From a student of Shaman Elder's course

The website is great.
There are several shaman courses out there.
So what makes one better than the other..one stand out as above the rest?
It is the elder or someone willing to take the time to be one.
It is easy to take your money send the materials and say have fun.
But when someone says this is my course and I am your elder that is the element given to the course that makes it excellent.

From a student of the course

Aho!

Had good success with lesson 1. Was able to shift my focus on each exercise but experienced headaches and some eye strain. Hoping that will go away after more practice. After reading some history and purpose of a shaman, I'm even more honored to study from eldershaman and those that are following the same path.

Just now begining lesson 2, and what an important lesson it is!! Healing yourself. Something I began to learn while practicing Reiki. the healing is within us. We need to heal ourselves if we our to heal others, So that is one of my goals for this week, to search all levels mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual and acknowledge what areas may need healing, or changing. the only thing that comes to mind is working on some negative beliefs that would only hold me back from the work I want to do.

From a student of the course

 You are entering a wonderful world of study with a wonderful teacher and great friends.

from Shamanic Lifestyle news group at Yahoo.

Message: 1        
   Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 11:27:13 -0700 (PDT)
  Subject: knowledge that killed Yaqui Shamans

Aho!

The question was where this information came from that certain Yaqui
Shamans were killed by their quests.
There is a great book called the Shaman's Body that goes into this in
detail. Of course, Carlos Castaneda's own works describe the downfall of
certain yaqui shamans as well.

As I understand it through my own experience, there are many powers
there that we can experience in the Inner Worlds. They are strong and
incredible and very tempting to want to have. Certain people who have
tasted them have wanted to possess them for themselves. They wanted to be
able to not just experience them but to use them, to wield them, even for
selfish means. It is not suprising that when a person is tempted with
magnificent power, they should become enamored with it and try to use it
for their own ends.

While we may hope that shamans are above this, we are after all human,
and so some of the Yaquis worked together and practiced harnessing this
power for themselves. They would sit together and discuss their
experiences and then go off to journey again to gain this power, then come
back and conference again their results and so on for a long time. They
would make little breakthroughs and get closer and closer. This went on
for many years.

Then one day they went out to try again and someone had a real
breakthrough to reach that unattainable place but he gave up his body and was
gone. Well, the other shamans knew that he had figured out the secret
but he was not there to ask him how to do it. So they continued their
experieents. (In fact, the exercises taught in the Tensegrity workshops
are based on part of their methods!) A few weeks later another shaman had
this same experience and he too was gone. The shamans wanted this thing
more and more as they saw that some of the shamans were able to "get
there". What was rediculous was that they weren't seeing that it was
killing them off!

The power of the Inner Worlds is not meant to be controlled or
manipulated by human beings. It certainly is there and we can experience it and
gain knowledge from it, for sure. I am glad it is there. I respect it
and have learned how to walk in the "minefield" safely and gently and
find what I need to effect healing for myself and many others
successfully. With proper intent, focused emotion, and established knowledge, it
is not dangerous at all.

But if you would try to have that power for yourself, to use it for
your own gain, to turn that power on yourself or others, you may not come
back from that journey either.

And isn't this true of normal life? Do we not see how power can
corrupt? That is what I most love about Shamanic work. The macrocosm is really
no different than the microcosm. As Above, So Below. Attraction and
Repulsion, Cause and Effect, all the Universal Laws are here, of course,
so shamanism is perfectly inline with many other philosophies and
religions! In fact, the similarity is uncanny! The differences are there too
but that is what color is for. I personally love the color of Shamanism
and have found my personal power lodged firmly in this means.

I also think Shamanism comes from many lifetimes ago for me. I have
always been a Shaman. I do remember making that contract in some other
place and time and that contract is an eternal one, not just for this
lifetime. It is a difficult contract to undertake because what you are
agreeing to is coming back lifetime after lifetime and re-membering your
skills and abilities each time with or without help. In this world, it is
extremely difficult to find your Shamanic skills as we are not a
shamanic society. Although my lineage and heritage even in this world is
Shamanic, I do not have the lifestyle or the tribe to learn from. So I
agreed to struggle and fight and dig out the knowledge I needed in each
lifetime to continue my agreement to be a shaman eternally.

That is why I have put together a beginner's course in Shamanism. I
want to offer an open door to those people who may have some faint
rememberance of a shamanic past to find a place with the door open and the
lights on, ready to help you re-member your own contract. Each person who
has taken my course has indeed re-membered their contract! So it is
successfull! We gather together to share our memories, our glimpses of
past lives. I teach again the foundational skills and just in reading
them, my students take up their practices and wield their tools like the
masters they are. Often my students come in with shadows of something
following them or perhaps an affinity for some animal. Within two weeks
they are again sitting with their guides and travelling to the Inner
Worlds with their totem animals and spirit guides. It is quite beautiful to
see! Please feel welcome to visit my website, read the free articles
and see information on the courses I offer http://www.shamanelder.com

Again this information comes from my own experience and story related
by Carlos Castanedas as interpreted by myself.

Aho!
Shaman Elder Maggie Wahls