Alberto's Invitation to Peru

For millennia, Native American medicine men and women carefully guarded their ancient wisdom teachings. These Earthkeepers thrived in many nations and they were called many different names; in the Andes and the Amazon, they were known as the Laika.

In 1950, a group of Laika from high in the Andes traveled to a gathering of shamans that occurs each year at the foot of one of the holy mountains. The locals stared at the ponchos the Laika were wearing in disbelief, instantly recognizing the markings of the high-shaman priests, and realized this was a group of medicine men and women thought to have vanished during the time of the Conquest. These high-shaman priests, sensing that humankind is on the verge of a huge upheaval, had come out of seclusion to offer all people an ancient teaching that will sustain us through the great changes we’re about to face and that will help us give birth to a new world.

The Earthkeepers teach that all of creation--the earth, humans, whales, rocks, and even the stars--is made of vibration and light. Nothing we perceive as material and real exists, other than as a dream that we’re projecting onto the world. This dream is a story, and we believe it to be real, full of drama and emotion, even though it isn’t. The Earthkeepers teach us how to rewrite the stories about our lives that are etched into the fabric of the luminous energy field that surrounds the body; so that we can do what the shamans call dreaming the world into being.

These wisdom teachings were kept under wraps for a very good reason. With the arrival of the conquistadors--the European pilgrims and immigrants who first looted and plundered and then settled the Americas--the Laika were relentlessly persecuted. Many, particularly the women, were branded witches and sorcerers, and they were imprisoned, tortured, and killed.

The Laika realized that this knowledge about our capacity to manifest our dreams is tremendously powerful, and could be easily abused by those lacking ethics. Thus, they concealed it not only from the conquistadors but even from most of their fellow indigenous peoples. Even so, they recognized that this wisdom belongs to all, not only to the Inka. When they met a white man who did not possess the arrogant, hostile mind-set of the conqueror, they were willing to share their wisdom teachings. Shortly after the Conquest, they took into their fold a Catholic priest, a Jesuit by the name of Father Blas Valera who was a mestizo—half Indian and half Spanish. Father Valera became initiated into the mysteries of the Laika and wrote four books about their teachings, but unfortunately, three of these books mysteriously disappeared during the Inquisition (the fourth remains in a private collection in Italy). When Valera’s order discovered what he was up to, they incarcerated him for six years until his death. Why did the Jesuits silence one of their own priests? Why were they so afraid of the wisdom he was recording for the benefit of all? And why did they forbid the ordination of any more mestizo or indigenous priests after Valera was defrocked?

I was another non-Indian taken into the fold of the Laika and initiated into the lineage of the wisdom keepers in the Amazon near the Inka capital of Cusco. It was never my intention to become part of this lineage. As a medical anthropologist, I was only interested in studying the healing practices of the shamans. As fortune or destiny would have it, I ended up meeting my Indian mentor, Don Antonio, one of the last of the living Laika, who took me under his wing and trained me for nearly 25 years. He was a man of many lives: During the day, he was a university professor, in the evenings, a master medicine man. He was born in a high mountain village and worked with the tools and ways of the 15th century, yet he was conversant in the ways of the 21st century. Although he was a descendent of the Inka, he would tell me that the Laika are much older than the Inka, whose culture was masculine and militaristic. The Laika’s teachings were from an earlier time, when the feminine aspect of the divine was recognized. Once, I told him I felt lucky to have found him, and he said, “What makes you think you found me, if the Church could not find us for the last 500 years?”

During our expeditions to Peru this summer we will immerse ourselves in the wisdom teachings of the Laika, known as the Four Insights. Through practices and ceremonies at ancient temples in the mountains, we will kindle this wisdom within us, and learn how to employ it to dream our world into being.

If you are called to join us in one of our Peru expeditions, please contact my office at (435)647-5988 so we can tell you about the details of the journey.

In Peace,
Alberto Villoldo PhD