DIONISIO SANTOS

Dionisio Santos is one of the first Westerners to have pioneered the field of entheogenic research and thoroughly explore the world of shamanism in the Amazonian Basin in the 1980s.  

He began his investigative exploration as an apprentice of Don Solón Tello Lozano, a well-known mestizo ayahuasquero from Iquitos, with whom he lived and studied for two years.  Over the course of 2 decades, he traveled throughout the Amazon Basin to further his personal studies of shamanic states by apprenticing with both mestizo and indigenous ayahuasqueros including those from Shipibo, Ashaninca, Mayoruna, Challahuita, Yaguar and Shuar tribes. 

In 1992, he co-founded Takiwaki Center for Drug Addiction Treatment and Research of Traditional Medicines and served as co-director for 8 years.  In 2000, he founded Yacumaman Sanctuary for Integral Shamanism, located outside the city of Tarapoto in the upper Peruvian Amazon. Dionisio has been practicing as a vegetalista in Amazonia with the local populace and the world over for almost 30 years. 

In the last 15 years, he received initiations by masters into various esoteric lineages including Hermeticism, Sufism, Vajrayana Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Dzogchen and Haitian Voodoo.  Over time and through a deep and devoted dedication to the practices and studies of these wisdom traditions, something new emerged. 

The distillation and interface of these teachings has radically informed Dionisio’s cognition and interpretation of shamanism and has become known as Integral Shamanism, a highly efficacious training program of transpersonal states of consciousness.

The objective of Integral Shamanism is to “include and transcend” the limitations of the ego-mind and thus expand the conventional, socio-cultural and religious understanding regarding non-ordinary states of consciousness.  The purpose of Integral Shamanism is to ultimately enable us to upgrade our personal and collective quality of life to a more conscious and harmonious state of being in accordance with our maximum potential: a non-dual, integral state of awareness.

Dionisio facilitates experiential Integral Shamanism programs and mentorships both at his Amazonian sanctuary and internationally.