’s vegetable appearance in their mouths.
It is best if the allies are in pairs, one at the mouth entrance and one further down: their task is to block the intrusion that is sucked in so that the shaman does not swallow it: if it escapes the first ally the second will stop it. The shaman can only suck a wasp or crab-looking intrusion if he has the wasp or crab as an ally. Otherwise he will have to use his hands.
When the shaman sucks he does not need to touch the patient’s body, he only needs to hold himself a few centimetres away. He can use his lips directly or even a special power tool. He usually feels waves of disgusting taste as he sucks and spits the intrusion into a basin of water. He often has gag reflexes.
Before sucking a second time he must call the allies back into his mouth, an oversight can cost him dearly. It happened to me once when I was sucking out dozens of butterflies from a woman who was suffering from severe menstrual pains.

I hardly noticed. But the next day, while the woman was completely cured, I had a strange fever: high and with no other symptoms. As there was no shaman in the vicinity, I asked my beast of power to examine me. He showed me two or three butterflies at the back of my throat. It was then that I remembered when I had forgotten to recall the allied butterflies in my mouth. My animal pulled them out. After an hour the fever disappeared.

The shaman stops pulling when he no longer feels disgust at sucking. Then to be on the safe side he checks the area again with his hand.

Extracting with the aid of power tools

If he cannot suck out the intrusion and it is too tenacious or small or elusive to remove by hand, sometimes the shaman uses an instrument of power to pull it out: such as an arrow or an animal tooth, a stick or sharp bone, the horny tip of a pen or a sacred knife.
Even in these cases it is generally not necessary to injure the patient. Tribal shamans often do this and in some cases it would be necessary, but it is not possible in our civilisation.
However, the tool is always an object of power of the shaman to whom it has been explained by a spirit helper or the spirit of the object itself what it can be used for and what intrusions it can possibly extract.
Sometimes the suggestion comes during the healing itself, from the power animal or a spirit-guide.
A good shaman always follows these sudden inspirations even if they seem strange, because he allows himself to be led without resistance into the flow of life.

Closing the ritual

Once the extraction is complete, the shaman invites the client to sit up. He must immediately close the holes left by the extraction: although invisible, they are like the wounds of a surgical operation. To do this, some shamans splash some pure water on the client’s face, so that the mild shock closes the openings. Or they give him a glass of water to drink after consecrating it by passing it over the candle flame: they invite the client to drink it slowly and feel the water fill the holes left by the intrusions. One can also do both. Finally the shaman shakes the rattle four times around the client’s body, sealing the rite. This is the extraction as I usually practice it. There are many other techniques, but the basic principles are similar.

L'articolo Extraction Healing proviene da The Drum of the Shaman.

They have many names in ancient cultures. Buryati shamans, for example, call them burhans and sacrifices must be made to send them away. In other words, the spirit demands something in return for agreeing to leave its victim alone.
It may require offerings of food, on whose spiritual energy it feeds, or other

There are certain very powerful spirits that cannot be fought, let alone captured.

War or negotiation?

Spirits, whether souls of the dead or other entities, can either be persuaded by negotiation to leave the host body and return to where they belong, or be forced to do so by a spiritual battle.
Tribal shamans usually use fighting, while neo-shamans, influenced by democratic culture, prefer negotiation. I too always try to negotiate. However, one must be aware that it is not always possible to convince a spirit nicely.
The spirit, especially if it is the soul of a dead person, may ask you to do something that he/she cannot do without a body (such as the one he/she has taken possession of) and it is generally not a good idea to take over someone else’s tasks.
If, however, the action to be performed is simple and does not harm anyone – which is sometimes difficult to assess, some things end up getting out of control – the shaman may decide to accept.
However, the spirit often demands revenge. Hatred, much more than love, tends to keep the dead bound to the life they should leave behind.
And no shaman who is not mad accepts to avenge a spirit.

Capturing Spirits

Whether one succeeds in convincing the spirit by good means or not, one cannot simply get it out of the body it has taken possession of. It may enter into someone else, even into the shaman himself.
The shaman must accompany him to the underworld or to the place where he belongs.
Usually shamans, for safety’s sake, keep the spirit during the Journey in a special instrument, a spirit-catcher used only for this purpose. Others imprison it in the drum.
Some shamans take the spirit (and thus the disease) upon themselves and then release it in the appropriate place. This technique requires great power and excellent protection. If the spirit belongs to the Middle World (as far as I know it never comes from the Celestial Worlds) the shaman’s soul travels to a vast deserted place where the spirit can do no harm and there he sets it free.
If, however, it is very powerful and dangerous, it may be necessary to imprison it, e.g. in a Medicine Wheel or in a cave or hole in the ground which are then sealed with a special ritual. A bottle or a jar can be used in the same way, and fairy tales about the evil genie enclosed in a bottle derive precisely from these practices

L'articolo Depossession or Exorcism proviene da The Drum of the Shaman.

Dancing is often neglected or even suppressed by the neo-shamans, perhaps because it is ridiculous to the frigid Western patient and the shamans themselves are awkward in practising it. Thus it may appear to be merely decorative. In reality, this loss of physicality in neo-shamanism results in a loss of physicality of the healing itself – which, in the case of physical illnesses, is a real diminution of the efficacy of the healing, while in general cases it is still a weakening of the power of the shamanic ritual.

If the shaman feels that healing is difficult, he will dance around the sick person with increasing impetus, stamping his feet violently on the ground, shaking the rattle or beating the drum at an increasingly swirling rhythm. He will dance faster and faster until exhausted he will drop down beside the patient. At this point an assistant to the shaman, who can also be a casual person, such as a friend of the patient, continues beating the drum at the same pace as the shaman (usually very fast), who now stops moving, covers his eyes with his arm or with a bandana while his soul heads for the mouth of the tunnel to the Lower World. When I do this, my power animal is with me from the dance, otherwise the shaman will surely meet it at the mouth or inside the tunnel.
Often a shaman, if he feels that invading intruders will not be difficult, does not dance until tired nor does he need to lie still, but beats the drum alone, continuing to dance or sitting beside the patient while his soul goes into the tunnel.
However, once in the tunnel, the shaman asks the power animal to show him the patient’s body as if it were glass. This will happen in the tunnel, without reaching the Lower World. To me, the power animal shows the patient’s body in a side cave that opens to the left on the wall of the tunnel.
The shaman then sees the patient’s body as glass and in transparency can see the intrusions, noticing their position and appearance.

When he has spotted them all (it is usually best to stop at three points in the body anyway – postponing further intrusions to a later extraction), the shaman returns up to Middle World. He stands up and picks up his rattle.

The room must be dark lit only by a candle, so that the shaman can catch a glimpse of the spirits in the half-light.
While shaking the rattle with one hand, he passes the other along the client’s body without touching it to feel for intrusions. This is a second diagnosis, because some spirits cannot be seen but can be felt (and vice versa). Thus it is possible for him to find new extraneous presences that he had not discerned in the tunnel. How one ‘hears’ intrusions depends on personal power. However, the power of water is of great help: the shaman then wets his hand with which he will make the diagnosis and passes it over the body of the sick person, making it vibrate and shaking the rattle to keep the spirits awake. The intrusion will be perceived, depending on the shaman’s power, as cold or hot, or the hand starts vibrating harder or freezes or whatever.
Once the intrusion is detected, the shaman will try to see it in the half-light with half-closed eyes.
At this point he pulls it out.
This is the most delicate moment. Because the intrusion can enter the body of the shaman making him sick.
The easiest way is to extract it with the hands. But one absolutely must not touch the intrusion whose power is poisonous. It would be like picking up a tropical spider or a cobra. The shaman then asks his power animal to merge with him. Beware: the animal must not only enter the shaman’s body, it must rather encompass it, so that the animal’s legs (or wings or whatever) are larger than the shaman’s hands and contain them. It will then be only the hands of the power animal that actually come into contact with the intruder as it is pulled out.

Once it has been pulled out, the shaman must return it to nature. This means to the powers of the elements or to plants, for which intrusions are not harmful, indeed they often integrate with them in a beneficial way, but not to animals: in animals, even wild ones, they cause disease.

This can be done in various ways: by throwing the intruder into a bowl full of water, which at the end of the ritual the shaman will pour out into nature, e.g. in the garden – the water will drag the intruder with it, dispersing it into the depths of the earth. It should not be poured in an easily trampled spot, otherwise the intruder might attach itself to some passer-by before the water has been fully absorbed. The shaman must be careful not to get wet with the contaminated water or spill it on the floor while taking it out. The bowl is then rinsed outside and left outside at least overnight.

Otherwise it can be thrown into a body of water even at a great distance from the place where the healing takes place: the shaman throws it in the direction of the lake (or river or sea) and follows it with his eyes until he sees it sink into the water. However, the way to the body of water must be completely clear: I often use this technique because I live in the mountains and there is a small lake further down. But if you have a block of flats in front of your window, you would be intruding into someone else’s home, causing him or the weakest person in his family, illness, misfortune or death. It is then important for the shaman to accompany the intruder with his gaze UNTIL he sees it sink into the water: it is in fact his intention to lead it to its destination.

L'articolo Intrusion Extraction proviene da The Drum of the Shaman.

The do-it-yourself use of these techniques, especially as a form of self-therapy, following the indications of a book or a seminar or a dream, is often effective because shamanic methods are ancestral and exploit channels that since the remotest antiquity connect us with the Powers of the Cosmos and with spirits eager to help us.
However, our person tends by nature to stabilise on a low level of Power (Power in fact burns like fire and is difficult to manage) and therefore, after the very first few times, the naive practice of shamanic healing gradually loses its effectiveness and stops working.
In order to use it successfully and continuously, specific training is required that requires commitment, sacrifice and long application. Those who are able to practise this art are called curandero or curandera.
Or, at a higher degree, which also involves spiritual guidance and knowledge of the secrets of the Universe inaccessible to most, is a shaman. You can benefit greatly from shamanic healing especially in cases of:

• acute phenomena such as inflammation and pain. E.g. toothache, abdominal pain, abscesses, joint pain.
• These very simple ailments are easily learnt to be treated by following the shamanic path. Those who habitually take part in our circles are able to treat them for each other without resorting to drugs.
• recurring or chronic illnesses or general sickness. E.g.: chronic gastritis or colitis, arthritis, colic, frequent respiratory ailments, skin diseases, etc.
• bad luck, such as frequent accidents or misfortunes or obvious bad luck in love or work.
• intense out-of-control emotions, such as anger, jealousy, irritability or anxiety and panic.
• loneliness or dissociation, feeling of observing life rather than participating in it, feeling of observing oneself from the outside, etc.
• addictions, e.g. to drugs or alcohol, but also to other people etc.
• answers to fundamental questions, such as choices to be made or loss of meaning in life.

Some ailments and illnesses, e.g. depression, respond better if the person starts a shamanic journey (i.e. attends Drum Circles etc.) than if he or she only undergoes one or more curandería sessions.

There are also other illnesses that can be cured by a shaman, but these are not included in the list.
In general, it is important to understand that exceptionally any illness can be cured through spiritual healing if the higher spirits decide to come to your aid.

To learn more about curandería visit the Shamanism and Healing area.

Francis Tsunki, a Shuar (Amazonian) shaman and healer, and his apprentices use numerous shamanic healing methods, such as:
Limpieza (general purification of body and soul), Recovery of the Power Animal, Extraction of Harmful Intrusions (with mukunmia, tobacco traps and more), Care of the Heart, Replacement of the Heart Spirit, Care and Recovery of the Soul, Depossession, Liberation from Obsessions (oppressions of the soul), Soul Replacement of various parts of the body (malfunctioning organs such as liver, spleen etc. ..), Accompaniment of the souls of the dead, Shamanic Divination, Rituals and Ceremonies prepared for the patient.
Tsunki travels a lot, has changed several countries and currently lives near Lugano (Canton Ticino, Switzerland), but rarely receives patients.
For some time now he has been treating mainly those who follow his Circle and now only treats new people for special cases.
You can write to [email protected] to ask for a meeting (or a distance cure, see below).

If you are not part of the Circle and Tsunki and his spirit helpers do not accept to cure you, you can, however, go to some of his apprentices who are already qualified as curanderos. For the names and contact details of qualified curanderos, see here.

If you live far away or are, due to your infirmity, unable to move, you can, if the case allows, be healed at a distance by Tsunki.

Apprentices do not do distant healing.

Those who wish to learn the practice of shamanic healing can read about it on the Events page or in the Forum or write to [email protected], where Tsunki answers directly.

L'articolo Shamanic Healing proviene da The Drum of the Shaman.

To us moderns, hunting seems like something violent, but in shamanic cultures it is not exactly like that – the prey, e.g. gazelles, are donated by the spirit of the Gazelle, whose help has been sought earlier in the dance and the Shamanic Journey. Thus the prey in a certain sense offer themselves to the hunters. Similarly, the shaman in his hunt seeks an animal spirit that offers itself to restore power to the sick person. This will then forge as deep a relationship as possible with the power animal, even to the point of identification – just as hunters disguise themselves and imitate the movements of their prey and by eating its flesh assimilate it by partly acquiring its nature.

The power animal has no physical body, so the person does not eat its flesh, but assimilates it when the shaman blows it into his chest and head. First, however, it must be ‘caught’.

If the person is weak or falls ill easily or has no resilience, it means that his power animal has left him. The shaman will then descend into the lower world to hunt for an animal that will give the person power and energy.
He will search, if possible, for his animal double, the animal that the person had since childhood and that has now departed.
To find it, the shaman must establish a relationship of attunement with the client, spend the day with him, eat together. There should be no other people with them, except those who will participate in the ritual, especially the drummer (who may be an assistant to the shaman or a friend of the client). A small group of three or four people, but sometimes it can be all the members of a drum circle, a whole shamanic community.

At the end of the day, in a dimly lit room, illuminated only by a candle, the shaman will have the client lie down on a carpet or an animal skin which, as in other healing rituals, will become the centre of the world.

This place will be consecrated with spirit-pleasing herbal fumes (e.g. wild sage) diffused in the 6 directions of space (East, South, West, North, Sky and Earth). This will serve to invoke the help of the spirits of the directions.
Then the shaman will dance around the client shaking the rattle and singing a power chant to attract their helping spirits, especially their power animal. The dance, increasingly swirling and stomping loudly on the ground, also serves to circulate energy between the shaman and the client (who also remains relaxed and relaxed) and establish a stronger connection with him. The drummer beats the drum in unison with the shaman’s rattle.
The rhythm of the rattle, singing and dancing alters the consciousness of the shaman who begins to see his spirit helpers in the half-light.

L'articolo Power Animal Retrieval proviene da The Drum of the Shaman.