About The Lineage

In Mexico there are many different schools of Curanderism. A Curandero is “one who cares for the energies.” Through various healing practices, Curanderos care for the energies of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.

There are at least eight different schools of Curanderism. These include the Eastern School which focuses on herbs, spirit animals and saints to restore one back to wholeness. In this tradition rituals, ceremonies, sacred dance and sacred plants (peyote, ayahuasca), are used to access higher dimensions of consciousness for healing and for spiritual transformation. This approach was made popular by Carlos Casteneda in his book The Teachings of Don Juan.

The Western School of Curanderism is the lesser known tradition which focuses on sacred geometry grids and energetic techniques that provide instantaneous access to multidimensional healing and magic. Esperanza’s lineage stems from the Western School.

Esperanza Mercado (1911-2002) was a powerful Curandera who lived in a tiny palapa hut in a remote village called Oración (the Spanish word for Prayer.) It is not marked on any map but can be reached by car in two and a half hours from Vera Cruz, Mexico. She and eight other Curenderas had a Curendera school on a side of the river. For many years, healers from South America, Mexico, and Central America were trained there. Esperanza was the keeper of esoteric knowledge and wisdom, including the mysteries of sacred geometry that were passed down in secrecy as part of an unbroken lineage that can be traced back 25 generations. The lineage teachings described a strange little man who “fell to Earth.” The tribe adopted him and he taught them Light Language and Multi-Dimensional Healing.

Esperanza was described by her student Starr Fuentes as a striking old woman with wrinkle-free skin and hip-length dark hair with a silver skunk-streak down the middle. Though small in stature, she was a spiritual giant who possessed extraordinary light and was believed to be endowed with supernatural abilities. Esperanza cared most about serving her community. It was not uncommon to encounter hundreds of people waiting at her isolated village every week for healings and teachings. As a master healer with seemingly endless energy, Esperanza treated hundreds of patients a day.

In the excerpt below, Starr recalls her time with Esperanza:

“When I’d first arrived in Oración, I was mesmerized by her. Who was that woman with the gray streak who looked me in the eye as though she could see through my soul?  They called her Esperanza: curandera, teacher, healer.  A woman who could look at me and I could feel the circulation in my body being traced as if by a radioactive isotope.  I needed to know her better.  In fact I wanted to be exactly like her.  Which at the beginning was my first big mistake.”

“About three months later, I am kneeling at the river, on my knees, washing two of Esperanza’s dresses and I remember thinking, “Why am I doing this? I came here to be a healer. I didn’t come here to wash clothes, to chop wood, to carry water.”  Just grouching about being on the river and doing lowly tasks. All of a sudden, Light Language was coming off of her clothes to me. I went, “ Oh, my God. This is a gift.  She put grids on the clothes, when I wash her clothes, I get a download. I felt so stupid. I felt so little. So, there was a whole level of consciousness that Esperanza taught me. She taught me how to be funny, how to laugh with life. She showed me Earth, and what it would be like in the future, she took me time traveling. She stood in front of me and became three people and showed me how to bilocate. All of this in a state of grace.”

During her three years with Esperanza, Starr spent long hours administering healing energy to the hundreds of people who came from miles around. Makeshift healing tables were set up using sawhorses and two-by-fours. Meals were eaten in haste and short breaks were barely allowed. At the end of the day, Starr was too exhausted to mind sleeping in a hammock strung up outdoors. Starr’s apprenticeship taught her many things, including sacred service, honoring her teacher, and preserving the integrity of the lineage. Her appreciation and gratitude grew beyond measure.

When it was time to pass on the continuation of the lineage, Starr succeeded Esperanza as the next lineage holder. One day, out of the blue, Esperanza told Starr to pack her things and prepare to leave. After three years of dedicated study and service, she was told not to return until she has expanded the lineage teachings to the four corners of the globe. Honoring her teacher’s final wish, Starr went on to develop a wide variety of classes presenting the sacred Mayan teachings. Esperanza would be happy and proud of Starr and all of the teachers and students that she has trained. For forty years, Esperanza’s Curandero wisdom and healing has indeed touched all corners of the world. This website is dedicated in loving memory to her.

“The brilliance of your light will never fade as it shall live forever in our hearts.”

Starr Fuentes has led an extraordinary life. Alcoholism ravaged her parents’ lives, and Starr spent her childhood hungry, cold, and abused, the victim of physical neglect and sexual violence. Starr’s only sister committed suicide at the age of 13, when Starr was only six years old.

As a child, Starr had comfort in only two places – the library and with her grandmother. Starr would stay in the warmth and comfort of the library, reading every night until the library closed at 10:00 p.m. She explored all the exotic and foreign lands that she would one day visit and fed her voracious hunger for knowledge.

Psychic abilities were as common as was alcoholism in her family and Starr became aware of her special gifts at a young age. Her grandmother was a practicing healer, and Starr spent endless hours in her kitchen, learning the art of herbs, healing, and magic. Even from the crib, Starr recalls seeing auras. In school, when she’d make drawings of people and animals, she’d draw in the aura quite naturally, not initially understanding that this was unusual. She began to recognize illness in others through the colors of their auras. She quickly learned that people were afraid of her abilities and for many years considered her gifts “a cruel joke.”

When she was 13, Starr left home and began supporting herself by becoming a waitress at a truck stop. She went to college on a full scholarship, waiting on tables at night and teaching yoga. Starr finally came to terms with her awesome healing abilities during her senior year in college, after she put her hand over the tumor of a friend and it manifested into her palm. She knew she had a few choices – drown herself in alcohol like her parents had done or step into who she was being called to be. She chose to become a healer.

Starr stepped onto the healer’s path consciously and began to use her psychic abilities in many ways, doing readings for people and assisting local and federal agencies in solving crimes. She made her first journey to study with a master in Colombia. From there, she went to Mexico City, then on to study with the Mexican curanderos in Vera Cruz, where she spent three years with her main teacher, Esperanza. Starr traveled the world studying with shamans in South America and Mexico, barefoot doctors in China, lamas in India, and witch doctors in Africa. She studied Tantric sex in India to heal herself of her sexual traumas, becoming a master in her own right.

After many years of studying various healing techniques all over the world, Starr returned to the Western hemisphere to teach others to mend their own wounds and eventually to heal the energies of cancer. Starr has brought thousands of men, women, and children to emotional, mental, and physical health with her eclectic use of ancient healing techniques, modern psychological tools, her psychic abilities, deep compassion for human suffering, and her sense of humor. She has the ability to see a person’s essence and calls us to our highest levels of possibility.

Starr has devoted the majority of her life to the alleviation of much suffering of all kinds. Being initiated into a long lineage of healers, Starr Fuentes has sought to broaden her knowledge by studying with Masters and attending Mystery Schools from around the world. After years of study with healers, masters, curanderos, and shamans, she has dedicated her life to helping others with the full unfolding of their purpose, path, and destiny.

Starr has been leading seminars for several decades now, and is known throughout the world as a fountain of knowledge, compassion, and honesty. She has 52 certifications and can teach over 400 subjects. Her teaching style is animated, dynamic, and full of life. She combines the use of modern psychological tools with ancient healing and shamanistic traditions. Her years of travel and study have given her a unique perspective on teaching the fundamental issues of humanity. She understands the process of the unfolding of the self as it learns through teaching.