This chapter describes the traditions, training, alterations of consciousness, healing ritual, and ethnomedical ideologies of Cannabis sativa, which is the oldest, most widely used, yet least considered plant teacher of the psychedelic renaissance. After briefly summarizing the recent literature about the deeply intertwined histories of Cannabis sativa and its intimate relationship with human...
June 16, 2025Alejandro Marín Valencia, Luis Fernando Agreda Muchavisoy
This chapter reflects on the cultural uses of yajé (ayahuasca) within the ethnomedical system of the Kamëntsá Biyá people in southern Colombia, the expanded states of consciousness produced by the entheogenic mixture, and its relationship with symbolic healing processes. We analyze these phenomena within the cultural history of the Kamëntsá and their eco-cosmology and the elements of mythopoeic...
Ibogaine, derived from the Iboga (Tabernanthe iboga), a shrub of central Africa, has a history of medical and entheogenic ritual use. Its modern use followed the serendipitous discovery, among heroin users in 1962, that it interrupted heroin addiction. Efforts to engage the scientific community in the clinical science of ibogaine had limited success but led to an underground treatment movement...
Two endemic plants of Mexico from the Convolvulaceae family, Ipomoea corymbosa and Ipomoea tricolor, are entheogens known since ancient times for their properties of promoting communication with the gods and use in divination-healing processes and public rituals. The Nahuas, Mixtecs and Mazatecs of central Mexico still use these entheogenic “Virgin seeds” known as “Morning glories” in English,...
The psychoactive brew Ayahuasca has a central role in the traditional medicines of the indigenous people of the Amazon basin and in recent decades has generated significant research interest among the academic community along with the revival of psychedelic medicine. The therapeutic community Takiwasi, located in Peru, leads this movement in its dedication to treatment of substance use...
This chapter provides a summary analysis of the diverse entheogenic traditions examined here, considering the model of the evolved psychology of ritual healing presented in Chapter 22. Key elements of this framework involve: Collective ritual involving a night-time group reunification Preparation through sexual abstinence and diet Performances of singing, drumming, and music Visions from...
Entheogenic healing rituals have emerged recently decades in the Western world using a psychoactive secretion from a tree frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor) called Kambo. Kambo use originated as an Amazonian hunting ritual but became internationalized as a spiritual healing practice in a “vaccination” involving application of the frog secretion of a frog through the skin via a heat-induced blister....
Rastafari is a Pan-African spiritual, socio-political, and ecological movement that uses the Herb (Cannabis spp.) as an entheogenic agent for decolonizing consciousness to promote well-being. The movement counters the centuries of injustice and oppression perpetrated through the trans-Atlantic slave trade with a power derived from links to African livity, a core spiritual lifestyle that...
June 16, 2025Fanny Charrasse, Alfredo Narváez1 citation
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...
The chapter presents an intercultural dialogue of knowledge production regarding psilocybin mushroom use among the Mazatec, a highly significant entheogenic practice of Mexico. The Chota Chjine, the wise ones, use Psilocybe mushrooms to mediate connections with the world of spirits to determine what disruptions of balance have led to illness and how to restore health and well-being. The Chjota...