Our Team
David Shaw
Founder of Errant Empire – Medical Herbalist, Holistic Nutritionist
David is the founder of Errant Empire Herbal Medicine Dispensary and is a practicing Medical Herbalist within the greater Victoria area. He began his holistic health journey after graduating from the 2 year Holistic Nutrition program at Bauman College in 2015. After immigrating to Canada, David completed the Diploma of Phytotherapy at Pacific Rim College in the Spring of 2019.
David’s Diploma of Phytotherapy included:
500+ clinical practice hours
750+ hours herbal medicine educational hours &
480 hours of biomedical sciences
Currently David’s practice revolves around working with families including: parents, grandparents and children as well as with people who have chronic health conditions. He has an interest and is a resource in the community for herbal therapeutics and mental health. This includes support for: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, SAD, Autism, etc.
David is a Registered Herbal Therapist (RHT) with the Canadian Herbalist’s Association of British Columbia, the oldest regulating body of Herbal Medicine in North America.
Amanda Haw
R.Ac.
Amanda Haw is deepening her expertise in Chinese medicine through postgraduate training in Neijing Nature-Based Medicine (NNBM), refining her ability to support patients with greater precision and insight. After earning her acupuncture diploma from Pacific Rim College in 2023, she is excited to expand her clinical effectiveness, helping patients achieve lasting well-being.
Amanda is drawn to Chinese medicine for its holistic, root-cause approach – seeing health as an interconnected relationship between our environment, nourishment, relationships, and the way past traumas are stored in the body, manifesting as dis-ease. She is passionate about uncovering the deeper “why” behind health challenges, empowering her clients to heal at the source.
She primarily practices in a community acupuncture setting, where accessible, regular treatments allow folks to experience greater ease, flow, and relief in their daily lives – whether through pain management, nervous system support, or cultivating overall peace of mind. She loves practicing privately with clients for more in depth treatments.
Beyond the clinic, Amanda lives an active and creative life. She gives her energy to strength training, climbing, running, hiking, and dancing, alongside expressing her artistic side through painting and sewing. She deeply values authentic relationships and community, thriving in spaces where she can be her playful, wholehearted self.
With a deep commitment to honest care, connection, and holistic healing, Amanda looks forward to walking alongside you on your journey to greater peace and awareness.
Maureen Fontaine
Live Blood Analysis, Master Herbalist & Spiritual Intuitive
I bring a background that is a medley of Shamanism, mysticism, science and eclectic exploration. I am an ardent advocate for aligning emotions, spirit and biology. Practical, directive and inspirational, I bring clarity through connection. I wiggle you out of the rabbit holes and tame your monkeys.
“Let’s dance with your shadows as you dance with your light, as they are the gift of your humanity!”
I am passionate about the language of blood and dedicated to understanding the depth of its offerings. My practice includes Live and Dry Blood Analysis, and also encompasses Ontological Coaching and Spiritual Intuitive Readings. When asked how these all work together, my answer is how can they not? Blood is our soul signature. How we work with all these aspects of our intrinsic natured selves is the key and I continue to be in awe.
Biological medicine considers that the internal balance is essential to optimal health. Each and every nuance of our biology is an expression of an emotion. Once we translate the messages, healing is possible.
Vania Benel
Kambo Medicine Practitioner
With over 15 years of experience in holistic and complementary medicine, I am certified in Energetic Anatomy studies in Peru and trained in both holistic and energetic healing practices. I am also a professional practitioner of Amazonian medicine, guided by the wisdom of the Shipibo communities of the Peruvian rain forest. My ongoing collaboration with Indigenous healers continues to shape my path and deepen my understanding of medicine as a sacred service.
Among the therapies I offer is Kambo, a powerful traditional Amazonian medicine that supports physical cleansing, emotional release, and energetic alignment. Each session is guided with integrity, safety, and reverence, bringing together ancestral knowledge and a compassionate approach to holistic wellness. It is my honor to share these traditions and walk alongside others on their journey of healing and transformation.
Jon Sun Tan
Sound Healer and Bio-field Tuning Practitioner
My name is Jon Sun Tan and I am a sound/energy healer. Although, I do wish to qualify this title by stating that “healer” is quite misleading, for it is the intelligence of the recipient’s own body that does the actual healing. As a “healer” I act merely as a conduit for Spirit (æther). A facilitator of shadow-work as it were.
A little bit about my journey — after a brief, yet intensely toxic stint in technology, I moved to Vancouver Island. Soon, I left the city life behind to grow medicinal herbs. These herbs would then be transformed into extracts and essences. My interest in such alchemical things stemmed from a lifetime of various forms of chronic dis•ease, to which the allopathic model was ill-equipped to address and may have indeed contributed to.
During this period, my life guided me to what I have termed The Ætheric Lifestyle, as well as the practice of Ætheric Sound Healing. Healing sound/energy can be viewed as an integral part of The Ætheric Lifestyle, where these sounds may simply come via direct communion with our Earthly Mother.
Through The Ætheric Lifestyle and endogenous DMT (E-DMT), I have cultivated my ability to feel and interpret subtle energy, along with other innate spiritual abilities such as clairsentience. I am also certified as a Usui Reiki Master and well versed in The Essene Way (of energy healing), Kundalini Awakening and The Great Regeneration.
Madeleine Dupuis
Inner Light Spa Detox Technologies
Combining an entire lifetime career in customer service, management and managing 100s of commercial businesses in the financial sector, I wanted to pursue an avenue where my skills and passion of the human body/consciousness/ nature came together.
After an intense spiritual awakening of sorts, I took a leap of faith and followed the nudge of curiosity inside of me to leave my Commercial Banking career, to stop living for someday and live a life of no regrets. Since then I’ve unlocked many new levels of inner understanding in how I see the world and who I am is in a constant state of evolution. One thing I can say for sure is that as I move forward, responsibility increases in direct proportion to the amount of love I show myself and my world. That to me is integrity and that to me is how I can play my part in changing the world.
We don’t need anyone to heal us – in fact run the other way, if someone says they can! We are our own greatest healer with everything we will ever need inside of us already. When we give authority over to someone else to heal us – it may be a tempting respite, BUT we will eventually be handed “whatever they healed” back to us, on a golden platter no less (meaning a bigger lesson that we can’t outrun), for us to heal and do the work ourselves. I can speak clearly about this now, having learned it the hard way. All this to say, it’s simple, our greatest gift is the magic inside of us. And sometimes we just need an example of what that means, alongside the proper tools that can support us in that journey. This is why I am extremely passionate about creating a space for our community with the tools, technologies and resources that over the years have helped me personally on my journey.
My understanding of “Life is ALWAYS happening FOR you, not TO you”, keeps my heart open to receive true TRUTH.
Returning back to and remembering your natural state. That is my wish for you.
Come explore and feel like yourself again!
Annette Magled
Craniosacral Therapist
I incorporate different modalities uniquely suited to each participant. When working with our physical, emotional, mental, and energetic bodies, pain is released, anxiety subsides, the mind calms, and the body begins to heal.
I am an intuitive healer.
For over 20 years I have been helping people improve their relationship with themselves. This begins with awakening your awareness and this is where my passion comes in; playing with breath, thought, and movement.
I take a spiritual philosophy in my practice. What you think, how you breathe, eat and move are the places I like to bring attention to. When our attention is raised and we practice, change begins to take place.
