Michael Murphy earned a master’s degree in Professional Writing at Maharishi University. He was on the faculty there from 1994 to 2003. During that time he came to feel that writing had a potential for fostering self-understanding that was not being fully explored in the academic environment. Leaving the university, he began to explore this potential. His first experiment was to write Murphy’s Laws of the Inner Life. This book uses a unique writing technique to explore the deeper meaning of life experiences. He then developed the Writing as a Sacred Practice seminar to teach this technique. To deepen his work Michael studied shamanic healing with The Four Winds Society and accompanied its founder, Alberto Villoldo, to the mountains and jungles of Peru where he received shamanic initiation from the Q’ero Indians. He also studied animal communications at Spring Farm. He quickly saw how writing could be used to facilitate this communication. His later books grew out of this synthesis.