From the jungle lowlands of ancient Mexico to the numinous high peaks of the Peruvian Andes, the magic and the omnipotent power of the Jaguar prevailed as a primary mythology and symbology of religious authority and dynastic rulership. Today, these beliefs still survive within the ingenious peoples of the Amazon Rainforest, where sorcery and miraculous healings occur side-by-side in a cultural paradigm ruled by the spirit of the unseen.

The Amazon Rainforest is an enigma where, of the approximately 200,000 plants, only 2% have been truly studied. It is a treasure land of magic and ecological harmony, which was and still is, ruled over by the mystical one, the jaguar. And as always, wherever we find the cult of the jaguar, we’ll discover the shaman portrayed as the  “master of thresholds.” Just as the jaguar maintains mastership over the land, the jaguar also moves with ease across the thresholds separating land and air and land and sea, in a sense, moving from matter to spirit and, once again, back to matter.

These jaguar-shamans, a brotherhood/sisterhood of the jaguar, are in the truest sense spiritual warriors protecting the health and well being of the tribe while providing stability and identity. The jaguar, as brother/sister and double to the shaman, gives the power to the shaman to be able to “see” in the dark. With this spiritual medicine, the brotherhood/sisterhood are then able to master the night as well as the supernatural Otherworld.

As religious leaders, the jaguar-shamans bring prosperity and fertility to their peoples through the honoring of the jaguar spirit as witnessed by their identification of the jaguar as a representation of the elemental forces of wind, rain, lightening and thunder. It is through this power, as jaguar-shamans, that the priests are able to harmonize with nature and thus bring unity and well being to their people.

Feathered Jaguar

Many people identify Quetzalcoatl, the prophet and messenger of peace, as the feathered serpent (bird-serpent) but in reality, Quetzalcoatl, known to the Mayan’s as Cuculcan (Kukulcan), was a combination of three animals—jaguar, serpent and bird. This representation of a jaguar’s face and fangs, a serpent body that is feathered, reveals the elemental forces (jaguar-earth, serpent-water, bird-air) in action achieving accession to spirit-fire. This teaching revealed the secret knowledge necessary to achieve Quetzalcoatlhood—In this body, in this life.

Initiatory Journey into the Myth and Mystery of the Feathered Serpents.