Rachel Mann, PhD is an innovator in the field of trauma transformation and personal-spiritual growth, combining her training and work over 20 years in shamanic healing and spirituality, mind-body medicine, soul-and-spirit informed psychodrama, and transpersonal education. She is a social scientist and academic who made a radical career shift in her mid-40s to leave her full-time academic career at the University of Virginia to answer the calling to be a shamanic healer, mentor and spiritual teacher.
Dr. Mann has been a member of the Atlantic University faculty since 2013 and has developed and taught courses on Peacebuilding, Earth Stewardship and Shamanic Studies, among others.
In 2007, Dr. Mann left her tenured position at the University of Virginia to start a shamanic healing practice. Since then, she has supported 2000+ clients from around the world heal personal and ancestral wounds and step into their authentic expression of their creative service to others. She is the creator of Shamanic Somato-Emotional-Energy Transformation, a holistic modality for addressing the whole self: the energy-physical body, mind-heart-emotions, soul-spirit in service of shifting blocks, healing trauma, and manifesting abundance in relationships, love, creativity, career, and service to others.
Through Dr. Mann’s Coaching & Mentoring Program, she has supported current and emerging cultural and healing creatives seeking to transition into their calling to integrate their spiritual study, wisdom gained from their own healing journey, and their professional expertise and work into a personally meaningful, soul-informed, authentic offering in service to others and the planet. They have included therapists, healers, clergy, writers, artists, veterans, conscious entrepreneurs, and others. Dr. Mann is also a guide for individuals who are experiencing profound spiritual awakenings. Many clients work with her as they transition from career into retirement, divorce into single life, religious affiliation into spiritual exploration, deepening and freedom.
Over 35 years, Dr. Mann has integrated her academic, interdisciplinary research and training in violence studies, trauma, and peacemaking, along with decades of study with spiritual masters and leading-edge practitioners.
- Peacekeeper Training with Cherokee teacher, Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo of the Sunray Meditation Society.
- The sweet and powerful mesa tradition and cosmovision of the Q’ero medicine people of Peru, ancestor of the ancient Inka.
- Shamanic energy healing and ceremony, with Alberto Villoldo of the Four Winds Society and others.
- The teachings of compassion, mindfulness, and loving kindness of Vipassana Buddhism.
- Psychodrama for healing individual and collective trauma.
- Healing Historical Harms with the Eastern Mennonite Center for Peacebuilding.
- Action against Trauma with the Center on Violence and Community.
Dr. Mann considers herself to be a Sacred Activist for Peacemaking and has creatively parlayed 15 years studying the authoritarianism of the former Soviet Union during the Cold War with a BA in Russian Studies, an MA in Soviet Studies, and a PhD in Slavic languages and literatures into an understanding of how collective violence and trauma impacts individuals and groups and how creativity and spirituality heal. From 1996-2014, as a faculty member at the University of Virginia, Dr. Mann developed transformational, innovative courses on the topics of ending violence and peacemaking. She was the recipient of several grants and received an award for a project co-sponsored with the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Action Alliance for The Art of Surviving, a digital and traveling exhibit of art, personal narratives, and poetry by survivors of sexual assault.
She is the founder of The School of Awakened Heart Shamanism, through which she offers a dynamic, luminous and transformational program for spiritual seekers. Her teachings are trauma-informed and based on her belief that we must use the spiritual and contemplative tools of energy medicine, earth-based ceremonies, shamanic journeying, prayers, and meditation to heal transgenerational trauma and harness our highest destiny lines to a new earth of compassion, love, and peace.
For the past 20 years, Dr. Mann has provided consulting to and developed spiritually-infused programs for organizations working on the frontlines of violence and peacebuilding. Her clients have included Search for Common Ground, the Garrison Institute Contemplative-Based Resilience Program, and the BA program in Contemplative Psychology at Naropa University.
Rachel’s writings have appeared in magazines and journals such as Spirituality & Health, YourLifeIsATrip, and Wildfire Magazine published by Sun Bear. She also publishes a blog on sacred activism for peacemaking, shamanic healing, and ending violence.
Rachel is the host of the podcast, Destiny Lines: Sacred Activism for Peacemaking & Ending Violence. A sample of her teachings can be found on her YouTube Channel and in her blogs. To learn more about her work outside of Atlantic University, go to RachelMannPhD.com.
She offers a profound, unique visionary perspective on the powerful transition of humanity into a higher vibrational frequency of Great Heart and Great Peace based on the best knowledge and tools from the western sciences, social sciences and psychology with the practices of mindfulness and loving kindness from Buddhism and the wisdom and healing traditions of Native American spirituality, western shamanism and the Q’ero medicine people of the Peruvian Andes.
