Medicinemaker: Mystic Encounters On The Shaman's Path [Hardcover]

Hank Wesselman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 1998

In 1985, anthropologist Hank Wesselman began to experience disturbingly vivid altered states that ultimately propelled him on 12 fantastic journeys across time and space. He wrote about these in Spiritwalker. Now Dr. Wesselman continues his extraordinary narrative as he recounts his true adventures where he is given foreshadowings of imminent ecological, political, and spiritual challenges to the future of civilization. Dr. Wesselman learns that his journeys are much like the journeys shamans of all cultures have taken for years. But his journeys take him far into the future, past the collapse of civilization, to a "new" stone age. There he meets a Hawaiian Kahuna mystic named Nainoa who teaches the author about what the world is like after the fall of the modern age. The result is another fascinating adventure, an exciting discovery, and the story of how a hardheaded scientific realist may have stumbled on an important piece in the puzzle of human evolution.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dream travel, according to anthropologist Wesselman, begins with flashes of light that form a brilliant grid and open onto a "spiritual subway system across time and space" that accesses other levels of reality. In his sequel to Spiritwalker: Messages from the Future, the scientist-turned-shaman chronicles his visits to a primitive village on the coast of California 5000 years hence, where the survivors of the human race reside. He describes his psychic connections with a shaman called Nainoa, whose noble and idyllic depiction of tribal life emphasizes moral standards, respect for nature and rich spirituality. The author makes his salient point, however, when he juxtaposes this futuristic pastoral culture with our present-day society and its technology that, he says, violates nature. Wesselman is conversant with the history of the earth's climatic changes, and when, during his visionary episodes, he observes coastal California as a vast rain forest and its topography altered dramatically by a rise in sea level, he concludes that our civilization will be destroyed by global warming. He suggests that the modern mystics of our culture, with their increasing awareness of our intimate relationship with nature, can motivate the public to work toward long-term ecological sustainability. Wesselman makes a dramatic case for environmental activism, but Castaneda he isn't. His central conceits come off as contrived and far-fetched compared to those of the recently deceased master of this genre, and his prose is serviceable, boilerplate only.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Ever since the American reading public met Carlos Castenada's Don Juan more than two decades ago, there has been a special place in spiritual literature for what might be called the near-novel: the record of a spiritual journey, presented in novelistic fashion, in which truth is more important than facts. Writing another such record, Wesselman details his shamanic encounters with a descendant named Nainoa, a mystically inclined man living 5,000 years from now. In Nainoa's world, global warming has turned North America into a tropical jungle inhabited by the offspring of zoo animals gone wild. Tribal again, North Americans have reclaimed their ancestral shamanic knowledge but have sacrificed technology utterly. As a novel, Medicinemaker lacks a major element, for when the future is known, how does an author create suspense? As a document of shamanic knowledge and vision, however, it is substantial and well wrought. Patricia Monaghan

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (August 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553107747
• ISBN-13: 978-0553107746
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #492,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hank Wesselman PhD is an anthropologist currently working with an international research team in Ethiopia involved in the search for answers to the mystery of human origins. He is also a shaman in training, now in the 29th year of his apprenticeship. His books include the Spiritwalker Trilogy (Spiritwalker, Medicinemaker, and Visionseeker), the Journey to the Sacred Garden, Spirit Medicine, and Awakening to the Spirit World (with Sandra Ingerman.) His latest book is The Bowl of Light: Ancestral Wisdom from a Hawaiian Shaman. His website is www.sharedwisdom.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating adventure through time, May 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Medicinemaker: Mystic Encounters On The Shaman's Path (Hardcover)

Dr. Wesselman, an anthropologist, has written a paranormal narrative that is convincing, and entertaining enough that it's hard to put this one down. (There are obvious comparisons to Carlos Casteneda. I wonder if Dr. Wesselman's peers have received his story with any more open-mindedness.)

Meeting your own descendant, (or perhaps your own reincarnated self) 5000 years into a post-apocalyptic future makes for a pretty incredible read. Also interesting is the description of a dig in the Rift Valley of Africa where Wesselman and colleagues find the most ancient human remains--along with a few mystical encounters.

This story raises many questions about the destiny of our planet, and our spirits: the workings of visionary journeys, and reincarnation in relation to the Grand Scheme; and, particularly, about the time line. Just how unalterable, or malleable might it be? The end of the story left me wondering how Dr.W copes with the apparent knowledge that his descendant, Nainoa, lives in a world that is testament to the decimation of human civilization by catastrophic global warming. Does he believe that there may still be hope (to alter our collective course in time)?

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unusual? Yes! Beautifully written and thought provoking., June 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Medicinemaker: Mystic Encounters On The Shaman's Path (Hardcover)

Go ahead, read this book! If you feel yourself "gravitating" toward this book; if inexplicably you find yourself wishing you "had time" to read 'that sort of "fanciful" (or whatever your own qualifying word is for it) book,' just go ahead and do it! Read the book, and you won't be sorry.

This is a book of beauty and honesty. You may wonder how Wesselman recreates the vivid detail of setting, action and dialogue of his mystical experiences. --But if something like this has ever happened to you, or if you really Want it to (your spirit yearns for such experience), you will understand that the reality of other dimensions reaches out to us in as much as we reach out to it-- and that all perception is ultimately a product of our own heart.

The chapter I liked best, that I thought was very beautiful, was Chapter 7, where Wesselman takes a walk along a streambed and visits a pool and rocks called "The Narrows" at the Tassahara Zen retreat. If you have spent a day in the sun, near the water, and drawn closer to all joyful, atomistic and interconnected aspects of the Universe-- you'll feel as if You were there, too. ...After all, You were!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Words Cannot Describe..., June 22, 2005

By 

Katie "book worm" (PA , USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Medicinemaker (Paperback)

"Medicinemaker" is actually the sequel to Wesselman's first book "Spiritwalker". After reading both, I must say that the subject matter is absolutely fascinating, and the style of writing used has made these books both easy and thoroughly enjoyable to read.

"Medicinemaker" is the continuation of a true story re: a series of visions the author experienced, where he actually meets himself 5,000 into the future. Once again, the author takes you on a journey with him - a journey into his amazing, vivid visions - and, just as he actually experienced parts of the life he is living 5,000 from now, you feel like you're experiencing this with him. He does such a wonderful job of pulling the reader in - there were actually times when I could really "see", "feel" & "hear" right along with him - what an exiting reading experience it was!

You may think that since the visions were about human society 5,000 years in the future, that this book will be filled with amazing technology - like the Jetson's - but you'll be surprised to find out that all technology had been wiped out, and the people living at that time were living "off the land" - like our ancestors did many, many years ago.

Overall, if you're looking for a real "page turner", and enjoy books on various metaphysical phenomena, then this book's definitely for you! I can't recommend it highly enough!