Done with love and in the right circumstances there is no risk in this work, and no plant medicines are involved anywhere in it. The real danger is the practitioner. Fake shamans and money grifters are far more often ineffective than evil, and what they cost you is the wrong expectations and no result.
People ask this expecting a hedge. They are not going to get one. There is no risk, when it is all done with love and under the right circumstances.
The rest of this is what the right circumstances are, and what actually goes wrong, which is not the practice.
What is not involved
Start here, because it is where nearly all of the fear comes from. There are no plant medicines in this work. No ayahuasca, no psilocybin, no iboga, nothing you ingest at all. Almost every serious incident attached to the word shamanic in the news involves psychoactive substances at a retreat, poor screening and no medical support. None of that applies to a conversation and a drum.
The real danger is who you pick
There are fake shamans and there are money grifters, and I want to be precise about what they cost you, because it is not what people assume. The truly evil are very few, and the average person will never come across one. The common problem is not evil. It is that they are not effective.
So the damage is wrong expectations, then no result, then the conclusion that none of it works. That is what a grifter actually takes from you, and it is worth more than the money. It is also why I would rather you asked hard questions on a free call than paid anybody, me included, on faith.
What I will not do
- I will not cast a spell on anyone’s behalf.
- I will not work on a third party. People arrive wanting somebody cursed, or wanting a reading pulled on a person who has not asked for one. That is a no, every time.
- I will not tell you to stop anything a doctor has prescribed you.
- I will not promise you an outcome, a cure, or a date by which it will have worked.
Keep seeing your doctor
I am clear with everyone that this is a different modality, and I say the same thing every time. If a doctor has asked something of you, do not cease it on my account.
If you decide afterwards that you are healed, that is still a conversation to have with your doctor and not with me. It is your accountability and I am not going to take it off you. It is also why none of this is offered as medicine.
Who I would ask to wait
Not everybody should book straight away. For some people the honest answer is not yet rather than no, and I would rather say it than take the booking.
- Anyone with a history of psychosis or a schizophrenia spectrum diagnosis. Deliberately altered states can destabilise, and this is the clearest contraindication there is.
- Anyone whose spirit is unsettled. If you are still churning, there is nothing in you that can receive yet, and the work will not take hold.
- Anyone whose attitude is not in the right place for the healing. If you have come to catch me out, or you arrived having already decided that none of this works, that decision is the only thing you will leave with.
None of that is a permanent no. Come back when the ground under you is steadier and the answer will be yes.
And if you are in a hard place right now, that on its own is not a reason to stay away from me. Tell me what is going on. I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person for it, or whether somebody else needs to see you first, and I will not soften it to keep the booking. It is the same reason soul retrieval comes after a first conversation rather than before one.
How to tell you are in the right hands
- They ask what is going on before they take your money. That is what a free call is for.
- They tell you when somebody else would serve you better, including a doctor or a therapist.
- They do not promise outcomes, cures or timelines.
- They leave you somewhere to put whatever comes up, instead of ending the call and moving on.
“A person is a person through other people.”
Written by Nomad