Transcript for Episode 31 – Hamilton Souther

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human experience is in geosynchronous

orbit above the Amazon rainforest as we

speak to our guests mr. Hamilton souther

Hamilton it’s a pleasure welcome to hxp

thank you very much for having me it’s a

really you know great day to be here so

you’re a master shaman I mean how does

how does that happen

well basically you go through

apprenticeship and if you survive

apprenticeship you end up getting the

title of master shaman but really it

comes down to finding other master

shamans from lineages where you know the

the heritage and the knowledge base has

been passed down from generation to

generation and then if you’re not within

those lineages you know you’re lucky if

you get accepted from the outside was

there was there something that brought

you into being interested in shamanism

was there a specific thing or key moment

that helped you do that yeah definitely

when I graduated from the University of

Colorado in 2000 the year after that I

started to have spontaneous experiences

where I started to have visions and in

those visions it was really clear to me

that it was direct and sort of typical

calling to shamanism and so yeah I’d

read I’d study anthropology and so I had

read a lot about it and I bred you know

about a number of different cultures

that practise shamanism and there’s a

traditional call and I started to

experience it and while that was very

foreign to me and you know something

that produced a lot of doubt and fear it

was all so exciting and so it was

something that I thought deserved at

least an exploration hmm yeah

what was what was your journey like when

as you explored Iquitos and and that

area I mean what it was there was there

a reason that you chose that specific

area for the Blue Morpho Center you know

during my apprenticeship it was really a

question of first finding it I had to go

on the journey to find the

apprenticeship and the journey wound me

through Peru ultimately to Iquitos and

then from Iquitos really deep into the

forest and that really dictated the

location once I found Alberto and Julio

Alberto Torres Davila and illusion and a

Pinedo the two master shamans that

trained me

we formed a you know lifelong basically

familial relationship where they were

like you know father and grandfather to

me in shamanism and they were from that

general vicinity in the forest you know

so that kind of dictated why we were in

Iquitos and stayed in Iquitos mm-hmm

how did how did that relationship

between your teachers emerge was I mean

was there something that kind of

instantly drew you to them well in the

case of Alberto I went to America for

healing I had gotten really sick in my

first year in the Amazon and I needed

healing and so I had heard of this great

healer that was about a day’s journey

away from Iquitos and so I I gave it a

whirl to see if he could help me and

Julio lived further out into the forest

which was where I ended up building our

very first base camp and you know the

relationship with Julio developed over

time but ultimately Julio got sick and I

performed a healing on him and he felt

that it had saved his life it was you

know a very kind of archaic story type

to live through very Joseph Campbell

very hero journey with the grey elder in

need and me being able to provide that

need just in that moment and you know in

exchange for that he asked what I wanted

I just told them that I wanted to learn

from him and to to train and so that’s

what he agreed to so I’m very very

curious about what your first experience

with ayahuasca was like I mean how did

how did that take place and was it the

way that you imagined it would be when I

went and participated in my first

ayahuasca ceremony there was very little

in the the written world and you know

online world about it I had very

understanding of what I was getting

myself into

and I think that was a positive and

negative

it was two-sided I’d read a couple of

accounts from other shamans that had

participated and I had thought to myself

that it was impossible that it could

really be you know that intense I felt

like oh no I can’t be that intense it

can’t move that fast it can’t be that

colorful it can’t be that deep there’s

no way that the cleansing could go you

know to such extremes in just one night

how would that be possible over four or

five hours and I really thought you know

in my own ignorance that then they must

have overwritten or sensationalized

experience and when I got out there and

I was sitting with the shaman and it was

just the two of us deep in the forest

and we were you know good 24 or more our

travel away from any place where we

could get support or assistance and we

were just deep in the forest and an

uninhabited part of the forest of the

bottle ayahuasca you know really the

experience was was much more intense

much faster was much more colorful than

anything I could have imagined and also

much more healing and and that at the

end of that first ceremony I you know

received the visions that that was where

I was going to apprentice and I would be

you know study ayahuasca shamanism which

seemed absurd to me considering how

intense that first experience was and

how difficult it was for me hmm yeah I

mean when when shamans perform this I

you ask a ceremony I I know that it

grows the the song is very important to

the part of the healing process of it do

you remember the first time that you

kind of heard one yeah EKOS are are the

sacred chants that are used inside the

ceremony and they really are a system of

communication between the energetic

world / spirit world or you know and the

shamans and so the very first time I

heard Annie Cara was in that first

ayahuasca ceremony and when I started to

see the really you know traditional

Shipibo designs and great neon colors

overlaying the entirety of earth-based

reality and empirical reality around me

and they all started to move to the

shamans ikura as I knew that you know

that this was gonna be a very different

experience to something that that I had

ever had before and then from there you

know I became fascinated by them because

you have many different kinds of

experiences in ceremony but often you

can experience senses in multiple forms

in multiple ways and so when you can see

sound it’s incredible to be in a state

of consciousness to actually be able to

see with your eyes open the movement and

the the effect that sound has on the

energetics of a space it’s fascinating

and when you see the the eCos take color

take shape take form and these visions

you know for those who are not familiar

with this are very common to the

ayahuasca experience this isn’t you know

some like for them really really extreme

kind of sensory experience it’s very

very common to be able to to smell and

hear and see things that you would

normally not be aware of and that

heightened sense of senses and that

heightened psychic ability is something

that’s you know really really amazing

and the the eCos are beautiful mix

really you know for the the ceremony

they for the shamans that sing many of

them they’ll be constantly singing hour

after hour during the ceremony and they

form a melodic and a lyrical guide to

the ceremony yeah do you think maybe we

can get you to sing one

we closed – sure sure whatever you want

great ok so just moving on here I mean

is there is there something that you

feel like I you asked us meant to teach

you ultimately more about life more

about you more about your mind more

about your psyche more about your body

more about what it means to be a human

being I think that the modern world has

encapsulated and encased a homogenous

notion of reality that well very stable

for most people you know limits the the

exploration of what a human life really

is and when you open up to something

like an ayahuasca experience you’re

really welcoming the unknown into your

life you’re welcoming mysticism and

shamanism and spirit and energy into

your life and it has a tremendous

potential to open somebody to awaken

somebody to help somebody transcend

different kinds of difficulties blocks

and barriers that they’ve experienced

and so I think really that entire

knowledge base is what ayahuasca is

there to be able to share with people

and it’s something that that for many

many people many thousands of people

tens of thousands of people have

experienced tremendous benefit from the

ceremonies yeah it really is interesting

how how much of a increase there is of

people looking for this medicine and

traveling to places like Peru and you

keep those two to find it yeah I would

say you know for the last four I’d say

about six seven years there’s been a

constant increase you know yeah

insistently increasing as word goes out

and the number of people’s positive

experiences are being shared you know

when you have a miraculous experience

there’s a part of you that wants to

share it with your confidants and your

greatest supporters and you know that

piques interest in curiosity and the

consistency of positive experiences is

vast and amazing from the work that’s

being done in Brazil and in Peru and in

Ecuador

in the case of ayahuasca that you all

you also want to always you know say

that it’s not for everybody you know

it’s it’s a very extreme experience

there are many medications that are

contraindicated to it that require you

to come off of those medications in a

safe way and at our Center you know for

many of our guests who require that they

receive a doctor’s permission that

they’re in fit health for the ceremonies

hmm yeah I can see how that would be

important I mean so as as a shaman and

if we could move into the more shamanic

aspects of what you do I mean what is it

that you do are you moving through these

other dimensions are you encountering

beings how does that work well as shaman

is the sacred keeper of knowledge and

wisdom for his or her community as well

as being really a doctor like a field

doctor and so the shamans are plant

medicine specialists they know hundreds

and hundreds of medicinal plants in the

forest they can walk into the forest and

point to almost any plant of which there

are thousands of species and know them

they know the forest like the back of

their hand and so it really starts there

and in the Amazon the shamans develop a

very close relationship to the plants

now for a westerner that may sound you

know different or weird or something

like that but via the ayahuasca and the

experiences the shamans have an ability

to emerge consciousness with the plants

and be able to start to communicate with

them and so they start to reach the plan

on a truly energetic level and they

believe that the plants have specific

energies unto themselves that represent

their spirits and that the spirit of the

plant very much like the human spirit

can communicate and be shared and so the

pantheon of medicine there doesn’t

differentiate between energies and

spirits and the physical body and the

mind it’s all treated at once so if

somebody has a physical ailment their

entire being is treated if somebody has

a spiritual ailment their entire being

is treated if somebody has a mental

ailment their entire being is treated

and so they really believe in a holistic

approach and then from there

you know get into a very mystical and

very magical outlook on life itself they

inherently believe that life is based in

spirit

that spirit is part and parcel of every

experience that every living thing has a

spirit including human and that through

the spirit when you become very attuned

to your own spirit you gain the capacity

to communicate with other spirits and so

the shamans identified with themselves

as spirit and then begin a long process

to learn how to consistently and

accurately without delusion or confusion

engage in these communications so the

shaman is is going into a state of

consciousness in which communication on

the energetic plane is possible and in

the physical context of that plane

there’s a possibility of you know what

is called going out-of-body into

spiritual realms and dimensions into

visionary scenarios that are

three-dimensional into landscapes and

visionary context that seems very

enchanted very beautiful most of those

realms or dimensions are filled with

beings entities or spirits or really

what you would think of as like a 3d

visionary shape that can maintain a

two-way communication so you can you

know begin to communicate with those

beings the beings form guides and you

can develop a very strong relationship

very trusting relationship with them and

in the end especially in the case of

Amazonian healing it’s the doctors

spirits or the matter the medicine based

spirits that are seen as the ones that

perform the healing and so the shamans

are establishing a relationship between

the participants and those beings that

come from the plants or from animals or

from you know these other dimensional

realms and again the experiences are

very very consistent very very

consistent between people so many

people have common visions many people

have common experience many people have

common visionary experience all at the

same time you know after after my first

ayahuasca experience I never had another

alcohol alcoholic drink again

that was eight months ago so I mean I’m

wondering if if you noticed that there

are some sort of like entities or

something that are connected in are you

detaching those things well you know if

you if you look at life from then

understanding of spirit and

understanding of energy then it would

make sense that you as a human being

would have an energetic reality and more

or less everything that you consume that

has consciousness altering or mind

altering capacity has a way of opening

you energetically and or engaging with

you and so depending on the nature of

the relationship people have two

different substances very common for

them to go through the the ceremonies

and then decide that those substances

weren’t really serving them and that

they have moved on to a plane in their

own life where with whatever was

enticing about the other substances no

longer adds and so lots of people give

up alcohol after ceremony even just

after one or two ceremonies which is

also why ayahuasca is used in the Amazon

and in the traditional world as a way of

treating drug addiction you know so

there ain’t really any kind of addiction

not not only during addiction but any

kind of addiction and so you know I

watched over the years has become much

more renowned for that for the ability

to heal people from you know

tobacco to alcohol to you know hard hard

drugs and as well as behavioral

addictions hmm so you went you went on

to thought found your shamanism Center

Blue Morpho Center yeah from the seeds

of your experiences was there was there

an aha moment when you when you decided

to do that or Blue Morpho

an initial creation of mine based off of

where I was living in the forest people

were interested in coming out to where I

was living it was so remote I lived in a

tiny community along a tributary to the

Amazon the upper river for me there were

no inhabitants so you know there was

unexplored forests awaiting people and

tourists were very interested in going

out into that area of the forest and so

I founded Blue Morpho based out of my

own apprenticeship and that and the

desire to to have a way to be able to

take them out into the forest and have

you know really an incredibly

mind-expanding and and you know huge

adventure and so through that work it

turned out that the more we got into the

ayahuasca ceremonies and the shamanic

work the less interested our guests were

in the jungle adventure side of things

and so we started that you know as a way

to be able to continue our work with

ayahuasca with others and ultimately

provide healing at first if we just held

ceremonies for the sake of the

ceremonies themselves because people

were interested curious whatever but

then we became quickly known for being

able to help people through very

specific illnesses like depression

anxiety disorders PTSD addictions and

then people you know who are really

really sick and looking for a solution

started to come to us and then

organically little by little by little

Blue Morpho grew just to accommodate the

number of people that wanted to come

yeah it does seem like Blue Morpho kind

of took a very organic growth what kind

of effect do you think it had on the

local economy there well the local

economy in the areas that we worked were

very positively affected we’ve always

had as positive and balanced business

practices as possible and we do a lot of

charity work for the area around us and

so you know we’ve provided over the

years many many jobs that weren’t

available in those areas and somebody

could say well why would you need to

provide jobs in the Amazon and the

reality is that the Amazon is part of

the proof

amazon is part of the the peruvian

social structure and so it’s all money

based economies and the locals need to

be able to to raise money to be able to

survive and so you know it’s very hard

in the amazon to survive on your own

when you’re just a subsistence

agriculture Elliston hunter and/or

fisherman and so you know we’ve provided

countless jobs over the years as well as

a number of charity programs including

providing the entire school uniforms for

a whole town as well as all of their

books and school supplies so you know

for years now we’ve helped an entire

town put all of their kids through

elementary education taking the economic

burden off of them for having to provide

the uniforms and school supplies which

really adds up for a you know a family

of two or three children to being two or

three months worth of salary in a year

so it’s a significant amount of money to

them and it’s something that we’ve

always supported and education is always

something that I’ve supported you know

from the Western education that I had to

the shamanic and indigenous education

that I got in the forest and so you know

we give back in many different ways and

you know consistently tried to aid the

fledgling and and you know slowly slowly

evolving economy in the Amazon yeah

that’s that’s amazing that you’ve been

able to do that and have such a positive

impact there what kind what kinds of

things do you think sorry what kind of

things does Blue Morpho offer to its

guests Blue Morpho is a destination

based center and so when people come for

for a group they are you know coming to

participate in ceremonies and either

explore ayahuasca or receive the

different kinds of healing practices

when we go to our Center there are a lot

of other activities that are offered to

keep the day’s interesting for everybody

normally our groups are six days and so

every day there’s two different

activities that are really more related

to the jungle as well as guided

visualizations yoga practices and then

the ceremonies themselves and

we have a very well-rounded itinerary to

make sure that you know everybody is

having a really an incredible time from

seeing pink river dolphins to you know

going out and going on a medicinal plant

hike or seeing the Victoria regia giant

lily pads or identifying different

species of monkeys and then going into

the ceremonies at night and doing you

know the really intense spiritual work

what’s the size of an average ceremony

there Blue Morpho ceremonies now range

typically somewhere in the you know 35

to 45 people is that large depends on

your perspective I think it’s probably

medium sized if you look at the you know

ayahuasca based churches in Brazil where

they work with hundreds if not thousands

it would be seen as small but there’s

also you know smaller ceremonies that

are going on in different places where

there’s five 10 15 20 people in them hmm

yeah and how many how many healers or

shamans do you have in house there well

four it depends on the group but

typically we have two or three master

shamans as well as three or four

apprentice shamans and another four to

six if not eight trained helpers for

each their own if we could go back to

your story with Alberto and Julio could

you could you tell us more about what it

was like working with them working with

it was amazing Alberto and Julio were

you know a kind of human being that I

had never really met before and strong

clear impressive you know just really

amazing awe-inspiring for me

they were so clear they were so decided

they knew exactly what they were doing

and why they were doing it they had

compassion and love in their hearts and

they had this tremendous wisdom that

they could share in a variety of

different means when I started to

apprentice with them it was shocking to

me that education came through visionary

experiences you know I was used to a

chalkboard or a whiteboard and you know

computers and things like that in

libraries too

earn and all of a sudden I’m with them

in the forest you know in a canoe just

talking about life or identifying

different kinds of medicinal plants or

in ceremony and in ceremony you know all

the teaching was done non-verbally it

was completely telepathic which right

there is amazing in its own right to go

through years and years of training via

telepathy is something that’s really I

mean let me stop you there

so the teachings that were handed down

to you were done via telepathy correct

yeah they’re all done with envision and

ayahuasca ceremonies there’s very little

verbal interaction or talking during the

day about it you’re expected to already

know that almost everything that you’re

taught in shamanism if you go to classes

in the in the States if you go to like

shamanic classes or journey work or

anybody that the basics that are taught

you’re expected to already know and if

you don’t already know those things then

you’re not considered of the Creed to be

able to be an apprentice and so it’s

like being tossed directly into graduate

school

there’s no elementary junior high school

University no it’s like it’s right in

and on the you know the first the very

first day that that you start to be

trained the shamans in this case I’ll be

returned Julio you know took me into a

visionary realm that would hold a

consistent mind meld where I knew that

they were inside my thoughts and could

hear all of my thoughts as well as share

specific thoughts to me and open up

different kinds of visionary experiences

that would through surviving them be

educational and when I asked Julio fo a

white man could learn he said if you can

survive we all bleed red literally

putting my you know of my life in danger

saying you know you could die in this

apprenticeship and so it was very very

intense but they consider all of those

tests tests of virtue and you get taught

entirely through visionary experiences

because that’s the realm in which you

work you have to be able to navigate

with precision the visionary realms and

know exactly where you are and how to

guide multiple people simultaneously and

so to have that level of clarity they

make apprenticeship very very difficult

Wow

let’s truly profound

it was there is there something that was

specifically difficult in your learning

that you can remember or think of

everything was specific I had to learn

how to paddle a canoe I had to learn how

to make an oar and a fishing pole I had

to learn how to use a machete and an axe

I had to learn how to walk through the

forest you don’t walk in the same way as

you do and even in the wilderness and

the stakes the jungle so dense I had to

learn how to just to survive out there

how to eat how to provide my own food

had to you know learn how to withstand

the Vigors of apprenticeship which are

very very intense you know for well over

ten years it was expected that I would

drink ayahuasca over a hundred times a

year and so you know for the people who

had experience you know how profound one

two or three ceremonies is you know

imagine being in that situation every

few days consistently for over a decade

you go through what are called DF does

DF does are a period of time of great

fasting where you drink different kinds

of medicinal plants most of them that

are not psychoactive but you’re already

in such a transformed state of

consciousness and expanded state of

consciousness that you’re communicating

directly with the plants literally just

from drinking teas made from their barks

or roots or leaves and all of that’s

difficult there’s extreme periods of

different kinds of abstinence s where

you know you live a life of deep

cleansing and purification for extended

periods of time isolated from society

and community and so you spend large

amounts of time in the forest alone or

just with the master shamans and it’s

it’s all intense and it’s all difficult

and it’s all amazing if you can survive

it for the people that I’ve taught over

the years when they start I say to them

this is the worst idea you ever had a

bishop is the worst idea you ever had

unless you complete apprenticeship and

then it turns into the best idea you

ever had

you know there’s a very clear path when

you go to the University that’s four

years or high school that’s four years

or graduate school that could be you

know more years than that but it’s a

clear path in this case apprenticeship

has no clarity in the thoughts it’s

strictly survival and learning to the

point that you reach this prophesized

endpoint called the title of Master

shaman and then once you get that title

you find out which is the great shamanic

irony that the only thing that changes

is that now you have more

responsibilities so you’re you know

you’re working so hard to this end point

that you don’t even know when it’s gonna

come it could be anywhere you know from

years to a decade to achieve which just

not even knowing you know when when a

certain end point of a tremendous

journey is makes it much more difficult

even if you compared it to like climbing

a great peak or a mountain like Everest

you know the idea is to get to the top

in this case you know you don’t have any

idea what this end point even looks like

and it’s just a title it’s just called

master shaman or maestro and so you you

see other people who have it and you see

that they’re certainly not like you and

they’re more skilled at you in those

arts and you have to you know learn and

and continue persevering and forging

ahead with tremendous grit tremendous

strength and dedication into this great

unknown and that constant pursuit you

know makes you a much stronger

individual but it’s very difficult yeah

I mean healing is the foundation for all

this I mean this is why people are

traveling to the rainforest to find this

in Western medicine isn’t working and

what’s your opinion on that

well simply that Western medicine has

limitations my father was a Western

medical practitioner he was a doctor and

a surgeon and my mother was a nurse we

came from this very scientific very

Western medical background family and

during my youth my father was very open

with me about the tremendous miracles

that Western medicine could produce as

well as the

his limitations that it had in terms of

its knowledgebase and understandings as

well as the difficulties that there were

in terms of diagnosing and really being

able to provide you know healing

treatments and I think there’s a there

needs to be a tremendous gratitude to

Western medicine because I think the

majority of us would have already been a

casualty and had a much shorter life

span without it I’ve you know needed

antibiotics many many times to end

infection or two to release parasites or

from different injuries that I’ve had

where surgery is the only reason that I

can still walk and so I have a

tremendous gratitude for it but I I do

not think that it is the beginning and

the end all it’s only breadth of

knowledge and capacity that’s constantly

being expanded and in the case of mental

health and mental health disorders which

most people typically come to eye out

for ayahuasca healing you know the

abilities that we have within psychology

and psychiatry are extremely limited and

so it’s it’s very very difficult when

somebody receives a diagnosis that he or

she’s depressed or has an anxiety

disorder or PTSD and will now have to

carry that for the rest of his or her

life it’s a tremendous burden and weight

and then in the idea of western

psychiatry to be able to provide

psychiatric treatment with medications

that then somebody is expected to be on

for the rest of their life

has tremendous side-effects and

difficulties and so you know through our

work many people come to us because they

want to they want to go beyond that they

don’t want to be labeled for the rest of

their life somebody who is depressed or

somebody who has this disorder or

somebody with PTSD you know and so I

think in many ways innocently people get

into different experiences in their life

and end up in some extreme trauma you

know or completely unrelated to them

like children who are abused like they

then nothing to do with that they were

brought into this world into a family

that ended up being abusive or others

that ended up being abusive to them and

now they have this

problem you know and there’s very little

that can be done to create as of net

right now to give as a cure for that and

so people come to ayahuasca for the for

that purpose because western psychiatry

psychology has not yet been able to

establish cures for these illnesses now

that being said not everybody’s cured

who drinks ayahuasca you know but but a

lot of them are many many people have

total remission or gain the capacities

and life skills to be able to transcend

the burden of the problem that they have

what was what was the most remarkable or

profound thing that you’ve seen that

someone is healed from the most

remarkable really–it borderlands on the

miraculous I’ve seen cancer disappear

like from one day to the next there it

is and then the next day it’s gone I’ve

seen a person healed of blindness who

was blind because of lines diseased

legally blind they were an adult when

they became blind from Lyme disease have

you no total remission to the point that

they were no longer blind I’ve seen

people who’ve suffered from

gastrointestinal illnesses problems with

their colon and intestines for 30 40 50

years have healing in three or four days

just disappearance of the illness that

never comes back you know depression

imagine if you were if you had

psychiatric problems from the age of 2

or 3 and now you’re in your 30s or 40s

you know like like yourself who wrote

the article for National Geographic you

know that was published about her

miraculous healing of depression and

other mental health issues that she she

she was healed and and it’s fascinating

and miraculous and amazing and it’s

something that I’m truly grateful for

that in my life I got to witness and

participate in transformations for

people like that it was very rewarding

and you know something that was very

heart expanding have you ever had

someone have a negative reaction

after a ceremony depends on what you

call a negative reaction there are

people that certainly have had great

difficulties emotionally handling their

experience you have to be very careful

with the plants how much somebody is

given and for what duration because it

can kick off psychosis you do not want

to give somebody who isn’t is not

psychologically stable these different

kinds of psychoactive plants it’s it’s

not healthy for them you know like I

said earlier there are many many many

many many people who are not suitable

candidates to participate in these

ceremonies and so there are people that

have adverse reactions I have seen it

where it’s it’s overwhelmingly emotional

where people have been terrified to the

point that you know they’re they’re

shaky the next day literally he like

they can be trembling at the the fear

that they confronted you know but if you

if you go deep into their story you’re

gonna find that there’s a reason for

that there’s always a reason for all of

the different kinds of reactions people

have to ceremonies

you know people people are they’re not

the great collective that we think of

they really are individuals you know

it’s an individual human body it’s not

just human body human bodies are not

clones they’re not the same they don’t

have the same genetics they don’t have

the same makeup structure size history

experience right they’re very very

different and so you have to be a

candidate a proper candidate to

participate in the ceremony I mean how

do you think these plants do this like

where does this come from I think it was

Terence Mckenna who said that these

plants were older than humanity and were

connected into the consciousness of the

planet so what’s your take on it my take

is that there are many many theories and

I don’t think that particularly any of

the theories are right as a theory

they’re meant to be questioned and

explored the highest level of

understanding that I’ve received is that

plants

plants have an ability when ingested to

merge with what we know of as human

consciousness and utilized that capacity

to be able to experience right alongside

an individual human being and that the

plants obviously are older than humanity

they’ve been around much longer than

Homo Sapien sapien and the chemicals

that they have are designed to be able

to create an altered state in which a

communication can take place and you

thought of a plant that would be a very

interesting way to be able to co-create

and to communicate with another kind of

being on this planet if you were a

rooted species in the ground and you’re

just sitting there well if you you know

evolve capacities that you could

communicate with an animal because the

animal not on you or ate you or consumed

you it would be a tremendous way to be

able to access that animals life and I

think the plants do that with human

beings just as much they do with any

other animals that consume them hmm yeah

um you know you’ve founded an education

foundation called modern shamanism yeah

what what is what is that and what is it

offer to a newcomer what’s the

difference well modern shamanism is a

discipline of shamanism that I created

you have to think of shamanism and

different kinds of disciplines like

there’s slight different kinds of

Siberian disciplines there’s Amazonian

disciplines African disciplines northern

Canadian disciplines South American

disciplines Australian disciplines and

when I looked at modern society what I

saw was that modern society didn’t have

its own kind of shamanism and so I was

getting really into the the depths of my

shamanic exploration after having

practiced just straight for eight or

nine years and I realized that I wanted

to create a kind of shamanism for modern

society and so I went on a quite a

journey of my own exploration of how to

be able to do that and I kind of

stripped shamanism from its cultural

implications and found a kind of

consistent core architecture of beliefs

and ideologies and understandings

throughout all the different kinds of

practiced worldwide and I used that as a

framework to be able to start to

establish a practice modern shamanism is

taught online but you really learn it in

your day it’s it’s activities that you

do from the the online reading and and

audios that you can listen to that

explain each of the activities but

really then you start to do activities

every single day that you’re practicing

inside modern society and so when you do

that it gives you what would be thought

of as like sort of a shamanic frame of

mind which is much more connected it’s a

more holistic approach to understanding

reality your mind and your brain and

your heart and your body and your spirit

and your soul all work together you

teach them all how to work together and

how to be in extended states of

consciousness through total sobriety

throughout the entirety of your day it’s

designed to make you more creative

benefit your life up you’ll time

management efficiency better work

capacities better relationship and more

grounded relationship to the spirit

world all the time and so it’s a

tremendous practice for the you know now

hundreds of people have practiced it

with us in people you know learning have

performed miracles we had a girl who’s

relative went missing and she did remote

location and located the the relative to

states from where does the person went

missing we had another gentleman whose

daughter was in an accident and was

going to need surgery to remove an organ

from her body she was very very young

she was younger than five and the father

did a modern shamanism ceremony and the

next day she was healthy and no longer

needed the surgery and she was released

from the hospital she was in ICU there

have been miracles that have that have

happened that are tremendous but most of

the work is and is miraculous is that

most of it is a daily educational system

to transform your daily life into one

based in the rudiments of shamanism and

spirit opening you to having expanded

capacity

now you know considering people who are

interested in learning going to

apprenticeship I get asked all the time

about people who want to apprentice I

highly recommend modern shamanism as a

course to take before you go and do that

I highly recommend it as a way of

getting fully immersed into the shamanic

world where you’re in an environment

that you relate to and understand well

before you go and relate to a

traditional environment that is you know

completely foreign or unknown to you and

for people who are really interested in

shamanic practices and learning as well

it transforms you into a shaman by the

end of it you are a modern shaman and

capable of practicing shamanism for

yourself and others yeah yeah

so you published a journey of one in

2011 which is a book that documents some

of the insights that you received

through your shamanic ceremonies was

there was there something that you

learned or anything fresh that you

learned through writing that journey of

one was my attempt at creating a

shamanic journey through the medium of a

book and so when you read a book it’s

very linear in its nature and most

shamanism is relatively nonlinear and so

I wanted to create a capacity for

somebody to have his or her own journey

of awakening exploration and

understanding without me detailing what

that journey should or shouldn’t look

like and so if you if I just read a book

with insights I would explain the

insights and then you would take from

that my explanation but what I wanted to

do is provide the insights and then

allow somebody to ponder them dismiss

them question them go back to them and

not have to read a book from cover to

cover and literally be able to open it

at any point and start the journey from

there flip through wherever you’re

called to stop to read that insight and

I organize the insights and you know the

book has hundreds but I organize the

insights from the most abstract to the

most concrete so that as you went

through them you know you could explore

for instance love or

dannion ship relationship healing you

know all these different themes that are

fun within the book and you would be

able to have your own journey the

writing of it was important for me too

as well in terms of my own experience

because as I said you have so many

different realizations and

understandings through your

apprenticeship and you know through your

onyx ceremonies but rarely does somebody

have an opportunity to coalesce all of

that into just one form and so after you

know eight nine years of practice or

about that long it gave me an

opportunity to to really bring all of

that together you know give you an

opportunity to coalesce the knowledge

base and to be able to say okay up until

now these are many not all but many of

the realizations that I’ve had yeah you

know we’re approaching the end here

you’ve you’ve had a couple movements

that you know in your own words raise

consciousness through love and end

global conflict what I mean what is your

position on the state of the world and

where do you think we’re headed well

first of all you know my my latest

creation is the Blue Morpho Foundation

and the Blue Morpho Foundation is a

charity it’s a 501c3 IRS tax exempt

charity and its goal is to research and

find cures for mental illness and when I

look at the state of the world I think

mental health is one of the greatest

crisis that the modern world is facing

and you know the stats are just

incredible over a billion people with

mental health difficulty or disorders

every single person I know is life has

been touched themselves having

difficulty or when or somebody that they

know or a relative and so what we’re

doing about it is to look at the world

and say okay what can we do we need to

do something to shift consciousness and

when I went through you know shamanism

and even beyond shamanism integrator

expressions of my own spirituality I

realized that consciousness was the next

realm to be fully understood and

discovered by science it’s always been

known about it’s been really

to mysticism and different kinds of

spiritual explorations mind/body/spirit

the new-age

really whatever but it was time to merge

a deep understanding with of

consciousness to science and so I went

my own personal mission to codify and to

map what makes human consciousness

unique and I was able to do that and so

now we’re teaming with allopathic

medicine PhDs and psychotherapy and MDS

and psychiatry to come together and

really look for cures for these trauma

based illnesses so that we could provide

not only healing but expansion of

consciousness on a much larger level and

to have it be fully integrated with

Western medical approaches is is Blue

Morpho something that you’d like to see

kind of centers all over the world I

mean is that what you’re looking for no

not centers all over the world what I

would like to see is that Blue Morpho

ultimately has a tremendous impact on

global concerns and global problems and

so right now we’re starting focusing on

mental health but I think it extends

much beyond that once the mind is is

freed from the difficulties that it’s

having it starts to make very different

decisions than the decisions it would

make under the the weight of that mental

difficulty and you know if we extend

that idea of difficulty just to the

stress that we experience of the modern

world what I’d like to see is that

ultimately we made a tremendously

positive impact on a much greater scope

than we would be able to do from the

Amazon or just through one modality I

would like to see that we extend through

many many different treatment capacities

and and methods and then to be able to

share it in a way that can be respected

by science as well as mysticism and you

know help people ultimately that’s how

it all started it started in my own

pursuit to help myself and to learn

these incredible arts and then also now

to extend that to helping you know

thousands and tens of thousands of

others and then hopefully more and more

and more until we’ve impacted

you know hundreds of millions worldwide

but the main goal is to to really help

people just live better lives to empower

them to experience a much better

existence while we’re here on earth

you know touring outer space going

around the Sun I love it man I I know

we’re on a phone call sound quality’s is

you know leaves a bit to be desired but

I’m gonna hold you to hearing that

Icarus if you could just kind of go so

grandpa see Tokunaga rebel bear Osito in

evening wear potato kunai

and then done dddd on dun dun-dun-dun

dinging dinging so that’s a cielo

ayahuasca ikura that’s typically used at

the beginnings of traditional ceremonies

in the Amazon it’s used to open up the

visionary space Wow Wow blown away got

chills man amazing thank you so much

where can people find more about you

your work Blue Morpho the website yeah

the best thing is to just look for us

online you can look for us at Blue

Morpho Foundation org for the charity

work that we’re doing in the States and

we’re just getting ready to launch our

PTSD initiative to provide the

first-ever worldwide cure for PTSD and

we need all the support that we can get

so any people who can help fundraise and

volunteers please we’re looking for

donors and special benefactors who can

help us you know make this a global

reality it’s something that I think many

people can agree the world needs and

then for down in the Amazon Blue Morpho

tours so Blue Morpho tours calm and you

can always find me on Facebook under my

name Hamilton souther well Hamilton I

really appreciate time sir thank you so

much for being here absolutely thank you

for the time as well and great left with

the podcast fantastic I appreciate it