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Shamanic Healing

What Are the Munay Ki Rites?

May 22, 2026  ·  4 min read  ·  Jess LeFevre, CHPC

The Milky Way over a mountain range at night

Key Takeaways

  • The Munay Ki is a set of 10 rites including the 13th Rite of the Womb, energetic transmissions from the shamanic lineage of the Andes.
  • A transmission is not information. It is an energetic seed passed from one person to another, then grown through your own practice.
  • The rites move through a clear arc: protection and healing first, then connection to lineage and nature, then stewardship and destiny.
  • Ceremony and ritual are not empty theater. Research shows structured ritual lowers anxiety and grief by restoring a felt sense of control.
  • This is sacred work, not a cure. It complements medical and psychological care, it never replaces it.

People come to the Munay Ki expecting a course. They expect slides, a workbook, a certificate at the end, information to take home and study. That is not what this is, and the confusion is worth clearing up before anything else.

The Munay Ki is not something you learn. It is something you receive. It is a set of energetic transmissions from the shamanic lineage of the Andes, 10 rites including the 13th Rite of the Womb, and the heart of it is an experience that happens in your energy body, not a set of facts that lands in your head.

What does Munay Ki mean?

The words come from Quechua, the living language of the Andean peoples. Munay means love and will at once, a loving intention that carries the power to create. Ki is energy. Together the phrase points to the energy of love, or becoming a person of beauty and power. The rites carry the energetic teachings of the Andean and Amazonian wisdomkeepers into a form that can be passed on in our time.

What is a transmission, really?

This is the part that does not survive translation into ordinary language, so I will be plain about it. A transmission is not a lecture. It is an energetic seed passed from the person carrying the lineage to the person receiving it. The old image is one candle lighting another. The first flame loses nothing, and now there are two.

You receive the seed, and then you grow it through your own practice. That is why this cannot come from a video or a book. The energy has to be transmitted in person and felt, and the lineage has to be carried by someone who actually holds it. You sit, you receive, and the work happens whether or not you do anything at all. You can rest, you can be moved, you can even doze. The transmission does not depend on your effort in the moment.

The arc of the rites

The 10 rites including the 13th Rite of the Womb move through a clear progression.

  • Protection and healing first. The foundational rites surround you with a lineage of healers across time, past and future, and awaken the healer within you. This is the ground everything else stands on.
  • Connection to lineage and harmony. The next rites connect you to the wisdomkeepers who have walked this path and to the organizing intelligence of the natural world, the harmony that runs through living things.
  • Stewardship and destiny. The rites of the time to come carry the seeds of who you are becoming and your role in caring for the world that is arriving.
  • The 13th Rite of the Womb. A rite of healing the feminine and releasing inherited pain held in the womb, the sorrow carried down a line. It is offered freely to all who wish to receive it.

Why ceremony does something real

I am a shaman, and I am also someone who reads the research, so I will not pretend ceremony is magic with no mechanism. Part of why ritual works is measurable.

A set of experiments published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that rituals alleviate grieving after losses of many kinds, and the effect ran through a restored sense of control. Strikingly, the benefit showed up even in people who said they did not believe rituals do anything. The structure itself does work in the nervous system.

That tracks with what we know about the body under stress. A review in Nature Medicine on chronic inflammation across the life span describes how persistent stress keeps the body inflamed and braced. Ceremony interrupts that bracing. The stillness, the breath, the felt sense of being held by something larger, all of it shifts the body toward repair. A review of slow breathing, the kind that naturally settles in during ceremony, found it moves the nervous system toward rest and repair. None of this reduces the rites to physiology, but it does mean the calm people feel is not imaginary.

What this is not

The Munay Ki is not a religion. It does not ask you to leave your faith, and it asks you to believe nothing on command. It is not a cure, and it does not replace medical or psychological care. If you are working through illness, trauma, or grief, your medical and mental health team stays central, and this work sits alongside that care as a complement.

What it offers is older than any of that. A way to step into a lineage of healers, to reconnect with the living world, and to receive an energetic inheritance that has been passed hand to hand for a very long time, now reaching yours.

If something in you stirred reading this, that is worth listening to. You can receive the Complete Munay Ki transmission when you are ready. The lineage has been waiting a long time for the next candle.

Common Questions

Frequently Asked

What does Munay Ki mean?
Munay Ki comes from Quechua, the language of the Andes. Munay means love and will, a loving intention with the power to create, and Ki is often understood as energy. Together it points to the energy of love, or becoming a person of beauty and power. The rites carry the energetic teachings of the Andean and Amazonian shamanic lineages into a form that can be transmitted today.
What is an energetic transmission?
It is the heart of this work and the part that does not translate into ordinary language well. A transmission is not a lecture or a set of instructions. It is an energetic seed passed from the person holding the lineage to the person receiving it, the way one candle lights another without losing its own flame. You then grow that seed through your own practice. It has to be given in person and felt, not read.
What are the 10 rites including the 13th Rite of the Womb?
The rites move through an arc. The foundational rites offer protection and healing and connect you to a lineage of healers past and future. The lineage and harmony rites connect you to the wisdomkeepers and to the organizing intelligence of nature. The rites of the time to come carry stewardship and destiny. The 13th Rite of the Womb is a rite of healing the feminine and releasing inherited pain carried in the womb, offered to all who wish to receive it.
Do I have to believe in it for it to work?
You do not have to arrive certain. What you bring is openness and intention, not blind belief. Interestingly, research on ritual finds that benefits like reduced anxiety and grief show up even in people who say they do not believe rituals do anything, because the mechanism appears to run through a restored sense of control rather than belief. The transmission is received in stillness, and you can rest fully while it happens.
Is the Munay Ki a religion or a replacement for medical care?
Neither. It is not a religion and it asks you to leave nothing behind. It is a complement to whatever care and faith you already hold, never a substitute for medical or psychological treatment. If you are dealing with a health condition or working through trauma or grief, keep your medical and mental health team central and let this work sit alongside that care.

References

Research & Sources

Peer-reviewed research referenced above. These support the mechanisms discussed and are not medical advice or a claim to treat or cure any condition.

  1. Rituals alleviate grieving for loved ones, lovers, and lotteries. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014
  2. Chronic inflammation in the etiology of disease across the life span. Nature Medicine, 2019
  3. Effects of voluntary slow breathing on heart rate and heart rate variability: A systematic review and a meta-analysis. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 2022
Jess LeFevre, CHPC

About the Author

JESS LEFEVRE, CHPC

Certified Human Potential Coach, Energetic Shaman, Qigong and Naegong Teacher, and Functional Wellness Practitioner. Trained under Master Dr. Pedram Shojai in the Tao Tan Pai lineage, certified through Dr. Alberto Villoldo and The Four Winds Society in Munay Ki and Energetic Shamanic Practice, and direct teaching from Shaman Durek.

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