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In a life lived with a focus on the spiritual and metaphysical, and as the publisher of a magazine like The Monthly Aspectarian, I have had occasion to witness and experience many unusual things. A healing I had with Theo Paredes was one such experience.

     I had a mole on my left knee that troubled me for many years. It would change shape, grow larger and smaller and generally act like the kind of mole that people think of as cancerous. I never went to a western doctor about it. I worked on it myself and it never grew to more than a quarter inch across. Even though I thought I had it under some control, I still sometimes worried about it and wondered if it might at sometime start to be a real problem.

     On a visit to Chicago, Theo was brought out to the office for a meeting, and in the course of the conversation he asked if I would like a healing. Not one to pass up an opportunity like that, I readily agreed. At no time did I point out or speak of the mole on my knee. The healing was an interesting experience and I’m pleased to say that Theo left my office that day as a friend.

     The next morning, sitting where one does shortly after rising, my left hand went absent mindedly to my knee to check in with the mole. With a start that almost threw me to the floor, the realization hit that it was gone. Completely gone. I could not even be sure of the exact location, there being no discoloration, scarring or anything else to indicate the mole had ever been there. This of course blew my mind. Regular readers will know that I almost never give testimonials like this one, but my experience with Theo proved beyond any doubt to me that he is the real deal.

— Guy Spiro

Guy Spiro: Theo, I know that you live in both worlds, the indigenous and the modern.

Theo Paredes: Well yes, I really like to be able to go in both because I can come through where it is still a very native culture and I’m also linked with the modern teachings. Under what you might call traditional beliefs we are a part of that culture in our music, in our food, even in our way to trade. I am a little bit more aware of the wisdom of these people and interested in sharing what these ancient people know because I think these be a container for different kind of knowledge and different aspects of our lives.

GS: You are recognized as a shaman yourself?

TP: I don’t like that word.

GS: You don’t like the word shaman? Talk about that.

TP: That word comes from the north in Siberia that now has been given to anyone who might be practicing this medicine, native healing, and other ways to perceive reality and life.

GS: So anybody who’s an indigenous teacher or healer, they call a shaman, huh?

TP: Yeah. It’s hard to use another word.

GS: But you are also a PhD anthropologist.

TP: Yes. I have studied anthropology and have that degree, but with this is another way to approach life and something that has been allowing me to understand from another point of view.

GS: So what is it like being able to move back and forth between the modern world and indigenous culture?

TP: Its very interesting because it allows me to express to you from different points of view. In some ways science only sees what a culture might be meaning from our Western point of view. I go to study one of the cultures and I see from my perspective what might be happening from the other side. Now anthropologists are getting deeper into what might be called the “sight of the others.” They are starting to see what the culture itself really means. It has given me the opportunity on one side to express and share this knowledge, and from another to see how wrong are we sometimes in our opinions about these cultures.

GS: Anthropologists in the past would count how many feathers and beads somebody wore, without thinking about what the real meaning behind everything was. What, and I don’t mean this to sound patronizing, but what do the indigenous cultures have to teach the modern world?

TP: To live on this planet is to live in a special environment, which we are part of. Most of the native cultures have learned that we are living in the environment, and good condition of being depends on how much we understand it in relation to us. The modern world hasn’t cared about the environment, we haven’t cared about the rules of this environment and we are breaking it. Then we complain about all the changes. I think something that we can learn from indigenous cultures is to go about and think a little bit how we are part of this environment and we should really find a way to live with it normally.

GS: I tend to think of the indigenous teachings as a spiritual technology that the rest of the world really needs at this point.

TP: I agree with you. This spiritual technology has been developed for thousands of years. What is this reality which we think we know? What is the mechanical physics and quantum physics? There is a big difference and hence I want to find the differentials.

GS: You are from Peru.

TP: Yes.

GS: What is the indigenous group that you are associated with?

TP: I am more associated with the Quechua which also are known as the Incas.

GS: How much of the old understanding, the old teaching is still preserved?

TP: I think a lot has been lost, but other things have been preserved. Old technologies, like farming, like healing; some of the old myths and beliefs, that you have to go even deeper trying to read between lines to see what the real meanings are. Now, there are a lot of new books they are publishing about their own beliefs and traditions. Now the modern world is starting to know that under there, there is reason and knowledge.

     One of the big controversies now is that they are trying to eradicate the coca plant from this planet. Who are we to eradicate one plant that has been created in this planet? Who are we? Why do we have this right to come and say, if we don’t like this animal, we eradicate this animal. We are just trying to take out from this planet something that we don’t understand what other kind of benefits it might mean to us.

     So I think there is a lot of knowledge that stays hidden. In the Amazon, they say that there are around seventy thousand species and we only have studied something like two thousand. So this wisdom is hiding, waiting for someone to recover it.

GS: Now, you take people on trips down to Peru, to Machu Picchu and other places.

TP: Yes.

GS: What do you do with people when you take them down there?

TP: First of all, I try to share and show them that all these places are not just one archeological site. Before, they used to call it ruins, then they started to call it archeological sites, then historical sites, then they started to call it temples. Now they are calling it vortex of energy. It was done by the visitors. It was not done by any kind of propaganda from the government, or some kind of tourist office that promotes these places. So it has been given these names, according to how the people start to perceive and feel about these places.

     From my own point of view, without taking away the archeological or historical parts from these places, I do think that they have a special kind of energy that people, the ancient peoples, knew and they were using for different purposes. They used them to establish balance in a normal life, for energies from your body which go to healing, and to even reach other states and higher levels of consciousness. This is my opinion about these places and this is the perspective in which I live, in my world, toward all these places, I show and explain.

GS: Well, what kinds of things do you do with the people when you take them there?

TP: First of all, I try to make them understand the places under this big cosmic vision or context. After that, we do ancient practices to relate ourselves with that kind of energy, and finally we work with what we call sacred and medicinal plants.

GS: Which plants are you working with?

TP: There are several plants. The most well known is Ayahuasca.

GS: A lot of people are talking about Ayahuasca these days.

TP: I am very careful about that because it is becoming something commercial and I think some are missing the whole point of how to use that plant.

GS: What kinds of experiences do people tend to have with the plant used properly?

TP: Well, usually it is called a hallucinogen, like all plants that give you visions and take you on what’s been called a journey. But from my own point of view, I think these plants open doors of perceptions to go into other levels of reality, what Dr. Jung called the collective unconsciousness.

GS: Do people generally report positive experiences?

TP: Yes. A lot of the experiences which are very interesting to me are those bringing to people a different vision, not from experience, but another vision, another perspective from where they can see life. To me, this is the main teaching of them, because reality is not really what is happening. Reality for me is how we perceive what has happened. From that we can make our world more miserable or happy.

GS: Right, right, people don’t realize that they have those kinds of choices. Now you have a trip coming up in a few months, where will you go and what will people experience?

TP: We are going to do a specific journey and it’s going to have several days in Cusco, and Machu Picchu. From there we will go to a wonderful place called Intikawarina. This is a very high place, almost 15 thousand feet high. From there you can see the rising sun very early in the morning, I’d say around 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning, and besides the beauty of the spectacle that is coming because of the color, the sun is big and jumping and changing color. It’s a place where you can see the light, the sun, directly without using any form of protectors for your eyes, without being hurt by it. According to this theory of energy, it’s a place where you have a connection directly with the heart of the energy of our planetary system. It was sacred because you are able to touch and see and receive these connections directly with our main source of energy.

GS: In a sense, everything on Earth is the Sun.

TP: Exactly. This is what I’m telling you; that is the source of our energy.

GS: Then what will you do?

TP: After that we go down into the jungle, to the beautiful rainforest. We are going to spend there maybe five days at Villa Carmen and we will be working there with Ayahuasca. Then to the Poqen Kanchay Healing Retreat near Cusco, with visits to the city and nearby sites.

GS: Excellent. Well it sounds like a great trip and it will be lucky people who get to go on it.

TP: I hope you’ll join us.

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Theo Paredes, PhD anthropologist, is a native of Cusco, Peru. He has always had contact with the indigenous people of Peru and has been intimately involved with communities still relatively isolated from modernism. Called to the Andean healing path in a traditional way—he was struck by lightning as a child and a second time as an adult—he began studying with healers as a young boy. For more than 35 years, he has studied and practiced Andean healing techniques emphasizing the native use of sacred plants and practices of managing energy. With knowledge passed down from ancient masters, he has a deep understanding of the healing traditions of Peru where the world of spirits and energy combine to heal, harmonuize, and balance individuals.

     “An Intensive Healing Journey in the Jungles of Peru” with don Theo Paredes, July 28–August 12, 2006, is coordinated by Ginger Vuegler in conjunction with Poqen Kanchay Healing Center. Ms. Vuegler has degrees in geography and environmental studies, and certification in a variety of healing modalities. She has organized past journeys to work with don Theo in Peru, creating a unique healing and learning experience. See the advertisement in this issue for additional information.

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