I.Murphy Lewis, Founder of IML

Born in Newton, Kansas, Dr. I. Murphy Lewis is a publisher, author, psychoanalytic Akashic shaman, and lecturer. She received her Masters (2005) and Doctorate (2007) of Philosophy in Mythology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA, with an emphasis in Depth Psychology and Culture; an Associates Degree in Fashion (1988) from Parsons School of Design in New York City; and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (1980) from the University of Kansas.

Dr. Lewis is author of the young adult book and director of the short documentary film, Why Ostriches Don’t Fly and Other Tales from the African Bush (1997, 1998), as featured on WABC News (2002). She is the director and producer of three other short documentaries, Music that Floats from Afar (2001), How do you Name a Song? (2003), and The Sacred Forest of the Lost Child (2007). She has given over forty speaking engagements to grade schools, junior and senior high schools; lecturing for National Geographic Journey of Man Trip (2008); The Sunflower Story Arts Festival, Mount Kisco, along with Diane Wolkstein (2009); African Art Exhibit at Northwest Missouri State University Department of Art and Horace Mann Laboratory School where she was broadcasted across the state of Missouri to the grade schools (2011); and for the American Business School’s Psychology Department, Paris, France (2013).

In 2002, in honor of the Kalahari San Bushmen and the Maasai Warriors and to benefit indigenous peoples, Dr. Lewis became the Founding Director of Global Voice Foundation, a fiscal sponsorship of Legacy Global Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit organization. GVF has provided water pumps, corn-threshers, education, food, medicine, and clothing. In 2018, GVF began working with Radio France’s Radio Ndjoku in the Central African Republic to provide two jobs for the BaAka Peoples, giving voice to their everyday challenges, as well as to their music, which was recorded by Louis Sarno over the course of thirty years. In 2020, Dr. Lewis served as a juror in Radio France’s ePop contest held to give voice to indigenous youth and elders dealing with the consequences of environmental and climate change.

In 1998, Lewis began her first venture into publishing the republication of Lysbeth Boyd Borie’s 1928 Poems for Peter (in conjunction with Shank Painter) from the original copper plates. She then created IML Publications, L.L.C. to produce art books, poetry and film by various female and indigenous artists. Her second and third publications include: Gail Segal’s poetry, In Gravity’s Pull (2002), and Gay Walley’s The Erotic Fire of the Unattainable: Aphorisms on Art, Love and the Vicissitudes of Life (2007), which resold to Skyhorse Publishing (2015), and was successfully launched in 2016 as a film The Unattainable Story as Mostra, the São Paulo International Film Festival where it was acquired by Europa Films for Brazilian distribution and by Random Media at Cinequest in 2017 (IML Publications is an Associate Producer); and has become a new film Erotic Fire of the Unattainable (2020) by Frank Vitale, written by Gay Walley. In 2021, IML Publications ambitiously launched Venus as She Ages a 6 novel collection by Jacqueline Gay Walley.

Dr. Lewis has had a high profile career in the fashion industry, as Vice President, Director of Sales for Badgley Mischka (1998- 2001) and Halston (1997), and was formerly employed as Director of Sales for Mary McFadden (1993-1996) and a Sales Manager for the Jean Muir Boutique at Bergdorf Goodman (1988-1991). In 2003 to 2007, Lewis trained as a shaman. In 2011, Lewis trained as a Love Coach with Kathryn Alice and in 2012, she assisted in the training. In 2017, she trained with Suzanne Kingsbury in her Gateless Certification Training program, accessing her deeper capacities as a writer and editor.

For the past twenty-five years Dr. Lewis has been researching the stories and recording the music of the San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa (10 safaris in). From 1998 to 2004, 2013 during seven journeys into Kenya, Lewis participated in the shamanic initiation rites of the Maasai Warriors.

Through all her speeches, writings, illustrations, and unique lifestyle, Dr. Lewis opens our eyes to the Kalahari San Bushmen’s magical trickster god, Mantis, and the transformative world of shamanism. When Lewis isn’t traipsing through the Kalahari, she is immersed in a private practice of psychoanalytic shamanism with adults in the safety and love of the Akashic Records, managing to faithfully write in her lifelong journal of forty-nine years, now 35,000 pages.

In 2006, 2009-2011, Dr. Lewis lived in Copenhagen, Denmark researching, writing, and working with private clients. During this same time period, she trained psychoanalytically at the C. G. Jung Institut, Küsnacht. Switzerland.

For the past twelve years, she has been residing in Paris, France with her Parisian husband, architect and urban planner.