Eliot's journey as a healer began in the 1960s with the study and practiceof herbalism. He then became a master practitioner of five-elementacupuncture. Determined to find a way to access more deeply thehealing potential of plants, he rediscovered a millennial practice thathe named Plant Spirit Medicine (PSM). His book of the same title wasunprecedented in the Western world. Eliot then undertook a 12-yearapprenticeship with Don Guadalupe Gonzalez Rios, a shaman of theindigenous Huichol people of Mexico. Rios initiated him as a shamanin 1997 and upon his retirement in 2000 recognized Eliot as a guide toshamanic apprentices in the Huichol tradition.Eliot and his staff have been teaching PSM worldwide for more than 25years and have trained more than 500 plant healers. He is the founder ofthe Blue Deer Center(www.bluedeer.org) a nonprofit healing retreat center, whose primary mission is to connect indigenous traditions with our modern cultures.