Shaman's Secret: The Lost Resurrection Teachings of the Ancient Maya

by Douglas Gillette

The first-ever popular "decoding" of the whole grand scheme of ancient Maya spirituality, The Shaman's Secret makes these spiritual teachings explicit and accessible to the general readership and shows how to integrate elements of this spiritual system into daily life. The author specifically examines and explains the Maya spiritual view of the cosmos; their myths and legends; attitudes toward death, suffering and joy; the Path of Beauty; their insights into love, sacrifice and ecstasy, and the attainment of eternal life. He also presents their compelling view of imminent changes in the millennium. Within each chapter, the author includes direct quotes and retellings of the ancient Maya myths, reflects on the encoded messages of sculptures, ruins, ceramics, and paintings, and compares and contrasts this spirituality with the Judeo-Christian spirituality and other world traditions. The Shaman's Secret offers ways to embrace Maya mythic systems to help readers further their own spirituality, and broaden and deepen their experience of spiritual ecstasy.

Genres: Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published May 5, 1997

Reviews

[Lettie Prell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Human sacrifice may not be everyone's idea of a suitable topic for bedtime reading. Yet with the keen Jungian insights of Douglas Gillette, who allowed the Maya way to penetrate into his personal experience, this book soars with energy as it details the psychology and inner life of this amazing and rich culture. I read it mainly at night, allowing it to affect my dreams, and by the time I finished, I found a renewed self-commitment to live more fully and more intensely, as the Mayans did.

I'm grateful I wrote my novel Dragon Ring, which features a part-Mayan heroine, without knowing about this book. It may not have affected the plot, but it would have been too tightly wound with research, which might have ruined it. As it happened, I got goosebumps reading about the portals of the Maya, because of what happens at the climax of Dragon Ring.

After reading The Shaman's Secret I feel I can now delve into Carl Jung's The Red Book, which I've had since Christmas but left largely untouched, save for a few occasions where I opened it at random to a single page. The Shaman's Secret serves as a reminder of how a culture uses symbols to shape a shared inner life -- and much of this lies in the collective unconscious of humans everywhere, in some form or other.

[Michael Drake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Douglas Gillette is a mythologist who co-authored several popular books with Jungian psychoanalyst Robert L. Moore on masculine psychology and spirituality. In "Shaman's Secret," Gillette writes about the discoveries he has made over the course of a lifetime study of ancient Mayan culture. The author's focus is on what he terms "resurrection teachings," that is, the efforts of Maya shamans to transform "the human soul into a durable being capable of defeating death and embracing immortality."

According to Gillette, the Maya believed the soul to be regenerative to its core; ultimately its purpose is to regenerate itself. The Maya soul had a life cycle that began in paradise, continued on the earth plane, and then was intended to end in an eternal celebration of life. If it succeeded in growing into its divine potential by nurturing itself through education and ecstatic bonding with the gods, it could recreate itself after death wearing its own individual "face," thereby achieving eternal life on the other side of death's portal. The Maya shamans believed the God of Death is "behind the times," caught up in a previous and less advanced era, lacking knowledge of the art of resurrection.

I made my first pilgrimage to the Maya pyramids and ceremonial centers of Mexico in March of 1995. It was an empowering, transformational journey of self-discovery--the culmination of a lifelong dream to explore the pyramidal temples found at Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Palenque and Tulum. Climbing the towering stepped pyramids was a rite of passage for me. I first learned about these magnificent pyramids in elementary school. When I saw a photo of the impressive Kukulkan Pyramid at Chichen Itza in my world geography textbook, I knew that I had to go there someday. Like Gillette, I have spent a lifetime learning all I could about the enigmatic Maya. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Maya culture, shamanism, mythology, or psychology.