We are an organisation dedicated to the renewal of shamanic practises and providing leading shamanic teaching, training and healing in the contemporary western world. We provide practical and theoretical training in shamanism, one to one healings, shamanic ceremonies, hosting of indigenous elders, tarot training, spiritual mentoring and the establishment of a wider animistic community.
Second Sight was established in 2005 by our founder Jez Hughes as means of giving back for the deep healing he had experienced through shamanism, providing a cure for an illness that allopathic medicine wasn’t able to reach as it was largely shamanic in its nature. After his own training and initiations in both Mexico and the U.K. he began to offer one to one healing which quickly became a thriving practice. This was when the real learning began.
Very soon he had the realisation that westerners need a slightly different approach to indigenous people whom are raised from birth in an animistic culture. Having lost our traditional lineages and practices, we have also lost that deep connection and understanding of the animistic nature of reality. To undo this deep unconscious separation from the world that is at the root of much of modern sickness takes time and commitment. Likewise, to move beyond a spiritual naivety and deep hunger that causes people to replay a lot of traumas within their spiritual practices also takes a lot of patience that can only come from a long time spent on the path. Alongside a lot of soul searching and the making of mistakes.
At the same time, people can also get lost in too much healing or soul work, neglecting important outer aspects of their lives. This is where indigenous peoples have so much to teach us, as their spiritual work is always deeply grounded in service to their communities, keeping the focus outward. They also live incredibly tough and demanding lives, usually with much poverty, persecution and physical hardships that can teach us a lot about resilience and survival in our relatively easy material lives. It is an important balance to make between the outer and inner worlds.
Probably for any renewal of shamanistic traditions in the west to take root will take several generations. But, we have to start somewhere. And in countries that have lost their traditions, we believe the land still holds the deep knowledge and wisdom of the ceremonies and rituals that were once practiced here. The land is also the key to understanding what is needed now, not just for the human communities but for the wider environment. What is the exchange, what are the offerings, what is the reciprocity needed that can bring us back into balance again? These are the questions that we have sought to begin to answer through a deep listening to, and practical and spiritual engagement with, the wild woodlands of the U.K.
This has been greatly assisted by our ongoing relationship with the Wixarika Nation, an unbroken shamanic lineage from Northern Mexico. This collaboration has allowed us to learn directly from a shamanistic culture how they relate to their land through their sacred sites, that have been fed spiritually for thousands of years. Each marakame (shaman) in their tradition learns directly from the spirts of the sacred sites, alongside the fire and a medicine they call Hikuri (peyote). They also learn through pilgrimage and being in service to their communities. For the past thirteen years, Jez and other members of the second sight community have sat in hundreds of ceremonies, travelled many times to the communities, pilgrimaged with them and made ongoing commitments to the learn directly from the sacred sites of this tradition.
This teaching has been invaluable and truly immeasurable in terms of helping us to learn how to integrate shamanic practice in relationship with our own land and the ancestors that reside within it. Second Sight also seeks to share the wisdom and beauty of ancient shamanic ways, whilst also bringing awareness to, and assisting in, the struggles indigenous people face in the modern world. This is the particular focus of the Tatewari Foundation that Jez is part of setting up.
At the heart of our work is community. This involves repairing the bonds that have been lost within human families and communities brought up in an era of rampant individualism, The healing of broken bonds between ancestors and their descendants, and, crucially, the reparation of relationship between human culture and nature.
Through a 35 year relationship with spirits and ancestors, study and experience in practising shamanism, and a close relationship with an unbroken shamanic animistic culture, Jez initiated Second Sight to offer a container and structure for others who seek this shamanic path in the modern world.
