TOM PINKSON, PHD

Tom is a seventy-five year old transpersonal psychologist, ceremonial elder, rite of passage and vision-fast leader, sacred storyteller, musician, and author.  Tom completed an eleven-year apprenticeship with Huichol shamans in Mexico. He has written extensively about Huichol shamanism, cosmology and the use of peyote in  their rituals.

His doctoral dissertation, “A Quest for Vision,” described his successful work with heroin addicts in the early 1970s using a wilderness treatment program that included mountain climbing, river running, snow camping, ski touring and vision quests in the High Sierra. From working with drug addicts, he went on to help start the first at-home hospice program in the United States, offering support services to the terminally ill. 

He was invited to join Dr. Jerry Jampolsky at the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Tiburon, California to work with children facing life-threatening illness which he did for thirty two years.

Walking in two worlds, the shamanic world of indigenous spirituality, and the Western world of a psychologist, Tom serves as a bridge-builder, bringing what he calls “The Teachings of the Elders” into practical applications within the modern, urban setting. Learn more at drtompinkson.com and www.nierica.com