Tami Simon and John Major Jenkins—a leading researcher on Mayan cosmology and philosophy—discuss the significance of the year 2012 from the perspective of the ancient Mayan skygazers, who used an advanced system of naked-eye astronomy. Find out why December 21, 2012 marks the beginning of a new World Age—a period of tremendous change and potential for transformation. (41 minutes)
What would change if healing began not with symptoms, but with the energy beneath them? Alberto Villoldo has spent decades exploring that question, and the answers have shaped some of the most compelling teachings in modern shamanism.
At Sounds True, we have been sharing the voices of respected spiritual teachers since 1985, when our founder Tami Simon set out to preserve the living wisdom of those with something real to offer the world. Today, our library holds more than 3,000 titles spanning audio programs, digital courses, and conversations that meet seekers wherever they are on their path.
This post walks through Villoldo’s core teachings on shamanic healing, the light body, and energy medicine, and how these practices connect to lasting personal growth.
Alberto Villoldo is a medical anthropologist and psychologist who spent years living among indigenous healers in the Andes and the Amazon basin. What he witnessed there reshaped his sense of what healing could be. Shamanic healing holds that our energetic patterns shape our experience just as powerfully as physical ones do.
These traditions teach that recurring emotional struggles, persistent patterns, and illness may have roots in the energetic field surrounding the body. A shamanic healer works beneath the visible wound by tending to memories and imprints. Villoldo’s fieldwork led him to synthesize indigenous Andean and Amazonian wisdom with contemporary frameworks for personal growth, making these teachings accessible to all students.
We have been honored to share his voice alongside many others through our Insights at the Edge Podcast, a weekly conversation series where healers, scientists, and spiritual teachers speak honestly about consciousness, transformation, and the practices that have shaped their lives.
One of the most distinctive ideas in Villoldo’s work is the concept of the light body, an energetic field said to interpenetrate our physical selves. This luminous layer carries the imprints of past experiences, emotional wounds, and inherited patterns that may influence how we feel, respond, and relate to others.
According to Villoldo, energy medicine works with this field. Practitioners learn to identify and clear the imprints fueling recurring challenges, drawing on Andean cosmology, Amazonian healing lineages, and Villoldo’s own background in neuroscience and psychology. What makes this perspective compelling is the shift in agency it invites. Healing becomes something we actively participate in, a relationship we tend rather than an outcome we wait for.
Those drawn to these ideas can continue their journey through our Subtle Energy collection, where teachings on the energetic body and holistic healing are gathered from a wide range of respected voices and traditions.
The wisdom Villoldo draws from spans thousands of years and several distinct indigenous cultures. Andean shamanism carries a rich cosmology centered on the relationship between human consciousness and the natural world. Practitioners work with the four directions, elemental forces, and archetypal energies as partners in the healing process, a view that places us in genuine relationship with something far larger than our individual concerns.
Shamanic healing asks us to become active participants in our own growth. Villoldo speaks of the importance of shifting the energetic stories we carry, going deeper than surface circumstances. When the root pattern changes, the outer experience tends to follow. Practices that support this path include:
Alberto Villoldo founded the Four Winds Society in the 1980s to preserve and pass on the wisdom he received from Andean and Amazonian elders. The organization offers training in energy medicine and shamanic healing to students from many different backgrounds.
Their guiding values include honoring the sacredness of life and respecting the cultural origins of these traditions. Students are trained in technique as well as the ethical responsibility that comes with this kind of work.Central to the Four Winds curriculum is the Munay Ki rites, nine traditional initiations drawn from Andean shamanic lineages. The word “munay” in Quechua carries the combined meaning of love and will. Each rite is transmitted heart to heart between teacher and student.
These themes resonate with many of the teachings we gather through our Spirituality & Awakening collection, where many paths come together in service of greater consciousness.
A shamanic perspective holds that healing belongs in everyday life, woven through small choices and simple moments.
Begin the day with a few quiet minutes, ideally seated in a calm, dedicated space or with feet on the earth. Shamanic traditions speak of connecting to the natural world as an anchor for energetic balance. Even five minutes of conscious breath can shift the quality of the day ahead and help you move with greater presence from the very first hour.
Gratitude runs deeper than a fleeting mood. From a shamanic view, it actively shifts the quality of the energetic field we move through the day. Starting or ending the day with genuine appreciation for the body, for those we love, for simple beauty, changes how we relate to life at a fundamental level.
Shamanic healing encourages meeting challenges with curiosity. Asking “what is this experience here to show me?” transforms daily life into a practice of ongoing growth and self-knowing, a small but powerful reframe that accumulates into real change.
At Sounds True, we are proud to bring voices like Alberto Villoldo’s to this community alongside many other respected teachers, including Jack Kornfield, Pema Chödrön, and others featured through our All Teachers & Authors page.
Alberto Villoldo’s teachings remind us that healing is an ongoing journey. Shamanic healing, the light body, and energy medicine are accessible to anyone willing to engage with them, carrying an invitation extended across thousands of years: a call to remember that we are more than our symptoms, more than our stories, and far more capable of transformation than we may have believed.
At Sounds True, we are honored to walk alongside teachers who carry this kind of wisdom and to share it with seekers at every stage of their path.
Alberto Villoldo is best known for his work as a medical anthropologist, psychologist, and teacher of shamanic healing. His teachings combine indigenous wisdom with contemporary perspectives on personal growth and well-being.
Shamanic healing focuses on restoring energetic and spiritual balance alongside physical and emotional well-being. It is intended to complement personal growth rather than replace professional medical care.
The concept of the light body appears in several spiritual traditions, although Alberto Villoldo teaches it through the lens of Andean and Amazonian shamanic practices and energy medicine.
Many teachers, including Alberto Villoldo, believe that energy medicine practices can be learned through study, guidance, and consistent practice. Some techniques are suitable for beginners, while others require more advanced training.
The Munay Ki rites are a series of traditional initiations that are intended to support spiritual growth, deepen self-awareness, and strengthen one’s connection with nature and compassionate living.
Many people incorporate energy medicine through meditation, mindful breathing, gratitude practices, visualization, or spending intentional time in nature as part of their daily spiritual practice.
Michelle Cassandra Johnson is an author, activist, spiritual teacher, racial equity consultant, and intuitive healer. She is the author of six books, including Skill in Action and Finding Refuge. Amy Burtaine is a leadership coach and racial equity trainer. With Robin DiAngelo, she is the coauthor of The Facilitator’s Guide for White Affinity Groups. For more, visit https://www.michellecjohnson.com/wisdom-of-the-hive.
Karena Virginia and Dharm Khalsa are two of the most important teachers of kundalini yoga, a form made popular by Yogi Bhajan. Karena has taught various forms of yoga for more than 20 years, and is a respected writer on the subject. Dharm is a Sikh minister and was Yogi Bhajan’s personal assistant for many years. With Sounds True, the duo have published Essential Kundalini Yoga: An Invitation to Radiant Health, Unconditional Love, and the Awakening of Your Energetic Potential. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Dharm and Karena about the unique qualities of kundalini yoga and the energies it can awaken in the body. They discuss the history and principles of kundalini yoga, as well as the “love frequency phenomenon” of mantra. Finally, Dharm and Karena lead listeners in two guided practices intended to help awaken their own kundalini energy. (62 minutes)
HeatherAsh Amara is the founder of Toci—the Toltec Center of Creative Intent—which is an organization devoted to the development of an authentic and aware global community through a blend of Toltec wisdom, European shamanism, Buddhism, and Native American ceremony. With Sounds True, she has created The Warrior Goddess Online Training: Becoming the Woman You Are Meant to Be, an eight-week training filled with insights, meditations, and question-and-answer sessions for embracing one’s divine womanhood. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and HeatherAsh discuss the concept of “stalking oneself” and how to explore the challenge of everyday moments. They also speak on the necessity of becoming intimate with oneself no matter the discomfort that may cause. Finally, HeatherAsh talks about her apprenticeship with don Miguel Ruiz and her days as a firewalking instructor—as well as how each helped her to embrace every aspect of her being.
(67 minutes)
Right before the holidays, I had the opportunity to interview author and business philosopher Peter Block. I love talking with Peter because he often challenges the status quo and underlying assumptions of business; very often when I speak with Peter, I feel like I am being held by my feet upside down (the way little kids are sometimes dangled by their parents) and out comes a bunch of unexamined beliefs and behavior patterns.
In my most recent conversation with Peter (an interview for Insights at the Edge), we discussed creating work in the world that matters, work that communicates our whole-heartedness and honors our relatedness with other people. And in the discussion, he questioned two assumptions that are embedded in contemporary business life: that “scale” is critical for success and that we better move quickly if we are going to accomplish our goals.
I pushed Peter on this notion of scale not being important. Scale-ability is of course one of the first things an investor looks at when analyzing a potential investment opportunity. How could this not be an important consideration? If your business can’t scale easily, how can it grow rapidly and attract investment capital if needed? Peter was dismissive of my concerns. His focus was on the value of small businesses to create jobs that are soul-satisfying for people, businesses that have a hand-made quality and are not dependent on investment dollars for success. As Peter was talking about ignoring scale-ability as a design criteria for business, I thought about the business person as an artist, someone who creates with the ingredients that he or she has at hand and is not particularly concerned about whether or not such an artistic creation will ever be repeated.
But then our conversation moved on to the notion of speed and Peter’s comment that “speed is the enemy of depth.” This statement hit me where it hurts, so to speak, right in my gut, and even more so, in my heart. For the last 3 months of the year, I had been moving at such a speed that I had lost track of my softness and feeling connection (and a bit of my sanity, truth be told). I simply couldn’t digest or assimilate everything that was happening (both in my personal life and in my professional life), and I think it is fair to say that I ended the year resembling a flattened pancake of a person. Life had rolled over me and I hadn’t taken the time to “feel into and through” everything that was occurring. I spent the first week of the holidays resting and reflecting on Peter’s statement, “speed is the enemy of depth” until I felt my feet and the earth back beneath me.
It is now the new year and I have had plenty of time to rest and pad around the house in my pajamas and be with my great love and our cocker spaniel and friends, and write cards, and stare at the falling snow. I feel plump again (figuratively speaking, of course), not flat and surface-like. And now I face the question, how do I not let myself get caught in the speed trap again? I am convinced that no creative endeavor — and certainly a business is a creative endeavor — benefits from an excess of speed. And when it comes to relating with other people (or to ourselves) speed seems to create jaggedness and not contact and understanding. Interestingly, in speaking with one Sounds True author about a potential recording project that we were designing together, we talked about how in her presentation she wanted to cover various life topics such as personal health and relationships and spiritual connection. I asked her “what about our business or career life?” And she said, “We’ll cover that in the relationships section because really what is business but relationship? That is really all it is. Look around you,” and she made a gesture pointing to the Sounds True office that houses 80 employees and 20 or so dogs and on some days a couple of birds and children, “all of this is based on relationships.”
And so SLOWING DOWN is my orienting principle as 2014 begins. I want to relish the richness of my life and not be flattened by it. If you have any slow-down suggestions for me, I am all ears, as they say. I will slowly read your responses (without skimming), at least I hope so.
Dear friends, join Caroline Myss and Dr. Norm Shealy on this in-depth training program in the science and art of medical intuition. Now offered in a totally online format, you can take the course from the comfort of your own home, on a timeline that works for you and your schedule.
Learn more about The Science of Medical Intuition online course.
America’s #1 Medical Intuitive and a Harvard-Trained Neurosurgeon Teach You Their Complete Curriculum on Medical Intuition
What is your intuition telling you about your health right now?
Are you sensing the influences within you that create your physical and spiritual well-being?
In the emerging field of energy medicine, ordinary people with no prior training are learning how to tap into the power of their own medical intuition to:
What You Will Receive:
Explore Intuitive Self-Diagnosis and Healing with Two Pioneers in the Field
Caroline Myss is called America’s #1 medical intuitive because of her documented 93 percent accuracy rate in a scientific blind study conducted by Dr. Norm Shealy, a Harvard-trained neurosurgeon, graduate of Duke Medical School, and founder of the prestigious American Holistic Medical Association two decades ago.
One thing Caroline insists about her intuition: “This is not a gift. It’s a skill.”
In fact, since the 1980s, Caroline has given hundreds of workshops and seminars about intuitive development, teaching that you, too, are a receiver of energy who is full of data and information about your life, your spirit, your higher purpose, even your future. Now, teamed up with Dr. Shealy in a course originally presented at Holos University, Caroline teaches people to develop the ability to read, discern, and interpret their own energetic patterns so they can make wise and clear life decisions—and improve their health at every level. (In fact, The Science of Medical Intuition is the prerequisite course to all other medical intuition study at Holos University.)
Serious Training for Energetic Self-Healing
Caroline and Norm believe the most effective way to introduce people to their intuitive gifts is through personal instruction. That’s why they’ve created the Science of Medical Intuition online course.
With instruction divided into 10 lessons, this in-depth curriculum includes more than 18 hours of audio teaching, three hours of recorded live video presentations, and a wealth of written lessons that will teach you techniques, exercises, and insights for living as a powerfully intuitive and creative person, fully attuned to your health and your destiny. Accessing the 10 sequential lessons in an on-demand timeframe that best matches your needs and learning style, you will:
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