John Lockley is an ancestrally trained and initiated Xhosa Sangoma – a traditional South African Shaman.
John was recently featured in FAZ, Germany’s national newspaper. It is under the section ‘Mein Weg’, ‘My Way’, and features people who lead inspirational lives.
According John’s Xhosa elders in the Eastern Cape, John Lockley is one of the first white men, in recent history, to become a fully initiated Sangoma in the Xhosa lineage of South Africa – the tribe that gave us Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Sangomas receive guidance (through dreams and trance) from ancestors in the spirit world, in order to heal and guide the community. Sangomas are South African Shamans, meaning seers, dreamers or prophets – the traditional healers of Africa.
Background
John trained under difficult conditions in the townships of the Eastern Cape, serving a 10-year apprenticeship with his teacher Mum Gwevu, a well-known Sangoma medicine woman. He is unique in being initiated in three timeless traditions: African Shamanism, Yoga and Zen Buddhism, and also holds an honours degree in Clinical Psychology.
John was born, in 1971, into a divided Apartheid South Africa, with the mark of the Sangoma on his face – a band of white birth skin around the eyes. At 18, he was serving in the South African army as a medic (during the war with Angola in the 1980s) when he had a strong, prophetic dream calling him to train as a Xhosa Sangoma. He immediately began to suffer from the thwasa, a severe period of ill-health that is inherent in all ancient shamanic cultures which can only be cured through apprenticeship to a shamanic teacher. Because of the restrictions of Apartheid (which ended in 1994) it would take John seven years to find a Xhosa teacher. During the early days of his calling he trained as a zen student under the well known and charismatic zen master, Su Bong. He completed an intensive 3 month kyol che in South Korea after which he was invited by the grand master Dae Soen Sa Nim to join his “monk army” as he put it. However, John’s Sangoma calling was so strong that he returned to South Africa.
Eventually, post-Apartheid, he met Mum Gwevu, a well-known Xhosa Sangoma medicine woman, in one of the poorest townships in South Africa. She had foreseen his arrival in a dream and began his 10-year apprenticeship, giving him the initiated name Ucingolwendaba, meaning messenger or connector between people and cultures.
John’s work is acutely relevant at a time when western society is exploring spirituality beyond organised religion, and reconnecting with the earth, intuition and ancestry. A growing public interest in genealogy (and a yearning to understand the lives of our ancestors) has inspired websites, magazines and numerous TV series. John takes these trends deeper, into a realm that’s rooted in sacred tradition, offering a unique blend of cultures and secret teachings which honour his African, English and Irish ancestral lineages.
John is 38 and splits his time between South Africa, Europe and the U.S. He is currently based in Oxfordshire, in the UK.
“My journey is about reconciliation and part of my job is to help heal the past. When people are more connected with their own spirits, there is less of a desire to destroy or put down another. I don’t intend to bring Xhosa or South African shamanic culture to the West as such, but rather to use its essence – the techniques of prayer, dream work and connection to nature – to help people connect with their own ancestors and spiritual traditions.”
– John Lockley
How can African Shamanism help me?
John’s powerful Ubuntu workshops enable people to honour their own ancestors and to connect with ancestral wisdom and guidance, through nature and the dream world. Ubuntu means humanity and John uses sacred ceremony, rituals with herbs, and Xhosa songs and trance rhythms to encourage a profound remembering; an honouring of the human spirit. He also offers one-to-one sessions, connecting with his ancestral spirit guides, as well as the spirits of the client, to ‘see’ what is happening with the client emotionally, physically and spiritually.
John’s work has been known to help with the following:
- Depression, mild & severe
- Insomnia
- Dreaming, Interpretation etc.
- Spiritual Growth
- Nervous & Anxiety Disorders, etc.
- Old family hurts, Ancestral blocks
