About the Author

Michael Wiese has a knack for being at the right place at the right time and when that's not the case, he enthusiastically creates his own opportunities. He has been a producer, director, writer, and publisher. Twenty-five years ago he broke away from the straight and narrow to create a substantive body of work. Despite being diagnosed five years ago with Parkinson's, his search for healing has taken him from stem cell therapy to Amazonian plant medicine. His spiritual quests have been documented in his latest films The Sacred Sites of the Dalai Lamas (Tibet), The Shaman & Ayahuasca (Peru), and Talking with Spirits (Bali).

Reviews

"Like some of the best things in life, Onward and Upward was a joy I wasn't expecting. An autobiography of author, filmmaker, producer and entrepreneur Michael Wiese, this book craftily outlines a life well lived, weaving in wide-angle historical sketches with an intimate close ups on the movie making and distribution business. The cast is studded with luminaries like Salvador Dali, Buckminster Fuller, Shirley MacLaine, and a host of Hollywood movers-and-shakers, as well as Wiese's family and teachers. But the real star is Wiese himself, and the strange, intoxicating journey of his own spiritual path -from Bali to the jungles of the Amazon. Wiese peels back theme and story to remind us why we make films, and books, and love - and like Balinese shadow puppets, he reveals the hand of something greater in the drama of life." Rak Razam, author, Aya: A Shamanic Odyssey