Eliot Cowan

Eliot Cowan (1946) is an American-born healer, teacher, author, and founder of the alternative healing technique known as Plant Spirit Medicine.

He received a degree in Anthropology from Pomona College and pursued post-graduate study in documentary filmmaking at UCLA. In 1970, while living on a farm in Vermont, he became distraught because one of his goats was sick. Unwilling to accept a "hopeless" diagnosis from a veterinarian, he began to read about herbalism and treated the goat with a plant. The goat healed, and Cowan's work in Herbalism began.

After a number of years practicing acupuncture, he came across an article on the Huichol Indians of the Mexican Sierras. The article caused him to travel to Mexico and meet them. A series of dreams, encounters and experiences guided him to apprentice with Don Guadalupe Gonzalez Rios, an eminent Huichol shaman. In the year 2000, Cowan was ritually recognized by Don Guadalupe as a guide to shamanic apprentices in the Huichol tradition. As of 2011, twenty-five of Eliot Cowan's apprentices have gone on to become shamans in the Huichol tradition.

In addition to teaching, lecturing, healing and training of shamanic apprentices on the Huichol path, one of Cowan's most significant contributions is his synthesis of shamanism, traditional Chinese Medicine and Herbalism into the healing technique known as Plant Spirit Medicine. Cowan is Founder and Board Chair of the Blue Deer Center in the New York Catskills, and is Elder Emeritus of the Plant Spirit Medicine Seminary.