David Cumes, M.D. was born in South Africa and received his medical training at the Witwatersrand Medical School in Johannesburg. Specializing in urology, Dr. Cumes was trained and has previously taught on the staff at Stanford Medical Center. He has published extensively in professional journals and currently has a private practice in Santa Barbara, CA.
Although Dr. Cumes has had classical training in a profession that relies heavily on science and analytical reasoning, he has pursued a personal quest that evokes his intuitive and introspective capabilities. After extensive travel which included time with the San Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert, Dr. Cumes explored the role wilderness plays in personal healing and transformation. He founded a company called Inward Bound, and leads groups on healing journeys to remote wilderness areas. As a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School of North America, he has formal training as a wilderness guide.
He has published three books. In the first, “Inner Passages Outer Journeys”, Dr. Cumes explores the restorative power of nature. It discusses practical theories of wilderness psychology and synthesizes relevant aspects of ancient traditions such as yoga and Kabbalah. The second book, “The Spirit of Healing” , discusses the interrelationship between the patient, the healer, and the Divine Force or “Field” as essential components of the healing process. The book is filled with personal anecdotes and insights from his surgical practice, his travels and his studies of ancient healing wisdom, shamans and San trance dancers. More recently Dr. Cumes has been initiated as an inyanga or sangoma (South African shaman.) The third book is about this journey. He has established a healing center in the far north of South Africa (Soutpansberg mountains) where he has built “Tshisimane”.
David Cumes speaks with Joanna about the rol of wilderness in healing transformation, the calling of the ancestors, his own initiation as a Zulu sangoma (shamanic healer), the multiple factors in the healing process…
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hi david I’ve started reading and following your work in 2009 when I come across africa in my bones as i’m writing i’m at present in initiation school as a sangoma I hope to learn a lot from you . yours lesiba in johannesburg south africa