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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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..

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.