Awakened at Needle Point: A Shamanic Journey into Body-Mind-Spirit Wellness

By John Jay Harper

“The search for new shamans has begun in earnest.”

~Margaret Wheatley, Ph.D., Harvard University, author of Leadership and the
New Science

Introduction

It was late Friday afternoon February 26 th, 2010; a cold, snowy mid-winter day
in the Pacific Northwest when an unresolved, incapacitating childhood conflict surfaced again. Indeed it
was the source of symptoms, mental and physical, that had controlled my entire life story until now.
These anxieties dogged me like a proverbial hound from hell and I began paying close attention to them.
I knew my sanity depended upon comprehending these symptoms as “signs and symbols” of my
unconscious psyche, but I did not understand why they manifested—yet!

The original catalyst for my crash and burn was the abandonment by my father in Seattle at age 5. He
left my mother, Catherine, and my two brothers, Ron and Steve, homeless and penniless, so he could
hire on with a fishing fleet. His goal was to become the chief marine mechanic to keep them trolling for
the “deadliest catch” in waters up and down the coastlines of Alaska, Canada, Washington, Oregon, and
California. I never saw him again until I was 32-years old.

In fact, as I shared in the Second Edition of my book, Tranceformers:

Shamans of the 21st Century, my perceived reality since the 1950s was
nothing but the symbolic cutting down of my family tree reenacted through
me. And my heroic efforts to stop it from happening to those I loved, again
and again and again. Clinically speaking, I was suffering from a borderline
personality disorder known to psychotherapists as “third degree emotional
burns.” In short, I felt a swarm of toxic emotions sting me that evening and
reacted as a helpless child alone in the dark—not an adult. I truly did not
have a “life” yet, nor an authentic sense of self that was symptom-free and
able to engage the world on its terms.

But the scenario that led initially to nothing more than allergy headaches and
sinus symptoms was Claritin™ clear enough. My beloved 20-year old granddaughter, Kathryne, who had
been living with us for the past 3 years, was embarking on her first solo cross-country road trip from
Spokane, Washington to Jacksonville, North Carolina, and I was “deathly afraid” for her safety. Katie was
en route to Andrea, a girlfriend she had known in Spokane since 14, to share a recently purchased home
close to the Atlantic Ocean. Andrea was today a proud U.S. Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, awaiting
the return of her husband, high school sweetheart Joshua, likewise a combat soldier fighting the Taliban
in Afghanistan until summer 2010.

Specifically, I decided to drive our gas-miser Honda Civic in front of Katie’s car for the first one thousand
miles of her four thousand mile journey to the East Coast, in a heartfelt albeit panic-stricken moment. I
wanted to blaze the trail, so to speak, make certain she, and co-driver Jody, got safely through the
snowy mountain passes in Idaho, Utah and then into the first city they planned to stop on Saturday
afternoon: Las Vegas, Nevada. I even paid for a deluxe room-in-advance at the Luxor Hotel for my wife,
Connie, and myself before we departed Spokane confident this was a slam dunk “mission possible.”

However, my cock-eyed military veteran optimism overstretched my capacity to drive around-the-clock

anymore, as I did easily in my pre-retirement years. We never made it. For I collapsed from physical
exhaustion early Saturday morning while driving on Interstate 84 through Boise, Idaho, forced to exit the
freeway pulling into the Hampton Inn™ at approximately 3:30AM PST. Connie called Katie’s cell phone
and explained what had happened and wished her and Jody a fun weekend in Las Vegas, but without us.
We would rest a few hours, we said, and chart a new course back home via western Idaho, eastern
Oregon, and central Washington, avoiding the mountain passes crossed in the middle of the night.

With hindsight 20/20, I saw I’d been literally travelling on “sacred ground,”
revisiting a segment of the East-to-West migration route from Scotland-to-
Virginia-to-California that was significant to my family ancestry. I recalled
my grandfather was born in Salt Lake City in 1890 and my great-
grandfather, Robert Harper, helped lay stones on The Mormon Temple.
Moreover, my father, in fact, was born in Eureka, Humboldt County,
California on April 6, 1928, but died at Las Vegas Medical Center on
February 25th, 1991. Ironically, none of my father’s family became members
of any organized religion as far as I know but I bet they were bona fide
mystics! So my advice early on to my readers is pay special attention to the
meaningful coincidences sprinkled like Old World spices throughout this autobiography. These, of
course, are relevant to me and my life story ultimately—but let me give you a hint upfront: Your body is
an open book too! Wake-up and follow the trail of breadcrumbs—blood and bones—of your own
genealogy for there is meaning to everything in existence symbolically mapped by The World Tree and
The Cosmic Serpent in the Garden of Eden.

French scholar of religions Mircea Eliade, saw the trunk, conduit or tunnel, within The World Tree as the
gateway to the gods, and devils, declaring in his classic book Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy:
“The underworld, the center of the earth, and the ‘gate’ of the sky are situated on the same axis, and in
past times it was by this axis that passage from one cosmic region to another was effected.” The shaman
was a skilled person that could use altered states of consciousness and knowledge of the north-south
pole axis running through the center of the cosmos to soul travel. The Cosmic Serpent is nothing more,
or less, than our DNA macromolecule that is the human body made flesh.

Basically, you have to be brave, at least fearless enough to face these things that go bump in the night
and, hence, the need for so-called guardian angels and a supportive spiritual community would be nice.
Otherwise, it gets mighty scary! I also have had close encounters with the citizens—and denizens—of
hyperspace since childhood and methodically investigated mysticism and near-death experience (NDE)
visions of the End-Times for that reason. I’ve spoken to millions on talk radio shows about my
conclusions since 1993. Today these themes are common cocktail party conversations among
psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers, physicists, and theologians; so at least I am in good company.
They are themes to television series and movies too; so I no longer feel like a fish out of water—or crazy.

Clinical psychologist Wilson Van Dusen, Ph.D. (1923-2005), could do just that, soul travel, and worked
for many decades with the mentally ill in California state hospitals after serving during WWII in the U.S.
Merchant Marines. He had a remarkable life concluding that “spirit possession” can be the “soul” cause
of illness. And upon retirement, he wrote about his life as a mystic, sharing a lifetime of insights in many
inspiring books on heaven, hell, and “hyperspace” nature of existence: infinite worlds within worlds
without beginning or end. Dr. Dusen became a believer in Swedish scientist, inventor, and Christian
mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg (1668-1772), and learned, as I had, that “The great spiritual adventurers
found the whole of creation and every part of it symbolic” as he shared in Seeing Through Symbols:
Insights into Spirit.

Wikipedia records this much on Swedenborg: “In 1741 at the age of fifty-three he entered into a
spiritual phase in which he eventually began to experience dreams and visions beginning on Easter
weekend April 6, 1744. This culminated in a spiritual awakening, where he claimed he was appointed by
the Lord to write a heavenly doctrine to reform Christianity. He claimed that the Lord had opened his
eyes, so that from then on he could freely visit heaven and hell, and talk with angels, demons, and other
spirits. For the remaining 28 years of his life, he wrote and published 18 theological works, of which the
best known was Heaven and Hell (1758), and several unpublished theological works.” Interestingly
enough, overall Swedenborg’s model of creation matches the shamanic that is usually akin to a three-
layered cake: upper, lower with earth in the middle of it. So how does “evil” work against us? Quite
simply, through negative emotions; anxiety, pain, stress seeks to destroy our will power to live fully
present in each and every moment now!

My future vision in total is that we are in the early stages as a species learning to climb the world tree,
“walk between worlds,” bring the spiritual truth of heaven down from the magnetosphere and hell of
our fiery molten core imagery up to the surface of planet earth again through the third eye skills of
shamans. One of the leading NDE researchers, Dr. P.M.H. Atwater says: “Hell refers to levels of negative
thought-forms that reside in close proximity to the Earth realm. It is where we go to work out, or remain
within, our hang-ups, addictions, fears, guilt, angers, rage, regrets, self-pity, arrogance, or whatever else
blocks us from the power of our own light.”

Moreover, I see us integrating the wisdom of outer and inner space through an emerging “science of
soul” wellness clinic in the 21st century. (See www.near-death.com/experiences/experts13.html )

Shamans of the 21st Century

In the days, weeks, and months of spring 2010, my symptoms

increased from sinus to serious and I lost the ability to control my neck
muscles and it collapsed. A pinched nerve in the upper region of my
spine at the base of my skull became so painful that it demanded
medical intervention. This bracing against pain 24/7 began a decline in
my health with sleepless nights and miserable days of suffering
spiraling towards disaster. I no longer had a life really; rather I became
a walking, talking set of symptoms constantly seeking a savior with a
“magic silver bullet.”

So I brushed-up on my pig Latin because my constant bedfellow

companions spoke only in the multisyllabic language of the Physicians’
Desk Reference (PDR) dictionary. My medicine cabinet’s stock and trade went from boxes of Alka-
Seltzer™ to neatly ordered rows of pill bottles from the allopathic pharmacy. To my primary care doctors
credit at Group Health Cooperative in Spokane, Tim J. Meyer, M.D., and Jan H. Mueller, M.D., I began a
course of drugs that did address the PAG (periaqueductal gray), the pain control center of the brain.
Thus we started down the right track pharmacologically even if I was to derail later. I reviewed the
medical literature in articles, books constantly for clues to my situation and read in Molecules of
Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel the encouraging words of biochemist Candace Pert, Ph.D.:
“Pain researchers all agree that the area called the periaqueductal gray, located around the aqueduct
between the third and fourth ventricles of the midbrain, is filled with opiate receptors, making it a
control area for pain. It is also loaded with receptors for virtually all the neuropeptides that have been
studied.”

There was the key word I must investigate further I mused: neuropeptides. So began a major turning
point in my search for salvation from suffering, although understanding neuropeptides was not that easy
since they acted more as quantum ghosts in the brain, non-local “fields of energy” declared the late
Francis Schmidt of M.I.T. He called them “information substances” or “messenger molecules.” Dr. Pert
proclaimed “This complexity has led to their being classified under a variety of categories, including
hormones, neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, growth factors, gut peptides, interleukins, cytokines,
chemokines, and growth-inhibiting factors.”

Nonetheless, ideally, these “information substances” in balanced proportions give our human brain-
blood-bones a sense of wellbeing, “bliss” or euphoria that make life worth living in plain terms. But my
body quit making them, and my physicians prescribed the opiate-derivative equivalent drugs to them
such as hydrocodone and oxycodone as I underwent a comprehensive diagnostic work-up to isolate the
problem over a 3-month period from June to August 2010. These tests included the cutting-edge in X-
Ray for the spine, laboratory analysis of blood and urine for general chemical health index baselines, as
well as cardiac enzyme function examination at Sacred Heart and then, the final straw that pushed me
into an urgent search mode for alternative treatments for pain, my MRI at Holy Family Hospital. The ER
physician’s words were themselves a blunt force trauma: “If you saw what I did, no anesthesiologist in
this town would touch you for surgery!”

For now I had more diagnoses, prognoses, and fear factors than my beloved late grandmother, Mary
Evelyn Scott (1888-1977), would say “Carter had liver pills!” Yet these high-tech toys are our pride and
joy in the Western world, our electron microscopes and spaceship-shaped nuclear magnetic resonance
imaging capsules save lives every single day because we can “see” into the living brain-body-blood-bone
matrix non-invasively, but intervene surgically with razor-edge, laser-light precision if warranted.
Indeed, my wife’s cousin in Kansas City has her husband, Bob Stevens, alive today because a
neurosurgeon was able to pinpoint a brain aneurysm earlier this year and repair it successfully. They call
Bob a miracle-man for he beat the odds but he is still seeking relief from one nagging problem: pain that
prevents sleep! In this same time period, Mona Klinger, a medical intuitive, vibration healer, Reiki
master, and shaman in Bend, Oregon came into my life just when I thought I could go on no longer. My
suffering reached cosmic-levels heretofore unimaginable and I could not cope with the pain or life’s
demands.

Often collapsing into a fetal position, I retreated to my back porch deck to curl up on my side to relieve
the unrelenting ache in my neck and pain in the bones of my skull. The cold concrete floor served as a
whole body ice pack in those early morning hours before the sun heated it anyway. Without a doubt,
however, there is One Great Spirit that listens to our pleas for intervention, and speaks to others to go
help us recover, and Mona was that “earth angel” God sent to my rescue. Through a synchronistic chat
on Facebook™ Mona sensed my situation resulting in her flying, and later driving, to Spokane to reorient
my focus from fear to faith, illness to wellness once again. She conducted not one but two 3-day
treatments a month apart for me and Connie, and she made all the difference in our world. From her
first session employing shamanic wisdom, it was clear that I was being spared to “walk the talk” of a
Christ-centered, earth-honoring medicine man as I had written a couple books on this topic—and it was
time to “put up or shut up!” (See www.sacredreconnections.com)

Along this same line of treatment, I went to several complementary health care specialists in my
community to tap my biological plant farm roots that included acupuncture with Rebekah Giangreco,
L.Ac., Dipl.Ac., at New Moon Family Acupuncture; sports medicine chiropractic with Ryan Johnson, D.C.,
at Pearson and Weary Pain Relief Clinics; and massage therapy with Marlene Sullivan, L.M.T.

Thank God, I also had a strong spiritual support team that appeared as if by magic, usually a bad choice
of words with the Christian evangelic. Hopefully, I will be instrumental in helping them step-up to the
plate: the challenges and opportunities for ministry in this matter now. Trust me they are right-on-target
when it comes to Hades—“the hidden place”—and the “evil spirits!” For the “doubting Thomas,” I only
ask you to review one “non-religious” textbook, The Body of Myth: Mythology, Shamanic Trance, and
The Sacred Geography of the Body by mathematician, and physicist Professor J. Nigro Sansonese, and
the objective documentary DVD film titled “Gates of Hell” produced by The History Channel. That is, I am
not focused on fear at all but facts that will convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that what we’ve
called “hell” is right here on earth. Specifically, we’re experiencing a literal warfare going on within the
cells of our human body-mind-spirit! (See www.history.com)

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and
pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1) Pastor Robert Lindseth of the Life
Church located at the corner of 25th and South Grand Boulevard in Spokane came into my life
miraculously after his teenage daughter happened to come by our house one evening to ask my wife if
there was anyone that needed prayer? Oh did I ever! Bob invested countless hours ministering to me
this past summer as we prayed together for answers to my situation. I even asked him to renew my
covenant in baptism for I identified with this proclamation of Paul of Tarsus as never before in my life: “I
am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians
2:20) Hint: The word covenant in Hebrew means a “cut-where-blood-flows!”

Though pharmacologically, we’ve only scratched the surface of these

non-toxic vision plants for pain potions and cancer cures. However, if
my musings on this topic are validated, amino acid therapy can
combine with indigenous hallucinogens to create a pharmacopeia to
treat addictions, pain, and stress disorders second to none soon. I mean
every single one of us make the spiritual visionary substances of
ayahuasca, the “vine of the soul,” every second within our brain, blood,
and lungs. The sacred plant researchers such as Martin W. Ball, Ph.D.
and Graham Hancock report the same inner space mindscape as
shamans. Writing in their own books, respectively, Mushroom Wisdom:
How Shamans Cultivate Spiritual Consciousness, and Supernatural:
Meetings of the Ancient Teachers of Mankind, they share the same
realization that endogenous “entheogens” do in fact “create God within us!” (See www.alexgrey.com,
www.martinball.net, www.deoxy.org/mckenna.htm and www.grahamhancock.com)

Again, I turned to Wikipedia for clarifications: “An entheogen, in the strict sense, is a psychoactive
substance used in a psychotherapeutic, religious, shamanic, or spiritual context. Historically, entheogens
were mostly derived from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts.
Most entheogens do not produce drug dependency. Entheogens can supplement many diverse practices
for healing, transcendence, and revelation.” Psychiatrist Rick Strassman, M.D. has also released his
clinical experiments on 60 volunteer subjects at the University of New Mexico with approximately 400
doses of the spirit-seeing substance N,N-dimethlytrptamine in DMT: The Spirit Molecule. One hypothesis
is that DMT is endogenous, made in the pineal gland, what French philosopher, physicist, and
mathematician Rene Descartes (1596-1650) himself called the “seat of the soul.” In metaphysical terms,
this is the endocrine gland location of “the third eye” that opens us to the multidimensional realms of
hyperspace.

Since 1996, Dr. Strassman has been exploring models for the DMT effect, and has focused primarily on
the Old Testament concept of prophecy. This is a spiritual experience which takes into account the
apparently external, free-standing nature of the DMT “worlds,” in which one’s sense of self is highly
preserved and interactive. This is in contrast to previous models
● ● ● that borrow more heavily from Eastern religious systems, ones
that emphasize unitive, ego-dissolving experiences. In addition,
“Will outer space travel the prophetic model deals directly with ethical and moral
become easier once concerns, adding a crucial element to our ability to understand
we realize that the farthest and integrate the content of the psychedelic experience. He is
reaches of all space may be developing these ideas in his next book, The Soul of Prophecy, due
visited through our inner to appear in 2011. (See www.rickstrassman.com)
space?”
Again, in addition to healing, the shaman is the one that can read
the star maps, the signs of the times in the precession of the
~Brian O’Leary, Ph.D., equinoxes, as did the Old Testament prophets with regards to the
Former Mars Mission NASA coming of Jesus Christ. In fact, the Zodiac, or “circle of animals”
astronaut, and author of has been used as the solar lens by which to forecast the future of
Exploring Inner and Outer the past for millenniums. I mean it is true, what goes around
Space comes around only in new costumes for there really is nothing
● ● ● new happening under the living Suns of God!

Columbia University scholar Alvin Boyd Kuhn (1880-1963) studied

comparative religions, mythology, and linguistics then wrote his
doctoral thesis based upon his mastery of Egyptian sun sign
symbolisms linking them completely to the origins of Christianity
titled Theosophy: A Modern Revival of the Ancient Wisdom. This is not surprising given the Genesis of
the Holy Bible stories are themselves attributed to the writings of Moses and the retreat by Mary and
Joseph to Egypt with the “baby” Jesus for theology schooling by the priests-shamans overseeing the
temples and pyramids. This culture worshipped the Sun God: RA. However, the rest of the story is
apocalypse, or “unveiled,” truth about the revelation of renewal or Second Coming that Dr. Kuhn only
hinted at in his final book prior to his death, A Rebirth of Christianity.

Clearly, we are about to die and be reborn too! No modern-day mythologist speaking to these matters is
akin to the integrity and intelligence of Joseph John Campbell (1904-1987), than is Director of 2012
Studies, John Major Jenkins, in Ft. Collins, Colorado. He is the author of several authoritative books on
the Maya and Mesoamerica but, in particular, I am referring to his latest, and most informative in
dispelling the nonsense and highlighting the Sense of Self as the focus for the End-Time in The 2012
Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth Behind the Most Intriguing Date in History [December 21, 2012].
Although I desire to cut-to-the-chase, since we are according to the Mayan calendar “running out-of-
time,” and that seems to be truly Good News! Specifically, Jenkins shares a vision he experienced in an
“isolation tank” under the influence of LSD at age 19 in Chicago, not unlike the approach employed by
the late John Lily, M.D. in Hawaii to symbolically, “telepathically” communicate with dolphins. Briefly,
after Jenkins sensed he was under-the-influence of this psychedelic neurotransmitter-receiver
messenger molecule, lysergic acid diethylamide, he “awoke within the dream” we call physical reality.
He travelled to the farthest reaches of inner space by catapulting through outer space in blunt terms
and that was his ultimate conclusion and one that I wish to emphasize as extremely important to my
own thesis now: “I also felt I had never left my body: I had, rather, explored the cosmic contents of it,”
Jenkins revealed. Is this not the supreme revelation of Jesus Christ with respect to his Second Coming:
“The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the face of the earth but men do not see it?” (See
www.Update2012.com)

Futurist, educator, talk show host, and author Elaine Smitha made what seemed to many critics years
ago a startling statement in If You Make the Rules, How Come You’re Not Boss?: “Perhaps junk DNA
contains all the secrets of the universe, including those unconscious potentials you have yet to discover.
Perhaps it is this DNA that allows you to travel without your body into starry realms. Maybe that is
where you go in your dreams. Quite possibly intuition, psychic powers, and remote viewing (non-local
information gathering) fall into the realm of this amazing communication channel. Perhaps with a
relaxed mind, you can tap into the prime DNA alphabet soup for transport.” Can amino acid therapy be
employed to help our “junk DNA” activate its contents in a safer setting? (See www.elainesmitha.com)

Then in like manner Andrew Collins, shared the ancient Greek Panspermia Theory—“seeds
everywhere”—that DNA came from outer space sources; for example, asteroids, comets, planets in The
Cygnus Mystery: Unlocking the Ancient Secret of Life’s Origins in the Cosmos. The shorthand translation
of his conclusions are that the star constellation in the sky seen as a “swan” (astronomically Cygnus X-3),
is the source of creation for us on earth. This was discerned through the use of trance states by shamans
in these early cultures as depicted in prehistoric—that is to say, before language—cave drawings and
myths. Yet what we need to know is that gamma-ray bursts (GRB) from this, and perhaps, other light-
storing “black holes” within the Milky Way Galaxy, are mutating the amino acids-DNA-RNA protein
synthesis blueprint template that give us our form, fit and function into new configurations now. That is,
this radiation exposure is reworking the expression of genes throughout the animal kingdom signifying a
time of mass extinction of old, emergence of new species, yet all things considered rapid changes in the
climate, ecology and biosphere of the planet itself, referred biblically to as the manifestation of “a new
heaven and a new earth.” (See www.andrewcollins.com)

The Cosmic Serpent is the Human Body

Theoretical physicist Fritjof Capra, Ph.D. wrote in his epilogue to The Tao of
Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern
Mysticism, and I agree: “Physicists do not need mysticism, and mystics do
not need physics, but humanity needs both.” In fact, when under the
influence of LSD, Capra saw that molecules of matter could melt in front of
and behind his eyes. Beyond that revelation, I was truly stunned to learn
upon the death of Francis Crick (1916-2004) that he too had used
psychoactive compounds to unlock the door to the secrets of shamans that
we are beings of light. On Sunday, August 8, 2004 the London newspaper
The Mail ran this shocking banner headline: “Nobel Prize genius Crick was high on LSD when he
discovered the secret of life.“ The text to follow read “… Crick had privately admitted to colleagues that
he was under the influence of LSD in 1953 at the moment when he ‘perceived the double helix shape’
and unraveled the structure of DNA.”

And while all of these aforementioned skilled practitioners of the healing arts, sciences and religions
helped me cope to a certain extent, over the span of excruciatingly painful weeks that stretched into
agonizingly slow months I realized I was missing a critical key to opening the locked gates of hell to my
own wellbeing: Life force energy. In particular, I needed to increase my ch’i with amino acid therapy
administered intravenously (I.V.) to repair the cell damage of aging, diet, and toxic emotions in order to
restore the functioning of my communication circuitry, the message molecule carriers of the central
nervous system. I had to glue Humpty-Dumpty back together again, increase the “ligands” that are
“binding” elements of DNA-RNA coded protein synthesis cycles of cosmic consciousness. These
electronic ions cement amino acid molecules into chains, the building blocks of life. Anthropologist
Jeremy Narby, Ph.D., Stanford University, unpacked the secret in DNA from his own shamanic field work
with the plant teachers in the Amazonian rainforests, ecstatically reporting in The Cosmic Serpent: DNA
and the Origins of Knowledge:

"When I started reading the literature of molecular biology, I was stunned by certain descriptions.
Admittedly, I was on the lookout for anything unusual, as my investigation had led me to consider that
DNA and its cellular machinery truly were an extremely sophisticated technology of cosmic origin. But as
I pored over thousands of pages of biological texts, I discovered a world of science fiction that seemed
to confirm my hypothesis. Proteins and enzymes were described as 'miniature robots,' ribosomes were
'molecular computers,' cells were 'factories,' DNA itself was a 'text,' a 'program,' a 'language,' or 'data.'
One only had to do a literal reading of contemporary biology to reach shattering conclusions; yet most
authors display a total lack of astonishment and seem to consider that life is merely 'a normal
physiochemical phenomenon.’"

Again, Dr. Pert, formerly a Research Professor in the

Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown
University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., wrote in
her aforementioned textbook on this topic: “Ligands are
generally much smaller molecules than the receptors
they bind to, and they are divided into three chemical
types. The first type of ligand comprises the classical
neurotransmitters, which are small molecules with such
unwieldy names as acetylcholine, norepinephrine,
dopamine, histamine, glycine, GABA, and serotonin.”
(See www.candacepert.com)

Soon thereafter, at my wits end with drugs of every flavor that did not yield viable cures only intolerable
side-effects, I remembered an informative dialogue I had on Facebook™ again, albeit a year earlier, with
Steve Sewell, founder of Mind & Body Works in Durango, Colorado. He had succinctly replied to a
comment I made that I was using amino acids orally to improve my health but he knowingly stated that
in many cases, they had to be administered via I.V. to enter the bloodstream: bypass the deleterious
impact of digestive tract juices and processes. Then in a subsequent telephone conversation, I shared
my medical history and Steve offered that, perhaps, my brain-body could no longer create its
endogenous, morphine-like pain killers, the endorphins, to give me that “runner’s high” I associated with
wellness? That was a reasonable conclusion given my “free-floating” symptoms of anxiety-panic,
hypomania that seemed even to me to be a case of hypochondria; that is, more psycho than somatic!

In the final analysis, I needed high-tech soul food: the “finger-licking-good to the last drop” ligands! If I
wanted what they offered, Steve said, I could report to the clinic on Wednesday, September 15 th, 2010
for a physical examination by Paul Glanville, M.D., an anti-aging specialist schooled in complementary
and traditional medicine. Of course, I was impressed with the intravenous protocol’s potential for
healing my spine and took his advice to heart, and head: they seemingly had exactly what I was looking
for no doubt about it.

From my own decades of study in the shamanic sciences and practice in Community Health
Administration and Wellness Promotion with the U.S. Navy Hospital Clinic, Keyport, Washington, I knew
that healing disease happened through integration of the East and West: what Larry Dossey, M.D. in
Santa Fe, New Mexico, and his wife, Barbara Dossey, R.N., Ph.D., call ERA-III Medicine. They do not
mince words or split-hairs—and neither do I—for this is the emerging health care paradigm of the
future: We are literally “thought forms” co-existing within the Mind of God—Body of Christ—and we
need to apply this eternal truth to our lives here and hereafter. We co-exist with myriad life forms and
we need to get over it and get on with it: There is a lot of work to do if we are to bring hell up from and
heaven down to earth. Our mission is to merge three worlds—upper, lower, and middle—into one new
world order right here and now! Dr. Dossey counsels:

Taking nonlocal mind seriously can, as I describe in Reinventing Medicine, widen the dimensions
of consciousness. We can tap into sources of wisdom beyond ourselves and beyond the present:
Creative breakthroughs and prophetic knowing become ordinary in the context of nonlocal
mind. Empathy and compassion flower as a result of our felt linkage with one another. And the
awareness of immortality, as I've described, takes the pressure off living and dying. This will not
happen automatically, however. We have to do our share and set our biases and prejudices
aside. These are urgent matters. As Andre Malraux said, "The twenty-first century will be
spiritual or it will not be at all." (See www.dosseydossey.com)

Rocky Mountain High

For the record, it is an absolutely divine drive into Durango.

Colorado from all directions but we had come by way of the
northern Interstates: I-90E, I-15S, I-70E: Spokane-Billings-Salt Lake
City-Grand Junction, and then south onto Colorado Highway 550.
This is a breathtaking scenic route with big timber, wildlife views at
somewhat oxygen-starved elevations: over two miles high at its
jagged-rocky top peaks. But what a beautiful clear-blue unpolluted
sky!

Then as we descended into the City of Durango itself, we saw clean streets, a well-planned city center
and marketplace that highlighted its southwestern cowboy theme. The focal point was the restored
train station for the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. Of course, the antique brick hotels
with crystal-chandeliers and gun-fighting saloons of the 1800s helped set the stage, literally. Actually,
Connie remarked that we had come to a 5-star vacation getaway—not a sterile-looking typical medical
district as we had envisioned. There was even a gorgeous fast-moving river running through the city
park: Animas. This in fact was a sacred space nestled within the Four Corners of the USA.
Upon arrival at the clinic the next morning, I already knew that I came to the right place to kick-start my
immune system. If I needed a booster shot of confidence, I was greeted with a warm smile by Julie
Frank, the office administrator, and Steve Adams, my co-counselor for the next 10-days. Then I reported
for my physical exam at 10AM to Paul Glanville, M.D., and read these inspirational words on his business
card from Psalm 103 that made my day:

“
Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits who forgives all your sins and heals all your
diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies
your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.”

You know what an eagle can do, right? It can grow brand new feathers no matter its age! Indeed I
needed new feathers, and bones to support them, if I was ever to fly again without a neck brace and a
beak load of medicines. In a nutshell, be careful what you pray for and write about, and who, for they
may very well return to validate, or not, your claims about them be they among the living or dead. You’ll
see what I mean when you read the First Edition of my book Tranceformers: Shamans of the 21st
Century. But, in brief, you will learn what I did from an after-death communication incident with a
“deceased” optics physicist colleague, George, and why analytical psychologist Carl Jung, M.D., stated
“Modern behaviorist psychology reduces psychic happenings to a kind of activity of the glands; thoughts
are regarded as secretions of the brain, and thus we achieve a psychology without the psyche.”

In other words, we removed the powers of the psyche—soul—from our physical sense of self but the
greater truth is we are entangled within messenger molecules of “spirit” all the time. Close encounters
of ETs/UFOs, for example, are synchronistic clues—profoundly meaningful coincidences—that speak to
a multi-dimensional, layered “hyperspace” cosmos filled-to-the-brim with psychophysical beings. Mind
and matter is a single substance made of information. There is simply no wiggle room anymore around
this fact says National Public Radio award-winning correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty, and
acclaimed author of Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality.

The lesson we are learning from amino acid therapy is straightforward: the mind of the mystic, prophet,
and shaman is lying dormant, sleeping untapped within DNA yet cosmic consciousness is forever
flowing-freely through us all now. That is, the knowledge to heal ourselves is available for the asking if
we ask the right questions symbolically and playing possum is not the answer to a spiritually alive,
“genetically” mutating universe. The author of creation, God, writes the Book of Life and illustrates it via
DNA codes with our life experiences providing the “data” each and every second for the messenger
molecules forming and informing an infinite number of space-time “real” worlds. With this insight, I
wept tears of joy for I knew that my prayers had been answered: my deliverance from pain was at hand
and my walk into wellbeing had begun. Although I was optimistic, and looking forward to the treatment
sessions, I was about to take an unexpected swan dive, and it was not the 6,500 foot elevation in
Durango that made me swoon either.

I Died in Durango

“Are you okay, John?” my nurse, Jessica Dehen, R.N., asked. She had
skillfully inserted the first of ten-day intravenous (I.V.) needles into my
arm, but suddenly my mind relaxed its tenacious grip on the pain in my
neck. I unwittingly started to slump into what I imagined was the darkness of unconsciousness, so
replying softly, I said what I felt was obviously true: “I’m dying.”

She calmly helped me into a black lounge chair and discretely summoned Dr. Glanville to check my vital
signs, if that was needed. But it wasn’t, and of course I was not dying but being reborn in fact into a new
way of living. Yet I didn’t know that until a few days later after I shared what had happened to me with
Jessica and she corrected my distorted perceptions of this incident. She informed me that I did not faint
nor have any type of adverse reaction to the amino acid nutrients whatsoever, rather I simply slipped
into a deep state-of-sleep—and snored to high heaven!

As I reflected upon her words, that made perfect sense since I had not slept without a sleeping pill in
months. I knew I had stopped dreaming once I began taking Ambien™ and my educated guess was that
rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep is much more critical than we have imagined. Perhaps, the brain-body
cannot repair itself properly if we induce sleep with drugs of all types: alcohol, prescription, and street?
Maybe the organic messenger molecules created by nature such as serotonin, dopamine and melatonin,
for examples, are paralyzed, and cannot exchange DNA-RNA protein synthesis maintenance information
between brain hemispheres, I pondered?

Author of Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism,
Daniel Pinchbeck, shared the conclusions of Dr. Carl Anderson of McLean Hospital, Virginia: “…
disparities between the left and right brain disrupt REM sleep, which as Anderson notes is ‘essential for
emotional regulation, learning, and memory
consolidation.’” In particular, I agree with Dr. Anderson,
although I acknowledge that Pinchbeck, a wise urban
"This body, that you are shaman in his own right, is not totally convinced yet with
in, has been alive forever. respect to this physician’s hypothesis: “Interhemispheric
It comes from an struggles, primarily a result of child abuse, may be a
unending stream of life, fundamental psychological root of drug addiction.” (See
going back to the Big Bang www.breakingopenthehead.com)
and beyond."
Accordingly, drug addiction is indeed getting worse every
single year in PTSD breeding grounds: military combat
zones, inner cities, and First Nations reservations. This is the siren song warning that our children and
grandchildren are at high-risk for self-destruction in untold numbers if we do not intervene now, if not
for any other reason that we are a nutritionally-bankrupt nation! The obesity we see is symptomatic of
stress stored in belly fat and the high corn sugar-low exercise diets will have only one long-term
outcome for the Western world: degenerative diseases such as arthritis, diabetes, hypertension,
premature pain, suffering, and death with its correlated runaway health care medical costs for
taxpayers.

So I asked myself: Can amino acid therapy rewire our genes towards not only optimal wellness and
personal happiness but world peace too? Is it that simple: Let food be our medicine in the way that the
father of medicine, Hippocrates, meant it? It’s a visionary idea for certain and will require considerable
scrutiny if and when taken seriously enough to have federal government funds assigned to it. In the
meantime, I’d reflect upon the meaning of the epigenetic medicine model findings of Dawson Church,
Ph.D. relayed recently in his book The Genie in Your Genes: “The healing power of consciousness and
intention appears to be independent of time as well as space. Prayer seems to work retroactively as well
as across great distances. Perhaps the whimsical injunction is true: ‘It’s never too late to have a happy
childhood!’” (See www.soulmedicineinstitute.org)

Can we pray our self and world well too? This much I know from my observation: our brain is a terrible
thing to see waste away on junk food, drugs, and booze! Slowly I stitched the pieces of my addiction,
pain, and stress disorder together with the help of the staff assigned to me for that purpose: co-
counselors extraordinaire Steve Sewell, Steve Adams, and shamanic practitioner Marie Redfeather.
Though my life story is not unique, it is totally relevant to you my friends regarding how to heal from
childhood traumas, symptoms, employing specific steps I took along the way that I methodically,
painstakingly but also joyously, outlined in the Second Edition of my book, Tranceformers: Shamans of
the 21st Century. Again, Daniel Pinchbeck speaks wisely beyond his tears: “With his visions, his ability to
transform energies, and his mastery of healing, Christ could be seen as a prototypical shaman.”

Not surprisingly, every one of the lessons-learned on my own from decades of research, I saw
incorporated into the wellness model employed at Mind & Body Works. Therefore, amino acid therapy
is the key to survival in our efforts to offset the impact of climate changes and what near-death
researcher at the University of Connecticut, Professor of Psychology Emeritus Ken Ring, Ph.D., knowingly
called us to embrace two decades ago: the “shamanizing of humanity!” By the way, my two books are
also directly related to what is happening to people and planet today in era-2012: We are threatened
with extinction. As cell biologist Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. has said, “It’s the environment stupid!” Our toxic
technology has turned our agricultural soils and drinking water sources into septic tanks and our
dysfunctional attitudes, behaviors, and lifestyles are eating away at our immune systems worldwide.
(See www.brucelipton.com and www.iands.org)

Thus I cannot emphasize enough the importance of shamanic tools and techniques for our day and age
for it is indeed the “myths” by which we live that determine our life story individually and collectively as
a civilization. What is it we want to experience, in other words? It could not be said more clearly and
forcefully than this prophet: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7)

The Key is Under Your Mother’s Pillow

Over the 10-day course of I.V. treatments with amino acid nutrients, what I
came to call “Love Potion Number 9,” I also had sessions with other
outstanding health care providers including Healing Touch™ with Linda
Marie Ambrose, as well as in the downtown Durango community. Namely
massage therapy at Amaya Natural Therapeutics, and acupuncture at
Animas Oriental Medicine clinic.

Macushla F. Hobin, L.Ac., MSTOM is a graduate of the Pacific College of

Oriental Medicine, San Diego, California and her expertise in clinical
diagnosis and needle placement really opened the door—chakras and meridians—to my healing. For the
first time in six months, I finally heard an assessment of my situation that made sense of the symptoms
that was a true mystery to me. Yet I agreed with her immediately, intellectually and intuitively, as to the
underlying cause-effect relationships: Sleep Deprivation. More so, I was told that my neck symptoms
presented itself in a way that was well-known to the classical oriental medicine model and therefore had
specific treatment protocols that could be followed to heal me now.
Beyond a doubt, I benefited once these blocked pathways were opened to the flow of life force energy
—ch’i—again through my spinal column vertebras and into the skull’s sinus cavities. I felt the instant
relief from pain when she inserted needles into C7 vertebra that second session: these circuits began to
function as intended. That is, I was no longer grid-locked neurologically between my head and heart in
particular and the neurotransmitters could transmit messages full-circle in these circuits of
consciousness. My nerves quieted down and restored themselves to peaceful co-existence with the
natural rhythms of my lifestyle in the days and weeks ahead.

Marie Redfeather played a pivotal role in recovering and releasing early childhood trauma that I had
completely buried within my body. She is a First Nations, French-Canadian descent initiate of Peruvian
shamanism. Through her expertise, and sensitivity, to what was seeking to surface during our counseling
sessions and ceremonies together, we rediscovered a series of medical crises that had crippled me
throughout my life. Specifically, I broke my leg in the 3 rd grade and had to be transported for treatment
to Auburn General Hospital, Washington. This was in the days when a parent could not visit or stay at
will with a scared child, but to make matters even more terrifying in my case the ward nurses used
hypodermic needle injections to sedate me—keep me quiet—throughout the night.

Moreover, during my days hooked-up to I.V. at Mind & Body Works, I flashbacked to several incidents
that involved doctors, nurses, syringes and I.V.s in Seattle. For examples, I had blocked memories of
Children’s Orthopedic and Virginia Mason Hospital clinic visits that had traumatized me severely in my
early teen years. Thus, we uncovered and brought to light how these disturbing incidents ultimately
steered my studies to psychology and theology in my totally subconscious efforts to continually work
through these fears as an adult much as psychiatrist Stan Grof, M.D. outlines happens in Psychology of
the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research. (See www.holotropic.com)

Needless to say, I was indeed “awakened at needle point” in Durango, Colorado! However, it was the
insights of the founder of Mind & Body Works that triggered a major catharsis during his first counseling
session with me. Steve Sewell patiently listened to my medical history: recitations of childhood and
alcohol abuse, military injuries and related psychophysical symptoms, allopathic and integrative
treatments, as he observed my body gestures, too. He then gently, nonchalantly offered this “pearl of
great price” for me to mediate upon later that evening at the Iron Horse Inn motel as my counseling
homework assignment: “The Key is Under Your Mother’s Pillow.”

So I mused into the night, as my wife slept alongside me, about my life’s story and how I spoke it into
existence with every word uttered. Specifically, I came to see the wisdom in the words of St. John: “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1). That is to
say, I needed to wash my mouth out with soap for I spewed out toxic temper tantrums, childish
concepts and emotions in nearly every sentence. I colored my world with words that had coagulated,
nearly choked the life out of me with fear over many years by failing to follow my bliss as a public-
speaker because I was reenacting my mother’s sense of “learned helplessness,” also known as clinical
depression, at being abandoned by my father—not me. In reality, I never knew my father given my age
at the time of his departure so how could I blame him for being a bad parent or role model? But I did
incorporate—make physical—every negative emotion my mother felt and expressed by her body
postures and inadvertently “poisoned” my environment. My father had little to do with my life issues
was the bottom-line: It was “mommy dearest” after all.

Summary
Apostle Paul summed-up my conclusions nicely: “Now you together are Christ's body; but each of you is
a different part of it.” (I Cor. 12:27) No one knows that truth better than Andrew Newberg, M.D.,
Director of Research at the Myrna Brind Center for Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University
Hospital and Medical College. He is a pioneer in the study of a field frequently referred to today as
“neurotheology.” In his career, he has also actively pursued neuro-imaging research projects on aging
and dementia, Parkinson's disease, depression, and other neurological and psychiatric disorders. He has
also researched the neurophysiological correlates of acupuncture, meditation, and alternative therapies,
and how brain function is associated with mystical and religious experiences. Dr. Newberg has received
an award from the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences for his program entitled "The Biology of
Spirituality." (See www.andrewnewberg.com)

In the Gospel of Thomas, Christ spoke these words of wisdom: “If you bring forth what is within you,
what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is inside you, what you do not bring
forth will destroy you.” Daniel Pinchbeck has the right molecular spin on many of these matters: “The
tryptamine molecule is the building block of many neurotransmitters. … You may spend the rest of your
life suppressing the memory, but it is still inside of you.” Later in a mystical burst of clarity, I saw that I
did not get sick or healed in a vacuum these past months either, rather my life story was the well-
orchestrated script that God designed to bring me to Him and my future work with people suffering
from addictions, pain, and stress disorders needing amino acid therapy.

No doubt about it today, my history is not my destiny. Yet to say I’m objective anymore is a lie: I am
subjective in that I know what works and I plan on shouting it from the rooftops. If you are an
adventurous, courageous soul willing to follow the road less travelled to achieve optimal wellness here
and hereafter, then I wholeheartedly suggest that you go to this website right now without delay:
www.mindandbodyworks.org. Note that they are a non-profit organization and need your love
offering donations to stay afloat. Indeed, be bold and call the Mind & Body Works clinic Toll Free at 1-
888-788-7348 and see how you can help spread the word in your community, and perhaps you or a
loved one will likewise become awakened at needle point!

Further Recommended Reading References:

1. For those interested in the symbolic treatment of illness, I refer you to an eclectic new book on
this topic, Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy by Alejandro
Jodorowsky in Paris, France. As well as the insights of Jungian-oriented psychotherapist Paul
Levy in Portland, Oregon, himself a former mental hospital patient and now “crazy life a fox.”
(See www.awakeninthedream.com)
2. Braverman, E.R., M.D., and Pfeiffer, C.C., M.D., Ph.D. The Healing Nutrients Within: Facts,
Findings and New Research on Amino Acids. CT: Keats Publishing, Inc., 1987.
3. Twiss, Richard. One Church Many Tribes. CA: Regal Press, 2000. ( www.wiconi.org)

About the Author

John Jay Harper is a Community Health Coach specializing in the treatment of addiction, pain and stress
disorders and author of the bestseller Tranceformers: Shamans of the 21st Century. He holds post-
graduate degrees in Business Administration, Human Resource Management, Community Health
Administration, Wellness Promotion as well as Clinical Hypnotherapy and Psychology. He can be reached
for radio/TV/print media-interviews at jjayharper@msn.com or on Facebook anytime. John is now
serving as a consultant to Mind & Body Works in order to establish a public-speaking awareness
campaign for amino acid therapy clinics nationwide. (See www.johnjayharper.com)