Thousand Oaks, CA - A man hailed by Time magazine as an environmental “Hero for the Planet” will discuss the untapped potential for Shamanic healing in U.S. healthcare at California Lutheran University.

Mark Plotkin, Ph.D., will present “Shamanic Medicine, the Mind-Body Connection, and the Future of Healthcare: An Amazonian Perspective” at 10 a.m. Monday, Oct. 11, in Samuelson Chapel. CLU’s Artists and Speakers Committee is presenting the free lecture.

Plotkin asserts that Shamanic medicine offers new insights into everything from diagnoses to cures in ways we are just beginning to appreciate. But mainstays of Shamanic healing such as herbal solutions and spiritual healing are missing from the current healthcare debate.

The renowned ethnobotanist has firsthand knowledge of the healing potential harbored by the Amazon rain forests – through their cultures and the plants and animals their inhabitants know and use.

For much of the past 20 years, Plotkin has worked with and learned from the ancient shamans in the rain forests of Central and South America, where he has acquired knowledge of healing plants and shaman traditions.

A spellbinding orator and storyteller, Plotkin and his work have been featured in a PBS “Nova” documentary, in an Emmy-winning Fox TV documentary, and in the Academy Award-nominated IMAX film “Amazon.” He has also been on the “NBC Nightly News,” “Today” show, CBS’s “48 Hours” and NPR. Smithsonian magazine recently named him one of “35 Who Made a Difference” along with luminaries such as Bill Gates, Wynton Marsalis and Steven Spielberg. He has also been the subject of articles in Life, Newsweek, Elle and People.

Plotkin is the author of “Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice” and has written or co-written several other critically acclaimed books on Shamanic healing. He is president of the Amazon Conservation Team, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting biological and cultural diversity of the tropical rain forest. In 2008, the Skoll Foundation named Plotkin one of the Social Entrepreneurs of the Year.

Educated at Harvard University, Yale and Tufts, he has also served as a research associate in ethnobotanical conservation at Harvard’s Botanical Museum, director of plant conservation at the World Wildlife Fund and vice president of Conservation International.

The chapel is located south of Olsen Road near Campus Drive.

For more information, contact biology professor David Marcey at marcey@callutheran.edu.