INDIGENOUS CULTURES / HEALING
“Indigenous wisdom knows that ‘to live is to move.’ To awaken from our deep slumber means our bones will be rattled, and we’ll be shaken to the core. In this invitation into very ancient medicine, we hear the voices of the elders issuing a timely wake-up call, accessible to the modern world through Bradford Keeney, their brother and representative in the West.”
--Malidoma Somé, Ph.D., elder, teacher, and author of Healing Wisdom of Africa and Of Water and the Spirit
Shaking Medicine reintroduces the oldest medicine on Earth--the ecstatic shaking of the human body. Most people’s worst fear is losing control--of their circumstances, of their emotions, and especially of their bodies. Yet in order to achieve the transcendent state necessary to experience deep healing, we must surrender control. Examining cultural traditions from around the world where shaking has been used as a form of healing--from the Shakers and Quakers of New England to the shaking medicine of Japan, India, the Caribbean, the Kalahari, and the Indian Shakers of the Pacific Northwest--Bradford Keeney shows how shaking can bring profound therapeutic benefits.
Keeney investigates the full spectrum of the healing cycle that occurs when moving from ecstatic arousal to deep trance relaxation. He explains how the alternating movement produced while shaking brings all the body’s energetic systems into balance. He includes practical exercises in how to shake for physicaltherapeutic benefit, and he shows how these techniques lead ultimately to the shaking medicine that both enables and enhances spiritual attunement. The book also includes a 40-minute CD of ecstatic drumming music to use while shaking.
Bradford Keeney, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned scholar, therapist, and shaman who has led expeditions throughout the world to study cultural healing practices. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Rock Art Research Institute, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and is the author of Bushman Shaman: Awakening the Spirit through Ecstatic Dance, Shamanic Christianity: The Direct Experience of Mystical Communion, and the editor of the Profiles of Healing series.
INDIGENOUS CULTURES / HEALING
“Indigenous wisdom knows that ‘to live is to move.’ To awaken from our deep slumber means our bones will be rattled, and we’ll be shaken to the core. In this invitation into very ancient medicine, we hear the voices of the elders issuing a timely wake-up call, accessible to the modern world through Bradford Keeney, their brother and representative in the West.”
--Malidoma Somé, Ph.D., elder, teacher, and author of Healing Wisdom of Africa and Of Water and the Spirit
Shaking Medicine reintroduces the oldest medicine on Earth--the ecstatic shaking of the human body. Most people’s worst fear is losing control--of their circumstances, of their emotions, and especially of their bodies. Yet in order to achieve the transcendent state necessary to experience deep healing, we must surrender control. Examining cultural traditions from around the world where shaking has been used as a form of healing--from the Shakers and Quakers of New England to the shaking medicine of Japan, India, the Caribbean, the Kalahari, and the Indian Shakers of the Pacific Northwest--Bradford Keeney shows how shaking can bring profound therapeutic benefits.
Keeney investigates the full spectrum of the healing cycle that occurs when moving from ecstatic arousal to deep trance relaxation. He explains how the alternating movement produced while shaking brings all the body’s energetic systems into balance. He includes practical exercises in how to shake for physicaltherapeutic benefit, and he shows how these techniques lead ultimately to the shaking medicine that both enables and enhances spiritual attunement. The book also includes a 40-minute CD of ecstatic drumming music to use while shaking.
Bradford Keeney, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned scholar, therapist, and shaman who has led expeditions throughout the world to study cultural healing practices. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Rock Art Research Institute, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and is the author of Bushman Shaman: Awakening the Spirit through Ecstatic Dance, Shamanic Christianity: The Direct Experience of Mystical Communion, and the editor of the Profiles of Healing series.
Audio Tracks and Pronunciation Guide
Foreword
By the Bushman Elders
1 The Shake
Rediscovering the Oldest and Newest Cure on Earth
2 The Cycle of Healing
Ecstatic Arousal and Deep Relaxation
3 The World’s First Shakers
The Kalahari Bushman Shamans
4 The Last Taboo
Why Did the Quakers Stop Quaking and the Shakers Stop
Shaking?
5 Experience versus Ideology
Spiritual Dilemmas in the Northwest
6 Harnessing the Shake
Spiritual Traveling in the Caribbean
7 Singing Down the Spirit
The African American Church
8 Seiki Jutsu
The Japanese Shaking Medicine
9 Coiled Wisdom
Shaking Medicine, Shakti, and Kundalini
10 The Life Force Theatre
Performances and Testimonies
11 The Ultimate Medicine
From Shaken Faith to Shaking Faith
Afterword
The First People Speak about Shaking
Medicine
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Bradford Keeney, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned scholar, therapist, and shaman who has led expeditions throughout the world to study cultural healing practices. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Rock Art Research Institute, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and is the author of Bushman Shaman: Awakening the Spirit through Ecstatic Dance, Shamanic Christianity: The Direct Experience of Mystical Communion, and the editor of the Profiles of Healing series.
“I had a personal experience of Brad’s shaking power. . . . He
placed one of his hands on my upper back and the other opposite on
my upper chest. He began to shake vigorously, and apparently
involuntarily, throughout his entire body. His face, shoulders,
torso, and feet were vibrating with some invisible power, like a
wave that was continuously cresting in his body and crashing and
rippling in his fingertips. I felt the trembling power pass through
me. . . . While receiving this beautiful ‘gift,’ I was transported
to the Kalahari. I saw the tribal people with whom he had danced; I
viewed their villages and landscape. I was in Africa as truly as if
I had opened my eyes and found myself physically there.”
*Kenneth Cohen, author of The Way of Qigong: The Art and Science of
Chinese Energy Healing*
“Indigenous wisdom knows that ‘to live is to move.’ To awaken from
our deep slumber means our bones will be rattled, and we’ll be
shaken to the core. In this invitation into very ancient medicine,
we hear the voices of the elders issuing a timely wake-up call,
accessible to the modern world through Bradford Keeney, their
brother and representative in the West.”
*Malidoma Somé, Ph.D., elder, teacher, and author of Healing Wisdom
of Africa and Of Water and t*
“Dr. Keeney’s work marks the beginning of an awakening of the
universal life force that is accessible to everyone. I have
personally experienced his method of moving the life force in my
own body--circulating it up and down my spine, passing it through
my fingertips, and feeling it tingling the tips of my toes. It is
time for each of us to become acquainted with this energizing
force.”
*Dr. Robert Fulford, author of Dr. Fulford’s Touch of Life:
Aligning Body, Mind, and Spirit to*
“Bradford Keeney is an authentic shaman who, in his ceremonial
practice, answers the question: What would happen if you gave a
university professor a kind heart and a limitless infusion of
spiritual power?”
*Stephen and Robin Larsen, authors of A Fire in the Mind: The Life
of Joseph Campbell*
“I felt like I was floating and wanted to move my body with speed
and precision. All of my senses were intensified. I recognized this
condition as being similar to the ki activation that I had learned
to utilize in aikido training. The difference was that the
intensity of this energy was magnitudes beyond what I had
previously experienced; it was beyond what I’d ever imagined.”
*Don Wright, former teacher of Ericksonian hypnotherapy at the
Esalen Institute*
“The experience I had in Brad Keeney’s ceremony was very
important--his hands irradiated light in my head.”
*Dr. Pierre Weil, author of The Art of Living in Peace: Towards a
New Peace Consciousness, founder of*
"Another way to open the self to physical, mental, emotional and
spiritual flow is through movement. . . . However it comes, one is
forever changed . . . "
*ForeWord Magazine, Jan/Feb 2008*
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