19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strong, but not as convincing as FOUR WINDS, December 12, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Journey to the Island of the Sun: The Return to the Lost City of Gold (Harper Odysseys) (Hardcover)
This is a great tale, and fairly accurate and instructive. The Western world is sorely lacking in instruction about the non rational, can't put your tongue on it realities of which the author speaks. While what I know of Peruvian shamanism is very small compared to the author's knowledge and direct experience, I suggest that this effort to capture End Journeys is both admirable and riveting. I have used FOUR WINDS as a guide to non ordinary reality since my discovery of it as a legitimate map; my work in the Celtic otherworld supports what the author here describes in terms of the Peruvian landscapes of non ordinary reality. But personally, from a shamanic perspective, I want more of Antonio's accurate and real mentoring, and less of the neophyte journeyer's somewhat predictable story line. As a tale, the book is not as finely crafted as FOUR WINDS either. Nonetheless, a great read, but just not as instructive or as easy to read as I found FOUR WINDS. /D.L. Smith 12/12/98
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
ISLAND OF THE SUN by Alberto Villoldo, Erik Jendresen, December 29, 2002
In ISLAND OF THE SUN, co-authored with Erik Jendresen, Alberto Villoldo relates his Peruvian odyssey in search of his teacher, Don Antonio. ISLAND OF THE SUN is a dramatic, poetic adventure -- a profound exercise in suspending ones disbelief, in expecting the unexpected, in stretching the imagination, and in shattering the boundaries of consciousness. In short, it gives a glimpse into the mind of a shaman. It has been said that to know and understand a shaman, one must become a shaman. Villoldo has become a shaman. His story is a captivating articulation of his journey into the unknown; its imagery, vivid and enchanting - "the Sun glistened in playful white sparkles of light on the green waters. I listened to the cicada hiss, the high-pitched cacophony of the birds and the insects, the whir and hiss and chatter and hum that bounced off its surface and filled the clearing with music."
Villoldo sees his mission as that of translating the ancient psychology and truths contained in the Medicine Wheel of the Incas into a Western framework - into a psychology of the sacred. He sees the Medicine Wheel as providing a neurological map for the evolution and transformation of our species by accessing the state of consciousness that informs life. He sees the Medicine Wheel as offering a path through which we can override the oftentimes violent survival mechanisms of our primitive limbic brain.
Villoldo presents the symbolic imagery of the archetypal energies contained in the Medicine Wheel. In the South (serpent), we confront and shed the past like a serpent sheds its skin. In the West (jaguar), we overcome fear and death. By experiencing ourselves as conscious energy, death loses its sting and becomes but a doorway to one of infinite phases in eternity. In the North (hummingbird), we experience the knowledge and wisdom of the ancients. We access a sea of consciousness as vast as time itself. In the East (eagle), we experience a transcendent, comprehensive, vision of what we have learned. We share our story with the world as caretakers of the earth. That, he says, is our return home.
The psychology of the ancients is based on direct shamanic experience in different domains of consciousness. Its approach -- of experience and exploration -- is from the inside out; its goal -- to know, understand, and be in harmony with the forces of Nature. In Villoldo's experience, that approach requires a new state of mind - one that allows but is not distracted by subjective experiences. The skills required come naturally in the process of "serving experiences." He explains that when one's intent is in harmony with the experience, it is served. Otherwise, it is just an experience.
In shamanic awareness, Villoldo experienced innumerable altered states of reality by shifting his perspective to unaccustomed dimensions. The most profound, for me, was his experiencing the integrity of a multisensory dream body awareness in which everything was reflected within him. He described it as like being a champagne bubble with all images of life reflected upon its inner surface. As his teacher later pointed out, in that, everything was reflected but the seer himself, for the seer is invisible.
Purity of intention is the key to shamanic exploration. Abandoning preconceptions is necessary and essential. To master the stillness required in the dream body, Villoldo says that one learns how to be conscious without being self-conscious. Through purity of intention, it is said to be possible to enter a realm beyond dreaming -- a wondrous, rich dimension of magnificent power and splendor. Maintaining purity of intention is the challenge.
Shamans of Peru practiced an alchemy of the soul. They were said to be able to influence the past as well as the future because they understood the relationship between time and light. It is said that in becoming light (an Inca, a Child of the Sun), time was dissolved. Shamans knew that time doesn't fly only in straight lines like an arrow - it also turns like a wheel. When those two kinds of time intersect, says Villoldo, that is sacred, ritual time -- one can influence the past and summon destiny from the future. The challenge is not to let knowledge of the future influence present actions or intent. Therefore, the shaman must be able to keep a secret from himself.
Villoldo's teacher, Don Antonio, points out that in all the great cultures developed north of the equator, God is a descending god -- the Divine comes from the heavens and descends to the Earth. For the Incas, the only great culture to develop south of the equator, the god-force is ascending -- it "rises from Earth to the heavens like the golden corn." Antonio envisions the new caretakers of the Earth as coming from the northern hemisphere. ( A prophecy of hope and perhaps even a vote of confidence, I think, for those of us in the northern hemisphere.)
Villoldo points out the paradox of psychology -- that when we study the human mind, it is the mind studying itself. He adds that modern science has failed to identify the psyche or subject of this study. The mind continues to evade us. From his extensive laboratory research as a psychologist and his inquiries as a medical anthropologist, Villoldo testifies that mind cannot be derived from the neurology of the human brain. He believes that psychology is like physics in that the act of studying the psyche alters it . Villoldo strongly believes that now is the time for humankind to turn consciousness on itself and step into a grander consciousness in the evolution of mankind. He sees the path of the shaman as giving us clues for this process of exploration, discovery, realization, and transformation. He sees the path of the shaman as offering hope for a better world and a new humanity.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
