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Visionary Experience: Exploring the Intersection of Buddhism and Shamanism 

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October 7 October 21 EDT

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Pre-Workshop Lecture and Meditations Available Now On Demand | LIVE Workshop October 21, 11am-5pm ET (Convert your time here.)

If you can’t attend this event live, all registrants will have access to the recording.

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Visionary Experience: Exploring the Intersection of Buddhism and Shamanism 

This course will help you to understand and develop your own visionary capacities through the lens of two ancient traditions where visionary experience has been the cornerstone of practice and self-development for thousands of years. You will learn about the general history and practice of both traditions and then focus on learning different methods of developing and attaining visionary experience, and honing your inner vision, in each of them. These are grounded, yet expansive methods which you could apply in your personal or professional life. This class is particularly helpful if you are trying to organize your capacity to understand and develop your visionary skills, and is suitable for visionaries at all levels of development. 


PRE-WORKSHOP LECTURE & MEDITATIONS: An Overview of Visionary Experience in Shamanic and Buddhist Practices

This pre-recorded module, released two weeks before the live session, offers teachings on the larger context of shamanic and Buddhist practice, and how visionary experience informs and enlivens both traditions. We’ll look at how visionary experience is expressed in both Shamanic and Buddhist Practices, in particular the journey from ordinary reality to non-ordinary reality, and back. We will cover an overview of the commonalities and differences between the two traditions, with focus on the visionary experience, and consider visionary experiences through both Shamanic and Buddhist lenses and contexts.

  1. Daily Samatha Meditation practice
  2. Consideration of suffering-inducing statements
  3. Post-meditation journaling


LIVE WORKSHOP + PRACTICE: The Shamanic Journey and the Fundamentals of Deity Meditation Drawn from Buddhist Practice

In this day-long class, you will learn the basics of the shamanic journey, one of the primary ways shamanic practitioners access inner vision. You will also learn the fundamental processes of deity meditation drawn from Buddhist practice, receive assistance in identifying your strengths as a visionary, and help in addressing any challenges you find in the process of integrating your visionary capacities into your everyday life. And finally we will have an oracle demonstration with student questions.


This course offers the unique opportunity to:

  • Explore Buddhist traditions that are deeply tied to Shamanism
  • Learn meditations that can help the visionary organize their inner experience
  • Follow along with stories of spiritual journeys that can serve as archetypes for our own

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In the mid-nineties, Isa began developing Depth Hypnosis as she entered into clinical practice. Her studies, both in academia and in the field of cultural and linguistic anthropology, comparative religion, and transpersonal psychology formed the basis of her approach with clients and students. As the body of work that grew out of her clinical practice became larger, she began teaching others so that more people could benefit from the techniques she had developed. In order to accommodate the number of classes that grew out of this process, she co-founded the Foundation of the Sacred Stream, which is now a school for consciousness studies in Berkeley, California, serving hundreds of students each year. Isa teaches and speaks nationally and internationally, and she has published numerous articles, podcast episodes, videos, and the books Return to the Great Mother and Coming to Peace. She maintains a private practice with institutions and individuals in Depth Hypnosis and Coming to Peace processes. Isa speaks five languages and has lived in eleven countries. She is the mother of two children and lives with her partner in San Francisco.

Isa Gucciardi