In Loving Memory of

Hank Wesselman

Click below to view the GoFundMe.com page and donate to Hank’s memorial fund.

Hank Wesselman (1941-2021)

Research paleoanthropologist and shamanic teacher, Hank Wesselman was one of those rare cutting edge scientists who truly walked between the worlds. He did his undergraduate work, as well as his Masters Degree, in Zoology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, then went on to receive his doctoral degree in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley

A native New Yorker, he spent much of his adult life living and working among traditional tribal peoples, primarily in Africa and Polynesia. He served in the US Peace Corps in the 1960’s, living among people of the Yoruba Tribe in Western Nigeria for two years. It was there that he first became interested in indigenous spiritual wisdom.

Since 1971, he conducted research with an international group of scientists, exploring eastern Africa’s Great Rift Valley in search of answers to the mystery of human origins. During this time, he worked alongside such worthies as Dr. Don Johanson, Lucy’s discoverer; Professor Tim White, whose expeditions have been featured in several TIME magazine cover stories, as well as members of the famous Leakey family. He is one of the primary investigators involved in the discovery of the “Ardi” sites (Ardiptithecus ramidus) in Ethiopia–recently revealed to be the famous missing link between humans and apes that Charles Darwin predicted would be found in Africa. Hank’s research was involved with the paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the sites (4-6 million years old) at the time they were laid down.

Spontaneous visionary experiences in east Africa prompted his discovery of as aspect of the dream and spiritual realms, known to shamanic practitioners. He developed his shamanic skills using the percussive stimulus of drumming and rattling with no chemical stimulants. He was able to broaden and enrich his visionary experiences, resulting in workshop opportunities to teach others.

Hank was honored to teach gatherings of fellow cosmic explorers at the Omega Institute, the Esalen Institute, Breitenbush Hotsprings Retreat Center, Westerbeke Ranch Conference Center and Mosswood Hollow Retreat Center. During the covid shutdown, he taught the Shaman Visionary Circle course, reaching participants worldwide.

In addition to his scientific papers and monographs, his books include his autobiographical trilogy: SPIRITWALKER: MESSAGES FROM THE FUTURE (Bantam, 1995), MEDICINEMAKER: MYSTIC ENCOUNTERS ON THE SHAMAN’S PATH (Bantam, 1998), and VISIONSEEKER: SHARED WISDOM FROM THE PLACE OF REFUGE (Hay House, 2001). These unusual books are focused upon a series of altered state experiences that began spontaneously out in the bush of Africa and document his investigations into a hidden reality that most of us have heard about, but few have experienced directly.

In his explorations of these inner worlds, Hank provided us with a glimpse into the possible evolutionary future of humanity. Combining the sober objectivity of a trained scientist with a mystic’s passionate search for deeper understanding, his books also contain revelations of the generally secret teachings of the Hawaiian kahunas.

His smaller teaching books include THE JOURNEY TO THE SACRED GARDEN: A GUIDE TO TRAVELING IN THE SPIRITUAL REALMS (Hay House 2003) and SPIRIT MEDICINE: HEALING IN THE SACRED REALMS (Hay House, 2004) co-authored with his wife Jill Kuykendall.

Of particular note, Hank’s book,  AWAKENING TO THE SPIRIT WORLDS: THE SHAMANIC PATH OF DIRECT REVELATION (Sounds True, 2010.) was co-authored with Sandra Ingerman and won the Independent Publisher Book Award 2011 – Gold Media Winner – New Age (Mind-Body-Spirit).

Hank’s lifelong passion and curiosity led him into artistic expressions through his paintings, drawings, photographs, stone and bronze sculpture. He was an art student at the California Academy of Art in the 1970s, exploring diverse techniques by which he was able to express his outer and inner experiences, be they in research fields, visionary fields, or places and people which enhanced his life.

At the time of his passing, Hank lived on the beautiful Kona coast of Hawai’i island with his family, where he continued to write and attend to sustainable food production on the family’s homestead farm in South Kona. He passed knowing humankind’s true destiny is to discover our true nature and to love one another.

Hank’s Lineage & Teachings:

Watch the videos below for insight into Hank’s teachings and shamanic lineage.

The Origins of HUMANITY

In this video, Hank discusses his work as an anthropologist and how his work has both contributed to and lead him on his shamanic path. Hank briefly introduces how his work as an anthropologist, more specifically the ancestors, lead him and his wife, Jill, into connection with an Hawaiian elder and kahuna, Hale Makua. Hank’s relationship with this Kuhua Mystic is what helped evolve this work, his teachings, and his understanding of the origins of humanity – both in this world and beyond.

Three Causes of Spiritual Illness

In this video, Hank discusses the three causes of spiritual illnesses. In looking through the shamanic healer’s eyes, the ultimate causes of virtually all illness are to be found within the imaginal realms–in those same regions from which illness derives its initial power to affect us adversely. Because of this, it is not enough to simply suppress the effects of illness with medication on the physical plane and hope for the best. For true healing to occur, the causes of the illness must be addressed.

Symptoms of Soul loss

In this video, Hank discusses the symptoms of soul loss. Among the indigenous peoples of the world, it is generally understood that traumatic life experiences, when they are serious enough, can result in the fragmentation of our inner, vital essence or soul. Often, these traumatized soul aspects dissociate, resulting in a phenomenon generally known as ‘Soul Loss’.

Soul loss is first and foremost an adaptive mechanism that usually serves by allowing us to cope, and in some situations survive a terrible experience, in which the dissociated soul parts depart, carrying the pain, the shock, the extreme emotion, or the memory of the trauma which may be simply unbearable to the sufferer at the time it occurs.

Discover Your Ku or Inner Protector

In this video, Hank discusses the archetype known as Ku which is the protector but also the foundation. This is where your power comes from and is associated with the body soul. Also, this is source of your memories and emotions. Ku is the aspect of yourself that perceives the outer world and then acts accordingly.

In Loving Memory:

Kinds Words & Memories of Hank

Hank Wesselman - A Renaissance Man

Written by Leslie Lemons

For those who have read Hank Wesselman’s trilogy and absorbed his words written and unwritten, for there are always the unwritten words that seep through the narrative, a complex man comes forth. His ambition and brilliant mind are quickly apparent as his life plays out against a background of trials and tribulations and out of this world encounters and he graciously brings us along to share in his experiences and the knowledge and wisdom he gained along the way.

Hank Wesselman, ultimately, was and is a man for all seasons. He gave up his personal dreams to bring a greater knowledge and understanding of the heart of this world, Gaia Sophia, to those who he met along the way. 

Hank had a way of looking deeply into the eyes of all he met because he certainly knew that the eyes are the window to the soul. And he brought forth the best in us, calling out the beauty, strength, resilience and wisdom that we each have in our individual aumakua.

Hank is now a part of all of us as his unbound spirit continues to speak through dreams, visions and journeys. When I release my mind to take in the panoramic drama of his life, a vision appears. I’m standing on a beach, my toes pressed into the sand, the waves lapping at my feet and in the distance against the turquoise jeweled, sparkling sea I perceive the story of Hank’s life and I weep with sorrow as I miss his kindness, humor, insights, humility and humanity.  And yet, as I look beyond that life into the heavens above, the stars twinkling in all their beauty, I rejoice that now he is of even greater service and influence as he lives unhindered by the constraints of human life, accessible to all of us as we continue our journey here on earth and ultimately to the infinite beyond!

Road Map to the New Mythology: The Seven Gifts of Hank Wesselman

Written by R. A. (Tony) Hodge, Victoria, BC Canada

Hank Wesselman touched me profoundly. He was an explorer.  He documented, sought to understand, and found joy in sharing with the rest of us.  The knowledge he imparted was rich in detail, insight, humour and wisdom.     

Remarkably, he left a road map to the new mythology.  Not in the way that a physical map tells you exact directions.  No, much more subtle than that.  Because he deeply understood that there is no single way, that each of us has our own road to follow that is right for us within a broader nourishing community. 

Hank’s road map was not like a paper map that would provide a concrete answer to where the pot of gold might be buried.  Rather, his map consists of a set of diamonds – gifts in the form of techniques and guiding principles that open door after door after door as we each evolve to be a more caring, insightful spirit being living in a more caring, insightful world.

For me, these are seven of those diamonds.

  1. Spirit connection.  We can each connect with the spirit – north, south, east and west; above, below and within.
  2. Being of service.  To others, to the world that is our home.
  3. The Sacred garden.  A place of safety and healing, a place to meet and to set out from, the way station for when we pass to the other side, a place that will always be there.
  4. Journeying.  A way of bridging to the spirit world, as ancient as time. 
  5. Real magic.  Bringing positive change on the physical plane by invoking change on the spirit plane. Far from the magician’s sleight of hand tricks.  In healing practice, facilitating a bridge so that we each can help ourselves and one another.
  6. Protocols.  Rules that are immutable, that if followed, bring grace, that if broken, close the door. 
  7. The Three Kapu of Hale Makua. Passed from Hale Makua to Hank, then passed on to us.

Love you Hank.

“Love all that you see – with humility
Live all that you feel – with reverence
Know all that you possess – with discipline”

Hale Kealohalani Makua,
Hawaiian Elder, 1939 – 2004

A Rare and Wonderful Being who also Entranced his Listeners

Written by Lila Klapman

Hank has moved on to a different density, but thankfully he has left us with an extensive body of work and countless devoted students and friends who will not forget him. I’ve known and appreciated Hank for 20 years, read his writings, taken most of his workshops, and am a practicing shamanist- his word for those who practice shamanism..

I’ve had a lifelong interest in alternative realities. I was a massage staff member and workshop leader at Esalen Institute during the seventies, then met and married my physician husband and raised two sons while having a private practice in hypnosis and bodywork in Santa Cruz. I was ready for Spiritwalker when it literally fell off the shelf and into my lap while I was looking for something else at a bookstore in 2001. Spiritwalker was life changing for me, and its effects are ongoing. I ran up to Sacramento to meet the author of this book, and take one of his early workshops. Then I attended the workshop series with Hank and his amazing wife, Jill Kuykendall, and I’ve been devoted ever since. Much of the workshop information is available in the CD collection called The Spiritwalker Teachings.

Hank was a fantastic writer, and remarkably, in person Hank was the best kind of teacher- a WayShower. He showed us how to open doorways to personal experience, just as he had done and written about. Our spiritual life became the life we lived, and it was different for each person.

Hank had the charm and affability of another great teacher and writer whom I was lucky to have spent time with at Esalen- Joseph Campbell. Hank would sometimes allude to Joseph Campbell with great respect. I couldn’t help but notice their similarities- their skill and grace at storytelling, their enthusiasm for the subject matter, and their ability to bring us into the realms of the transpersonal and magical.

 Michael Toms, writing of Joseph Campbell in An Open Life, says:

“He possessed the rare gift of distilling wisdom from a bottomless well of information and knowledge, and I was entranced.”

Hank, like Campbell, was a rare and wonderful being who also entranced his listeners. He had access to a very special source from which continuous stories wove their way into our hearts and minds. I miss him in this world, but know he is not really gone..

Hank and Jill at Giza

Reflection on Hank Wesselman: A Tribute

Written by Nancy Redfeather

Anyone who drives Highway 19 into South Kona has seen “Hank’s Tree.”  The tree is known to the Yoruba People of West Africa as “Iroko.”  This magnificent giant, that can live up to 500 years old, is unique to Hawai’i and my sense is, that it is one of the World Trees, you know the ones, that connect Heaven and Earth.  The tree is deciduous and each season puts on a new “dress” making the side road to Hank’s home always easy to spot.  The last time I spoke to Hank a month before he passed, we stood in his driveway and gazing up at the giant, he again shared the story of bringing Iroko to Hawai’i as a seedling when he moved to Hawaii.   I will always remember Hank not only for his deep and wide wisdom and rich personal experience of traveling between worlds, but also for his engaging stories, stories that wove the rich and complex tapestry of his life from New York City to his writings and living the Hawaiian Cosmology.   “Iroko” was one of those stories. 

I met Hank and Jill about 20 years ago when they came to a home gardening class at my farm which is down the road from their home.  Over many years we shared meals, stories, and celebrations and I came to know them both as treasured friends and valued members of my Kona community on the West side of the Island of Hawai’i.  I was gifted their books and CDs that I read, but it wasn’t until I took the first of what would be three courses with Hank that I began practicing and integrating his teachings into my everyday life. This wisdom and practice is perfectly laid out in the 6-CD Course entitled “The Spiritwalker Teachings:  Journeys for the Modern Mystic.” 

A few weeks ago, I went back to this course after many years and was amazed at how much more I was able to hear and absorb.  And, while I wish that I could have taken one of the courses live and in person, now…when I hear his voice, he is right here with me, sharing his wisdom, his life experiences, and those rich stories sprouted from seeds that were both shared with him and ones that were truly unique to his personal knowledge stream.   

I have no doubt that his feet continue to be firmly planted here in the ‘aina of Hawai’i perhaps even below Iroko, and that he stretches far into the Cosmos where truly, as I learned from him, all things are creatively possible.

Chillin' on our Nile cruise
Hank in Egypt 2008

Remembering Hank

Written by Carol Asiaghi

Hank Wesselman changed my life in extraordinary and beautiful ways. When I was first guided to his book “Spiritwalker,” I had the feeling that we would become friends; as audacious as that sounds, it did come true.

His illustrious experiences of deep spiritual unfoldment awoke in me my own inner knowing of the nature of our source, our soul(s) and my truth, which is still evolving and unfolding today as a result.

Hank shared his continual questioning and illuminating responses to his own evolution, which created a magical and fertile pathway to the benevolent, unseen mysteries of life on the other side of the mirror.

Hank’s willingness to become a teacher along this path, initially through workshops in Hawai’i (of which I attended five sequentially), allowed me the privilege of meeting the Hawaiian Elder about whom he writes in “The Bowl of Light,” and to know his beautiful wife Jill, whose offerings balanced and enhanced Hank’s.

When Jill attended and shared her teachings, Hank beamed with love and admiration, often humbled by her humor; their shared love and shared wisdom filled the space.

It was in that first miraculous week in Hawai’i that I felt an ancient Hawaiian warrior man merge into my body, during the “Makua talk story.” I had never and have never experienced that before; it was a profoundly moving. When I asked Makua who this was, he said it’s your Au’makua. At the end of that week, Hank had us break into groups and choose leaders to perform a ritual for the rest of the group; I became the leader, and as I offered my blessing on each member of our circle, I saw in myself my life role: to become a person of service. It was after this that I enrolled in seminary and became an Interfaith Minister.

I attended their first “Visionseeker 3.” My mind and body imploded, and my life fell apart in “spectacular ways.” At the end of a two-year healing journey, I met the love of my life, a man who has brought me more joy than my heart can hold and who I would not have met if I had not gone down that road.

There was a time in my life when I had to pull back from Shamanism, but when I said “yes” again, Hank was right there. I felt that I beeped back onto his radar when he emailed me out of the blue, the very day I decided to resurface on my path. Then I knew, even more clearly, that we shared an energetic connection that transcended time.

It was at that point that my own work deepened, thanks to Hank’s and Jill’s powerful continuum program, which allowed me to see clearly how my life wanted to change. Soon after, I left my 30-year career in fashion in New York City, moved to Asheville, NC and began a practice of Shamanism.

Hank’s courage in stepping wholeheartedly into the Spirit world, never intending and yet becoming a spokesperson for the power of direct spiritual experience of the shamanic journey, changed his life, and thereby has changed my own.

His innovative contributions to the craft, which included exploration of the soul, the afterlife, and life everlasting, is so remarkable that no other shamanic teacher approaches this work with such clarity.  His moto of “doing fieldwork,” based on his training and expertise as a research anthropologist, focused a powerful lens on looking at the meaning of “what this is all about.”

I looked at Hank kind of as an older brother whom you look up to, one who had dared to go places, taking risks to see the world in a way that no one else I had known had ever done before. And boy, did I want to follow.

And like a loving big brother or benevolent chief, he was a dutiful servant, bringing back his information from the found worlds of multi-dimensional realities yet unexplored. Which came to life throbbing with color, light, geography and vitality as he recounted all his missions in workshops, books, recordings and talks, shining a flashlight into the dark for me and thousands of other to make our way, feeling through the night of our journeys, finding our own inner gardens.

No explanation needed!
No explanation needed!
No explanation needed!
Hank in Egypt 2008

Attending Hank’s workshops, which I did in Hawai’i, New York, California, Oregon and on-line, were some of the happiest days in my life. The energy and love he generated was so contagious, they became love fests, meeting lifelong friends, sharing awareness together, always in a circle, always as a group, always as a band of seekers.  That’s the environment Hank created.

Greeting Hank was also a memorable event, receiving an embracing bear hug, or better yet a honi: the ancient Hawai’ian greeting of pressing your foreheads and noses together, then sharing a breath — joy wrapped in reverence, a moment of recognition shared between just us two.

I found myself, along with so many others, huddled around a table, a bench or simply with Hank standing tall in the middle of the room after a long journey, listening to his storytelling. To say that Hank was a storyteller is an understatement; he was a weaver of worlds, real and imagined, mythical and futuristic, and all of them rang true, as though he was simultaneously unraveling and reshaping our realities as we knew them.

I love Hank, I loved Hank, and I will forever be grateful to Hank. He showed me gateways into myself that have blown my mind, opened my heart and lassoed my soul. He graciously and generously shared himself, his life, his humanity and, if perhaps initially reluctantly, later with great dignity and discipline, took on the role as light bearer.

Hank’s depth shone in his eyes, like endless caves to the underworld. His love burst into the air with every affirmative laugh, an “Ah ha!” As if to say, “Isn’t this a blast? Now you’ve got it!!” His presence was both looming and welcoming, yet he still held something of himself back, that boundary of self-sovereignty.

Hank was a lighthouse beckoning us — beckoning me to keep trying to steer my boat toward shore.

Thank you, Hank! My gratitude is eternal, my wonder for life has blossomed under your tutelage, and I will never be the same.

Mahalo Nui Loa and may we meet again!

Purchase Hank's Final Teachings

Shaman Visionary Circle was an online program that took place from May 2020 to February 2021. It includes 9 months of teachings by Hank Wesselman with guest appearances by Jill Kuykendall. After Hank's passing, there's been a request to access his final teachings and 32 journeys. Find out more about the program and how to access the teachings by clicking below.