The World of Shamans, Ghosts and Spirit Guides
Chuck Coburn
1999
Llewellyn Publications
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55164-0383, U.S.A.
Reality Is Just an Illusion© 1999 by Chuck Coburn. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
Interior design, editing and typesetting: Kjersti Monson
Cover design: Michael Matheny
Cover photo: Susan Ruggiero
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0282-6
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I was placed on my back
in pitch-black darkness...
I soon realized that I was being drawn into the shaman's state of awareness. Everything in the darkness began to feel strangely familiar while simultaneously remaining distant and foreign.
Then I saw them.
Snakes...a pit of a countless number of very large snakes, all slowly slithering and moving past each other....
The shaman touched my upper body and I was certain that he was about to put a live snake on my chest. My heart was beating rapidly now, busily pumping a full year's supply of adrenaline throughout my body in mere seconds. I was convinced that the shaman possessed the ability to read my mind and was about to confront my fear of snakes by the most direct means possible....
"In Reality Is Just an Illusion, Chuck Coburn takes his readers on a provocative world-wide tour in search of unorthodox wisdom. The touchstones of this voyage...are curiosity, spirituality, and humor."
—Dr. Stanley Krippner, Saybrook Institute,
Co-author, The Mythic Path
"This book describes the amazing personal experience which led former businessman Chuck Coburn into a full-time career as a professional psychic. Coburn recounts his odyssey in a very readable story which is both lighthearted and deeply moving."
—Robert Van de Castle, Professor Emeritus,
University of Virginia
"Humor is a wonderful teacher, and it is Chuck Coburn's ally in his appeal to develop our natural intuition and live more creative and passionate lives."
—Robert Moss, Author of Conscious Dreaming:
A Spiritual Path for Everyday Life
Also by the Author
Funny You Should Say That . . .
Seed Center, 1995
It is not uncommon to be apprehensive and fearful of new events and experiences as they suddenly challenge our otherwise complacent lives. It is this resistance to new and unfamiliar situations that often prohibits our growth.
This book is about confronting and dissipating the fear of opening to our inherent psychic abilities as we move into new levels of spirituality and metaphysical understanding.
With special thanks . . .
This book is dedicated to my good friend—let's call him Jack—as well as to all of my other friends and family members who read (and in some cases even bought) my last book—and, since then, have lobbied hard to get their names mentioned in this one . . .
. . . and to my Dad who had to leave before being able to read either.
Foreword by John Perkins
Businessman and ecologist John Perkins draws extensively from three decades of experience as a consultant to the United Nations, World Bank, and Fortune 500 companies as well as his time as President and CEO of a major U.S. energy company committed to environmentally beneficial technologies. A leader in developing ways to balance business interests with ecological and social concerns, Perkins created the Pollution Offset Lease for Earth (POLE) program and has collaborated with numerous shamans to found a worldwide grass roots movement: Dream Change Coalition. He served as U.S. Representative to the U.N. Energy Commission during the 1970s. A bridge between cultures, Perkins pioneered the integration of modern and traditional transformational methods and has taught at universities on four continents. His highly acclaimed books include Shapeshifting; The World Is As You Dream It; The Stress-Free Habit; and Psychonavigation.
Outside the stone temple, the Andes Mountains were cloaked in darkness. Inside, a fire blazed. It warmed the chill air and the sixteen North Americans who sat in a circle around it. The shaman smiled. His ancient eyes moved slowly, taking in each of his guests. His legs were crossed and his back was against the wall.
Taita Alberto, a member of an indigenous Quechua-speaking culture that traces its traditions back to a time long before the Incas, chanted softly. Iyarina, his twenty-two-year-old daughter and a shaman in training, entered the room and sat next to him. A centuries-old tradition encourages young people to study under elder shamans of the opposite sex. She cradled her infant son in her arms.
The nine women and seven men who had journeyed from the United States included psychologists, physicians, teachers, businessmen, and a writer. They had taken this incredible journey because they wanted to learn about energy, healing, and the wisdom and rituals of the shamans who live in the mountains and rain forests of South America.
"We are entering the Fifth Pachacuti." Taita Alberto's voice was low and soft. ''A magical time when the Condor and Eagle will mate.”
"What is a Pachacuti?" someone asked.
"According to legends that go back long before the Spaniards, a Pachacuti is a period of time lasting about five hundred years. The legends predicted that the Fourth Pachacuti would be a time of conflict. It began at the end of the 1400s. Our forefathers prophesied that the Fifth Pachacuti, which is starting now, will be an era of union and partnership, of sharing, a time when the Condor of the South will mate with the Eagle of the North." He stood up and walked to the fire. "The Eagle is an aggressive and materialistic animal, a bird of prey; the Condor is spiritual, a good environmentalist who eats carrion. They have much to share and teach each other."
"It is why we are here,” Chuck (the writer) said.
Taita Alberto's eyes held his. "It's why you are here, my brother, and why we open our doors and our hearts to you.”
His words took me back to a meeting several years earlier, deep in the Amazon rain forest, with shamans from the Shuar tribe.
When I first lived with them in the late 1960s, the Shuar were noted for the ferocity of their warriors