My journey to Chavin was not an easy one, which is probably why the place is still relatively "undiscovered" by the majority of tourists. In order to arrive at the place, our small group first took a grueling overnight bus ride to the city of Huarez and then hired a private bus for the four-hour trek through beautiful but rugged Andean terrain. Fortunately, our vehicle had large, well-treaded tires and functional shock absorbers, since much of the road to Chavin was either punctuated by jagged mountain boulders or washed out from the heavy Peruvian monsoons. As we climbed toward Chavin, we approached two parallel mountain ranges, known as the Black and White Mountains, which originate at Chavin before running north and south for hundreds of miles in Peru. Andean shamans will tell you that these ranges and the valleys that connect them constitute the "spine" of South America. Being naturally metaphysically inclined, I was fascinated by this concept, and asked Don Arturo if there were centers of energy like the human charkas located along this continental spine. To both my delight and consternation, he responded affirmatively, while adding that since Chavin was at the very beginning of the South American spine, it was home to the continent’s root chakra. Having been involved with yoga for many years, I interpreted this news to mean that Chavin would possibly be engulfed by kundalini, the power of dramatic transformation that inhabits the archetypal root chakra, thus potentially making our visit at the site a very intense one. When we arrived at the small town of Chavin, it was the late morning of a brilliant sunny day, so we decided to visit the ruins before checking into our hotel. You can imagine my surprise when we walked through the main gate and found the pyramidal compound nearly deserted, especially since I was used to mingling among hordes of people at most of the more common Andean temple sites. Our privacy at Chavin allowed me to fully express my excitement at what I discovered there, and soon I was literally jumping and shouting in delight like a kid on Christmas morning. Having been a profound student of esoteric architecture and sacred science for some time, I discerned that the pyramidal complex of Chavin incorporated all the classical alignments and dimensions necessary for creating a sacred and "living" temple compound. It was perfectly aligned to the four directions, and its design reflected a natural balance between yin and yang, male and female (if two columns occurred together, for example, one had male and the other female markings adorning them). In addition, the site was oriented perfectly to certain star positions, and placed so that the sunrise sun on the equinoxes would perfectly slice through its very center. Finally, the site’s dimensions incorporated many sacred numbers — 3, 7, 9, 12, 13 — and its disposition on three levels revealed it to be a place where all three worlds — heaven, earth, and the underworld — united as one. Chavin, which means "center," as in center of the universe, certainly appeared to live up to its moniker. Eventually our group was lead to the Holy of Holies of Chavin, the place where all cosmic energies unite. We were taken through a network of tunnels running under the main pyramid until we found ourselves standing in front of a huge monolithic figure called El Lanzon, "The Lance." We were told that El Lanzon marks the "Axis Mundi" or "World Tree," the etheric corridor that unites all dimensions and all worlds. It is here that shamans initially journey before setting off for distant worlds, and it was along this corridor that the builders of Chavin first descended to Earth. El Lanzon also marks the exact center of the South American root chakra. The monolith, which is carved in the form of a dragon, symbolizes the kundalini serpent and marks the most powerful focus of transformative energies at Chavin. It appeared that both shamanic journeying as well as kundalini initiations might have once occurred within close proximity of El Lanzon.
As we were to eventually find out, Don Arturo knew reams about the builders of Chavin, because they were his predecessors in an unbroken line of San Pedro shamans. San Pedro, a cactus that grows along the coast of Peru and is ingested for mind expansion and spiritual evolution, was brought to Earth by the builders of Chavin about 18,000 years ago so that later Andean seekers could attain the same level of spiritual evolution they had. Don Arturo was apparently well on his way to this goal, having been a San Pedro shaman for over twenty years and having imbibed the cactus at least once a week during that time. Currently, whenever he is in the company of other San Pedro shamans, he is often told that from their etheric perspective, he has the same features as his Chavin ancestors. Don Arturo told us that the temple pyramid at Chavin had been designed specifically for San Pedro ritual, and today it represents the only structure on Earth specifically built for that purpose. But the temple has been very seldom used since the time of the Spanish invasion. In fact, it is just now being reclaimed for San Pedro ceremony, so we all felt very blessed that Don Arturo had brought us there, and doubly blessed in being one of the first gringo groups to ever take part in a San Pedro ritual at Chavin. Later that night, we all gathered in a circle at the lower level of Chavin, a large, square field, as Don Arturo measured out glasses of liquid San Pedro for each of us. Soon the mescalins, the mind-expanding catalysts in the cactus, began to open us up to a new world. After performing shamanic energy clearing on each of us, Don Arturo took us to into the tunnel leading to El Lanzon. Normally there is an iron gate in front of El Lanzon in order to protect it from tourists, but this had been opened up specially for our ceremony, so as each of us arrived at El Lanzon we were allowed to commune directly with the monolith while Don Arturo simultaneously chanted special shamanic mantras in front of us.
After we had all regrouped outside the temple of El Lanzon, Don Arturo had us do some loud chanting while he invoked the presence of the ancient masters of Chavin. As this was occurring, the image of a huge etheric temple slowly came into view and floated over the large field in front of us. Many of us could see this multicolored phantom, which was complete with elaborate doors and windows, and the most expanded members of our group could even see the forms of the masters of Chavin looking out at us from within the temple and blessing our small group. While in this profound moment of revelation, many of us collectively understood that the temple compound of Chavin was designed not only for transmutation, but also for the purpose of directly communing with the masters who had built it. Instruction regarding the mysteries of the universe can definitely occur here while a person is simultaneously inducted into a greater cosmic family of extraterrestrial brothers and sisters. When we had completed our evening rite, we did indeed feel as though one more internal barrier between the cosmos and ourselves had been removed forever. Mark Amaru Pinkham is the author of The Return of the Serpents of Wisdom and Conversations with the Goddess. He leads tours to many of the world’s sacred sites in conjunction with New Age Journeys, on the Web at <http://www.NewAgeJourneys.com>. |
In May 2000 I had the privilege of co-leading a spiritual tour with Don Arturo Cervantes, a Peruvian shaman, to a very mysterious place known as Chavin de Huantar. Located at an elevation of 13,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes, Chavin contains a pyramidal complex (photo at right by Jim Conley) that archaeologists claim is the oldest settlement in South America, and possibly the entire Western Hemisphere. Popular myth and excavated artifacts mix at Chavin to reveal that much or most of Andean civilization originated at the site before being dispersed throughout the highlands and coastal regions of Peru by ancient missionaries known as the Viracochas, the "Gods." As an inveterate researcher of seminal civilizations around the globe, one of my primary goals for coming to Chavin was to try to get answers as to who these Viracochas were, where they came from, and why they came.
After leaving El Lanzon, we stopped at many of the small alcoves that punctuate the underground tunnels, and studied the unusual stone heads (one of which is pictured at right) that had been placed upon altars there. Originally, these heads had been attached to the outside of the Chavin pyramid, but they have since either fallen down or been taken down and stored underground for safekeeping. The features of the heads are said to unite the sacred animals associated with the three worlds in Andean cosmology: the condor, puma, and serpent. Andean shamans believe that the heads were carved by the builders of Chavin in order to represent that they, the extraterrestrials, were masters of all the three worlds. This does not mean that the heads were simply metaphorical or symbolical. According to Don Arturo, the builders of Chavin actually appeared that way!
When it was my turn, I wrapped my arms around the stone dragon while a shimmering glow of white light emanating from El Lanzon (photo at right by C. Macdonald) both surrounded and moved through me. I felt my consciousness and all my bodily forces become immediately expanded, and I began to ascend. But even though I probably could have risen out of the temple along the etheric corridor marked by El Lanzon, I felt no need to do so. I was at the center of the universe and in a place of perfect peace and stillness, so where was there to go? The other members of our group reported having a similar experience, with the possible addition of visions and the reception of important information regarding their special place in the universe.