Over the last half of the 20th Century, alternative religions and spiritual practices have found increasing numbers of followers in Europe and North America. The practices of Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Meditation and Yoga have spread rapidly giving millions of people, who were once socialized in a more traditional Christian or Judaic philosophy, a new way to "connect" to the spiritual, find answers within themselves, and ultimately find meaning in today's world. Some people, whose religious philosophy and practice were rooted in European based religions, even found a preferred spiritual expression in the Native American traditions of the medicine wheel, spirit guides, ceremonial rituals, and dream prophecy.
However, this religious force has moved predominately from the East to the West. It has been only in the last few years that there has been a growing interest in spiritual healing and shamanic practices from below the equator, namely from the Amazon and the villages of the Andes in South America.
In her exceptional book Masters of the Living Energy, Joan Parisi Wilcox captures the ancient and sacred traditions of the Andes, namely the mystical world of the Q'ero of Peru. Of all of the Andean communities, the Q'ero Inca seemed to have been singled out to be, what Wilcox calls "the keepers of the ancient knowledge." What is extraordinary about her book is, by writing this book in a purist and painstaking way, that she too has become a keeper of this ancient knowledge. Through dozens of persistent and careful interviews with the most powerful Q'ero shaman, she has preserved not just the core of the Q'ero healing practices, but every detail of their rituals, the hierarchy of Q'ero paqos (shaman), the comprehensive energy body, the levels of Apus, the meaning and gift of the mesa, the despacho, and a comprehensive semantic which explains the intricate architecture of the Q'ero's spiritual cosmological system.
Masters of the Living Energy is a work of enormous integrity. You feel it on every page. The glossary in the back of the book emphasizes the meticulous detail and discipline of the Q'ero mystic ideology. The traditions of the Q'ero have been passed down by word-of-mouth for centuries from generation to generation. No book, no written record, has recorded this ancient oral tradition so well. The pure ancient Q'ero traditions have been unspoiled in the modern world's search for quick spiritual meaning in the name of healing, unlike offshoots of pure Buddhism, Yoga, and other spiritual practices, which have become popularized to appeal to a more universal following. Joan Parisi Wilcox has recorded the authenticity and complex sacred traditions of the Q'ero Inca. To her enormous credit, she has captured the Q'ero as they were centuries ago and as they struggle to remain.
John M. Weiskopf
Author of "The Ascendancy"