We describe the curanderos of the Túcume district, a land of farmers and territory of the Pyramids of Túcume, one of the most important archaeological monuments on the north coast of Peru. The use of the San Pedro cactus (Equinopsis species) as an entheogenic agent is guided by a specialist, a curandero or “master healer”, who directs a complex ritual around a healing “altar”. This “altar” is...
Classified by the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, coordinated by the United Nations (UN) in 1971, as dangerous substances with no real therapeutic value, psychedelics have been prohibited since that date in the United States and most European countries. However, over the last two decades there has been a resurgence of interest in them – so much so that some researchers are talking about...