Eliot Cowan

Eliot Cowan is the author of Plant Spirit Medicine, and a shaman in the Huichol tradition. He is the founder of the Plant Spirit Medicine Seminary and the Blue Deer Center. As a provider at the Blue Deer Center, Eliot offers Plant Spirit Medicine practitioner training courses, continuing education for PSM practitioners, healing camps based on traditional Huichol healing, and animal totem courses. Eliot Cowan has been teaching, leading healing retreats, and maintaining private practice for many years. He began to study and practice herbalism in 1969, then temporarily set it aside to study acupuncture. He received his Licentiate, Bachelor and Master of Acupuncture degrees from the late J. R. Worsley at the College of Traditional Acupuncture, Leamington Spa, England, and served on the faculty of that institution in 1979-1980. In the early 1980’s, Eliot once again turned his attention to herbal healing. Following a recommendation by Dr. Worsley, he began seeking the guidance of the plants themselves to support the healing of his clients. In this way, Eliot rediscovered the ancient shamanic practice of plant spirit medicine. Eliot continued his healing work through the traditions of the Huichol people of Mexico. He completed his shamanic apprenticeship with the late Don Guadalupe Gonzalez Rios, an eminent Huichol Indian Shaman. Don Guadalupe ritually recognized Eliot as a leader of shamanic apprentices in the Huichol tradition, and today more than twenty former apprentices are initiated shamans themselves. Through his great wit, will, wisdom, and indefatigable enthusiasm, Eliot Cowan brings us the sacred healing traditions of the Huichol Indians and the plant spirits.