Namaste! I am Dr. Elisabeth Pauline Sikie — a writer, spiritual counselor, and shamanic practitioner.

I am a European-American “mutt”, born and raised in Los Angeles to a middle class family of Hungarian, Croatian, German, and Scottish immigrants. I was named Elisabeth after my maternal grandmother and Pauline after my paternal grandmother. My last name Sikie, (pronounced “psyche”) was an Ellis Island version of a Croatian name that was originally written as Sikic, (pronounced “psychic?!”) — a synchronicity that I only just discovered.

My name has always felt somewhat heavy to me, like I was carrying the legacies of my European ancestors in my being. I have come to the conclusion that my name is fitting for a modern Western girl from Los Angeles who was called to a shamanic path.

As a child, I exhibited sensitivities including clairsentience, cognizance, lucid dream states, and spirit contact.

As a young woman, I earned my B.A in journalism at SFSU, but eventually felt pulled to explore my spiritual nature. I studied philosophy and comparative religion, including a deep study of Zen and Buddhism; various yoga traditions, specifically Iyengar, which I taught for a decade. I also have studied and practice Neopagan traditions that encompass Celtic shamanism and bardic poetry.

In the 1990s, I had the honor of being  trained at the Amron Metaphysical Center under the guidance of noted mystic  Norma Tringali where I underwent a comprehensive intensive program that taught a variety of esoteric disciplines including séance mediumship, ancient healing techniques, meditation, ritual, numerology, and psychic development. Eventually, I was ordained and worked as a minister and teacher at Amron. With the encouragement of Norma, I pioneered a unique program in the development of mediumship and intuitive states of awareness that facilitated safe and effective travel into other realms in an experiential group context. Concurrently, I worked as a spiritual counselor, and taught classes in women’s mysteries in my temple space in Oakland.

In 2005, I earned my M.A. in Religion and Philosophy with an emphasis in Women’s Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. My work focused on the sublime and dynamic art of Neolithic Europe, which pretty much kicked my ass and changed my worldview. The  art and artifacts of prehistoric Europe consistently depict the forms of the feminine, and the forms of plant and animal life that are often connected to the feminine. Specifically, I was completely turned on by the images in archaeologist Marija Gimbutas’ book Language of the Goddess. These pieces of our history from our Indigenous European ancestors deepened my understanding of their spiritual technologies, as well as illuminated my own pathway as a European-American shamanic practitioner. It also shed light on the sacred function of art as a transmitter of relational states of consciousness, and on the potent history of European women’s spiritual legacies of which I am a grateful heir.

In 2017, I earned (finally!) my PhD in Philosophy and Religion, with an emphasis in Women’s Spirituality. My dissertation explores ancestral relational states of consciousness, and the historic role of European women’s spiritual legacies. It explores some of the violence within our European history, including the Inquisitions, the witch hunts, and the inheritance of collective trauma and amnesia, which is an integral element in our contemporary culture-making strategies. It also looks at the use of trance, art, rite, and myth, and other women’s ways of knowing, as a means to retrieve our sacred ancestral relational states of consciousness that allow us to feel connected to ourselves, our community, our ancestors, and the natural world that sustains our lives. I think that looking to these past female ways of being and knowing that can be called “magical” offer great wells of information that we can use to retrieve our ancestral states of a human relational consciousness. I believe that we need ancestral spiritual models in order to heal our very deep collective wounding which, in a shamanic model, can only be called soul loss.

So now that I am a doctor of Philosophy, I claim the title “witch doctor!”

My focus is to teach the mysteries because it is time for all to be revealed. It is now time for women and men of European ancestral legacies to access our wisdom, and that includes using our spiritual and psychic ways of knowing. We are, and have been, healers, seers, oracles, visionaries, artists, leaders, poets, rebels, and warriors. It is time for us to join our sisters and brothers from all bloodlines in healing our species by becoming aware of what great states of relational consciousness we are capable of manifesting.

My intention for my work now is to connect with those women and men who feel called to do just that — by offering support, guidance, and historic precedence, as well as spiritual tools, techniques, and technologies, and hopefully a community space in which we can shake off this bad dream together and wake up!

We need to come back to ourselves so we can get ready for the next curve of the evolutionary trajectory we are now experiencing. Norma always taught that we are not humans having a spiritual experience, but rather we are spirits having a human experience. She also taught something that is always in the front of my mind as I move through this lifetime — Remember to remember who you are.

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I currently live in the Bay Area with my wondrous wizard husband, our dog, two cats, the rabbit, the beta fish, and the parrot.

Among our honored beloved dead are my mother Karol Sikie, and my mother in-law Geri Rose – and all those who have come before, including our beloved teachers and friends, Norma Tringali, Esau, Kalli Rose Halverson, Norbert Fernandez, and our beloved pets who have passed into the spirit world. Blessings and Namaste!

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Disclaimer: I speak about shamanism on this site, but I am not an Indigenous person. I speak only about areas of spirituality that I have personally experienced in my own work, and under the tutelages of particular qualified mentors. I am also not a “PC” person, and will speak my mind in a respectful way.

Unless cited, all content on this site is original. This includes written material and photographs. Do not monetize my work without permission. Namaste.