Plant Spirit Shamanism

SAN PEDRO, THE “MIRACLE HEALER”
AN INTERVIEW WITH AN ANDEAN HUACHUMERA (SAN PEDRO HEALER)
By Ross Heaven

San Pedro (Trichocereus pachanoi), the sacred cactus and visionary teacher plant of the South Americas, is especially associated with the shamans and healers (curanderos) of the Peruvian Andes. It has other names among these healers as well; including “El Remedio”: The Remedy, which refers to its healing and visionary powers which, they say, can help us to let go of “the illusions of the world”.

Even its post-Hispanic name, San Pedro, embodies these qualities because Saint Peter is the holder of the keys to Heaven and the name of the cactus therefore speaks of its ability to ‘open the gates’ into another world where those who drink it can heal, discover their divinity, and find their purpose on Earth.

It is also known as huachuma and this is how it is most often referred to by the shamans who use it, who call themselves huachumeros (male) or huachumeras (female). Its use as a sacrament and in healing rituals is as old as history itself. The earliest archaeological evidence so far discovered is a stone carving of a huachumero found at the Jaguar Temple of Chavín de Huantar in northern Peru, which is almost 3,500 years old. Textiles from the same region and period of history depict the cactus with jaguars and hummingbirds, two of its guardian spirits, and with stylised spirals representing the visionary experience.

Another image, of an owl-faced woman holding a cactus, comes from a ceramic pot from the Chimú culture, dating to 1200 AD. According to native beliefs, the owl is a tutelary spirit and guardian of herbalists and shamans, so the woman depicted is most likely a curandera (healer) and huachumera.

Cactus ceremonies are held today for the same reasons as ever: to cure illnesses of a spiritual, emotional, mental, or physical nature; to know the future through the prophetic and divinatory qualities of the plant; to overcome sorcery or saladera (an inexplicable run of ‘bad luck’); to ensure success in one’s ventures; to rekindle love and enthusiasm for life; and to experience the world as divine.

The ethnobotanist, Richard Evans Schultes, wrote of San Pedro in the book Plants of the Gods that it is “always in tune with the powers of animals and beings that have supernatural powers… Participants [in ceremonies] are ‘set free from matter’ and engage in flight through cosmic regions… transported across time and distance in a rapid and safe fashion”. He quotes one Andean shaman who describes some of the effects of the plant: “First, a dreamy state… then great visions, a clearing of all the faculties… and then detachment, a type of visual force inclusive of the sixth sense, the telepathic state of transmitting oneself across time and matter, like a removal of thoughts to a distant dimension”.

Lesley Myburgh (known in the Andes as La Gringa: “the outsider woman”) is another of these shamans. She has led ceremonies with San Pedro for almost 20 years.

“It is a master teacher”, she says. “It helps us to heal, to grow, to learn and awaken, and assists us in reaching higher states of consciousness. I have been very blessed to have experienced many miracles: people being cured of all sorts of illnesses just by drinking this sacred plant. We use it to reconnect to the Earth and to realize that there is no separation between you, me, the Earth, and the Sky. We are all One. It’s one thing to read that, but to actually experience this oneness is the most beautiful gift we can receive.

“San Pedro teaches us to live in balance and harmony; it teaches us compassion and understanding; and it shows us how to love, respect, and honour all things. It shows us too that we are children of light - precious and special – and to see that light within us.

“Each person’s experience will be unique, as we are all unique, and drinking San Pedro is therefore a personal journey of discovery, of the self and the universe. There is one thing in common though: The day that you meet San Pedro is one you will never forget - a day filled with light and love, which can change your life forever… and always for the better”.

In 2008, during one of my visits to Peru to work with San Pedro, I interviewed La Gringa about her life and experiences with huachuma, the cactus of vision. Her answers show not only the healing potential of this plant but cast light on the traditions which surround it and their evolution in the modern world. For those who work as shamanic healers, what La Gringa has learned from huachuma is also of interest because it suggests where illness may come from and how, therefore, it may be cured, even by those who do not work with San Pedro themselves.

How did you come to be involved in shamanic practice?
I first drank San Pedro in the 1990s and that experience overturned everything I thought I knew about reality. During my visions, out in the mountains, I saw a stairway of light on a nearby hill and I called my shaman over to explain it.

“There is nothing to explain”, he shrugged. “It is a stairway of light”.

“You mean you see it too?” I asked.

“Of course”, he said. “Take a photograph if you don’t believe it is there”. I thought he was crazy. How could I photograph a vision: something that was just in my head? But I didn’t want to be disrespectful so I took the picture anyway.

Later I got it developed, and there it was: a stairway of light, just as I’d seen it, although I had never seen it there in the mountains before and you will probably not see it now. I called my shaman and he came over to look at the picture, although he didn’t seem that surprised by it, like I was.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” he said. “These things are not just in your mind. They exist. San Pedro opens your eyes to what is already there!”

San Pedro had shown me reality as it actually was, but it had also changed what I thought of as real. I now understood the vast power we humans have, and that we can manifest anything we choose; we just have to believe we can. San Pedro teaches us how to believe.

It teaches us that we are part of everything, that we are brothers and sisters, and that nature in its true form is beautiful. It wakes us up and shows us how to be conscious of the Earth. Before San Pedro I used to walk through the world and not notice it. Now I notice everything and I have a new respect for it.

That wasn’t the only ‘miracle’ I saw that day though. My shaman was a gentle man and I felt peaceful and protected as I lay in the sun. So, when I opened my eyes and saw two children looking down at me, they were so beautiful I thought they were angels. I was in awe of them and it took me some moments to realise they were real and were crying and asking for help.

They said their father was sick at home and they had no mother so they didn’t know what to do. They were frightened that he was dying.

I went to their house with my shaman and when I saw the man I thought he was dying too. But the shaman walked calmly over to him and started to blow on the top of his head through some coca leaves he had with him. He then used a feather, running it over the sick man’s head and body; then he said a prayer.

As soon as that was done the man sat bolt upright and started to vomit like he’d never stop. Immediately he looked better. The shaman said he’d be fine after that and when we left the house he was already out of bed and taking care of his children.

That was my first experience of a shamanic healing, and all the shaman had used was a feather and some leaves and, of course, the knowledge given him by San Pedro. After that I knew that I wanted to work more with this plant.

You trained with other shamans too. Tell us about your present teacher.
His name is Ruben. I met him ten years ago in a church in the Sacred Valley, quite by chance. I learned so much from him right from the start. He is a famous anthropologist who for many years ran the Machu Picchu sacred site, but he is also a shaman so he knows why and how things work from both a historical and a spiritual perspective.

His training was very hard. He was not like my first shamanic teachers, who were much gentler. He made me drink San Pedro twice a week for several years. Sometimes I would beg him not to have to drink it! I’d sob and say I was too sick to drink, because I just couldn’t face another session. But he would say, “Good! You’re sick! That - and the fact that you can’t face the healing you need - is exactly why you need to drink it! Get your coat and let’s go!”

At the time it was agony, but now I know he was right and drinking all that San Pedro was the best thing that happened to me. I saw all the bad things in my life in a new light and was able to let them go. I cleared whole lifetimes in those years, and I learned so much about San Pedro and healing too.

I still work with Ruben and I hope I always will. But he has softened a little now and no longer demands that I drink every week.

He is an ‘old school’ shaman, though, isn’t he, with lots of ritual as part of his ceremonies - the singado and contrachisa, etc. Did he teach you that too?
Oh yes. But I never felt comfortable with those rituals and Ruben agreed that I should work differently, especially as I was now healing many Westerners who didn’t really understand the rituals anyway. San Pedro guided me and said I should keep things simple. So now I say a prayer to open the ceremony and then as much as possible allow San Pedro to do its work without me getting in its way.

I do sometimes use tobacco in ceremonies though, but not the singado [tobacco leaf macerated in honey and alcohol which many shamans ask participants to snort into their nostrils to clear negative energies]; just tobacco smoke. It is good to blow the smoke over people if they are going through a tough time or have stuck energy somewhere within them. The smoke frees it up.

I also use agua florida [a plant-based perfume with healing properties] to balance people’s energies. Mostly I ask them to sniff it from the bottle or from their hands and it helps to ground them, but sometimes I spray it over them.

And of course I also use a mesa [a cloth altar laid out in a specific ritual way], although mine is much simpler than many others. In Peru, shamans work with many different layouts of mesa, but when you have your own you learn to use it in a way that suits you. It is a living thing so you develop a relationship with it. San Pedro teaches you how to use it too.

The objects at the centre of my mesa are shells and stones which have meaning and power for me. I arrange them in a straight line, like a spinal column with the stones as the vertebrae. This follows the notion in Peru that spiritual energy is held in the small of the back and as we advance on our paths and the plants guide us it begins to rise up the spine to the head, where it resides when we become fully conscious.

In the Andes we have three sacred animals: the serpent, puma, and condor, and you will sometimes see statues of all three, one on top of the other. The serpent represents the divine energy we hold in our backs; the puma is the body; and the condor is the awakened self: the mind that soars above the world. So these statues are also a representation of energy flowing through us and bringing us into new consciousness. The mesa I use is like that.

Some shamans use chonta [wooden staffs sometimes used to beat participants to move their spiritual energies around] and swords on their mesas as well; as protections and to change the energies of patients and heal them. I don’t, because I have always known that San Pedro protects me and my participants anyway, and that there is no greater protection or more powerful healer than the plant! So why would I need to hit participants with sticks - and interrupt their healings by doing so?

Ruben is a historian and regards my approach as form of evolution which gives people the healing they need through the correct ceremonies for our times. But it is also a de-evolution because so many rituals and objects have been artificially added to San Pedro mesas and ceremonies through the influence of the Spanish Catholics.

Before the Spanish came to Peru, Andeans believed in Inti, the god of the sun, and Pachamama, the Earth, so their rituals were simpler and needed fewer symbols, appeasements to God, or ways to keep evil at bay. The idea of guilt and a God who needed appeasing arrived with the Catholics and it was they who made our ancestors change their rituals or be killed. Before this, they were more natural and flowing.

So what I do may be an evolution, as Ruben calls it, but it is also a return to what was always done. It is as if we have evolved backwards rather than forwards in time!

Is your decision to hold ceremonies in the day instead of at night part of this ‘backwards evolution’ too?
Ruben holds his ceremonies at night and that is how he taught me, but as I grew in my understanding of San Pedro, night ceremonies – for practical as well as spiritual reasons - became another thing that did not really work for me.

Perhaps it is to do with the Spanish again and their Catholic notions of guilt and “suffering for our sins” that most San Pedro ceremonies are held at night! I always found it so cold and uncomfortable that I could never really relax enough to receive the healing of San Pedro. I mentioned this to Ruben and he understood exactly what I meant, so he began to hold ceremonies for me during the day. Then I really noticed the difference. In daylight is where all my breakthroughs have come.

For one thing, with San Pedro, you can look around you and see the beauty of the world and notice how connected you are to everything: that you are beautiful and part of a beautiful creation. You can’t do that in darkness.

What people need to understand is that San Pedro is not a hallucinogenic like ayahuasca, so they will never see images and pictures, and there is no point, therefore, in lying in the dark waiting for something to happen. San Pedro’s teaching is visionary instead, in the revelations it brings about the natural - not the spirit – world, and in daylight you can see that more clearly. That is why we hold our ceremonies in sunlight: because San Pedro wants it that way and that is how it was first done.

How do you prepare your San Pedro?
Most shamans peel and cut the cactus then boil it for between four and eight hours. They may also add alcohol and sometimes other plants or ingredients. I cook mine for twenty hours, however, so it is much stronger and also means that people are less likely to vomit when they drink it. Other San Pedro brews feel weak to me now and rarely give the same visions.

Some shamans say you don’t really need visions for a healing to take place with San Pedro. They have a point, but I still think they are important, because as well as the healing people need to know they have been healed. When the visions come they can feel it, then they understand it is real and pay attention to what they are shown... about how to protect themselves and stay well, or their place in the world and the beauty of their lives. Without the visions they can’t know this.

There are some other things to consider when preparing San Pedro. I only work with cactuses that have seven or nine spines because they produce the most gentle and beautiful brews. Those with six or eight spines are not so strong, while elevens and thirteens can be very intense but also sometimes dark. I never use either with patients.

Those with four spines are only ever used for exorcisms, and the patient and healer must both drink. You don’t ever want to try a San Pedro like this though. It is horrible and the visions take you straight to Hell.

While the cactus is cooking we often sing songs to it or offer our prayers that it will produce good healings. Every time we stir it we offer a new prayer, so maybe twenty prayers go into each bottle.

Sometimes the spirit of San Pedro shows up while we are cooking it too, in patterns on the surface of the water which tell us who will be coming to drink it and why. I have seen patterns in the form of ovaries, for example, complete in every detail; or hearts enclosed by circles. Then the next day a woman has arrived for help with a fertility problem and brought with her a man whose heart was closed to her dreams. In this way San Pedro can show us what people need before they even arrive.

What healings have you seen from San Pedro ceremonies?
One that meant a lot to me was for a woman who had always said she would never drink San Pedro, so her story shows in a way that you don’t even need to believe in the plant for it to heal you – although it is better if you do.

This woman’s husband had died a few years ago. He was a strong man but his disease meant he had wasted away to nothing. It took him a year to die while the woman nursed him. Then, just three months after that, her son was killed; murdered in South Africa, stoned to death and left to die. He was just 26.

The woman was shattered. She became like the walking dead. Soon afterwards she had a stroke which paralysed her arm and, from the shock of all she had been through, she got diabetes as well.

Finally, despite all her reservations before, she asked me if she could drink San Pedro. I gave her the tiniest amount but it was just perfect for her, as San Pedro always is, and then she lay in my arms and cried her heart out for five hours.

That is a good expression for what happened actually, because I had drunk San Pedro too and through its eyes I saw strands of energy coming from her heart and circling her chest and arm like a tourniquet. I began pulling them out of her and throwing them away.

The next morning was like a miracle. Her arm, which had been totally paralysed, had regained all of its movement. When she got home she saw a specialist who tested her diabetes too and that had gone as well. Now she has no problems at all.

I asked her about her San Pedro experience later and she said she had felt a lot of pain in her heart, which is where I had also seen the energy of grief that was binding her. So as well as curing her physical problems, San Pedro showed her why she had them: because of the emotional distress she had been unable to let go of before.

What I have learned from San Pedro is that illness is never a “thing” that is in us; it is not “diabetes” or “a stroke”. It is a belief that we carry: that we must mourn for the ones we have lost, for example, or for ourselves, through a pain or disability that makes our suffering visible and “real”. So illness is a thoughtform; a negative pattern we hold on to and reproduce. San Pedro not only heals us but shows us this thoughtform. Then, the next time it arises, we know it and can make a conscious choice to think and act differently.

The woman you described sounds like she had a “psychosomatic” problem, a term that has lost much of its power in the West today. Can you elaborate?
Every illness we have arises from our minds and souls. Another woman came to me after she was diagnosed with cancer and had been receiving chemotherapy. She looked so ill that I took her in and she spent the next seven days with me, vomiting constantly. At the end of it she realised that her doctors were not helping her and decided to work with the plants instead.

She phoned her doctor to cancel her appointments and he was extremely angry. He told her she couldn’t do that; that she was stupid and would die as a result of her decision – which, incidentally, is a curse.

Anyway, she stuck to her decision and now, through San Pedro, she is healed. The plant again showed her why she had cancer – which no Western medicine can do – and told her she had a choice: in blunt terms that she could die or change her mind and live the life she wanted. I know that sounds too easy but it really is as simple as that. She decided not to have cancer anymore because her realised that life was just too precious once she had seen it through San Pedro’s eyes.

I have also worked with women who have been sexually abused as young girls and are carrying the energy of that in their bodies, and usually a sense of guilt or shame as well, as if it was somehow their fault. This energy is also a thoughtform and it is making them ill and, sometimes, suicidal.

They need to drink San Pedro three times. The first is terrible, even for me to watch. They just lie in a foetal position and scream. The second time they are more relaxed but there is still a lot of crying. I usually drink San Pedro with them so I can connect to what they are going through and the plant can teach me what they need to heal.

The third time they drink everything changes and it is an experience of total joy. Afterwards they are so different that not even their friends recognise them! San Pedro shows them another way, a new belief about themselves, and helps them reconnect with love and the beauty of life which has been lacking for so long in their own.

That sounds like soul retrieval, but instead of the shaman performing it, the intelligence of the plant does it for them.
That’s right. It is soul retrieval or, rather, life retrieval. We hold our negative beliefs about ourselves as tensions in our bodies. If we don’t eventually release them, they become hardened and manifest as physical or emotional problems. At the same time, our good energies are blocked so that the fullness of our souls is not expressed and parts of us stay buried. San Pedro removes our negative beliefs so the positive ones shine through. So it is a form of soul retrieval; one where we return ourselves from ourselves.

Can you say more about how negative beliefs affect us?
In the Andes, shamans talk about “good” and “bad ideas” and these are, in a way, what I mean by thoughtforms. When someone says, for example, that you have “good ideas”, they don’t mean you are a creative genius! They mean you have good or spiritual thoughts or that you are at one with the truth and goodness of the world.

Sometimes they talk about a “good” or “bad wind” as well. These “winds” are an accumulation of thoughts or energies which are attracted to each other and share a common affinity. The good energies of many people having positive and uplifting thoughts can create a good wind but, by the same token, negative thoughts can band together to create a bad wind. In both cases, they are a sentient force which circulates in the world.

Thoughts like these have physical effects. I recently took a horse ride with a friend, for example, to visit the Q’ero of the high Andes and, some way into our journey, miles from anywhere and from medical help, my friend swooned and fell from her horse. She lay on the ground shaking and not of this world at all.

Luckily, we had a shaman with us who knew what had happened and, taking out his coca leaves, he placed them on her and blew through them into her crown. She stopped shaking straightaway and then began to come round.

When I asked him what had happened, he just shrugged and said “a bad wind”. She had been hit by a thoughtform which had, in a way, possessed her. He had blown a different energy into her to remove it and fill her with light.

But, imagine: if stray thoughts can do this much damage, how much stronger are our own ideas? Our beliefs about ourselves, our sicknesses and our powers or weaknesses are not random, after all; they are personal to us and may have been with us for years. So it is literally true that our thoughts can kill or cure us. We must be careful, then, about what we think. San Pedro helps and heals us by showing us how to do that.

Is there anyone you wouldn’t hold a ceremony for?
I once thought so. A few years ago some young people who were travelling South America asked for a ceremony. When I told them what it involved, they said not to worry, they’d taken a lot of drugs in the past and had heard about San Pedro and wanted to try “a new drug experience”. I must admit that I judged them in a bad light because they were trivialising San Pedro and saw it as “just another drug” – which it is not. It is a powerful spiritual medicine.

It was San Pedro that told me to relax. It reminded me that it can handle things for itself and make its own decisions about who can drink it, and to remember that I was the guide, not the healer! So after that I didn’t judge them and I gave them San Pedro.

Afterwards, they came to speak to me about their “drug experience” and told me their encounter with San Pedro had been the most humbling of their lives. San Pedro had told them straight, they said, that: “I am not LSD! I AM SAN PEDRO!” They learned from that and for some it changed their lives. They no longer take drugs at all.

So now I am humble too because I know that San Pedro will always give people what they need – even if it is not what they thought they would get. I like the expression you use: that with plant work you should have intentions but not expectations. That seems a good approach. But, in any case, I trust San Pedro and I know it will act with integrity towards everyone, so now I no longer discriminate.

There is a diet that goes with San Pedro, just as there is for ayahuasca. But with San Pedro it is easier. Can you say something about it?
All teacher plants require some ritual precautions prior to and during the ceremony. This is what we call the diet. It refers not just to restrictions around food and drink, as the name might suggest, but to other behaviours as well so we approach the plant with a pure intent. So when we talk about the “diet”, it is really more like the ancient Greek understanding of “dieta”: a change in lifestyle, not just in what we eat.

Ayahuasca demands preparation some days before, including food and behavioural taboos, sexual abstinence, fasting, and meditation, but San Pedro does not ask for such major changes. Nevertheless, for a day before it is drunk, food and drink should be as bland as possible and contain no alcohol, meat, oils or fats, spices, citrus fruits or juices, and there should be no sex.

For about twelve hours before the ceremony, there should be no food at all. This means a day of fasting if you are drinking San Pedro at night or no food from about 8pm on the night before if you are drinking it the next day. For a few hours before the ritual I also suggest a period of quiet reflection so you can think about what you would like to heal or learn about yourself.

That is really all the diet requires, although there are some specific conditions where a consultation with your shaman and medical doctor is recommended in advance of drinking San Pedro. These include problems with the colon, high blood pressure, heart conditions, diabetes, or mental illness. None of these will necessarily prevent you from drinking since the condition itself may be the very thing that you want San Pedro to cure, but your shaman and doctor must know.

A general rule with plant work is: the purer your body and spirit, the more powerful the medicine and its teachings. The diet helps with this.

I’ve heard it said that the ‘processes’ (set and setting) involved in ceremonies can contribute to the effects; that the shaman acts as a sort of hypnotherapist, for example, and offers healing suggestions to the patient, while the ritual contains practices like meditation which are relaxing and healing. What do you think of that?
I sometimes get asked things like that, mostly by scientists and academics. They want to know what the “make up” of San Pedro is, what its “active ingredients” are, and “how it works”. I tell them I don’t know and don’t care! For me, it is not San Pedro’s “mescaline content” or “properties” that are important; it is a healing spirit which produces miracles that I have seen with my own eyes. So I really don’t know or care how it works. I can’t explain a miracle any more than those who ask me about it can! But I know this: if you needed a miracle because your life was in that much pain, and if - by the grace of God and San Pedro - you got one, you wouldn’t care how it worked either!

Part of the disease, it seems to me, is to want to understand the world in terms of its “mechanisms” when its nuts-and-bolts really don’t matter at all. It is the beauty of the world that should attract, engage, and inspire us! When we drink San Pedro that is one of the first things we learn - and then our questions become irrelevant anyway. So the real answer, for those who want to know the hows and whys of San Pedro, is simple: drink it and then you will see!

The “what” of San Pedro is that it heals lives. Let us leave the sleepless nights of the whys and hows to the academics for whom such things seem to matter.

The Author
Ross Heaven is the author of more than 10 books on shamanism and shamanic healing, including Plant Spirit Shamanism, Plant Spirit Wisdom, and The Sin Eater’s Last Confessions. He runs workshops on these subjects too, as well as journeys to Peru to work with the shamans, healers, and plant spirit medicines (ayahuasca and San Pedro) of the Amazon and Andes. For more details of these events and a free Information Pack, visit www.thefourgates.com or email ross@thefourgates.com.

August 30 2008. I have just returned from Peru where I have been leading our Magical Earth and Cactus of Vision journeys to the Amazon rainforest and Andean mountains to work with the shamans and healers of the ayahuasca and San Pedro traditions.

I have posted new photographs of these trips, the shamans, their healings and ceremonies at http://www.slide.com/r/EKqsC-2XyD8pQi9vnh42vSQtKIJVqfhL?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

More images will be posted there soon. I hope you drop by!

For details and a free Information Pack on these healing adventures email ross@thefourgates.com or visit www.thefourgates.com and look in the Sacred Journeys section.

IQUITOS AND CUSCO
TWO VERY BEAUTIFUL BUT VERY DIFFERENT PERUVIAN CITIES

Iquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, with a population of around 400,000, and is generally regarded as the most populous city in the world that cannot be reached by road. The only way in is by aeroplane or river boat.

In the 19th the city century was the centre of the rubber industry, but by the early 20th century the trade had moved to the Far East, and the city had fallen into neglect and disrepair. It is now a place without an apparent purpose, still decked out in post-colonial-rubber-boom splendour, but literally in the middle of nowhere, a true frontier town.

When you stand on the Malecon at the edge of the city (and civilisation) you overlook thousands of miles of rainforest: a truly breathtaking and beautiful experience.

Iquitos is where participants meet for our plant spirit shamanism and ayahuasca experiences on the Magical Earth Amazon Adventure (see www.thefourgates.com – Sacred Journeys – for details).

Cusco, the historic capital of the Inca Empire, is a city in south east Peru, near the Sacred Valley of the Andes mountains. It has a population of about 300,000, living at an altitude of around 3,300m (10,800ft).

According to Inca legend, the city was built by Sapa Inca Pachacuti and planned to be shaped like a puma, a sacred animal of the region, although archaeological evidence points to slower, more organic growth beginning before Pachacuti. There was however a plan, and two rivers were diverted and channeled around the city.

The Spanish arrived there in 1533 and described it as a "very noble and great city". Buildings constructed after the conquest are of Spanish influence with a mix of Inca architecture. Often, Spanish buildings were built on top of the massive stone walls built by the Inca.

The original Inca city, said to have been founded in the 11th century, was sacked by Pizarro in 1535. There are still remains, however, of the Palace of the Incas, the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Virgins of the Sun. Other nearby Inca sites of major historical interest and considerable beauty are Pachacuti's presumed winter home, Machu Picchu, which can be reached by foot along the Inca Trail, or by train, and the "fortresses" at Ollantaytambo and Sacsyhuaman.

Cusco is where participants meet for our plant spirit shamanism and san pedro experiences on the Cactus of Vision programme (see www.thefourgates.com – Sacred Journeys – for details).

A review of The Sin Eater's Last Confessions (Ross Heaven, Llewellyn, July 2008) by Lauren D'Silva of Bella Online (http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art27080.asp):

The Sin Eater's Last Confessions by Ross Heaven

I found The Sin Eater's Last Confessions: Lost Traditions of Celtic Shamanism a fascinating book. In it Ross Heaven provides us with a window on Celtic healing techniques of the past. The old Celtic tradition of ‘sin eating’ has been lost now, but once it was customary here in Wales to invite the local sin eater to perform a ritual of eating food from the body of the corpse in order to cleanse the soul of sin and allow it free passage to the afterlife.

Ross Heaven was fortunate enough to meet one of the last Welsh sin eaters in the small Herefordshire village where he grew up. This is his account of a remarkable friendship between man and boy and of an informal apprenticeship that put Ross firmly on his path to become one of the UK’s foremost shamanic practitioners.

The setting is not far from my home in Mid Wales, just over the English border; there is always extra satisfaction in reading about familiar places and I could easily picture this sleepy village. Even now the pace of many Herefordshire villages feels several decades behind that of modern towns.

Adam Dilwyn Vaughan lived on the outskirts of the village, performing his healing services for the community, but somehow shunned by the villagers as if dirty. As he points out if the sin eater is ‘dirty’ it is only by virtue of consuming the sins of others. Despite many warnings to avoid Adam’s little ramshackle cottage it seems Ross and Adam were predestined to meet. Without ever saying so a series of remarkable teachings began which lasted until Ross become a young adult and left the countryside for university.

There is a great deal of wisdom in Adam’s methods of healing. He had a wonderful understanding of plant remedies and gardened weeds as others would cultivate flowers and vegetables. “A weed is simply a gift from nature that we don’t care to receive.”

Many of his teachings can be recognised as shamanic ways of understanding the world which are found to agree from culture to culture. For example Adam speaks of bad spirits gathering in the corners of the body, elbows, knees and other joints. This reminded me of the old wisdom of living in round spaces, such as tipis to avoid corners where dark spirits can gather.

I recognised some of Adam's techniques from my partner’s own instinctive healing methods. Like Adam he experiences dry retching after sucking out energetic debris from places of congestion in the body, a need to 'get it all out of his system'. It used to concern me but now I recognise that it is part and parcel of what he does. Adam teaches Ross that it is important the debris is cleared from the healer’s body, as to hold onto it would make the healer ill. Adam warns that there are some healers who choose to retain the dark energies within themselves as part of their power.

“It is a real possibility and an illness among healers that they can grow dependent on their patients for their own well-being, and then they do not serve God but steal from others and work with a darkened heart.”

I probably would have dismissed this as unlikely in the past, seeing those who choose healing as motivated to help their fellow humans, but I have had first hand experience of several established and experienced healers who are doing exactly this. It was a great relief to see the warning there in print and to know that others have detected this too. This abuse of power is shocking to think of, but the public should be aware that some healers can become distorted in their purpose, in the same way I suppose any other caring profession contains its 'rotten apples'. If you feel drained after visiting a healer and this sensation happens more often than not you would be well advised to go elsewhere.

Ross gives us wonderful insight into many of the lessons he learned from Adam. We join Ross as he writes his sins down in stream of consciousness to be transmuted by fire, follow him into Nature looking for omens and experience a vision quest with him. At the back of the book he provides a guide to some of the exercises Adam put him though, so that the book is partly a guide for those ready to explore the world and themselves in this way.

I found a huge amount of synchronicity happening around me as I read; the book seemed to have arrived at the perfect moment for me and confirmed so much of what I have been perceiving and thinking in recent months. For that I must say a big thank you to Ross for setting these experiences down on paper and send my gratitude to Adam Dilwyn Vaughan too, whether he has passed over or is still living.

I can heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in healing or Celtic traditions as an engrossing and entertaining read, a moving biography of a powerful, wise and humble man

For details of sin eating, plant spirit shamanism, and shamanic workshops, visit http://www.thefourgates.com

On October 6 1999, Dutch police kicked down the door of a church in Holland and arrested two Ministers, Geraldine Fijneman and Hans Bogers, while they and their congregation were in the middle of a religious service. Geraldine and Hans were held by the police for three days, charged with leadership of a criminal organisation and distributing drugs.

Their crime? They were members of the Church of Santo Daime, a religious organisation not too dissimilar from Catholicism in its ceremonial aspects; the significant difference being that the Santo Daime church uses ayahuasca, the sacred 'vine of souls' of the Amazon, in its ceremonies to commune with its god.

In effect, then, the behaviour of the police in Holland was a form of religious intolerance; a situation made all the more bizarre because ayahuasca is a plant – a natural, organic, living, growing thing, not a ‘drug’ and, furthermore, there is no evidence whatsoever that it is addictive (in fact, it has been successfully used to treat addictions).

The ayahuasca in question was not being ‘trafficked’ either, but handed out as a sacrament within the church, in much the same way as Catholic communion wine - and nobody's kicked a door down over that yet.

The situation that befell the Santo Daime church was preposterous in other ways too because the active ingredient of ayahuasca is DMT - which is already present in significant quantities in the human body. Following the legal logic displayed in this ‘drug bust’, therefore, if you ever decide to make babies you will, by definition, be a drug trafficker yourself.

But perhaps the most important aspect of this case is the question it raises: what right has any authority to dictate what is or is not an acceptable form of worship? The members of the Santo Daime congregation in that church on that October evening were hurting no-one and doing nothing of an aggressive or harmful nature - indeed, they were at prayer when the door of their church was splintered. It was a question which would quickly come to occupy the minds of the police.

On November 20, just a few days after the arrests, a large crowd gathered in the centre of Amsterdam, to protest against the raid and to demand the legalisation of ayahuasca. So troubled were the prosecution lawyers at this, and so embarrassed by their raid on a church, that they made it quietly known to the Santo Daime lawyer that they would drop the case if the church would accept a warning about its drug-taking activities.

The reaction of the Santo Daime lawyer, however, was “no thanks”. In fact, hearing that the prosecution were about to drop the legal proceedings, the church itself decided to take the case to court since it wanted a clear decision on the legal status of ayahuasca to avoid similar harassment in future.

And so the defence became the prosecution and, on May 21 2001, the Ministers for the Santo Daime church were acquitted by the court. Judge Marcus ruled that the Minister, Mrs Fijneman, had indeed owned, transported and even distributed a DMT-containing substance [which she would also have done had she been pregnant and then given birth, by the way], but as there was no proof of a public health risk from ayahuasca, her constitutional right to Freedom of Religion must come first. Since ayahuasca is the holy sacrament of the Santo Daime church, he ruled, it was essential to the defendant’s faith that she be allowed to use it.

The church was also within its rights to demand the return of 17 litres of ayahuasca that had been confiscated by the police, as well as compensation for the time the defendants were in custody.

Apart from the considerations of civil liberty and the right to self-determination and individuality without State harassment, there were spiritual considerations here.

The shamanic traditions of many cultures have long used Holy plants such as ayahuasca as a means of moving out of ordinary consciousness and into non-ordinary reality where spiritual communion can take place. Used in this fashion, and in a respectful way, these plants can be exceptional allies and teachers, opening doors into other worlds and new areas of consciousness. Just about as far as you can get from ‘drug-taking’, in fact.

Ayahuasca, of course, is a plant/spirit of the Amazon. In our own culture, sacred intoxication has traditionally been provided by the magic (psilocybe) mushroom. Whether you personally believe that this plant is divine and has its own spirit, it is nonetheless, a plant, just like ayahuasca. The question therefore arises: who has the right to say that you are allowed/not allowed to consume a perfectly natural substance - plant material - for your own purposes, in circumstances that are not harmful to others or yourself?

You can, after all, write on the head of a pin the names of all the people worldwide who are injured through the ceremonial consumption of sacred substances during an average year. In the same year, there will be thousands of deaths as a result of tobacco smoking and alcohol-related accidents and disease. So why don’t we make those drugs illegal instead?

In other, perhaps better informed, cultures, mushrooms are revered, not feared or controlled in this way. In Mexico, they are known as Teonancatl (‘the flesh of the gods’) and used in sacred rituals and healing ceremonies for the sick.

Mazatec shaman and healer, Maria Sabina, tells us something about the reverence in which they are held when she remarks that: "There is a world beyond ours, a world that is far away, nearby, and invisible. This is where God lives, in a world where everything has already happened and everything is known. The sacred mushroom takes me to the world where everything is known”

These plants are Holy and have been regarded as such for thousands of years. The people who may choose to take them therefore have every moral and spiritual right to do so, and they deserve better treatment than the State seems able to give.

If you are searched, questioned or arrested for carrying any controlled substance, contact RELEASE on 0207 603 8654, a charity offering free advice and assistance 24 hours a day. Say nothing to the arresting officers until you have spoken to a solicitor.

For a free information pack about sacred ayahuasca journeys to the Amazon (where ayahuasca is a wholly legal sacrament) email ross@thefourgtaes.com or visit http://www.thefourgates.com

Ayahuasca is the jungle medicine of the Upper Amazon. It is made from Ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis Caapi) and the leaves of the Chacruna plant (Psychotria Viridis).

Both are collected from the rainforest in a sacred way and it is said that a shaman can find plentiful sources by listening for the 'heartbeat' that emanates from them. The mixture is prepared by scraping and cleaning the specially-chosen vines and adding the Chacruna leaves. It is then brewed with water and reduced for several hours, attended by the shaman who sings his sacred songs (icaros) and blows his intention for healing (soplada) into the brew. When drunk in the correct ritual context, this mixture becomes a powerful ally that can help us step into the visionary world.

The ceremonial use of Ayahuasca in this way is as ancient as history itself. One of the oldest objects related to it is a specially-engraved stone cup, which was found in the Amazon around 500 BC, and proves that ayahuasca was used as a Holy sacrament from before the birth of Christ - at least 2,500 years ago.

The word Ayahuasca comes from two Quechua words: aya meaning spirit or ancestor, and huasca meaning vine or rope - hence it is known as the ‘vine of souls’. It plays a central role in the spiritual and cultural traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Upper Amazon.

Integral to Ayahuasca ceremonies are the chants and songs of the shaman. These are known as icaros, and they direct the ceremonial and visionary experience.

The shaman has specific songs for each person's needs, the vibrations of which summon healing energies, and the words of which are symbolic, telling of the ability of Nature to heal. For example, an icaro may tell of the power of a sacred stream to wash away illness or uncertainty, or of brightly-coloured flowers to attract hummingbirds whose wings fan healing energies.

You might see such things in your visions. What provides the healing, however, is the understanding Ayahuasca brings of what is happening in your life, allowing inner feelings to unblock so that sadness, anger, and other negative energies are transmuted into ecstasy and love.

FLOWER BATHS
Sacred floral and clay baths to restore balance and harmony to the soul are known of and practiced in many shamanic cultures (though it is an art we have lost in the West) and are integral to the Ayahuasca experience.

By cleansing, ‘flourishing’, and bringing a new sense of balance, the spirit and body are able to heal themselves. These baths call in the powers of our allies in Nature and prepare the ground for our healing.

They are prepared by Master Shamans, using specially-chosen plants and flowers which create particular energetic and spiritual effects, to which is added cooling river waters. The mixture is then poured over the body (you don’t need to take off your clothes) as a blessing or even a baptism of sorts.

DIETING THE PLANTS
The ‘Shaman’s Diet’ is a journey of self-exploration and discovery, bringing greater self-awareness and knowledge of the plants. It also enhances the Ayahuasca experience. Through the ritual exclusion of some foodstuffs and activities and work with a particular teacher plant (or plants), the diet enables you to ‘take in’ the spirit or essence of that ‘jungle doctor’ and initiate into its powers.

Ajo Sacha, for example, is a plant which tunes you in to the reality of the rainforest, sharpening the senses and making you more ‘plant-like’. Because of this, it is harder for the animals of the forest to detect you and, consequently, it has been used as an aid to hunting for thousands of years. In the West, of course, with our ‘fast food lifestyles’, hunting is less important but, interestingly, Ajo Sacha is able to accommodate for this and to transform its powers. What makes it really useful for Westerners is its ability to help us stalk our ‘inner issues’. It is still the plant of the hunter; but its hunting grounds have changed.

As well as its abilities in hunting, this is an important planta maestra (‘Master’ or ‘Teacher Plant’) in the initiation of Amazonian shamans. It brings inner strength, acuity of mind, and the ability to overcome saladera (an inexplicable run of ‘bad luck’), rid yourself of spells and evil magic, and enhance your powers of healing, as well as heightening your ‘stalking’ skills, as mentioned above.

Pinon Colorado is a defence against evil sorcerers. ‘Evil sorcerers’ are around us everywhere. Every time we get on the tube and sit next to someone who is radiating hostility because they’ve had a bad day, or argue with our wives, or have to confront our bosses, we expose ourselves to negative vibrations and bad energy. This has a real and physical effect, such as that sick feeling in our stomachs when someone verbally attacks us, and this energy can stay in our systems. Pinon Colorado is a defence against emanations like these, as well as more deliberate attacks by rivals, competitors, and black magicians in all walks of life.

Bellaco Caspi is for the extraction of virote (evil magical darts). While Pinon Colorado is a defence against bad energy, Bellaco Caspi helps us remove this energy from our systems when we have already been exposed to it. Shamans see such energy (especially when it is sent with deliberate intent) as magical darts called virote. These stick to our energy bodies and can cause physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual harm unless they are removed. Pinon Colorado loosens these darts so our bodies can return to normal and our health is restored.

Diets are not invented by shamans, but are given to them by plant spirits themselves. They involve a state of purification, retreat, commitment, and respect for our connection with everything around us.

For more information on the Ayahuasca experience, shamanic diets, floral baths, and other ritual procedures, see Plant Spirit Shamanism: Traditional Techniques for Healing the Soul, by Ross Heaven. Published by Inner Traditions, 2007.

Ross also runs also leads sacred Plant Spirit Shamanism journeys to the shamans and healers of the Amazon Rainforest in Peru, and plant medicine workshops in France. For details of these, visit http://www.thefourgates.com

Plant spirit shamanism, ayahuasca, the amazon, peru, shamanism, shaman, healing, herbs, herbalism, ceremony, ritual, icaro, icaros, ross heaven

A seguro is a “friend” or “ally”, someone you can turn to for advice and information, who will listen and share your problems.

Andean shaman, Juan Navarro, was born in the highland village of Somate, department of Piura. He is the descendant of a long line of healers working with san pedro and with the magical powers of the sacred lakes known as Las Huaringas, which have been revered for their healing properties since the earliest Peruvian civilization.

At the age of eight, Juan made a pilgrimage to Las Huaringas and drank san pedro for the first time. Now in his 50’s, every month or so it is still necessary for him to return there to accumulate the energy he needs to protect and heal his people.

Healing sessions with san pedro involve an intricate sequence of processes, including invocation, diagnosis, divination, and healing with natural ‘power objects’, called artes, which are kept, during the ceremony, in a complicated and precise array on the maestro’s altar or mesa.

Artes may include shells, swords, magnets, quartz crystals, objects resembling sexual organs, rocks which spark when struck together, and stones from animals' stomachs which they have swallowed to aid digestion. They bring magical qualities to the ceremony where, under the visionary influence of san pedro, their invisible powers may be seen and experienced.

The maestro's mesa, on which these artes sit, is a representation of the forces of nature and the cosmos. Through the mesa the shaman is able to work with and influence these forces to diagnose and heal disease.

Always on these altars are seguros – magical amulet bottles filled with perfume, plants, and seeds gathered from Las Huaringas.

According to Juan Navarro, a seguro is a “friend” or “ally”, someone you can turn to for advice and information, who will listen and share your problems.

Less poetically, a seguro is a clear glass bottle which contains perfumes, sacred water and, of course, a selection of plants chosen for their specific healing and spiritual qualities.

These bottles are kept on an altar, in sacred space, and regarded as objects of great power. Whenever the person who has a seguro requires help with any practical or spiritual problem, he will take it from the altar and sit with it against his heart, speaking with it as if to a friend. The seguro will absorb and transform the energy of his problems but, more importantly, if he listens carefully, the person who seeks its advice will hear the answers he needs from the spirit of the plants themselves.

A seguro can help you maintain and deepen your link to the sacred because, of course, it contains your plant ally. If there are other plants you have journeyed to or would like to learn from, these can be added to the seguro as well and, when you know the language of your ally, this plant spirit will communicate your desire to the other plants, which will also offer their healing and support. You therefore gain access to the natural world and its powers more widely.

To create a seguro, you will need a glass bottle, approximately 5” high, which can be sealed. Fill this 1/3rd full with perfume of your choice and top up with water. In Juan Navarro’s seguros, this is water from the sacred lakes of Las Huaringas, but mineral water (as pure as possible) can also be used.

Once this base is prepared, meditate for a while on the qualities you would like in your life and which plants might bring you these things. Be informed in this by your work with the doctrine of signatures - heather for luck, honesty for truth, goldenrod for wealth, and so on.

Add these plants to your bottle, arranging them as attractively as possible (some seguros are so beautiful they are works of art in themselves), then place your plant allies in the bottle so they can act as mediators for all others. Before you seal the bottle, blow your dominio (intention) into it three times, and then put on the lid.

Place the bottle on your altar and reflect on its qualities often. Whenever you are in need of advice, sit with your seguro and speak with it. Then notice how things change for you.

Join us for an authentic experience of ayahuasca, San Pedro, and plant spirit shamanism in the beautiful rainforests and mountains of Peru. Email ross@thefourgates.com for a FREE Information Pack or visit the website http://www.thefourgates.com and look under the Sacred Journeys section.

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Since the beginning of human experience, plants have played a role in the evolution of our species, not only in the provision of food and medicine but in our deepest spiritual experiences and the development of consciousness. According to the shamans of the Amazon – one of Earth’s last (mostly) unspoiled areas and a bastion for deep and intimate plant knowledge – it was the plants themselves who taught us how to heal and know our souls.

On a recent trip to the Amazon, Laurencio Garcia, a Shipibo poet, storyteller, and shaman from Peru, told me how “at the beginning of time, the jungle revealed its spirit” to rainforest tribes.

“In those days, our ancestors could still enter the place where the spirits of the animals and forest lived. They could talk with plants and animals and share knowledge of the plants to use for healing. We were one with all life.

“Our ancestors lived like this until the Moon Man came and cut the rope they used to climb into the spirit world. Then we lost our way.

“It was terrible and there was much sadness. But then we found another way back to that world: the ayahuasca vine, which is the rope that we now climb into the spirit realms”.

In the Shipibo tradition, the moon is associated with the rational mind and it is the coming of science, Western forms of medicine, and the victory of dualistic and logic-based thought over intuition and natural wisdom which therefore severed our connection to spirit. The story of the Moon Man is one which speaks of our need to rediscover our spiritual roots by using a new rope – ayahuasca – which was given to us as a way back to the world we once knew.

Ayahuasca: The vine of souls
Ayahuasca is the most important medicine of the Amazon. Made from the vine Banisteriopsis caapi and the leaves of the chacruna plant (Psychotria viridis), it is a potent visionary mixture which opens the person who drinks it to the experience of the world underlying our own. Its name, which suggests these properties, is derived from two native words: aya meaning ‘spirit’ and huasca: ‘rope’ – hence it is commonly known as ‘the vine of souls’ or ‘the rope of the dead’.

It is prepared by cutting the vines into lengths which are cleaned and pounded, then placed in a cauldron with the leaves. Water is added and the mixture is boiled for 12 hours, overseen by a shaman.

When ingested, this muddy, pungent liquid produces feelings of warmth which spread from the stomach, creating a sense of well-being and skin elasticity, as if the skin has become rubber-like and no longer separate from the air. After this, there are visionary effects. Images of snakes and vines and iridescent colours are common but, to the shaman’s eye, symbols of the diseases which inhabit his client’s body are also seen. It is these which enable him, and the spirit of ayahuasca, to heal.

During the visionary phase, purging, in the form of vomiting or diarrhoea may also take place. This can sometimes be emotionally uncomfortable for Westerners who drink ayahuasca, and who have been brought up to control their bodily functions and not ‘let go’ like this. But it is welcomed by people of the Amazon, who believe that this purging releases ‘spiritual poisons’ which can lead to physical illness. By clearing out the system physically and spiritually, la purga (‘the purge’: another of ayahuasca’s many names) restores balance to the soul and empowers the body to fight against disease.

Though these beliefs may seem strange to us, in fact, many remarkable cures have also been attributed to ayahuasca by Western doctors. In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Crossing Continents programme, for example, Dr Jacques Mabit revealed how a third of the patients that begin treatment with him for drug addictions are completely cured through ayahuasca use, with a success rate as high as 70% for those who complete the full treatment1. Other accounts include remissions from cancer, cures for deafness, and the lifting of depression2+3.

In scientific terms, ayahuasca vine is an inhibitor which contains harmala and harmaline, while chacruna contains vision-inducing alkaloids. It is this mixture which gives the brew its hallucinogenic properties.

There are still many mysteries about how the shamans knew how to combine these plants, for, separate from the other, each is more or less inert.

The main ingredients in chacruna, for example, are tryptamines which, if taken orally, are rendered inactive by the body’s enzymes. The vine, however, contains MAO (monoamine oxidase) inhibitors in the form of harmine compounds, so when the two plants come together they complement each other and a psychoactive compound results which has an identical chemical make-up to the organic tryptamines in our bodies. The mixture therefore finds its way easily into our brains and bonds smoothly to synaptic receptor sites, enabling a powerful visionary experience.

Some, like the writer and ‘psychonaut’ Terence McKenna, believe that our capacity for expanded consciousness and deep thought arose directly from the ingestion of plants such as these and the visionary effects they produced, at a time when human beings were nomadic hunter-gatherers, barely human at all, and would forage for food and eat whatever they found, or whatever ‘spirit’ guided them to4.

Certainly it is true that a million-and-a-half years ago, the human brain underwent what Rita Carter, in her book, Mapping the Mind describes as “an explosive enlargement.

“So sudden was it that the bones of the skull were pushed outwards, creating the high, flat forehead and domed head that distinguish us from primates. The areas that expanded most are those concerned with thinking, planning, organising and communicating… The frontal lobes of the brain duly expanded by some 40 per cent to create large areas of new gray matter: the neo-cortex [and] pre-frontal lobes”5.

Nobody knows what caused this dramatic enlargement, but an expansion in consciousness could be responsible, the theory being that we would need new grey matter to process and store the visionary information downloaded from the plants.

The ayahuasca experience
In his influential book The Cosmic Serpent, scientist Jeremy Narby writes of his ayahuasca experiences with the people of the Upper Amazon, concluding that shamans there are able, through this brew, to merge with “the global network of DNA-based life"6.

In his ayahuasca ceremonies Narby saw visions of two gigantic anacondas (the ‘cosmic serpents’ of his book’s title), which spoke to him without words and revealed mysteries and healing secrets to him. This fired his interest and he began to explore the consistency of such imagery. The first similarity he noticed was the common image of reptiles and snakes, often a "celestial serpent", that occurs in many shamanic traditions the world over.

The similarity between DNA, the winding ayahuasca vine, and the snake imagery it produces led Narby to suggest that shamans, through their ingestion of the brew, communicate with the information stored in DNA.

He then began to study the characteristics of DNA and found that it emits electromagnetic waves corresponding to the narrow band of visible light. This weak light is equivalent to the intensity of a candle at a distance of 10 kilometres, but has a high degree of coherence, comparable to a laser. It is fascinating to speculate that this is the waveform of consciousness and that plants such as ayahuasca are the means of making it – and the illnesses which disrupt its signal – visible to shamanic sight.

There are certain other plants too, which, because of their healing effects and their importance in the initiation of ayahuasca shamans and the rituals that surround the use of the brew, have also come to prominence. These are the planta maestros (the ‘master teachers’) of the plant world, which are key among the shaman’s tutelary spirits and guides to health and healing. By knowing these plants, the shaman can deal effectively with the most common diseases of his people.

It is difficult to find discrete Western analogues for some of these plants because they grow where they are needed and the healing required by a London banker, for example, will be different from that of a Peruvian farmer. The psychological and spiritual benefits such plants bestow, and their ability to restore emotional balance, banish negative energies, or open the heart to love, are desirable in any culture, however, so it is possible to find herbs with equivalent or similar effects wherever we live.

With this in mind, these are some of the more commonly used planta maestros and (either singularly or in combination) plants of our own that Amazonian shamans say will produce like effects.

Chiric sanango grows in the restingas of the Amazon, on the high ground where it never floods. Chiric, in the ancient Quechua language, means ‘tickling’ or ‘itchy’ and refers to the prickly heat that the plant generates in the patient once ingested. Shamans often prescribe it for fishermen because they spend so much time in the water and are prone to colds and arthritis. It is also used in magical baths to change the bather’s energy and bring good luck.

Used in the West, the plant has a more psychological effect, but still to do with ‘heat’. Here, it enables people to open their hearts to love (it warms up a cold heart, but will also cool a heart that is too inflamed with jealousy and rage). In essence, it helps people get in touch with their more sensitive and loving sides.

It can be prepared as a tea, in aguardiente (weak sugar cane alcohol) or made into syrup by adding its juice to honey. It can also be eaten raw and is said to better penetrate the bones if taken this way.

Mint has some of the properties of chiric sanango and is a balancer of the body’s physical and emotional heat. For these reasons it has been associated with the planet Venus, which was named after the Roman goddess of love.

Guayusa is a plant used for people who suffer from excessive acidity, digestive, or other problems of the stomach and bile. It also develops mental strength and is paradoxical in the sense that it is both energizing and relaxing.

Shamans say that it also produces prophetic or lucid dreams (when you are aware that you are dreaming and can direct your dreams). For this reason it is known in the Amazon as ‘the night watchman's plant’, as even when you are sleeping you have an awareness of your surroundings. The boundary between sleeping and wakefulness becomes fluid and dreams become colourful, richer, and more potent than before.

In the Western world, bracken, jasmine, or poplar can produce some of the same dreaming effects. The leaves and buds of the latter were a key ingredient in the ‘flying ointments’ of European witches, for example, who used it for what we would call astral travel.

Ajo sacha is a blood purifier and helps the body rid itself of toxins (spiritual or physical) as well as restoring strength. More psycho-spiritually, it helps to take the user out of saladera (a run of bad luck, inertia, or a sense of not living life to the full). Used as a bathing essence, it relieves the effects of shock (called manchiari by Amazonian shamans) which can be particularly debilitating to children, whose souls are not as strong or fixed as an adult’s, and a shock can therefore lead to the loss of their energy or spirit.

Western plants with equivalent uses include valerian and vervain. The former was recorded from the 16th century as an aid to a restful mind and, in the two world wars it was used to combat anxiety and depression. By relaxing the mind, the psyche can go to work on the real problem, aided by the plant itself.

Vervain, meanwhile, was well-known to the Druids, who used it to protect against “evil spirits” (nowadays, we might say ‘inner issues’ or ‘the shadow-self’). It is also used as a treatment for paranoia, insomnia, and depression. Once again, by relaxing the conscious mind we can stalk the more deeply-rooted problem.

The ‘medicine of love’
Against this backdrop of healing and the natural benefits available from plants – and their spirits - it is depressing for Amazonian shamans that the rainforest, home to so many healing plants still unknown to Western medicine, is being destroyed by the ‘developed nations’ with little consideration for the consequences. Every three seconds in the Amazon, an entire species is wiped out in the name of progress.

According to Javier Aravelo, a shaman from Iquitos, people are prone to such “madness” as a result of confusion, because “they do not know who they are or what they really want”.

His point was underlined a few years ago when he worked with a group of participants on a trip to the Amazon to drink ayahuasca and, prior to their ceremonies, he asked them what they wanted the healing to accomplish.

“Most gave spiritual or ‘cosmic’ answers and spoke of world peace and saving the planet”, said Javier. “And so I asked them again: what do you want? This time, they were more honest and all of them said that what they really wanted was love.

“This I could understand because their requests were real and personal this time, not about saving the world. But what puzzled me most was that at first they had not felt entitled to ask for love or had been conditioned not to know what they wanted.

“Yet, paradoxically, their honest desires were where true healing can begin, since, if more people were able to experience love, there would be no need for the madness of developed society, and, consequently, no need to save our planet, which would never be in danger.

“Love solves problems and ayahuasca is the medicine of love. This is how plants really cure”.

Ends/

References
(1). Lizarzaburu Javier, Peru Seeks Tribal Cure for Addiction. BBC News, November 5 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/3243277.stm

(2). Heaven Ross, Spirit in the City: The Search for the Sacred in Everyday Life, Bantam Books, London. ISBN-10: 0553813242. 2002

(3). Perkins John, introduction to The Journey to You: A Shaman’s Path to Empowerment, Ross Heaven, Bantam Books, London. ISBN-10: 0553813234. 2001

(4). McKenna Terence, Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution, Rider & Co, London. ISBN-10: 0712670386. 1999

(5). Carter Rita, Mapping the Mind, Phoenix Books, London. ISBN-10: 0753810190. 2000

(6). Narby Jeremy, The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, Phoenix Books, London. ISBN-10: 075380851X. 1999

The author
Ross Heaven is a psychologist, author, workshop facilitator, and presenter. He has written more than 10 books on psychology, shamanism, plant medicines, and the healing traditions, including The Journey to You, which was described by Amazon Books as “The most important book on shamanism in years”, Plant Spirit Shamanism, about Amazonian medicine practices, and The Sin Eater’s Last Confessions, about traditional healing and plant cures in Britain and Wales. Ross runs workshops on the themes of his books and trips to the Peruvian Amazon to work with the ayahuasca shamans. His website is www.thefourgates.com.

Shamans believe that the soul can be lost through trauma, abuse, shock – and, fundamentally, by dishonouring nature or ignoring our need to connect with it.

In many shamanic countries, there are still roadside shrines where people can rest, pay their respects to the natural world, and receive healing and replenishment from it.

In the modern West, we have few such sacred places or ceremonies of connection left. Festivals such as May Day, originally a fertility ritual to welcome the coming of Spring, have lost much of their purpose and meaning, and our connection to nature is weakened. In turn, our souls, individually and collectively, have become weak and, despite our great wealth and ‘power’, many traditional societies regard us as the poorest people on Earth.

Healing soul loss, as you might sense from this, often involves the shaman reconnecting his patient to nature, so she is restored to balance and her spirit has a safe, strong, whole, place to return to.

In Japan, one method is to accompany the patient (or advise her to go on her own) on a walk into nature to find and make contact with a particular tree that calls to her. She then sits down with her back to it and speaks to the tree of her problems and sorrows.

If she listens closely, the spirit of the tree – the great gateway to nature – will counsel her on what to do, while at the same time taking and transforming her pains and giving her power and new spirit in return.

In Tuva, the patient is advised to take a similar walk and make an offering to a nature shrine, in return for which the spirits will bring back her soul.

In both cases, of course, the patient is deeply immersed in nature, at one with the trees and held in the peace of the forest, which is itself invigorating and restful.

In the Andes, soul retrieval is a similar but slightly different practice. Here, the shaman will accompany the patient to the physical location where soul was lost to find and bring back its energy. There is always a physical location where trauma occurred, whether an accident blackspot where a car crash took place or a home at the centre of childhood abuse, and that is where the soul remains locked.

The shaman is able to bring back the soul by negotiating for its release with the spirit of this place and by enticing the soul to return by singing to it of the joys that await it back in the patient’s body now that the trauma has ended. In negotiating with the spirit of place, the shaman may also make an offerenda in exchange for the soul, or simply leave flowers. If the spirits of nature are satisfied with the offering and reassured that the soul they are protecting will be treated well on its return - and if the soul itself feels loved and safe - it will be released to the patient straight away.

Andean curandera, Doris Rivera Lenz, comments on this practice as follows:

When a child falls suddenly, for example, its soul can leave its body and it may get ill. If this happens, an offering is made in the place of the fall, to heal the child.

There are many ways to ‘call the soul’. You can get hold of a piece of the child’s clothing and make a little doll and decorate it with flowers or whatever the child likes, and you call his soul in the place where the fright took place. You can also call up and use the energies of herbs, a dove’s nest, feathers, tobacco, coca, or whatever else is needed to help with this healing, but before any session, you must first ask permission from Pachamama, the spirit of the Earth.

If there is no fixed place where the problem began, then you go to the highest mountain or closest river and perform the ritual there.

There is another approach to soul retrieval, common in countries as diverse as Mexico, Haiti, and Peru, which also works with flowers. In these traditions it is believed that the soul can sometimes be, not lost exactly, but so loosely attached that it is vibrating inside and outside the body at one and the same time. This can happen as a result of shock, where events that shake our worldviews and undermine all that we thought to be true can also set our spirits shaking. It is as if we have nothing left to hold on to and all of our balance is gone. Shocks like these can lead to trauma but if the soul is caught quickly enough it can be healed before deeper wounding occurs, by forcing it back into the body and stabilising it there so that balance is restored.

One method is to swaddle the patient tightly in sheets or blankets so that the soul is compressed back into the body and held there. This may also be the origin of the practice of swaddling babies, traditional people recognising that the soul of a baby is less attached to its physical body and needs to be held in place until the child has ‘grown into itself’ and become established in its body. Inside the blanket are placed flower petals and they may also be sprinkled on top of and around patient.

As the patient lies in her sweet-smelling cocoon of flowers that soothe the soul, the shaman will sing to her in lullabies and whispers of how beautiful the world is and how she is loved and wanted by her people. Perfumes may also be sprayed over her, their smells anchoring her memory of the sweet words she is hearing, and the prayers offered for her soul and to the spirits of nature. Then she is left there for a while in the gentle heat of a rising sun, before the shaman unwraps her and welcomes her home as an initiation into a new possibility of life: a rebirth through flowers.

Another method is that related by the Mexican medicine man, don Abraham, who speaks of the alta miza herb, which is “used to heal traumas, to make a regression”.

“Alta miza grasps your spirit and moves you backwards... until you reach the place which hurts. And then she confronts you with the pain. And she will heal the pain”. [Mexican teachings: Plant Spirits in Ceremony]. This is similar to the Amazonian use of the chacapa to remove negative energies and restore spirit to a patient. In both cases, it is the plants, directly, that offer the healing. Interestingly, as well, alta miza is feverfew, which has long been respected for its properties of healing and purification, and was widely planted in old England in the belief that it would purify the air and prevent the spread of plague. Gerard said of it that it “cleanseth, purgeth or scoureth, openeth, and fully performeth all that bitter things can do”.

Plant Spirit Shamanism understands that plants have an affinity for human beings, that they know our pain, and that their intention is to love and to heal. Simply being close to them and their energy fields can be enough to call back the soul.

Join us for an authentic experience of ayahuasca, San Pedro, and plant spirit shamanism in the beautiful rainforests and mountains of Peru. Email ross@thefourgates.com for a FREE Information Pack or visit the website http://www.thefourgates.com and look under the Sacred Journeys section.

Plant Spirit Shamanism, soul loss, soul retrieval, healing, herbs, herbalism, magic, ross heaven

Planta maestras (plant masters or plant teachers) are key among the shaman’s tutelary spirits, his chief allies and guides to the worlds of health and healing. In ordinary reality, they are also considered the jungle’s most skilled and important ‘doctors’ because of their usefulness and relevance to the healing concerns of most patients. Through knowing these plants, the shaman can deal effectively with the diseases of his people.
It can be difficult to find discrete Western analogues for some of these jungle plants because plants grow where they are needed and the healing required by a New York banker will be quite different from that of a Peruvian farmer. The psychological and spiritual benefits bestowed by such plants, and their ability to restore emotional balance, banish negative energies, or open the heart to love, are desirable in any culture, however, so it is possible to find plants with equivalent or similar effects if we wish to diet them and understand their qualities for ourselves.
With this in mind, here is a description of some of the more commonly dieted planta maestras and (either singularly or in combination) plants of our own that will produce like effects.
CHIRIC SANANGO: FOR LOVE
Chiric sanango grows mainly in the upper Amazon and in a few restingas (high ground which never floods). It is good for colds and arthritis and has the effect of heating up the body. (Chiric, in Quechua, means ‘tickling’ or ‘itchy’, which refers to the prickly heat that it generates). Plant shamans often prescribe it for fishermen and loggers, for example, because they spend so much time in the water and are prone to colds and arthritis. The patient should not drink too much at a time though because it can lead to a numbness of the mouth as well as a feeling of slight disorientation. It is also used in magical baths to change the bather’s energy and bring good luck to his ventures.

Used in the West, the plant has a more psychological effect, but still to do with ‘heat’. Here, it enables people to open their hearts to love (it ‘warms up’ a cold heart, but will also ‘cool’ a heart that is too inflamed with jealousy and rage) and identify with others as if they were brothers and sisters. In essence, it helps people get in touch with the sensitive and loving part of themselves. Another of its gifts is enhanced self-esteem, which develops from this more healthy connection to the self.

Chiric sanango can be prepared in water, in aguardiente (weak sugar cane alcohol) or made into syrup by adding its juice to honey or molasses. It can also be boiled in water and drunk, or eaten raw and is said to better penetrate the bones if taken this way.

For a Western diet, mint has some of the properties of chiric sanango and is a balancer of the body’s physical and emotional heat. It can cool you down on a summer’s day but will also provide warmth when drunk by an open fire in winter, and it has the same effect on the emotions, promoting the flow of love as well as alertness and clarity. For these reasons it has been associated with the planet Venus, which was named after the Roman goddess of love.

Good plants to combine with mint include lemon balm and chamomile. Lemon balm was known in Arabian herb magic to bring feelings of love and healing (Pliny remarked that its powers of healing were so great that, rubbed on a sword that had inflicted a wound, it would staunch the flow of blood in the injured person without need for any physical contact with them), while chamomile is a great relaxant and a perfect aid to exercises in meditation and forgiveness. Recent research at Northumbria University in the UK has also proven the beneficial effects of lemon balm in increasing feelings of calm and well-being, as well as improving memory.

Chiric sanango also brings relief from arthritic pain and if this is your concern, Western plants that could be added to mint include marigold and ginseng.

To make a tea of any of these herbs, simply boil the fresh ingredients (the amounts you use can be much to your own taste, but three heaped teaspoons of each is about right) in a pint or so of water for a few minutes and then simmer for about 20 minutes, allowing it to reduce, and blowing smoke – which carries your intention – into the mixture as it boils. This will wake up the spirit of the plants and attune them to your needs. Add honey if you wish, then strain and drink when cool.

For a mixture that will last a little longer, add the fresh ingredients to alcohol (rum or vodka is recommended), with honey if you wish, and drink three-to-five teaspoonfuls a day, morning and night.

These methods of preparation can be used for all plants.

GUAYUSA: FOR LUCID DREAMS
This is a good plant for people who suffer from excessive acidity, digestive, or other problems of the stomach and bile. It also develops mental strength and is paradoxical in the sense that, just as chiric sanango is cooling and warming at the same time, guayusa is both energizing and relaxing.
Guayusa also has the effect of giving lucid dreams (i.e. when you are aware that you are dreaming and can direct your dreams). For this reason it is also known as the ‘night watchman's plant’, as even when you are sleeping you have an awareness of your outer physical surroundings. The boundary between sleeping and wakefulness becomes more fluid and dreams become more colourful, richer, and more potent than before. For those interested in dreams or 'shamanic dreaming', this is the plant to explore.
In the Western world, bracken, jasmine, marigold, rose, mugwort, and poplar, will produce the same affect of lucid or prophetic dreams. The leaves and buds of the latter were often a key ingredient in the ‘flying ointments’ of European witches, who used it for what we would call astral projection. A mixture of these plants can be used to produce a liquid (either fresh or in alcohol) that can be taken in the same way as the examples above. It is also possible to prepare them in a way that practitioners of Haitian Vodou use for working with their native ‘dreaming plants’, by making a bila, or dreaming pillow, by taking small handfuls of mugwort and poplar and blend them together. Sprinkle the mix with neroli, orange or patchouli oils (aromatherapy oils are fine) as well if you wish and, as they do in Haiti, a little rum and water to bind the mix together. Put your intention into this as well – that these herbs will help you to dream more lucidly and gather information from the spirit world – then allow the mixture to dry for a few days. When it is ready, crumble it into a cloth pouch and place it beneath your pillow. Keep a dream journal next to your bed and, as soon as you wake up next morning, immediately note down your dreams and your first waking sensations.
AJO SACHA: STALKING THE SELF
This plant is a blood purifier and helps the body to rid itself of toxins (spiritual or physical) as well as restoring strength and equilibrium lost through illnesses that have an affect on the blood. More psycho-spiritually, it helps to develop acuity of mind and can also take the user out of saladera (a run of bad luck, inertia, or a sense of not living life to the full). It is also used for ridding spells – i.e. undoing the work of curses or removing bad energy that has been sent deliberately or by accident (in an explosion of rage, etc).

In floral baths, it will relieve states of shock and fear (known as manchiari), which can be particularly debilitating to children, whose souls are not as strong or fixed as an adult’s; a powerful shock can therefore lead to soul loss. The same phenomenon, especially regarding children, is known to the shamans of Haiti, where it is called seziman, and those of India, who take great care to protect children from frights of this kind and are often employed by the anxious parents of newborn children to make protective amulets for their babies.

Another key to ajo sacha is that in the Amazon it is used to enhance hunting skills, not only by covering the human scent with its own garlic-like smell (the plant also has a strong garlic taste although it is in no way related to garlic), but by amplifying the hunter’s senses of taste, smell, sound, and vision, all of which are, of course, essential for success and for survival. It is therefore a plant of stalking.

In the Western world this stalking ability tends to translate psychologically, and the plant becomes a means of helping an individual hunt or ‘stalk’ her inner issues. To underline this, the Shipibo maestro Guillermo Arevalo adds that this plant also opens up the shamanic path and helps us to see beyond conventional reality – if we have the heart of a warrior and are prepared to live under the obligations of shamanism. For this, we will need courage, the ability to face the truth, and to know our true calling, and no fear of extremes or ‘ugly’ things.

It is fascinating that this plant which is used to aid hunting in the rainforest still posses this same essential quality in an environment such as ours where food is purchased from supermarkets and we do not need to track down game at all, but we often have work to do in stalking ourselves. It is clear that this plant has extraordinary qualities.
Western plants with equivalent therapeutic uses include valerian and vervain. The former has been recorded from the 16th century as an aid to a restful mind and, in the two world wars, was used to combat anxiety and depression. Today, it is still used for these purposes. It also brings relief from panic attacks and tension headaches, which are regarded as symptoms of an underlying cause arising from an unresolved issue or stress of some kind. By relaxing the mind, the psyche is able to go to work on the real problem, aided by the plant itself.
One way of dieting valerian (which will also aid a deep and restful sleep) is by adding equal parts to passionflower leaves and hop flowers and covering with vodka and honey for a few weeks, after which a few teaspoons are taken at bedtime.
Vervain, meanwhile, was well-known to the Druids, who used it to protect against “evil spirits” (nowadays, we might say ‘inner issues’ or ‘the shadow-self’). It is also used to help with nervous exhaustion, paranoia, insomnia, and depression. Once again, by relaxing the conscious mind it empowers the unconscious to go to work on (stalk) the more deep-rooted problem.
Another protective plant that also has the effect of purifying and strengthening the blood is garlic. Nicholas Culpepper noted its balancing qualities and wrote of it as a “cure-all”. It has long been associated with magical uses, protection from witches, vampires, and evil spells, and as effective in exorcisms (i.e. psychologically speaking, in ridding us of our inner demons). Roman soldiers ate it to give themselves courage and overcome their fears before battle. There is also a tradition of placing garlic beneath the pillows of children to protect them while they sleep and defend them from nightmares.
One way of dieting garlic is in the form of garlic honey - which is not as disagreeable as it sounds. To make it, add two cloves of peeled garlic to a little honey and crush them in a mortar, then add another 400g or so of honey to the mix. This can be drunk in hot water or simply eaten, two teaspoons a day, morning and night.
Other plants that are good for increasing ‘wisdom’ (inner knowledge) include peach, sage, and sunflower, all of which can also be dieted fresh or in a little rum or vodka.

Continued in Part 2/…

Join us for an authentic experience of ayahuasca, San Pedro, and plant spirit shamanism in the beautiful rainforests and mountains of Peru. Email ross@thefourgates.com for a FREE Information Pack or visit the website http://www.thefourgates.com and look under the Sacred Journeys section.

Plant Spirit Shamanism, soul loss, healing, herbs, herbalism, aromatherapy, homeopathy, teacher plants, stalking, ross heaven