Munay-ki

Munay-Ki

The Munay-Ki comes from a Quechua word that means ‘I love you.’ The Munay-Ki are the nine rites of initiation to become a person of wisdom and power who has accepted the stewardship for all creation. The nine rites are common to all shamanic traditions, even though they are expressed in different forms and styles in different cultures. They derive from the great initiations from the Hindus Valley that were brought to the Americas by the first medicine men and women who crossed the Baring Straits from Siberia during the glacial period some 30,000 years ago. These courageous travelers were the Laika, the Earthkeepers of old.

The Laika have always been ordinary men and women who live extraordinary lives. They were not born with special gifts from Spirit; they have acquired uncommon grace and power through prayer, study of the wisdom teachings or Insights, and discipline. Some grew to be renowned leaders and healers, while others lived quiet lives, raising their children and growing corn. The Laika felt that people would come to the Munay-Ki when they were ready and felt a calling to do so.

Many of you have received such a calling from Spirit, and long to make a difference in the world and in your life. When you come to the path of the Earthkeepers with sincere intention and an open heart, you’ll soon notice that you’re not alone. You’ll find yourself in the company of like-minded people who strive to live by ethics and vision. And you’ll find yourself in the company of Earthkeepers who lived on this planet many thousands of years ago, luminous beings who are now part of the great matrix of life. These Earthkeepers will add their power and vision to yours.
As you experience the Munay-Ki, you’ll feel the presence and sense the wisdom of these luminous ones who have broken out of linear time and now dwell in sacred time, in infinity, free from the grip of karma and rebirth. The Munay-Ki will clear your luminous energy field of the psychic sludge left by past traumas. As you raise your level of vibration, these luminous beings will come to you and guide you. Connect with them, and you’ll be able to recall stories that you never experienced directly, but that are now yours. You’ll remember sitting around a fire with the buffalo behind you, and meditating in a stone temple above the snow line.

Since the Earthkeepers come from the future as well, they can help us to access who we’re becoming as humans 10,000 years from now. The memories from the past are available to the Laika who taps into that vast reservoir of knowledge that exists outside of time. The visions of the future come as possibilities, because everything in the future is still in potential form. That’s why Earthkeepers from the Hopi, the Maya, the Inka, and many other nations gather regularly to pray for peace on the earth. They do so by tracking along the possible futures for the planet to find one in which the rivers and the air are clean, and people live in harmony with each other and nature. The act of finding this desirable future installs it into our collective destiny and makes it a little bit more probable than it was before, because it has acquired another quanta of energy from these Earthkeepers.

When we connect with these luminous ones, their stories become our stories: We actually “remember” making our way across the Bering Straits or crossing the Sonora Desert into Central America, or even before that, making our way over the Himalayas to the fertile green valleys on our great journey north from India. When we partner with the Earthkeepers from the future, we make available to ourselves knowledge that can upgrade the quality of our DNA. This runs contrary to scientific wisdom, which says that our genes can only be informed by the past, by the gifts and illnesses our ancestors had. The Laika understand that when you are free of the bounds of time, the future can reach backwards like a giant hand to pull you forward. You can be influenced by who you are becoming.

As you receive the Munay-Ki, your chakras will become clear and you’ll acquire what the Laika know as the rainbow body. This is when your chakras glow with their original radiance. Remember that each of the chakras has a color, and when they’re shining with their original light, they emit the colors of the rainbow. When they’re dulled by trauma from this and from previous lifetimes, our LEF acquires a grayish hue and our chakras become pools of psychic sewage. Once we acquire a rainbow body, the luminous Earthkeepers can reach out to us because they recognize that we share a common vision and calling. When this happens, and if you’ve developed the ability to see into the invisible world, you can discern the former physical forms of these luminous ones. Sometimes, people will perceive these ancient Earthkeepers as Native American elders, wearing robes from Asia or furs from Siberia, or even feathers from the Amazon. Sometimes you’ll be able to perceive their thoughts and feelings. And you will have access to their wisdom and their stories. Eventually, as you experience the 7th, 8th, and 9th initiation, you can download a new and better version of the software that informs the LEF, which will then inform your DNA, giving it instructions on how to create a new body that will age, heal, and die differently.

There’s nothing you need to do to attract these luminous Earthkeepers. They’ll come to you when you invite them to do so and are ready to receive them. When the student is ready, the master appears. They will not disturb you in any way, but are available to support you in your efforts to bring a bit more light and healing into the world. They’re also there to protect you from the negativity and fearful energies in the world today.

The Nature of the Luminous Beings
These luminous ones are our medicine lineage. They’re humans who rose to the level of angels. Some are in bodies, some are in spirit form, but all have a mandate to protect those who are looking after the well-being of the planet. The Buddhists call them Bodhisattvas. They are the finest spiritual allies anyone can have, and they provide us with knowledge on how one becomes an angel. This is what the prophecies of the Laika mean when they tell us that we have the potential to become Homo luminous. We can develop the luminous energy fields of angels within our lifetime. The Munay-Ki offers us the energetic keys to do this.

When we evolve to Homo luminous, we no longer have to call on angels and archangels to help us find a parking spot or our fortunes, because we are becoming like them. Remember that in the Bible, God said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. ” As we become Earthkeepers, we join the ranks of the angels, who come from many different worlds and were the original souls present after the Creation. They don’t cycle through bodies as we do, because they don’t need a corporeal form, as they don’t need to learn and grow during an existence in the material world. They have everlasting life, and are the keepers of many worlds in many galaxies.

Initiation Rites

The training of the Earthkeepers has an energetic component, a series of initiations that help us to develop a new architecture in our luminous energy field. The rites anchor each of the critical junctures in the process of becoming homo luminous.

The nine rites are the sum total of attunements that we go through as we transit from the body of a human to the body of angels.

These rites were first given to ancient teachers by angelic beings, and now are passed on from teacher to student. When an Earthkeeper gifts the Munay-Ki to a student, it is the lineage of luminous beings that transmits itself, that leaps from the head of the master to the student as they lean into each other and touch, forehead to forehead. To transfer this energetic information, the Earthkeeper simply maintains sacred space and embodies the vibration of the level she wants to transmit. While you can’t undergo these initiations on your own, once you receive them, the rites are yours to transmit to others as you wish. But there is one caveat. The rites are offered free of charge. You may charge a fee to coach a client during the changes that they will go through as they receive the rites, but not for the Munay-Ki itself.

The Nine Rites
The first rite consists of protections installed in your LEF. These are known as the Bands of Power, and consist of five energetic bands representing earth, air, fire, water, and pure light. These bands are installed in your Luminous energy field, and act as filters, breaking down into one of the five elements any negative energies that come your way so that these energies can feed you instead of making you toxic or ill. The Bands of Power are always ‘on’, and negative energies bounce right off them. In a world filled with fear, the bands provide essential protection.

The second rite is the Healers rite, which connects you to a lineage of Earthkeepers from the past that come and assist you in your personal healing. The Laika know that we have tremendous spiritual assistance available to us. These luminous beings work on us during our meditation and sleep time to heal the wounds of the past and of our ancestors.

The third is the Harmony rites, in which you receive seven archetypes into your chakras. In the first chakra, you receive the archetype of serpent; jaguar goes into the second; hummingbird into the third; and eagle into the fourth. Then, three “archangels” go into your upper three chakras. Huascar Inka, the keeper of the lower world and the unconscious is transmitted into the fifth chakra; Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent God of the Americas, and keeper of the middle world (our waking world) goes into the sixth; and Pachakuti, the protector of the upper world (our super-conscious) and keeper of the time to come goes into the seventh chakra.These archetypes are transmitted into your chakras as seeds. These seeds germinate with fire, and you have to perform a number of fire meditations to awaken them and help them grow. Afterward, they help combust the psychic sludge that has built up in your chakras, so that your chakras can shine with their original light as you acquire a rainbow body. This rite helps you to shed your past the way the serpent sheds her skin.

Next are the Seer rites. This rite installs filaments of light extending from your visual cortex in the back of your head to your third eye and heart chakras. This practice awakens your ability to perceive the invisible world. Many of our students at the Healing the Light Body School find that a few months after receiving the Seer rites, they’re able to perceive the world of energy around them.

The fifth is the Daykeeper rites. The Daykeepers were the masters of the ancient stone altars found in sacred places throughout the world, from Stonehenge to Machu Picchu. The Daykeeper is able to call on the power of these ancient altars to heal and bring balance to the world. This rite is an energetic transmission that connects you to a lineage of Laikas from the past.According to lore, the Daykeepers call on the sun to rise each morning and set each evening, made sure that humans were in harmony with mother earth, and honored the ways of the feminine. The Daykeepers were the midwives who attended births and deaths, as well as being the herbalists, or curanderas. They were generally women, and were knowledgeable about the ways of the feminine earth. This initiation begins the process of healing your inner feminine, and helps you to step beyond fear and practice peace.

The sixth is the Wisdomkeeper rites. The legends say that the ancient wisdom resides in the high mountains. The ice-covered peaks were revered as places of power, just as other mountains around the world, from Mt. Sinai to Mt. Fuji to Mt. Olympus, have been honored as places where humans meet the divine. The lineage of Wisdomkeepers are medicine men and women from the past who defeated death and stepped outside of time. The job of the Wisdomkeeper is to protect the medicine teachings and share them with others when appropriate. This rite helps you to step outside of time and taste infinity.

The seventh is the Earthkeeper rites. This rite connects you to a lineage of archangels that are guardians of our galaxy. They’re reputed to have human form and be as tall as trees. The Earthkeepers, who are stewards of all life on the Earth, come under the direct protection of these archangels and can summon their power when they need to in order to bring healing and balance to any situation. The rite of the Earthkeepers helps you learn the ways of the seer, and to dream the world into being.

The eighth is the Starkeeper rite. This rite anchors you safely to the time after the great change that is said will occur on or around the year 2012. According to lore, when you receive this rite, your physical body begins to evolve into that of Homo luminous. The aging process is slowed down, and you become resistant to diseases you were once vulnerable to. After I received these rites, I noticed that I no longer processed events primarily at the physical level. When I caught a cold, I processed it at the energetic level and it would wash through me in a day or two instead of a week or two. I started to live, and process the events that occurred in my life, at the level Spirit. When you receive these rites, you acquire stewardship of the time to come and all future generations.

The ninth is the Creator rite. When you receive this initiation, you awaken the God-light within you acquire stewardship for all of creation, from the smallest grain of sand to the largest cluster of galaxies in the universe. This rite has never been available before on the planet. Although there were individuals who attained this level of initiation, and awakened their Christ or Buddha consciousness, it was never possible to transmit these from one person to another, until today. So while Spirit-to-human transmission happened on occasion, human-to-human transmission was impossible until now. The Creator rite was brought forth and gifted to us by Inka elders in the Andes during the summer of 2006.

A Note from the Author

According to lore, the wisdom teachings of the Earthkeepers go back more than 100,000 years. During this time, the teachings have gone through many transformations, as mountain peoples migrated to lush farmland and then crossed the ice in Siberia into the thick forests of the American continent. Today, we’re going through another evolution as we bring this ancient body of knowledge into the 21st century. And although the outer form of the teachings change, the inner form remains the same.I believe that we’re the new Earthkeepers who, it is said, will come from the West. I would love to hear about your experiences with the insights, and the success and challenges that you encounter in your practice.

In munay,
Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D.

The Source of the Rites of the Munay-Ki

Rites of passage and initiation have been practiced for millennia by all peoples in the Earth. The rites of the Munay-Ki are based on initiatory practices of the Inka and pre-Inka shamans of the Andes and the Amazon. They are presented the way that I learned them from my mentors, stripped of all trace of the cultures they come from. I did this to respect the native traditions, and to avoid the idea that persons from the West can become traditional shamans or Indians. I offer these rites with full permission from my teacher, don Manuel Quispe, who was the last great medicine man of the Q’ero Inka nation. Any fault or flaw in their presentation is exclusively my own.

*The Seers rite is practiced in many different forms among the North Coast peoples of Peru, (the descendants of the Chimu and Moche cultures), and by the seers and trackers of the Amazon.

*The Harmony Rite comes from the lowland Q’ero, the Huachipayre people from the edge of the Amazon. I learned it from don Alejandro Cahuanchi, a renowned healer.

*The Bands of Power were transmitted by Juan Victor Nuñez del Prado, a friend and colleague, whose father was one of the original discoverers of the Q’ero nation.

*The Healers Rite is known as the Hampe blessing and comes from the highland Q’ero people.

*The Daykeepers Rite is known among the Q’ero as the Pampamesayok, referring to the lowlands and valleys of the ‘pampa’, and to the mesa or altar.

*The Wisdomkeepers Rite is known among the Q’ero as the Altomesayok rite, referring to the high mountains of the Andes. Don Manuel Quispe was the last great Altomesayok of Q’ero.

*The Earthkeepers Rite is known among the Q’ero as the Kurak Akuyek rite, referring to the elder who ‘masticates’ the wisdom to nurture the young ones who follow.

*The Starkeepers Rite is known as the Mosoq Karpay, which means the ‘new rite’ in the Qechua language. This rite announces and prepares one for the ‘time to come.’ The structure of Inka cosmology goes from the Earth (Pachamama) to the Mountains (Apu) to the Stars.

*The Creator Rites are known as the Taitanchis rite. The word Taitanchis literally translates as ‘God.’

These rites are not only stages of initiation, but perhaps steps for the evolution of humanity. As nations fight for bits of territory and battle over land, we must find the wisdom to create peace among all peoples. As our space telescopes show us images of a vast and immeasurable Universe, we must find a human story that is inclusive of the stars. And as our ability to destroy the world increases, we are called to step up to the task of assuming stewardship for all creation.

In essence, the rites are about stewardship. They are not ego-awards or recognition of any kind of achievement, nor do they make anyone special. On the contrary, they make one uniquely unimportant. Only then, from a position of no-ego, can we truly be of service.
During their visits to the USA, the Inka pointed out that the rites were not for us individually, they were for others, to be shared. It has been my experience that they do not blossom unless we give them away with great munay, with love.

In Munay
Alberto Villoldo PhD March 2007

The Great Principles


Nonviolence: bring no harm to yourself or others


Truthfulness: be true to your word, and let your word be true


Integrity: do not steal, not even a glance; walk your talk


Moderation: use wisely the life force within you


Generosity: give more than you take for nothing in the world really belongs to you