Henry Barnard Wesselman (born 1941 in New York City) is an anthropologist known primarily for his Spiritwalker trilogy of spiritual memoirs. In them, he claims to have been in contact with "Nainoa," an ethnic Hawaiian kahuna (shaman) living some 5,000 years in our future. The books envision the imminent collapse of Western civilization as a result of Global Warming. On a more positive note, Wesselman perceives an ongoing "wide-spread spiritual reawakening" which he dubs the "Modern Mystical Movement."
Together with his wife Jill Kuykendall, Wesselman leads New Age shamanic workshops and tours for the Esalen Institute and other, similar institutions. They divide their time between northern California and Captain Cook, Hawaii.
Wesselman received his undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and his doctorate in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley. During the 1960s he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria, among the Yoruba. He has participated in paleoanthropology research in east Africa's Great Rift Valley.
He is an instructor at American River College and Sierra College, both in California, and has also taught classes for the University of California at San Diego; the University of Hawaii at Hilo; the Kiriji Memorial College in Igbajo, Nigeria; and Adeola Odutola College in Ijepurode, Nigeria.
Spiritwalker: Messages from the Future. Bantam, 1995 (HC) and 1996 (TPB). ISBN 0-553-37837-6
:Describes a series of spiritual experiences beginning in the early 1980's, in which Wesselman seemed to see through the eyes of "Nainoa," a Californian living 5000 years after the collapse of the "Great Age" of technology. Nainoa, a member of a Hawaiian-based society which has re-peopled America's west coast, is sent into the continent's interior on a mission to seek out the descendents of the "Americans" and, if possible, find horses (for potential military use in a developing political conflict). On the journey, Nainoa explores his shamanic calling, learns of his relationship with Wesselman, and makes contact with the "Ennu," a tribe of hunters and gatherers descended from Canadian Eskimos. As Wesselman struggles with what to make of these experiences, Nainoa must decide whether to complete his mission, or remain with his Ennu lover.
:The future California-Nevada region is depicted as including rainforest and an inland sea, as well as a wide variety of exotic megafauna such as elephants, lions, longhorn cattle, and several monkey and ape species. Wesselman speculates that the ancestors of these animals may have escaped from zoos during the collapse of Western civilization. Both human populations shown in the book live at a neolithic level of technology, with some metal artifacts such as fishhooks.
:The book and its sequels (below) are often compared with the writings of Carlos Castenada, and reference the work of Michael Harner. Besides Nainoa's future world, Wesselman describes various spiritual experiences, including cosmological visions as well as encounters with spirit beings. (See magical realism.)
Medicinemaker: Mystic Encounters on the Shaman's Path. Bantam, 1999. ISBN 0-553-37932-1
:Continues the story with Wesselman's 1989 return to academic life in California, and Nainoa's c. 70th-century return from the American interior, back to his own society and homeland. There he studies to become a kahuna; makes an enemy in one of the other priests; and meets another love interest, the spiritually-aware Maraea (hinted to be a descendent of Wesselman's wife, or perhaps of them both). Nainoa's enemy attempts to kill him by calling upon "spotted tiger man," a spirit familiar--identified with a "leopard man" which Wesselman had encountered and painted--but is ultimately devoured by a tiger.
Visionseeker: Shared Wisdom from the Place of Refuge Hay House, 2002. ISBN 978-1-56170-828-4
:Continues Wesselman's story from 1995 to 2000 around a series of eight visions, which Wesselman and Nainoa gradually come to experience together. A key concept is that of the dorajuadiok, a powerful spirit-being which Wesselman describes as an "energy field" and other quasi-scientific expressions. Much attention is given to Wesselman's exploration of neo-shamanism and other spiritual interests. At one point he learns that his father had experienced similar time-shifts, and was convinced that he had been a seventeenth-century French swordsman.
:"Meanwhile," in the far future, Nainoa marries Maraea, without however abandoning his hope of resuming his relationship with his Ennu lover. Thanks to Maraea's political connections (her grandmother is a "governor"), he is assigned the task of starting a new colony on the eastern shore of their inland sea (i.e., a future, inundated version of California's central valley), with the ultimate goal of building a road which will allow the importation of horses from the Ennu.
:This volume contains several references to Jesus, including a visionary experience of him by Wesselman. During his training as a kahuna, Nainoa is taught a garbled, shamanistic version of the Lord's Prayer which his teacher attributes to the ancient "Americans."
Other books
The Omo Micromammals: Systematics and Paleoecology of Early Man Sites from Ethiopia -- December 1984
The Journey to the Sacred Garden. Hay House, 2003. ISBN 1-4019-0111-5
An introduction to understanding and practicing Core Shamanism. The book includes an experiential CD with drumming and rattling tracks designed to induce altered states.
Spirit Medicine - July 2004
Little Ruth Reddingford and the Wolf - September 2004
A re-imagining of the Little Red Riding Hood story.
Contributions
True Stories of the Island Spirit - Page 216, "Spiritwalker", July 1999, ISBN 1-885211-35-X
The Best of Traveler's Tales - Page 99, "Spiritwalker", March 2002, ISBN 1-885211-69-4
Research Papers
Asa Issie, Aramis and the origin of Australopithecus, Nature 440, 883-889, ISSN: 0028-0836, EISSN: 1476-4687, April 13, 2006. [1]
