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The Gift of Shamanism
Visionary Power, Ayahuasca Dreams, and Journeys to Other Realms
By Itzhak Beery
Foreword by John Perkins
Published by Destiny Books
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
Discover the shamanic powers within each of us
• Explores ayahuasca rituals in the Amazon, messages from power animals and plant spirits, intuitive dreams, soul retrieval, and holograms of past lives and spirits
• Explains the shamanic way of “seeing” to diagnose spiritual, emotional, and physical ailments via candle readings, remote viewing, and shamanic journeys
• Details how the author has helped individuals communicate with loved ones who have passed on and release themselves from negative spirits
Each and every one of us has shamanic powers. Glimpses of them can arise at any age in the form of intuitive dreams, déjà vu, spontaneous visions, and out-of-body experiences. Most people dismiss these experiences. However, by embracing these gifts, we can unlock our shamanic potential to change ourselves and the world around us.
Revealing his transformation from skeptic to respected shamanic healer, Itzhak Beery explains how, after countless prescient dreams and visions throughout his life that he brushed off, a series of synchronistic events led to his first shamanism workshop with Michael Harner, renowned shamanism scholar and teacher. This, in turn, led to a trip to South America with John Perkins to work with indigenous shamanic healers.
Beery shares his experiences with ayahuasca rituals in the Amazon, messages from power animals and plant spirits, dreams that foretold future events, and holographic sightings of past lives and spiritual entities, both evil and benign. He details his shamanic way of “seeing” to diagnose spiritual, emotional, and physical ailments via candle readings and remote viewing. Explaining how we are always surrounded by spirits, he recounts helping people communicate with loved ones who have passed on and shares powerful stories of soul retrieval during shamanic journeys to other worlds.
Through his true stories of visions that manifested in reality, Beery reveals that we are all shamans. By igniting our natural intuition and developing trust for our inner powers, we can each connect to the oneness of nature where all knowledge is found.
• Explores ayahuasca rituals in the Amazon, messages from power animals and plant spirits, intuitive dreams, soul retrieval, and holograms of past lives and spirits
• Explains the shamanic way of “seeing” to diagnose spiritual, emotional, and physical ailments via candle readings, remote viewing, and shamanic journeys
• Details how the author has helped individuals communicate with loved ones who have passed on and release themselves from negative spirits
Each and every one of us has shamanic powers. Glimpses of them can arise at any age in the form of intuitive dreams, déjà vu, spontaneous visions, and out-of-body experiences. Most people dismiss these experiences. However, by embracing these gifts, we can unlock our shamanic potential to change ourselves and the world around us.
Revealing his transformation from skeptic to respected shamanic healer, Itzhak Beery explains how, after countless prescient dreams and visions throughout his life that he brushed off, a series of synchronistic events led to his first shamanism workshop with Michael Harner, renowned shamanism scholar and teacher. This, in turn, led to a trip to South America with John Perkins to work with indigenous shamanic healers.
Beery shares his experiences with ayahuasca rituals in the Amazon, messages from power animals and plant spirits, dreams that foretold future events, and holographic sightings of past lives and spiritual entities, both evil and benign. He details his shamanic way of “seeing” to diagnose spiritual, emotional, and physical ailments via candle readings and remote viewing. Explaining how we are always surrounded by spirits, he recounts helping people communicate with loved ones who have passed on and shares powerful stories of soul retrieval during shamanic journeys to other worlds.
Through his true stories of visions that manifested in reality, Beery reveals that we are all shamans. By igniting our natural intuition and developing trust for our inner powers, we can each connect to the oneness of nature where all knowledge is found.
Excerpt
Chapter 3
Past-life Experiences
Is there life after life? Is our soul immortal and caught in the birth-death-rebirth cycle? What is the role of our physical bodies?
As a self-declared rationalist and atheist, I used to be awfully cynical about phenomena such as past lives. But in my grief over losing my mother, I found myself praying that my mother’s soul would come back in the form of my daughter. So, when I began to experience the reality of past lives, as in the following stories, it caught me totally by surprise and made me a believer.
Two Knights
“Can you ‘see’ a past lifetime vision I had recently had?” A new client challenged me as we were sitting to do a candle reading. At first I was taken aback by her forthright question, as I always wait for the images to come to me and do not like to be forced or challenged this way. So I took a big breath. Scanning and gazing at her softly, suddenly a picture of two English soldiers riding fast, dark horses and wearing heavy armor materialized on the left side behind her head. It was the middle of a massive battle. A large forest surrounded the slanted green hilly battlefield. I recognized my client as the man on the left. His shoulder was terribly wounded. I watched him as he finally fell off his horse to die.
The man on his right, his best friend, looked backward and continued galloping, realizing he could not protect or save him. As I conveyed this vision to my client she nodded in sadness and confirmed that it was exactly what she saw and experienced herself. “Why couldn’t he save me?” she asked with deep mourning. “That is the story of my life, I am always deeply disappointed when people don’t come to help me.”
My Life as a Witch
Very thin, with dark, flowing, curly hair, Laurie walked into my healing room. Her brown eyes were bright, playful, and curious, hiding a lifetime of deep suffering. “I need to be prepared for my planned trip to Peru, where I am going for the first time to drink ayahuasca. I want to cure my chronic depression, anxiety, and addiction to painkillers.”
These were the reasons she gave for coming for this shamanic healing. Little did we know then that this session would reveal a whole other lifetime. I brought to her attention the fact that most of the time when a person takes antidepressants or anxiety medication, shamanic healing may not be as effective, as it needs to combat those spirits too, while the client’s spirit is suppressed. She seemed to understand and agreed anyway.
“I have some pain on the right side of my lower back. Could it be an intrusion of bad spirits?” she asked.
I handed her a jaguar bone to hold between her two palms to check for possession. “No you are not possessed, but you had some trembling in your left hand, which signals problems or disturbances with a mother or a feminine energy,” I said. She nodded in agreement. As we continued our conversation, a picture, a holographic image, formed above her right shoulder, slightly above her head. A short, heavyset, round, and youngish European woman stood in her kitchen mixing with her right hand what seemed like soup in a big cauldron on a wood-burning stove. Her light-blond hair was tucked under a light blue cap, and a white apron was tied to her bluish dress, covering her full feminine figure. While continuing our regular conversation, I thought, Who is this woman? How is she related to my client? She seems to not have any resemblance to my client, so why is she here? Is she her ancestor? I needed more information.
“What is your ancestry?” I asked my client, looking into her dark eyes.
“Oh, part French, part German, and part English. Why do you ask?”
It must be France then, I thought. “I do not know why yet, but there is a woman here.” I went on, describing to her the scene that was evolving in front of my eyes. “I think she is a healer, a witch making a special brew to heal someone.”
I took a breath, and another vision came. “There is a girl walking in from the door on the left side. She is maybe sixteen, looking like a younger version of her mother, but without the cap. The woman is calmly teaching her daughter to make the healing brew. They seem to be so innocent and peaceful, an almost idyllic image of a young farmers’ family, but not for long. I can see a few people coming down a road from the fields. I don’t know who they are.” I concentrated on them. “Suddenly, the front door of the kitchen on the right side opens aggressively and three men walk in. They are wearing black hooded robes.”
“Who are they? Are they priests?” Laurie asked.
“Yes, they are, wearing black robes with hoods over their heads, I can’t see their faces. I think they came to take them. Yes, they’re arresting them. They are going to burn them as witches.” I had to stop and take a big breath, as I felt goosebumps spread over my entire body. I continued: “I have the sense that this woman might actually be you a few hundred years ago. I think I’m seeing you in your past life.”
“Interesting,” Laurie said. We had a long period of silence. “You know, it makes a lot of sense. I’m a writer, and for the past few years I have been working on a book about women healers from all cultures who fought against society’s judgment. I feel very passionate about it. I’m also working for an organization for women’s rights. And I have one daughter.”
“Are you very protective of your daughter?”
“You bet! I hope not in a bad way, though,” she said.
Past-life Experiences
Is there life after life? Is our soul immortal and caught in the birth-death-rebirth cycle? What is the role of our physical bodies?
As a self-declared rationalist and atheist, I used to be awfully cynical about phenomena such as past lives. But in my grief over losing my mother, I found myself praying that my mother’s soul would come back in the form of my daughter. So, when I began to experience the reality of past lives, as in the following stories, it caught me totally by surprise and made me a believer.
Two Knights
“Can you ‘see’ a past lifetime vision I had recently had?” A new client challenged me as we were sitting to do a candle reading. At first I was taken aback by her forthright question, as I always wait for the images to come to me and do not like to be forced or challenged this way. So I took a big breath. Scanning and gazing at her softly, suddenly a picture of two English soldiers riding fast, dark horses and wearing heavy armor materialized on the left side behind her head. It was the middle of a massive battle. A large forest surrounded the slanted green hilly battlefield. I recognized my client as the man on the left. His shoulder was terribly wounded. I watched him as he finally fell off his horse to die.
The man on his right, his best friend, looked backward and continued galloping, realizing he could not protect or save him. As I conveyed this vision to my client she nodded in sadness and confirmed that it was exactly what she saw and experienced herself. “Why couldn’t he save me?” she asked with deep mourning. “That is the story of my life, I am always deeply disappointed when people don’t come to help me.”
My Life as a Witch
Very thin, with dark, flowing, curly hair, Laurie walked into my healing room. Her brown eyes were bright, playful, and curious, hiding a lifetime of deep suffering. “I need to be prepared for my planned trip to Peru, where I am going for the first time to drink ayahuasca. I want to cure my chronic depression, anxiety, and addiction to painkillers.”
These were the reasons she gave for coming for this shamanic healing. Little did we know then that this session would reveal a whole other lifetime. I brought to her attention the fact that most of the time when a person takes antidepressants or anxiety medication, shamanic healing may not be as effective, as it needs to combat those spirits too, while the client’s spirit is suppressed. She seemed to understand and agreed anyway.
“I have some pain on the right side of my lower back. Could it be an intrusion of bad spirits?” she asked.
I handed her a jaguar bone to hold between her two palms to check for possession. “No you are not possessed, but you had some trembling in your left hand, which signals problems or disturbances with a mother or a feminine energy,” I said. She nodded in agreement. As we continued our conversation, a picture, a holographic image, formed above her right shoulder, slightly above her head. A short, heavyset, round, and youngish European woman stood in her kitchen mixing with her right hand what seemed like soup in a big cauldron on a wood-burning stove. Her light-blond hair was tucked under a light blue cap, and a white apron was tied to her bluish dress, covering her full feminine figure. While continuing our regular conversation, I thought, Who is this woman? How is she related to my client? She seems to not have any resemblance to my client, so why is she here? Is she her ancestor? I needed more information.
“What is your ancestry?” I asked my client, looking into her dark eyes.
“Oh, part French, part German, and part English. Why do you ask?”
It must be France then, I thought. “I do not know why yet, but there is a woman here.” I went on, describing to her the scene that was evolving in front of my eyes. “I think she is a healer, a witch making a special brew to heal someone.”
I took a breath, and another vision came. “There is a girl walking in from the door on the left side. She is maybe sixteen, looking like a younger version of her mother, but without the cap. The woman is calmly teaching her daughter to make the healing brew. They seem to be so innocent and peaceful, an almost idyllic image of a young farmers’ family, but not for long. I can see a few people coming down a road from the fields. I don’t know who they are.” I concentrated on them. “Suddenly, the front door of the kitchen on the right side opens aggressively and three men walk in. They are wearing black hooded robes.”
“Who are they? Are they priests?” Laurie asked.
“Yes, they are, wearing black robes with hoods over their heads, I can’t see their faces. I think they came to take them. Yes, they’re arresting them. They are going to burn them as witches.” I had to stop and take a big breath, as I felt goosebumps spread over my entire body. I continued: “I have the sense that this woman might actually be you a few hundred years ago. I think I’m seeing you in your past life.”
“Interesting,” Laurie said. We had a long period of silence. “You know, it makes a lot of sense. I’m a writer, and for the past few years I have been working on a book about women healers from all cultures who fought against society’s judgment. I feel very passionate about it. I’m also working for an organization for women’s rights. And I have one daughter.”
“Are you very protective of your daughter?”
“You bet! I hope not in a bad way, though,” she said.
Product Details
- Publisher: Destiny Books (March 13, 2015)
- Length: 256 pages
- ISBN13: 9781620553725
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Raves and Reviews
“A beautifully crafted and inspiring work. Beery is a modern-day shaman who reveals to us the landscape of the soul in a profound and deeply transformative way. Read this book!”
– Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., author of Shaman, Healer, Sage and One Spirit Medicine
“Itzhak Beery’s The Gift of Shamanism offers clear teachings as well as riveting testimonials about what becomes possible when we walk this path with humility, reverence, and discipline. He is to be commended as he has created very good medicine. I love this book!”
– Hank Wesselman, Ph.D., anthropologist and author of the Spiritwalker Trilogy and coauthor of Awakeni
“Itzhak Beery is a master storyteller who shares his fascinating journey from skeptical nonbeliever to gifted shamanic healer and teacher. The Gift of Shamanism is filled with powerful and engaging stories of transformation that inspire us to tap in to our shamanic potential. Brilliant book!”
– Sandra Ingerman, author of Soul Retrieval, Walking in Light, and coauthor of Speaking with Nature
“In this beautiful book Itzhak Beery, a powerful seer and agent of change, illumines through the ancient art of storytelling the mystical worlds coinciding with everyday reality and the inner magic we each carry.”
– Llyn Roberts, author of Shapeshifting into Higher Consciousness and coauthor of Speaking with Nature
“The Gift of Shamanism is eloquent and mesmerizing. It offers an utterly fresh perspective that may reveal shamanic wisdom embedded in your own long-neglected life circumstances.”
– Ariel Orr Jordan, psychotherapist, writer/director, and film producer
“Itzhak gifts us with an eclectic array of healing stories that bridge sacred tradition and present-day living. This wonderful healer teaches us how to connect with spirits and forces that diagnose and heal.”
– Margaret De Wys, author of Black Smoke and Ecstatic Healing
“I heartily recommend this book to learn how Itzhak Beery works, including how he facilitates spirit communication and spiritual healing, helping people connect with their shamanic abilities, such as visions, out-of-body experiences, dreams, and his work with ayahuasca. Beery has distilled his years of experience into this marvelous volume.”
– Lewis Mehl-Madrona, M.D., Ph.D, author of Remapping Your Mind, Coyote Medicine, and executive direct
“The wonderful message of Itzhak Beery’s excellent book The Gift of Shamanism is that everyone has this gift. It is our birthright. Through personal stories from his own life and the lives of his many clients, Beery’s contribution to readers is his deep understanding of what makes a shaman and how a shaman lives in this confusing world. Even better, his story teaches us to trust the visions of the spirit world to ease the burden of uncertainty and empower our personal lives with wholeness and meaning.”
– Tom Cowan, author of Fire in the Head and Yearning for the Wind
"As a TV/Radio talk show host, I have to read a lot of books. Itzhak Beery's, The Gift of Shamanism was that rare thing in my experience, a book that hooked me from the start and kept me glued throughout, taught me much that I did not know, and inspired me to not only want a private session with Itzhak, but also to learn more about my own shamanic gifts."
– Sandie Sedgbeer, host of Conversation at the Cutting Edge on VividLife.me and The Virtual Light Broa
“His questioning attitude makes spirit helpers and flying through the air seem possible and maybe even likely.”
– Publishers Weekly, March, 2015
“The Gift of Shamanism is a superb exploration of the altered states of consciousness implicit to shamanism. Beery describes his encounters with the spirit world and its transcendental energies in beautiful and moving detail.”
– Spiral Nature, Corinna Underwood, June 2015
“In sharing his stories Beery gives a gift of inspiration and trust, empowering the reader to trust their own experiences of the world of spirit – and all in an eminently readable and enjoyable format.”
– Indie Shaman Magazine, June Kent, June 2015
"A talented story teller, Beery engages the reader from the very first page. This mixture of biography and teaching helps communicate the worldview of traditions shamans. It is a fascinating tale beginning with Beery as an atheist and sceptic through his experiences with the unseen and advancing spiritual maturity leading to his role as a teacher and healer. Beery communicates well and reminds us of the urgent need to rediscover ourselves in a world lost to materialism and consumerism."
– New Dawn, Robert Black, October 2015
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