Interview with a Gringo Shaman, Contact Zero On The International UFO Congress, Milarepa, Friends of TDH, and more…

 

The Gringo Shaman of the Amazon:

 

My interview with Ron Wheelock. A shaman is a person who, in tribal cultures, communicates with the spirit world. As intermediaries, shamans ask spirits to intercede in the lives of humans, healing them of illnesses, or granting favors. Since traditional cultures believe that spirits play important roles in people’s lives, the shaman must learn how to cooperate with the spirits for the benefit of his or her community.

 

Ron Wheelock is widely known in Peru as “The Gringo Shaman of the Amazon”.

 

Ron Wheelock, 53, was born in Independence, Kansas. In 1996 he went to Peru looking for a spiritual teacher. Ron first drank ayahuasca in Tamshiyacu with famed shaman Don Agustin Rivas Vasquez. While with Don Agustin, he made arrangements to return to begin the intensive training to become a shamanic healer himself using the South American plant medicine, ayahuasca.

 

Ron stayed with Don Agustin for 5 months doing many plant diets. Ron then began working with Don Jose Coral Mori, the teacher of Pablo Amaringo and Eduardo Luna, the authors of “Ayahuasca Visions”. After studying with both ayahuasqueros (a shaman who works exclusively with ayahuasca), he began working on his own.

 

Iquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest and is known as the ayahuasca capital of the world. Ayahuasca tourism is now a vital part of the Iquitos economy with Westerners seeking traditional shamanic experiences and healings using the visionary Amazonian medicine. Besides bringing “spiritual tourism” to Iquitos, ayahuasca is being used in three new religions in Brazil. It has been credited with curing thousands of alcoholics and drug addicts, and is being studied by pharmacologists around the world.

 

Like indigenous shamans have been doing for centuries, Ron prepares his ayahuasca by harvesting the vine Banisteriopsis caapi and then boiling it with other plants and herbs for several days. After continuous praying over the mixture, Ron’s “tea” is ready to be used in a ceremony. Ayahuasca is said to give users the power to travel beyond their bodies, to see the future, and hunt and confront the demons that cause physical and emotional illnesses.

 

Ron lives with his girlfriend Karina Maria Diaz Paredes and conducts ayahuasca ceremonies twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. He has a 34 year old daughter, Christina, living in the U.S., and a 5 year old son, Quetzalcoatal Luis Wheelock Angulo.

 

Ron’s compound, called Amazon Jungle Journeys, is in the Carreterra Iquitos-Nauta district. (Photos: Ron preparing for a ceremony; Ron with his son, Quetzalcoatal; the morning after a ceremony at Ron’s retreat; Don Agustin at the 4th Amazonian Conference).

 

How do you feel about being called "The Gringo Shaman of the Amazon"?

 

I like being known as “The Gringo Shaman of the Amazon”; after all, I am a gringo and it’s really not a derogatory term. As far as I know, I’m the only gringo ayahuasquero who works alone. The other gringos conducting ceremonies work with their indigenous teachers or hire other ayahuasqueros to work for them. I’m also the only gringo motocarrista and the only gringo rooster fighter here. The people in my community are pleased and honored to have me living here. 

 

How long have you been conducting ceremonies?

 

I’ve been conducting ceremonies for quite some time. I began on a regular basis in early 2001. 

 

Did your teacher, Don Agustin, tell you when you were ready to perform ceremonies?

 

No. No one told me when I was ready. The medicine told me and people started asking for ceremonies. It has been the same way with the healing work. The medicine told me "Now you are a healer" and soon afterwards I started having patients.

 

What was the process for setting up your own retreat?

 

This is still an ongoing process. I began by having ceremonies in my house. This went on for several years. As my work grew it then became necessary to build a dormitory for the ceremonies. But I feel I will outgrow this fairly soon. I trust the next step will present itself in time.

 

What spirit teachers do you have? 

 

There are many spirit teachers. When you concentrate on one plant teacher and do the specific “diet” that the plant demands, then you work with the spirit of that plant. I have several spirits I work with. There are around 15-18 different ones that assist me in ceremonies. Some are like bodyguards; while others, the spirit of the wind and the master of love, are often present.  

 

You have students who live at your retreat. What is the training like and what are the criteria for choosing a student?

 

Your browser may not support display of this image.I have people who come to me to learn shamanism in various degrees. But I do not choose them. They find me. I talk with them to see exactly what it is they are looking for. Then from there I select what plants they should use and for how long. Each plant teacher expects a student’s exclusive dedication for a period of time. The student is then able to build a lasting relationship with the plant teacher. All learning is an ongoing process that never stops.  

 

Have you ever declined to allow someone to join a ceremony?

 

No. I have never refused anyone. I have a very open door policy. If someone has doubts about participating, I will talk with them and maybe advise against drinking. I never try to persuade someone to drink. All are welcome and frequently non-participating people attend a ceremony to support a family member or friend. 

 

Do you ever worry about having people in a ceremony with mental problems?

 

Through my work with ayahuasca I have learned not worry about anything. If someone has mental problems, this may be just what they need. I always say the people that arrive are supposed to be here. 

 

What would you say is the chief benefit of ayahuasca?

 

For me the chief benefit of ayahuasca is how it maintains and heals the body. All the medicines I take are natural. It is very common for someone who drinks ayahuasca regularly to live to be very old. My teacher Don Jose Coral Mori lived to be over 100, his uncle 130, and a close friend 112 years old.

 

You have a great reputation in ayahuasca circles. How have you avoided the rivalry among shamans? 

 

Yes, I am fairly well known and take my reputation as a respected shaman very seriously. It has not been easy getting to this point. I’ve done a great deal of hard work. I have to keep myself disciplined and focused. I have not avoided the rivalries.  

 

You give ceremonies twice a week. How do you separate the material world from the spirit world?

 

Yes, I normally give two ceremonies per week, sometimes more. There was a time when I first started giving ceremonies that I felt as if I was going crazy working in both worlds. It’s an adjustment that came about on its own terms. I truly love my work and life in the material world and I do not want to spend all my time in the spirit world. I am humbled and honored to work and walk in both. 

 

Blue Whale on National Geographic Channel. Here is amazing footage of the youngest blue whale ever captured on film from the explorers at National Geographic here. 

 

Also, here is an interview with scientist Bruce Mate. Dr. Bruce Mate is the director of the Marine Mammal Institute, as well as a tenured professor of fisheries and wildlife and an adjunct professor of oceanography at Oregon State University. He has studied marine wildlife for more than 40 years. Dr. Mate pioneered the development of satellite-monitored radio telemetry for tracking marine mammals, especially whales. He has tagged and tracked a wide variety of marine mammals, including harbor seals, pilot whales, gray whales, right whales, bowhead whales, humpback whales, sperm whales, fin whales and blue whales. His groundbreaking research determined the migratory routes of sea lions along the West Coast of the United States and revealed the presence of heavy metals and organochlorines in seals. His recent work has focused on using tracking data to identify the critical habitats where endangered whales breed, feed and calve. His work promotes marine mammal conservation and contributes to developing best practices for wildlife management HERE

 

The International UFO Congress.

 

“Contact Zero” sent me an update on The International UFO Congress held in Laughlin, Nevada. Contact Zero wrote:

 

“Haven't been able to get on the net since arriving at the UFO Congress in Laughlin--lousy, primitive connection here that is out part of the time and slow as can be the rest.  I'm in net withdrawal! 

 

“Interesting time here at the Congress.  A stir among Conference guests was a video of a purported metal received by investigators. The metal spins madly in a clockwise direction when exposed to a high voltage van de Graaf field. There was also a discussion of UFOs and the Tulpa phenomena--and from the reaction many people had never heard of that concept before. 

 

“Ed Grimsley's (lecture: UFO Wars In The Sky) nightly 3rd generation night-vision goggle field trips also got quite a reaction--but that was because skeptical participants actually saw some things that seem hard to explain away as satellites or conventional aircraft.  Ed's presentation/lecture was not one of the highlights of the Congress--he is quite a character. (http://edgrimsley.com/)

 

“Other than that, it was pretty much the same old same old. Steve Bassett (http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/) wasn't on the program, but he showed up mid- week and made cryptic comments about imminent Disclosure by the Obama administration. Stan Friedman (lecture: Flying Saucers and Science) delivered a program with a new name that I've heard before under a different title. (http://www.ufoevidence.org/ ). 

 

Photo of small (height estimated at 2.5ft) amphibian (a.k.a. "reptilian") humanoid taken on August 20, 1993. From a series of 6 Polaroid photos taken by 23yr old Italian painter Filiberto CaponiYour browser may not support display of this image. in Pretare d'Arquata del Tronto (in Marche) Italy in 1993. 

 

“Roger Leir showed slides of an operation while gleefully asking if anyone felt sick yet--and showed up with a couple of guys in tow who had a "scanner" to detect alien implant radio signals in anyone who wanted to be scanned. (http://www.alienscalpel.com/) 

 

“Jaime Maussan from Mexico (http://www.ovnis.tv/) showed photos of what sure as anything looks to have been a live alien-human hybrid baby that got caught in a trap down in Mexico. If it is a fake, then it is an extremely competent one. DNA tests are due next month, and bets are it will prove to be part human, part something else.  Now, the only question is whether it came from "out there" or from some lab down here.” 

 

Best Film of the Week.

 

Yes, I saw “Taken” twice already, and “I Love You Man” but my favorite film so far has been my Netflix choice, “Milarepa” directed by Neten Chokling. I read about the great Milarepa many years ago, Tibet’s Great Yogi: Milarepa, A Biography from the Tibetan edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz. When I was in Tibet, we passed Milarepa’s cave, but our Tibetan guide refused to stop and, considering I was the only person who knew the magician Milarepa, we did not stop.

 

According to the book Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Néel, Milarepa boasted of having “crossed in a few days, a distance which, before his training in black magic, had taken him more than a month. He ascribes his gift to the control of ‘internal air’.” David-Néel comments “that at the house of the lama who taught him black magic there lived a monk who was fleeter than a horse” using the same skill. This esoteric skill, which is known as Lung-gom-pa ("Wind Meditation) in Tibet, allows a practitioner to run at an extraordinary speed for days without stopping. It is also described in some accounts that Milarepa's supernatural speed of travel was due to the fact that he had the ability to fly.

 

The movie, “Milarepa” depicts the humble beginnings of the man who was to become Tibet's greatest saint. A true story based on centuries-old oral traditions, a youthful Milarepa is propelled into a world of sorrow and betrayal after his father's sudden death. Destitute and hopeless, he sets out to learn black magic - and exact revenge on his enemies - encountering magicians, demons, an enigmatic teacher and unexpected mystical power along the way. This is Part 1, with Part 2 coming this year.

 

If you have NetFlix, this is a movie you should put in your queue. 

 

Friends of TDH. Joshua Warren and Will Beckwith of “Speaking of Strange” Radio Show and Alex Johnson with John Alexander. While I dodged a bomb and then a knife attack at The Khan Bazaar in Cairo, Alex wasn’t so lucky. Alex woke up in the MORGUE in Oaxaca, Mexico last week five hours after being slipped a drug in his drink, tasered, and mugged at a disco. Alex doesn’t remember anything other than the guy with the taser gun. Now Alex has a huge gash on his forehead as a memorial to a night out on the town and no I.D. 

 

 

So, a declaration to the wise: Don’t go to Mexico!