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

by Douglas Gillette

Now available in paperback, The Shaman's Secret is the most comprehensive documentation yet of the extraordinary spiritual forces that governed life for the ancient Maya. Shattering the misconceptions of the Maya as violent, barbaric people, Gillette puts the distasteful acts of bloodletting and human sacrifice into proper context and demonstrates the more important aspects of Maya culture. As Gillette deciphers sacred artwork, hieroglyphics, myths, and artifacts, he shows how entire cities mysteriously disappeared into enveloping jungles, taking with them a vast, untapped treasure of the human spirit. Utilizing his training in depth psychology and comparative religion, and drawing on his rich experiences in Mexico and Central America, Gillette enables us to share in the ancient Maya experience of "fire in the blood" and to hear for ourselves the once lost, now recovered sacred resurrection message of the ancient shamans. For anyone seeking a renewed sense of the relevance of spiritual truths to his or her daily life, The Shaman's Secret offers a vivid, passionate, and courageous way to complete life's journey.

Genres: Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

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.