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Meet the Heretic Healer.

her·e·tic, noun: 

a person holding an opinion at odds with what is generally accepted.

Nathaniel Hodder-Shipp, B. Msc., CADC-II, is a “heretic” healer who empowers people to be their own catalysts of positive change. Equipped with an arsenal of techniques, Nathaniel has helped thousands of people access joy and ease, move through trauma, and maintain healthy and happy relationships with themselves and loved ones.


Nathaniel’s client base ranges from those seeking support, relief, and healing from everyday concerns and anxieties to people suffering from severe emotional and physical trauma and desperate for help. His specialties include helping accelerate clients’ journeys toward recovery as well as addressing and processing trauma, disarming negative thought patterns, and building stronger, more resilient relationships.

Nathaniel first began studying magic, mysticism, and tarot in the 90s. He became an Ordained Priest of Eccelsia Gnostica Catholica in 2008, but he was disconnected, at odds with his own integrity, and running away from life.

“I had everything I thought I wanted,” he reflects. “The big salary. The house. The relationship. I was drinking myself to death thinking I was content. I was missing a key element in my life that I had never considered: Me.”

Through a series of personal trials and tribulations, Nathaniel found recovery in 2009 and experienced breathwork for the first time as a client of Corrie Borris. Everything changed once he discovered breathwork. His skepticism and resistance to traditional healing techniques dissolved as he saw how swiftly the practice shifted his perspective on life, love and sobriety. Nathaniel became certified by David Elliott* to teach this powerful healing to others and for more than 10 years, he has used breathwork, tarot, and other unconventional healing tools to help empower people to make changes in their lives toward long-term health and happiness.

In 2017, on a whim, Nathaniel booked an astrology consultation with his dear friend Tai Fenix and discovered Hellenistic Astrology. He was hooked. Since then he began studying with some of the foremost astrologers in this field, Chris Brennan and Austin Coppock, and he continues his studies with both.

Nathaniel also is the founder of Breathwork for Recovery, the first and only national organization comprised of certified mental health breathwork professionals with special training in healing trauma, recovery from substance use disorder, chemical dependency, eating disorders, compulsive behaviors, and other mental health issues.

*In the almost 12 years I spent studying under David Elliott as one of his main teachers, I’ve grown both spiritually and professionally and will always be grateful for the opportunities that working closely with him has afforded me. In Fall 2021, I made the heart-wrenching and difficult decision to leave David's breathwork community, as I could no longer ethically be associated with him or his teachers due to the legacy of harm outlined here by Breathwork for the People.

I was not involved in the letter-writing nor am I affiliated with Breathwork for the People, but what they did was an important step in healing the breathwork community and took a tremendous amount of courage. I remained in David's breathwork community for a year and a half hoping to be a part of the important changes urged by Breathwork for the People and several other community members throughout the years, and to make it a better program and safer, more affirming space for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color as well as folks from the LGBTQIA+ community. The issues outlined in the letter were not remedied, however, and the changes were not made. So I left the community in order to build one that represents the values and justice focus that I and so many others hold true.