Podcast transcript: Louie Valotti on bio-cellular upgrades, self-inquiry, and deep mind technology

Louie’s stunning website - Genesis Holistic Medicine 

For further research on those mentioned:
Dr. Alberto Villoldo
Double-slit Experiment
Eckhart Tolle
Stan Grof
Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Michael Pollan
Dipika Wishart

Transcript:

Giancarlo: Hello. Hi, welcome to another episode of the mangu.tv Podcast. Today, I have my friend, Louie Valotti. Louie Valotti is a shaman, spiritual guide and visionary. He co-created the Genesis Holistic Medicine protocol and is a medicine carrier of the elixirs of life. He was a student of Dr. Alberto Villoldo, initiated the Q'ero lineage of Andean shamanism. He offers a sacred space where you can explore the multidimensional layers and evolution of being with his clients. Welcome, Louie.

Louie: Thank you, Giancarlo.

Giancarlo: I'm very excited to have Louie because as most of you know by now, mangu.tv is about exploring big topics but, ultimately, with the objective to improve people's lives with ideas and practices that can be integrated in day to day, to live a more complete, fuller life. So, I'm very excited to have Louie. Tell us a little bit about your life. I know you had a change of career. Tell us a little bit how the change of career happened?

Louie: Thank you, Giancarlo. My journey, initially it starts of course, when I'm born or incarnated, as I like to say. I was born in a small town in the most northern part of Norway, a small town called Tromsø within the Arctic Circle. I share the story that many share today. My story was apparently one of a difficult childhood, a loss of self and struggling times as a young teenager. All this was, of course, part of my journey to be able to go deep within myself and come to an awakening. I would say I had two great shifts in my life. The first one, it brought me from Norway to leave my life and my family and friends, and then the old self, to come to Ibiza and then start a new path. The second time was to fully align with the purpose of why I'm here in this life and to focus fully on my work of supporting myself, those around me, and the overall humanity in this great shift that we're going through.

Giancarlo: Specifically, you were working in hospitality before. I'm just curious, what was the cathartic moment or the decision? Usually, this kind of shift in career is very gradual. But do you remember one moment when you said that, "I don't want to do this anymore. I want to do something else." Do you remember that moment?

Louie: To be more specific there, I was living to two lives. One was in hospitality and concierge and real estate, a profession that suited me well. But in my free time and in the evolution of my being, I was very much focused working on holistic practices to further grow and evolve myself. I spent a few years working in different circles and ceremonies, where I was introduced to working with certain medicinal plants. After four years of this practice, there came a moment where I received a very clear message. I'd like to call it a vision because it was spectacularly precise, detailed, and showed me a timeline that I was asked to step into. This brings me back about five years from here, 2017. This came in September in autumn, and I was a bit shocked, but I understood that this was long term, a gradual transition. From there I spent about six months to fully prepare myself mentally, physically to let go of my business, my profession, whole career, to enable myself to step into this vision and start working.

Giancarlo: I remember you on your previous incarnation and you will have this encyclopedic knowledge on plant teachers. When you said that you had these two lives and your successful hospitality career, but then you had holistic practice for evolution. Let's start there. What did you mean when you were working just for you? Can you describe the holistic practice for evolution?

Louie: This starts with a long journey of my own personal practice, through my own experience and through the teachings of many great teachers that I have had the honor of sitting with. These holistic practices, they were an evolution of an understanding, you can say a dynamic evolution that is still happening today. After I made my transition, once I started to implement the vision of what was to become Genesis Holistic Medicine , these practices, these tools, these teachings, they were created under the foundation of what I call the three core principles. The three core principles, they are designed to marry the modern science of the West, and the ancient wisdom of medicine from the East. They are the bio-cellular upgrade, which is the first principle. It is rooted purely in western science of cell biology and epigenetics. 

The second principle is called self-inquiry. It is a principle that bridges modern psychology with Eastern philosophy to create a comprehensive, holistic form of psychology so we can inquire deep into ourselves. The third principle is called deep mind technology. Deep mind technology, or DMT, as it stands for short, is energy medicine. It is the marrying of energy medicine with our allopathic western systems. When I say energy medicine, primarily we're talking about Chinese medicine and Andean shamanism.

Giancarlo: Let's unpack a little bit the three points, because not everybody is familiar with this term. The first one is western science about epigenetic. Can you explain what does it mean?

Louie: The first principle, the bio-cellular upgrade, it takes about 100 clinical studies from the last 10 years, and it incorporates these studies into a protocol to transform and rebuild the body. What we know today within epigenetics is that we've learned that the degenerative disease, the epidemics of cancer, Alzheimer, and autoimmune disease is primarily caused through a mutation of our genome from various environmental and reasons of our modern society. The bio-cellular upgrade, it approaches this problem by creating a protocol that can eliminate all the substances, food, or environment that cause this mutation. And then, introduce epigenetic techniques such as specific plant-based diets, breathwork, intermittent fasting, and also cold water therapy. We bring in this symphony of tools and techniques to radically inform the body and the genetics, the gene expression of the body, to switch on the essential proteins to be able to detoxify, rejuvenate, and also activate stem cells and their production of new cells and neurons. So, you physically can build a new body.

Giancarlo: Interesting. A cellular upgrade. Let's repeat the four practices you mentioned. Certain specific plants, cold plunge, cold shower, exposure to cold water. Intermittent fasting.

Louie: Breathwork is the fourth.

Giancarlo: Okay, that's very interesting. I love the fact that you call them symphony because they're probably well integrated and work together like an orchestra. That's the bio-cellular upgrade. Then, the second big point is integrating West with East. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

Louie: Yes. When we talk about the bio-cellular upgrade where we're repairing the body, we're repairing the physicality of the body, tissue cells, organs, etc. In approach to achieve and holistic health, we move from the first to the second principle, which is self-inquiry, which is a new form of psychology. Here, we incorporate different aspects from other psychology, and we bridge it with the philosophy of the Dao system and also the philosophy of the yogic system, to be able to bring in a more existential approach to the psychology. This worked to be general to explain self-inquiry. Self-inquiry is about integration of the self. Integration of oneself. What we learned today, by the last 5 to 10 years of modern psychology, we see that there's a new consensus coming up, that's going beyond diagnosis, but understanding more of the wholeness of the soul, the wholeness of the psyche, which is another word for soul, which is used in psychology.

What we see is that most of humanity, most of individuals are split within through childhood experiences, through trauma, through having moments and events in their life pass by that haven't been integrated emotionally. We see that most of us, we walk around with what we call certain shadows in our psyche. My experience is that it is this separation within, which is causing most of our challenges in how we perceive the world, and the quality of our relationships with the people around us and the planet itself. Self-inquiry is about exploring, investigating the mind without putting a diagnosis, but more understanding the wholeness of the psyche, and how can this be integrated on an individual level.

Giancarlo: This is a very contemporary topic for me nowadays, because the problem of the shadows or the pain bodies, or the hungry ghost, or the psychological notes, or whatever you want to call this kind of resistance in your psyche, I think, has led the situation in planet earth today. Let's unpack it a little bit. Can you elaborate? What's a typical situation of the creation of shadows?

Louie: When we are born, when we come into this world into our body, we come in with a soul or a psyche, that is here to develop, it is here to develop through different stages of consciousness. We can see this in normal traditional Western psychology but we can also find many of these teachings in the yogic system in the evolution of consciousness, through the development of what’s referred to as the chakras. Through the ancestral heritage of our mother and father primarily, or the main caretakers and role models as we grow up, what I've learned to see is that as a child we are completely open and receptive. We trust our caretakers to be safe, and through that connection, we have to adapt ourselves for our survival. This adaptation comes with a price. Meaning, anything that is transferred through the relationship with our mother or father or the other caretaker, specifically heavy emotional experiences, senses of neglect, which is very normal in the western society, abandonment, or even abuse, physical or emotional abuse, these circumstances during childhood, they leave a mark. 

As a child and the consciousness of a child is growing up, it gets several dents from these experiences. If these experiences are not integrated, meaning if there is a neglect or an abuse that goes on for a longer period of time, what happens is that these parts within ourselves, they can separate from ourself. A shadow can be looked at as a lost part of ourself, a part that lives in the unconscious realm of our mind, and is still experiencing the initial trauma or the initial emotion that happened at that time.

What happens is as the child, as the consciousness grows older, this part is forgotten, it's suppressed. Most of us when we go through this experience, what happens is that we have an uneasy body and uneasy mind and we try to escape or manage it somehow, either through drugs or other abuse, or through working too hard or working too little. Once we come into adulthood, these old remains of this shadow still operate within the unconscious realm of our psyche. What we experience there is that these experiences from varying age, we can project them into our current reality. And then we come into a conflict either with our spouse or with our work or with our health or with our children. Very often always, there is a connection in the psyche, and usually it's quite old. So, I think that starts to unpack it, and if we would go further, we would look at the specifics of how this is transferred through the father or the mother, and how that again projects itself out on male or female relationships as we become older.

Giancarlo: This is very important. I just wanted to reiterate and maybe use another metaphor that Gabor Maté used. You mentioned neglect and abuse, either physical or emotional, and then there is different degree. Gabor Maté used this metaphor that humans, we have two basic needs, which is authenticity and attachment. Because in the savannah, we needed to be really authentic and trust our instinct not to be eaten by the saber-toothed tiger. And then, we need attachment, because for the first one or two years, we can't walk around on our own even. We're not like a horse that the day it's born, you can just run away. Gabor says that, as we go through life, there's a moment where as you say, especially in Western society, parents get distracted and the neglect starts. At that moment, the kid as a coping mechanism, change, loses authenticity, to get the attachment back. And that loss of authenticity creates a fracture, a neurological fracture, that then if not taking care of, then might result in anxiety, depression, addiction, and the shadows that you were talking about.

This is very important. Let's finish maybe with your model with the third one, and then I want to go back about the intensity of this trauma, but let's finish the theory of your model. And then, I want to ask you more questions about the applicability and the practice. It seems your model is like mind, body, spirit. Let's go with spirit. [Louie laughs] What was the third chapter, the third silos?

Louie: The third principle is deep mind technology. Deep mind technology, in other words, it includes energy medicine. It includes the biomagnetic properties of the body. I like to say that although we exist in the physical form, we also exist in the waveform. This is regarding what is called the human energy field. In energy medicine, when we look at the meridian body in Chinese medicine, and we look at the chakras and the auric fields, the auric field is what creates the aura which is around the human body. When we incorporate these electromagnetic properties to the human body, and we go into the teachings of the East, we can see that our health, not only physical, but also mental health, is deeply connected to the harmony and balance of the energetic flows of this human energy field. Most blockages that come from trauma, so most traumatic experiences that leave emotional imprints in our body exist energetically. 

As an example, that's why acupuncture is so effective to treating trauma on a physical level and a somatic level, because it engages the energy which is stuck, something that psychology has tried for a long time to do through talk therapy. But essentially, my belief is that there is a need for another dimension to step into medicine, to be able to approach our physical health from an energetic level.

Giancarlo: Maybe elaborate a little bit when you say the energetic body, the meridians. For me, it wasn't super clear. Maybe it needs to be clarified for our audience.

Louie: Yeah, absolutely. When we talk energy medicine, it is a new language for most people. Let me give some metaphors here, because this is a whole universe in itself of medicine. Let me give some feedback so we can unravel this. Let's start with the meridian system of the body. We call them the rivers of light. In Chinese medicine, I'm sure most of our listeners have seen the acupuncture doll. This doll that has all these lines running through the body with different numbers.

Giancarlo: Those are the meridians. 

Louie: Those are the meridians.

Giancarlo: What is the etymology of the word 'meridians'? Where does it come from? The meridians also apply to Earth, correct?

Louie: Yeah. Meridians are essentially energy lines, if we keep this to the body, what we are seeing in western science because western science is still catching up to be able to document this 5000-year-old system of medicine that comes from China. The meridians are energy lines that lay on top of the lines and nerves of the central nervous system. The meridian lines are the energy pathways that receive the life force or the Qi, which then is metabolized into bio energy for our body.

Giancarlo: Received from where?

Louie: In the Chinese system and also the shamanic system, our body and our energy body is part of a universal energy. In acupuncture, as an example, when we place the needles in the meridian lines, these needles, they work as catalysts. They work as receivers of what is referred to as Qi or lifeforce energy. And through the needles, the energy comes into the meridian and activates the flow of energy through a particular meridian line. Now, this metabolizes into the physical bodies. The most famous structure of meridian lines will be the 12 core meridian lines, and these run through the different organs of the body. If we have trouble with cardiovascular health, digestion, liver, kidneys, etc. In the Chinese system, these all have unique properties, and they are connected through the meridian lines. Through channeling energy through these lines, we can remove blockages and improve the overall flow energy and health of an organ. 

This is the incorporation of the meridian structure. So, just to give a little bit more insight. If we go into Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine is going to be distributed by three main lines of medicine. One is acupuncture. The second is Qigong, which is a physical practice of energy medicine to again increase the flow of Qi through the meridians. The third system is herbology, which is a form of plant-based medicine, which also engages the meridians and the health of the organs. These three lines of medicine that encompasses Chinese medicine is all regarding the energy flow of the human body. 

To finish, when you incorporate the Chinese system of medicine with the Andean shamanic system of energy medicine, you come to a complete system. The latter, the shamanic energy system, it contains the health of the energy centers in the body, which we refer to as the chakras. Also, the electromagnetic field that each chakra produces, it's called an auric field. These auric fields are enveloped around the body, creating what we call the auric field or the aura. There's so much to share within this realm.

Giancarlo: Just to simplify a little bit, because unfortunately, our western reductionist, materialist approach doesn't recognize Qi. [chuckles] The lifeforce. Qi is primordial energy, it's like primordial consciousness. When you say, "Our meridians receive the life force," from where?

Louie: Let's go deeper into this. 

Giancarlo: I think it's worth it. [chuckles] 

Louie: If we look into the latest studies and experiments in quantum physics, here, there is coming a consensus that we exist both as a wave and as a particle. When we look at experiments such as the double-slit experiment, I repeat double-slit experiment, it can be found on YouTube. When we look these studies, we see that, okay, all matter also exists as a wave. Now, in Chinese medicine, and in the shamanic energy systems, they come from a belief that our physical body is constantly being created through a wave function. Meaning, our body, although we seem to be solid as matter, we are, in fact, energy. We're energy vibrating in different rhythms and frequencies. When we go to the shamanic teachings, a soul or a being is first of all an energetic being. That energetic being is constantly being created through a stream of energy that comes from above, and that streams down our energy body.

Giancarlo: From above-- because above from us is different from above in Australia. I mean, from the universe. 

Louie: From the universe. When I say above, we could use the heavens. We can use the center of our galaxy. We can use different terminology.

Giancarlo: Would you call it cosmic consciousness? 

Louie: You can call it cosmic consciousness. I think an overall term is consciousness. In the Chinese medicine system, they use the term "universal lifeforce." So, they refer to that, all plants, all animals, all human beings, and all planets, we are governed by a universal life force that feeds us energy. To explain where it comes from, it's like going into almost like the chicken and the egg. Western society cannot tangibly prove the existence of Qi or lifeforce, and it's more through a direct experience that you can start to comprehend and feel into the sensitivity of this realm of our existence.

Giancarlo: Forgive me, I might go a little bit on a tangent, but this is a theme that it's important for our listeners, for us. At mangu.tv, we have now a series of podcasts, a solo cast about this difference between the-- did matter come after mind or mind come before matter? Just to clarify, there's this contemporary philosopher, Bernardo Kastrup, has been writing now about idealism. This is what I want to share. In our scientific materialist paradigm, our modern science believes that consciousness came from matter. There was The Big Bang, then there was a single-celled amoeba, then as the brain reached a certain amount of complexity, then it created a consciousness. 

The other alternative that has been coming through quantum physics and quantum mechanics and parapsychology, and transpersonal psychology is this idea that, "No, it's not really realistic that this blob of three pounds of gray matter has created consciousness. Consciousness came before. It was a universal consciousness that created matter." Are we talking about the same thing? The East always believed in reincarnation, the immortality of the soul. What this Qi, this life force is basically what these new quantum theories, this new western paradigm believer, and knowledge as being the creator of consciousness. Is that correct?

Louie: Yeah. You can say that the latter theory is aligned with what we teach in energy medicine. If I can add, in the Native American teachings, so I'm talking from North America all the way to South America, the unified teachings which come from, what is referred to as the Medicine Wheel, they have a very specific teaching, that is called The Four Layers of Perception. When they share these teachings, they're essentially talking about the four different dimensions of being a human being. In this kind of hierarchy of dimensions, they refer to the body as the ultimate, the last frontier. This is where all the energy manifests in our physical reality, in the time-space of now. So, when we talk about Pachamama, Pachamama in Quechua, translates to "time space here." This moment right now, in our physical body. 

In the teachings, the second layer, dimension or perception is called the Realm of the Jaguar, which is the mental realm. They say that everything that is existing in this physical reality has first come from the perception of the mind. They go deeper. To wrap it up, they go to the third level of awareness of perception, which is called the level of the soul or the level of the hummingbird. This is the level of the mind as an example, it exists as beliefs, as perceptions, as thoughts, as projections. But when we go one dimension under to the dimension of the soul, the dimension of the spirit, here, there are only images, emotions, and imprints from the past, more specifically imprints from the unconscious realm of the collective consciousness of humanity. This goes deep.

The fourth dimension, the ultimate dimension, which is represented by the eagle in the Medicine Wheel, this dimension is pure energy, it is pure source, it is unmanifested potential that holds the infinite possibility for any given moment in time. This is where these teachings say that everything spawns from, from the infinite void of consciousness.

Giancarlo: Yeah, this is very interesting. We started this conversation talking about your holistic research for evolution. You created these three principles. The epigenetic and bio-cellular upgrade, the self-inquiry, looking at the methodology of the East linked to your pain bodies, like Eckhart Tolle would call them the ghost, or the hungry ghosts, the shadows. Three, the deep mind, which has to do with the energetic side of things. Did I summarize properly?

Louie: Yeah, that's correct. I like to say that I didn't come up with this. This came through me, and it's a constant stream of this teachings.

Giancarlo: This is a theoretical base of your work. You are your therapist, what is your goal? Who are your clients? Let's start this way. Who come and see you? They come for help, what is the typical situation that you encounter among your clients? 

Louie: I would like to start with sharing that the work that I do and offer, the core reason for it is that I know that the planet and humanity, we're going through what's called an evolutionary leap. We're going through an immense accelerated growth. This is something that started many years ago. Right now, we're in the depths of this shift. What I believe is happening is basically that the unconscious realm of humanity, the unconscious realm of our mind, all the suppressed information that is there is coming to the surface, on an individual level or on a collective level, which is essentially the same. I have been shown that I have been prepared and brought here to help, to play a part with thousands of other beings, to support individuals as they start waking up to their own unconscious, and have to go through this immense suffering and difficulty that is reflected in their lives. 

My clients are all of the above. They are from all parts of the world. They are from all ages, going down to late teens all the way up to their sage years, their 60s. Usually, I'm approached or recommended to an individual because they're having problems in their life. Very often, these problems are patterns that they recognize. They can see that they're in a loop with their spouse or with their kids, or many of them, they go through drastic amounts of change in one time. It could be losing loved ones, a career that collapses, or their health that collapses, or all of the three in one go. And they come to me in a point of crisis where they are lost for answers or direction in how to approach their life.

Giancarlo: That’s very interesting. If you don't mind, give us a practical example so that people can resonate or someone that-- I don't know if I can use the example of someone with an addiction. Have you had clients with addiction? Without any names, of course, but can you take our listeners through a journey with you if someone has an addiction issue?

Louie: Yeah. I would like to incorporate that. Of course, working with addiction is different, because the physical body and the realm of the mind can be very deteriorated through many years of working with particular addictions. But I would like to add that the framework that I offer is very similar if we're working with addiction-

Giancarlo: Anxiety, depression.

Louie: -anxiety, depression, etc.

Giancarlo: PTSD.

Louie: Exactly. The work that I offer is, first of all, to create a safe space for the individual that I'm working with. These shadows, these different terminologies for the lost parts of the psyche, what they are initially looking for, is a safe space where they can be felt, and where they can be seen and heard. And together with that, some structured guidance and roadmap on how to move through it and evolve. So when I work with a client, I make them aware that this holistic approach, through the three core principles, it's a bit different than going to a normal psychologist. The difference is that I work with a very progressive and accelerated approach.

I would first take a client through an overall assessment, getting to know each other, understanding if the chemistry is right, if the client feels safe, and comfortable. If we can establish that foundation, then I would set up protocols from the three core principles, adapted to the client so that they can start the process. When we work with self-inquiry, when we work with the self, a lot of this work, especially in addiction, is around disassociation from the body and the mind. This accounts for most of us, is that we are not able to stay in our body, we are not able to connect to our body, which is an essential part of ourself because the levels of emotion and arousal in the body is too intense to be there. The separation very often starts there.

To approach this, we use the biosimilar upgrade to set up a tailored practice, so that the client can slowly start to work through the amounts of stress, which is held in the body, creating more space, more flow, and slowly, being able to come in again and prepare oneself to start touching upon the wounds that are left from trauma. Trauma is widely used today, I like to say capital T or more a small t. But overall, when I talk about trauma, I talk about these imprints on the soul, these stains that have caused separation. That is overall existing in any client I work, all in different degrees.

Giancarlo: Which is which is neglect and abuse. 

Louie: Yes. There are different ways. The abuse is very obvious when you work with clients. In Genesis, we work with a format that uses a specific type of questioning, to create a map of their psyche, a map of the inner world of the client. And here, when they answer the questions and they start to regress back into the past, trauma is the most obvious one, because of course, if you have been beaten or abandoned or treated harshly, it's very clear. Neglect is more subtle. Most of my clients that I meet, they have experienced neglect and are unaware that they were neglected.

Giancarlo: Neglect is a traumatic event. Where were we with the explanation? We said the example of addiction, but it can be other form of an issue like anxiety or depression or, I think, also lack of direction, midlife crisis, heartbreak. I think all kinds of situation that create a sense of confusion, disoriented feeling, alienated, comes to you. The first step is the physical bioremediation to basically heal the trauma that is physically in your body.

Louie: Yeah, correct. The physical protocols that we start with, they are a preliminary foundation. Those evolve with other types of techniques, particularly meditation, which we use focused in the self-inquiry work. The way that we work is to work within the subconscious and unconscious realm. We coach our clients when they're ready, when they've been prepared properly, when the whole story of the past has been illuminated, when they're conscious about where the wounds and the traumas are, we use meditation and a form of mental journeying. It's almost like time travel, where we got--

Giancarlo: Like a trance, like hypnotic state.

Louie: Well, it's hypnotic but you're fully conscious, and you guided yourself through the facilitator. But it's a process that's guided to take the client consciously back to the core emotional memories, the core traumatic memories, and change the meaning, change the neural networks of how this was established by reexperiencing it through the use of imagination, and through the use of adding new information into the memory so the perception changes. This is one of the ways that we work a lot with clients. Preparing them physically and mentally to be able to take that journey within and start to change the meanings of their emotional experiences. 

Giancarlo: It is very interesting, very important. You describe what also is called psychodrama where, in this type of group therapy, basically, the participant are actors and they reenact the traumatic event in childhood. So, you now have the opportunity to play the eight-year-old you with the knowledge you have now and to respond at the situation when you are receiving the traumatic behavior, that can be very healing also. Just to be a little bit more practical again, someone comes to you and what is the-- I know it depends on the case, case by case. But on average, the treatment, the three principles, how long does it take? Which part can be done in person, which part can be done online? Just practically show for people that are interested to maybe reach out to you?

Louie: This journey that I'm referring to, the work that I offer, it is not only to deal with the extremes and the emergencies of a person's life. It is to coach them so that they can come into alignment with themselves. It is about the evolution of their being. The first part of this work has to do with shadow work, with the unconscious. It's about making the unconscious conscious, establishing a healthy body that is strong, centered, and grounded, and a centered mind. This is the preliminary basis of any type of personal work. This, in my experience, can take, depending on individual, but my personal experience, is that shadow work today, is ranging between 12 months up to 36 months. It can take three years to work through the unconscious. We're working layer by layer, and the deeper one goes, the more layers come up and it takes us time to unravel a lifetime of suppressing. 

Simultaneously with that we have what's called the unconscious, but we also have what we call the superconscious. Parallel to the shadow work, to the inner work, at some point during this timeline of one to three years, one usually starts to receive more insight. As the brain starts functioning properly again, as the brain goes from being in the lower mammalian state, as it evolves from being in a reactive emotional state, and it connects more to the frontal lobes and the newer parts of the brain, the client starts to step more into vision states of consciousness. Starts to understand more the cohesion of all their experiences, all the suffering and pain, and how this starts to transform into becoming specific gifts. Their keys to their purpose here in life. The work goes from deep shadow work and difficult emotional work, to becoming one of alignment, purpose, and direction. That last part, it takes a lifetime. That's why I personally believe we're here, is to find that alignment and focus and bring it all the way to the last days we have here.

Giancarlo: This is very important. I really would like our listeners to really understand that healing takes a lot of work. Another metaphor that helped me understand to what extent it's difficult to rewire your brain. They say that traumatic event, they create a certain neurocircuitry. This neural circuitry can be seen as-- you know those tracks when you do cross country skiing? You have these deep tracks, you have your little ski and they're stuck in these deep tracks. It's fine, you go fast, and the ski is held by this track. If you want to get out of a situation of anxiety or addiction, or post-traumatic stress disorder, or inability to connect with others, or inability to love and be loved, or all these mental condition that we discuss, is you need to get out of this deep tracks and put this little ski out of the those tracks and stay out long enough to build new one that then can become comfortable. As you can imagine, you can see visually trying to get this little ski out of those tracks, it's very easy to be sucked in, because it's much easier to be on the familiar neurocircuitry. 

I'm not going to go into a rant in modern psychiatry, because, of course, if you are suicidal, maybe those prescription medicine, this SSRI that can save your life, for sure. But this idea of having a pill per day and solve the problem, it's just not realistic. You need to put the effort to rewire the brain. There is a branch in psychology called "transpersonal psychology." Are you familiar with that? Is this approach a little bit overlap with yours? Are you familiar with Stan Grof? It started with Maslow, was the founder of Transpersonal Psychology. Can you comment a little bit on that and maybe make a parallel with your principles?

Louie: Hmm. I can. Actually, we have just handpicked a new self-enquirist, a new facilitator for Genesis. She is trained in transpersonal psychology.

Giancarlo: I'm not surprised--[chuckles] 

Louie: [chuckles] I have so many terms for this. I sometimes call it the "psychology of the soul." What we're essentially looking for here is a branch of psychology that can go as deep as possible to acknowledge that there is a soul, that there is a self, and to come and bring in all the different tools from the different forms of psychology that we have today, the different types of treatment, and bring those into a holistic functioning psychology. I feel that transpersonal psychology has come very close into doing this. The overall terms are the same whatever field that we working in, but it's essentially this acknowledgement of the soul, the acknowledgement of the needs of the soul, the needs of the psyche, that go beyond giving a diagnosis and a specific treatment. Because if we look moralistically, if you go into today, and at least the last 10 years and before, it was a huge challenge. Psychologists had to give a diagnosis to give treatment. And most clients, they would get three, four, five, six diagnosis, and they will be medicated in this realm. 

What transpersonal psychology can do is bring these together, to see these are only streams, these are only threads, they're patterns of symptoms. When you can bring them together into the story, into the childhood story, you can create overall understanding. It's in that understanding, the clients have a chance to start healing. Because they do not become labeled, rather they see. When they see, they realize. And when they realize, those silly ski slopes you talked about in the brain, those neural networks, they fire off and they start shifting based on new realization.

Giancarlo: Yes. This is very interesting. Stan Grof used to say that  was fishing sitting on the back of a whale, because the Freudian analysis would only start from your biography, so when you were born, that we're not looking at what happened during birth, a lot of trauma can start the way you were born, if it was an emergency delivery, an harmonious one, and then all the stuff that comes either from previous life, or from the collective unconscious from this cosmic consciousness or source or whatever you want to call it. For me, it's very important to hear your point of view, because psychiatry and psychology have been stuck for the last, I don't know, 50 years. And now, with the things like more opening and less legalization of psychedelic medicine, that has helped to go behind the mind into some sort of ancestral memories. Let me ask you, what do you think about this psychedelic medicine and how can they be integrated into therapy?

Louie: I love this question, Giancarlo. Thank you for asking me. 

Giancarlo: It was a little bit convoluted. 

Louie: I would like to give it an introduction, because we talk about the different types of psychology and our wounds, this whole story of the suffering of humanity, and this is why I believe, as an introduction, to why the plants are here. When we look at the cosmology of the Andean shamanism, they have a story about the soul and reincarnation. This story of the soul, it is deeply connected to these four layers of perception that I mentioned previously.

Giancarlo: Maybe repeat it real quick the four layers of perception.

Louie: The four layers of perception are the four dimensions of being that we have. We are our body in this physical world. We are our mind with our thoughts, perceptions, and projections. We have a soul, and the soul has memories and emotions. When we come to that third level, the level of the soul, the memories that we carry, and it is the memories and the energy, the emotion and the memories that are driving the mind. That means whatever belief one carries, whatever projection that comes from that, negative thought patterns, self-limiting beliefs, they come from the energy of the memory and the emotion of memory. So, I'll give you an example. 

Abstract. A mother says to the child, "You're not good enough, you're not good enough, you're not good enough. You're never going to be good enough." Those memories and the feeling of shame, the feeling that was infused in the child, those are stuck there as memories. And then 30 years later, the mind is going, "I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough. I'm never going to make it." But that's an echo from that level of the unconscious. Now, where does this come in into the cosmology of the soul? The cosmology of the soul teaches us that when we came into this life, when we came with the incarnation, when we came to this life with the core lesson that we were here to learn, that lesson came as what is called a karmic imprint in our field. When we incarnate into a body, this light body, these chakras, and this light part of ourself, it incarnates, it comes into the physical body. When it comes in, it carries a seed. It carries a holographic imprint of information that is brought from a past life.

So, why is this essential? It's essential because the cosmology and the teachings of this shamanic lineage says that it is that seed of energy, it is that seed of consciousness, it's that seed of information from a past life and from the ancestor that holds the whole quantum potential of creating a life experience. So, the traumas that we experienced, they can be seen as horrible events when they're unhealed but when they're processed and understood and realized, they become the reason why we incarnated. It's not a coincidence what's happening to you, wherever you are, whatever you're experiencing, it's not a coincidence. Once you start going into this journey and his healing, you will realize that this is one of the core reasons why you're here. Life is not just about money, about conquer. It is about approaching the unconscious parts of ourself. In that quest, we can find ourselves. When we find ourself, we can transform and then everything comes into great meaning.

That's what the lore is telling us, to finish. I know you asked about plants, I will come to that. But to finish, we have so many prophecies in the world today that come from this same type of cosmology. They're speaking of a time on earth, today, where we are going to suffer because we have karma or unconscious, unresolved themes inside us.

Giancarlo, you asked about plant-based medicines and what's my relation to that. I can see a stream. I can see a stream of humanity, of the consciousness of humanity. I see trends the last 30 years. I see yoga exploding. Plant-based and vegan food exploding. Psychology, radically changing. Our understanding of the genome and our physical body changing. I can see an evolution. And because we were at our rock bottom from a state of consciousness, the plants from the South American traditions, the Chinese practices, and the yogic practices, all this is streaming into the Western world to support us in this immense evolution that we're going through. 

Plants, medicinal plants play a vital role here, because western pharmacology has taken the wisdom from the plants, patented it, and transformed it into synthetic chemical medication. But we know that biologically, that's not in resonance with ourselves. So, it's a big difference from consuming a plant to consuming a pill. In that realm of plants, we have plants that epigenetically inform our genes, switches on our genes and makes us heal and grow. We even have plants that work with the psyche, that works with the mind, that helps us expand our awareness, come into a different state of consciousness, and come into the deeper hidden parts of our mind where we can find these shadows, where we can retrieve these memories and these lost parts of the soul, and bring them back into integration.

I'll use that as an intro, Giancarlo, and I'm sure you want to direct this with your vast interest and knowledge about this theme.

Giancarlo: You're familiar with recent study with these new machines, with the functioning magnetic resonance imagery. They've seen what's happening in the brain with this family of tryptamines, psilocybin, LSD, DMT, mescaline. What happened is that it reduced the blood supply in three key areas of the brain that are hubs from other parts of the brain. They call it the default mode network. In Michael Pollan's book-- my listeners have heard me saying that many times, in the Michael Pollan book, he calls the default mode network like the director of the orchestra of the brain. When you take these tryptamines, the blood supply is reduced, it's like the conductor goes to bed. Michael Pollan says that the default mode network is the closest thing we have identified to the ego. It's like your egoic armor. It's like this tight in your brain with your conditioning, with your ego, your identity gets softened. 

I can see intuitively how the work of a therapist can be facilitated by a weakened ego. You said that some of this trauma creates this very strong bond between the memory and the emotion. An example, which is very easy to access. Imagine you're a kid, you're five years old, and this dog is barking, and you hear barking, barking, barking, and then it bites your leg and you have 20 stitches, and so you'll go for the rest of your life with this strong connection between barking and pain. So, every time you see a dog, you jump. What happened with these tryptamines, with the psychedelic medicine, it reduces that memory, by reducing the default mode network, and so therapists can then have an easier access to the subconscious material. Do you resonate with that?

Louie: Yes, I do. I am intrigued that western neuroscience is making the connections for us, specifically when it comes to document the role of medicinal plants in the work of the mind. What I want to add, this was one of the core aspects of the vision of Genesis Holistic Medicine. Because what I saw, I saw a world that was approached by the South American lineages of shamanism, particularly the tribes that come from the Acre state in the Amazon, and westerners bringing these classical shamans to the western world. But what I saw was that many were going to ceremony, and they did not know the shaman, they did not know the people there, and they just came for a night of experiencing something which was an experience but that didn't have a long-lasting effect. I saw this big trend, and I understood, and a part of my own vision that I was guided to start creating was that we needed a western format. A western language to be able to explain what happens when we work with medicinal plants, and a framework for how to actually work in therapy with medicinal plants. 

This is part of the three core principles. This is part of the self-inquiry, and how it bridges to the deep mind technology. If we work with medicinal plants in psychotherapy through neuroscience, we can see that there is something going on. We can see that we are connecting to higher cortical networks. Meaning, we're going from mammalian reactive state of mind, and connecting to the neocortex and the frontal lobes which are the newest parts of the evolution of the brain. We can look at the fight, flight, or freeze response, and what's called the HPA axis. The HPA axis, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, is how the fight or flight response is generated. We can see new connections and disconnections from memories that hold trauma and emotion, and their connection to this HPA axis. I think all this is fast fascinating and it's helping us a lot. 

At the same time, I would like our listeners to understand that working with medicinal plants in a psychotherapeutic manner, it must also incorporate an understanding of energy medicine and the shamanic energy teachings. The reasons for this are that once you walk into a treatment consisting of using medicinal plants, you are no longer just within the realm of the mind. You're walking within an expanded state of consciousness, where time and space are no longer relative to the same way as your conscious mind perceives it. In other words, the electromagnetic properties of your being will come to play. Your connection to your ancestors will come to play in a way that so far western psychology hasn't fully understood. We look at attachment and codependency. Codependency is a famous term in psychology, it's a result of trauma. When you work in the field of psychotherapy with medicinal plants, codependency takes on an energetic form. It is not only a boundary of the mind, it is a boundary of your whole being. 

Giancarlo: We can be talking for hours. It's already 70 minutes. I think I would like to wrap it up, not to put too much. We call it like an introduction to the-- how do you call this, your practice? Do you have a name or it's just the Genesis method?

Louie: We are an established organization, we're called Genesis Holistic Medicine. We are just now in 2022, we are launching a new website. And very excitingly, we're launching a private, decentralized online community where all these teachings are accessible for free. Also, introductions to training programs and courses and the work that we offer. 

Giancarlo: What is the website? What's the URL? 

Louie: The URL is www.genesisholisticmedicine.com

Giancarlo: We'll have all the information in the notes of the show. Listen, this has been amazing. I'm very grateful to you, and this new generation of psychotherapists that include spirit into the analysis of the mind. Thank you very much for being with us. Is there anything else? I feel we haven't really discussed, just take three minutes to explain Dr. Alberto Villoldo’s work and how it affected you.

Louie: One, I received my first vision 2017 about this system of medicine. I called in all the help I could get. On that path, once I developed the thesis and the manifesto of this system, the first person that came in was my partner and great teacher in life, a woman called Dipika. Dipika trained in Chinese medicine, over 20 years' experience, also an alchemist and working with medicinal plants in a very unique form of alchemy that I'm sure we can discuss another time. 

Giancarlo: With her, maybe. 

Louie: With her, maybe, yeah. The way I came into with Dr. Alberto Villoldo was that, I first met him in 2009 offering his shamanic teachings. Dr. Alberto Villoldo, he is a very unique man. He was one of the first anthropologists to infiltrate and be accepted by the Q'ero lineage of shamanism that exists in the very top of the Andes Mountains in Peru. This particular tribe is very unique from other shamanic tribes. Alberto, he went to the Amazon in the early 70s. He spent 10 years in the Amazon, studying Ayahuasca with the Ayahuasca Q'eros. During those 10 years, he started hearing about the great prophecy of the Q'eros. These shamans that came from the Andes that didn't work with medicinal plants, but had their own system of energy medicine. With that system, a great prophecy. 

Alberto, he went in the late 70s up to the Andes, he was accepted by the tribe and he trained for 25 years with the elders of this tribe. I don't remember exactly, in the mid-90s, Alberto, when his teacher died at the age of 90, Alberto was given the great prophecy of the Q'eros and to bring that into the western world. Do I have time for a quick introduction on the Q'eros? 

Giancarlo: Yes.

Louie: Thank you. Basically, the Q'ero shamans, they hold an energy medicine system which is 30,000 years old. It comes from the Laika Indians. About 30,000 years ago, in the mountains of the Himalayas, the shamans from here emigrated, and they traveled on a great pilgrimage, which went up through Siberia, over today Scandinavian nations, over the glaciers and coming down through Alaska, Canada and North America. Now this pilgrimage, you see remains of it, the Eskimos, the Samila people, the North American tribes of the Hopis, coming down to South America, the Mayans, the Aztec, and eventually the Inca Empire. This lineage is renowned. The Incas, they held this energy medicine system that incorporates the healing of the soul or the healing of the luminous energy field. 

About 500 years ago, when the conquistadors came to Peru and then the Inca Empire was dissolved, disappeared, the few survivors, the few medicine men and women that were holding this lineage, they escaped to the Andes, and they stayed hidden in the Andes through the conquistador and the Inquisition. They stayed hidden there to prevail to keep this sacred knowledge for the time to come. 500 years later, in the 1950s, they came down from the mountains and they started showing themselves again in the Andes, in the Peru. When Alberto trained with them and finished training with them, he was given the prophecy. It is called the prophecy of Pachacuti. The prophecy of the time to come. Very similar to the Mayan calendar, very similar to the Hopi prophecy. A great time of change where humanity would have to come into a deeper understanding of themselves. Alberto started a university for shamans where he trained them in what's called the Medicine Wheel and the four cardinal corners of shamanic medicine, Serpent, Jaguar, Hummingbird, and Eagle medicine. 

To bring the story to completion, I met him and I started working in 2009 with him. I worked a lot on his teachings on biology and the epigenetics in 2016. But it was in 2018, when I met Dipika, and I was initiated with her type of alchemy, this is where I started to download, receive in visions, immense amounts of teachings and understanding of the medicine system I've presented here today. I understood I had to do a proper shamanic training to integrate a core platform for the energy medicine. That's when I was directly brought back to Alberto Villoldo, and I did his largest training and initiation, which is initiation into the Q'ero lineage. This was a fast course study I did about, 600 hours, with him and his school over a period of six months. Through that, I got to receive the teachings of the Q'eros. 

What was remarkable, what I want to finish with today, was the majority of the visions I received, working in ceremony, working with my partner and this alchemy, the majority of the teachings I received there, laying down with my eyes closed in form of pictures and messages, the majority of those teachings were exactly the same as what Alberto taught me through the Q'ero lineage. I was baffled. I was, "How can I sit in ceremony and receive from the ether, from above, this core information about the psyche?" Everything I've learned in self-inquiry came from there. I then do my studies with my teacher, his curriculum, which is 30,000 years old, holds the same. Thank you so much for having me, Giancarlo. 

Giancarlo: You're welcome.

Louie: We can talk for days.

Giancarlo: I know. There is room for part 2, and we will. Thank you for coming, Louie. Have a great day.