Wendy Luckey

Wendy Luckey was born in Minot, North Dakota into a family with mixed cultural diversity.

Marie Luisa Garcia

Marie Luisa Garcia de Armas was born in Caserio de Aucayo. She is a Huesero, a specialist in dislocations, i.e. bones that are out of socket.

Percy Garcia Lozano

My name is Percy Garcia Lozano; I was born on the 7th of September 1973, in the community of Aucayo.

Ron Wheelock

I came to Peru in March 07, 1996 with the intention to become a healer. My first trip here i drank ayahuasca two times in Tamshiyacu with Don Agustin Rivas Vasquez.

Earnesto Gracia Torres

Bio coming

 

 

Don Agustin Rivas

Don Agustin Rivas is a well known healer, shaman and Ayahuasquero, who has been trained by respected native healers over 37 years ago.

Don Lucho

Luis Lucho Culquitón was taught curandismo while still young by his grandmother and twenty years ago began to build Centro de Investigacion Kapitari...

León Fidel Andy Grefa

Fidel Andy was born in 1966 on the river island La Soga in the outskirts of Tena, Ecuador, where he still lives and practices.

Javier Arévalo

Javier Arevalo Shahuano was born by the Rio Napo in Northern Peru in a village called Nuevo Progresso.

Elisa Vargas Fernandez

Elisa Vargas Fernandes, es curandera Shipibo-Conibo, Ella naciò para ser curandera, lo dice asì por que lo siente, ese Don lo tiene en la sangre, en el alma, en el aura y todo eso se lo debe a sus ancestros.

Aeli Ronin Yaka

Thirteen years ago, Mary Ann Eddowes felt the urgent need to discover her true essence, wondering why she was here and what her mission in this life was…

Pedro Panduro Navarro

Pedro Panduro Navarro apprenticed in Lamas, Peru, a department of San Martin spending 2 years dieting "palos vegetales."

Alfredo Cairuna Canayo

Bio coming

What is a Curandero?

"Curandero" in Spanish means healer, from the verb "curare", or more precisely from its present participle or gerund: "curando", meaning (someone who is) "healing". This latin terminology designates a popular healer, as opposed to the recognized doctor (who has a recognized degree or doctorate). Curanderos are healers without diploma to whom go the poor people when they have no money to go to the doctors/hospitals or when the doctors cannot do anything for them.

Shamanic healing has been here for thousands of years and will remain. During the "Age of Reason", we were led away from believing in things we could not see and hear; that we could not place in our hands and feel its weight. This contrived reality found its way to the Americas a little over 500 years ago and through force of arms, unknown viruses and the Spanish Inquisition, it ravaged cultures and humiliated the medicine men, taking away their Gods and forcing them into submission. There remained, however, a few daring souls who continued to practice their magic, hidden away from the death threats of the conquistadors. They are known as Curanderos (Shaman).
There are many different types of Curanderos, named according to the method they use to cure people. Even among the Vegetalistas (those healers using plants), there are different types who use different plants. The Curanderos (shaman) that will be present with us at this Conference are Ayahusqueros (working with the Sacred Medicina - Ayahuasca) and Hachumeros (those healers that use San Pedro catsus as their primary Ceremonial sacrament). However, the Conference will also put us face to face with other types of healers - shamans that do not work with either but work with other plants, stones, tobacco, perfume, etc. in order to access the spirit world and to heal.
The shaman, the "Maker of Myths", who classically keeps one foot in this World and the other with the spirits, is not to be confused with the brujo or witch, dancing with evil. Both are powerful. A shaman "holds hands with the Divine" working as a medium between this World’s reality and the spiritual realm. They charm the divine into their rituals by prayer and song. Theirs is a world of visions and hallucinations, a world of Grace and Madness, of Magic, Myths and Miracles.

Evidence of these Sacred Ceremonies goes back around 4,000 years. This dating comes from an ancient ceremonial cup that was discovered in Ecuador which has been carbon dated.