Biohacker Meets Spirit Hacker Shaman Durek #517 Audio Episode 2

Bulletproof Radio.

A state of high performance.

You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Today's cool fact of the day is that mindfulness is actually meeting medical school. The University of Massachusetts was a little bit ahead of the curve when it comes to looking at what's going on in your head and what it has to do with, with what's going inside your body. Because in 1979, they founded a program that's since had 24,000 people trained in a method called Kabat Zen's Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, or mbsr. So this has become something that's spread around a long time ago, but now the university is breaking new ground by creating a new division in its medical school dedicated to real academic, scientific study of the role of mindfulness in healthcare. And this is the first medical school division of mindfulness anywhere. And it's based on the fact that this school started doing it many years ago. The reason they did this is that they just said, quote, we recognize the deep potential synergies between the domains of medicine and meditation, and they're opening the door to new neuroscience research, efficacy studies that refine treatment and training in mindfulness interventions, novel treatments, and even digital therapeutics. What this means for you and me is that when you go to see your doctor five, ten years from now, maybe they'll ask you what's going on inside your head, not just ask you for some symptoms and give you some pills. I'm pretty excited about a future like that, and I hope you are too. Today's show is going to be awesome, and it's going to be a little unusual. I started out my path as a Silicon Valley engineer, actually pretty skeptical, to be perfectly honest. And when I tried all the things that were supposed to work, like working out all the time, eating a lot less and taking a lot of antibiotics for chronic sinus infections and arthritis and things like that that I had in my teens, I realized it just didn't work. So as a rational engineer, I said, I'll just try the things that aren't supposed to work. Like I'll go to Tibet and study meditation with the masters, and I will consciously and scientifically and willingly suspend my disbelief and then see what happens. And it turns out there's a name for that. It's the first step of the scientific method. It's called observation. And so 20 something years later, I can tell you I have observed some things that are not well explained by a traditional view of mechanistic science. If you believe you're a Meat robot. And you really hold onto that belief. You probably won't like the interview today. However, if you think you might have something more inside there, or maybe that sometimes the universe is more interesting than it first appears. This is going to be a really interesting interview. If you heard my interview with Jack Canfield, I asked him directly, what's the deal with energy workers and things like that? It seems like a lot of the billionaires that I know actually work with people like that. And I said, jack, you've worked with a lot more people with incredible levels of success than I have. Is this common? And he just laughed and said, of course it's common. This is standard stuff. Everyone's doing this. So given that and given the fact that I've known a good number of people who just somehow know things or can do things that you cannot explain rationally but are repeatable and knowable, I seek out people like that and sometimes they seek me out, which is what happened for today's interview. Today's guest is known as Shaman Durek. Shaman Durek is a third generation shaman. He's the son of a Norwegian medicine woman and the grandson of a Haitian shaman. He started training as a shaman at 12 years old and was known as his grandmother's successor even before he was born. Now, even that could make a skeptic question. Things like, how the heck could you know? And the answer is, because people who can do this kind of stuff, they just know. And you can either say, let me listen to this, or you can say, that can't be possible. And I'll tell you, the least scientific thing you could ever say is that didn't happen, because it can't. That's not called science, that's called dogma. So I'll tell you, there are people like Shamadurak around who know cool things. And in his case, more than three decades after he was born and trained as a shaman, he applies ancient spiritual wisdom coupled with years of devoted study and practice to help people be more successful, happier, and to heal from things that you probably wouldn't believe. We're talking going into hospitals around the world. He speaks four different languages and has helped huge numbers of people get over things. And he just did a treatment session on me earlier today. And he has the ability to just know stuff that really he shouldn't be able to know, except he can because, well, he's a shaman and he calls himself a spirit hacker, which is really cool. Shaman Durek, welcome to the show.

Hi. Thank you, Dave. It's a pleasure to Be here.

What'd you think? That introduction, Did I nail it?

I think it was great introduction. Thank you. It was very kind. The only thing is, my family is not only. My grandmother is West African and Haitian.

Ah, okay.

Got it. From Ghana.

From Ghana. And when you were doing a shamanic session with me, you were saying some things that sounded like they were in an African language. What language was that?

That's Swahili. And also there were other languages that came in from different spirits that took over my body.

I definitely heard some Chinese in there.

I have a Chinese spirit that comes through as well that works on you, on your points and your body and your meridians as well.

Do you speak Chinese?

I don't, but it's funny because I've been with people when the spirits come through who do speak these languages and they know exactly what I'm saying.

So you had no idea what you were saying?

No.

That is fascinating. I was laying on the grass in my backyard and Chamandurek was working on aligning some energetic stuff, and I think I counted four different languages. But they weren't the ones you speak. At least many of them weren't.

No, we have different spirits that come through because I'm a spirit shaman. So my body becomes when I begin to do shamanic work on people, if need be. But today I had to clean out a lot of different poisons out of your body. Spirits will come through that are part of the ancestral line of elders, and they will come through and take over my body and begin to work on you. They'll even sing songs. They'll do icaruses. It will depend on what elder comes through the body.

What is the difference between a spirit shaman and a non spirit shaman, or whatever you call them?

So most shamans that work with plant medicines or any type of medicines are basically raised in that understanding of that culture and understanding of the medicine and the plants in that regional area where they are. There are certain specific guidelines and certain things that they have to follow when it comes to medicine. Unfortunately, today, not all shamans who are giving plant medicines are actually trained in that very reverent way of understanding both the spirit of the plant and the plant itself. Spirit shamanism is based on the understanding that when we're chosen, we're chosen because we already have certain gifts about us as children. And then when we are selected to be the next in line, certain spirits, we have access to certain spirits that come through, and those spirits allow us and give us the abilities that we have as we prove to them that we are devotional and reverent and respectful and have an understanding to honor people just as much as we honor spirits. We call it talmuntu, which basically means to honor the spirit in the body and also honor the spirit that is out of the body.

How do you know that you're not making all this stuff up?

Because I know, because I see what I'm capable of doing.

I'll tell you, I'm not a skeptic here at all. But there are certainly people listening who are saying, how is it that you can do this and they can't do this?

The thing is, they can do this. And in order for them to do that, we have to remove certain energies, or certain. I call it firewalls is the name I came up with in the body that limit them from doing it. Because they've been programmed by the outside world and put into a system when they first came to Earth that told them that they have to follow rules according to being good or not being good. And those rules literally didn't really have anything to do with them as a person. However, they follow those rules and they go into an institution that makes up a bunch of tests that really don't really have anything to do with them as well. And what happens is in that process, they become really good at deducting and subtracting and like following rules and taking tests. The other things that are happening, such as the emotional intelligence, what's happening in the peripheral, the things that they feel, all of these things are happening to people all the time. And what happens is they put more energy and more focus on the part of them that is focused on the need to achieve. Because when you achieve, you get love. When you create, you get love. And when you're successful or you have something going on, you get love in this world. And so that is what they focus on. So everyone has the ability to do what I can do. The thing is, they're not aware that they have that ability.

So you're saying that we all have more abilities inside us than we are usually tapped into.

Many, many ab.