Author & Ajarn Shaman Shu
Stories about the people most books walk past.
Robert Shumake writes under two names. As Robert Shumake he restores America's forgotten newspapers in the 69-volume Living Archive Series; as Ajarn Shaman Shu he teaches ancient wisdom, ancestral traditions and consciousness mastery across 68+ books.
- 137+
- Books published
- 69
- Restored archives
- 15+
- Years of research
Robert Shumake · robertshumake.biz
- Who is Robert Shumake?
- Robert Shumake, known in the wisdom traditions as Ajarn Shaman Shu, is an American author, researcher and AI practitioner. He has published 137+ books on ancient wisdom, consciousness, wealth and restored American history, and leads the Living Archive Series, which uses AI to restore 69 archives of Black and Indigenous records.
- What is Robert Shumake known for?
- He is known for the Living Archive Series, for his work as a Black AI expert on cultural-memory bias in AI training data, for founding Orisha, Buddha, Shiva and Krishna Universities, and for a catalogue of 137+ published books.
- Where can I read Robert Shumake's books?
- The complete catalogue is listed on this site at robertshumake.biz/books, with links to each title and to the AI topics the work connects to.
AI & Cultural Memory
A Black AI expert pointing machine intelligence at what it usually skips.
Robert Shumake is an applied AI researcher as well as an author: AI-assisted OCR and machine vision restored the 69 newspapers of the Living Archive Series, and the same methods structure a 137-book corpus of wisdom-tradition source material. His argument is simple — models can only learn from what was preserved, so the work is to preserve it.
Explore the AI work69
Archives restored with AI
137+
Titles in the corpus
4
Online universities
ORCID
Verified researcher ID
Landmark research
Shurooms — 300+ ceremonies documented from inside the African initiatory tradition
The first ethnomycological study of psilocybin ceremony authored by an initiated lineage-holder. Tri-lineage authority (Oluwo, Swamikal, Ajarn), Detroit ashram data, and the scholarly foundation behind Proposal E — indexed on Zenodo with DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21349908.
Read the Shurooms announcement- 300+
- Guided ceremonies
- 3
- Lineage credentials
- 61.08%
- Proposal E vote
- Zenodo
- DOI-indexed
New release
I Bought the Nooses: The AI Billionaire Blueprint
The same self-directed methodology that took Shumake from sweeping floors at Ford to managing $200 million — now applied to artificial intelligence. A step-by-step framework for entrepreneurs to build AI-powered businesses at scale and turn exclusion systems into instruments of liberation.
Read the announcement- 140+
- Books published
- $200M
- Capital under management
- Harvard
- Agentic AI credential
- AI
- Wealth framework
The Library
Featured books
Start here — the novels and collections readers reach for first.
African SpiritualityAjarn Shaman Shu
Osain
The Green Intelligence: Ancient African Plant Medicine, the Secrets of Gurunfindá, and the Ifa Healing Tradition That Predates All Modern Science
ConsciousnessAjarn Shaman Shu
The New York World
The story of the New York World — Joseph Pulitzer, Nellie Bly, the Statue of Liberty campaign, and the Pulitzer Prizes — from Robert Shumake's archive.
Restored NewspapersRobert Shumake
The Tampa Tribune
The story of the Tampa Tribune — Ybor City and the cigar capital, José Martí and Cuban liberty, the Rough Riders' port — from Robert Shumake's Living Archive Series.
About
About Robert
Robert Shumake is an internationally recognized author, spiritual teacher, consciousness researcher and custodian of forgotten histories. Writing under two distinct author personas — Robert Shumake and Ajarn Shaman Shu — he has published over 137 books spanning spiritual wisdom, historical restoration, ancestral knowledge systems and transformational consciousness work. As Robert Shumake he publishes the Living Archive Series, 69 meticulously restored American newspapers preserving the voices of cities from Atlanta to Albuquerque. As Ajarn Shaman Shu he synthesizes African spirituality, Hindu and Tantric philosophy, Buddhist studies, Tamil Siddha traditions and Hermetic science into practical teachings on meditation, breathwork, ancestral healing and wealth consciousness. He is a workshop facilitator, retreat leader, online educator and mentor to practitioners, historians and consciousness researchers worldwide.
Read full bioStore
Books, courses & tools
Visit the official Robert Shumake shop for signed editions, study materials, and AI-powered research tools.
Visit the shopJournal
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