Flight of the Firebird

Kenneth Johnson was quite literally born and raised in “Surf City USA”—he grew up in south California during the 1960s. He obtained his B.A. in comparative religions at California State University, Fullerton and his M.A. in eastern studies at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM. For some years a staff writer for The Mountain Astrologer, Kenneth also participated in Project Hindsight, a colloquium of astrological scholars dedicated to restoring and interpreting the earliest known texts on horoscopic astrology. Kenneth has published many books. His best-known works are Mythic Astrology (coauthored with Arielle Guttman), a vast reference work on the archetypal symbolism which lies behind all the planets and signs used in astrology (and still in print after twenty-nine years), as well as Jaguar Wisdom: An Introduction to the Mayan Calendar—carried through Latin America by gringo travelers for many years, right next to their Lonely Planet guidebooks. His works have been translated into German, Portuguese, Japanese, Czech, Russian, and Bulgarian. An inveterate world traveler, Kenneth is currently ensconced in a remote Mayan town in the mountains of Guatemala where, after ten years of study, he was initiated into the indigenous Mayan priesthood as an aj q’ij (keeper of days) in November of 2017. Of all his works, Kenneth’s personal favorite, variously titled North Star Road and Witchcraft and the Shamanic Journey, examines survivals of ancient European shamanism which are to be found in the courtroom records of the European witch trials. For the new edition to be published by Crossed Crow Books, he has added a series of spiritual exercises gleaned from his studies with shamans in Russia who still operate in accordance with the ancient pre-Christian paradigms. For more on his work with the Maya, see jaguarwisdom.org, or facebook.com/jaguar.wisdom.