The Plant Remedy

Plant Spirit Shamanism and Healing

Copyright 2014

~ By Travis Bodick

Soulremedy.org

In no way does the author suggest use of illegal substances. Only ingest plants where and when
they are legal, and be as safe as possible. In no way does this guide give you enough
information to ingest plants safely, so if you choose to do so, it is at your own risk, and the
author and/or distributers of this guide cannot be held responsible or liable in any way.

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Table of Contents

1. What is plant spirit shamanism, and what is this guide? 4

2. A Visit to the Andes and the Amazon, and a Personal Story of How This
Happened 8
3. Andean and Amazonian Shamanism 12
4. Spiritual Healing 17
5. Purging 21
6. Dieta 23
7. Localizing Vegitalismo, Personal Dieta, and Micro-dosing 28
8. The Shamans Role 31
9. Healing Songs 33
10.Being Called 37
11.The Nature of Visions and Of Reality 38
12.Brujeria 41
13.Dangers of Spiritual Tourism 44
14.Churches 46
15.Drinking Alone or With Others 48
16.Set and Setting 51
17.Protection 53
18.Cooking Your Brew and Other Medicinal Preparations 61
19.Making Your Own Ceremony 72
20.Contraindications and Safety Precautions 74
21.Mixing Plants 76
22.Legal Issues 78
23.Foraging and Gathering 80
24.Integrating the Lessons 81
25.Darkness and Light 83
26.Being a Good Person 85
27.Near Death Experiences and Fright 87
28.Other Entheogens 89
29.Plants for Dieta 99
30.Final Thoughts 105

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 I heard a story about a man running, looking desperately for a "rest."

He came upon every person he met asking them if they could help him
find it.

He said he was totally committed to finding it, and would never stop
searching until he did.

Of course, everyone told him he could have what he sought at any

moment by simply calling off the search, and sitting down right where
he was.

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 1. What is plant spirit medicine, and what is this guide?

The universe is not only stranger then we imagine, it is stranger then we can
imagine. ~ J.B.S. Haldane

Nature is the visible, living garment of God, and through this garment, we can
come to know the mind beneath it. In many spiritual and mystical traditions all
over the world, nature is revered as the art of God, and as a place you could turn
to in order to find Spirit, your own heart, or guidance in life. For some, the
connection to nature is easy and the wild seems to speak to them openly, but
how do we really talk to plants in a way that lets us hear them talk back to us? Is
there a technique that makes even those of us who are hard of hearing able to
grasp their whispers?

This book is designed with the intention that the reader can understand some
parts of traditional South American curanderismo (shamanic healing), as well as
be able to copy a current working practice (the authors) to the point where they
can find their own path of practice working with plants. For anyone who has
forgotten who they are and what they live for, for anyone in need of direction or
personal healing, for anyone wanting to learn to heal, and especially for those
looking to connect more deeply with God, nature, or the spirit world this book is
for you.

Plant Spirit Medicine is a general blanket term I am using to describe a number

of related and complementary spiritual practices based on shamanism and
working with plant spirits specifically. Shamanism is a general set of practices
that has many core elements, as well as much variety, and is found all over the
world. Because there is so much variety between different shamanic cultures, it I
hard to classify shamanism accurately, but it often (not always) includes animism
(animal spirits), working with plant and nature spirits, trance induced altered
states, and is most often geared towards healing and guidance for the shamans
community. It is the oldest known spiritual practice in the world, and can be
found in every country and place that humans live.

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 Some people have problems with the word shaman, and I want to address this
issue. The word is derived from a similar Siberian word for their local indigenous
healers, and most shamanic traditions have their own word for their indigenous
healers. Modern researchers have noted that many cultures shared a similar core
set of beliefs around a similar type of spirit based healing work, and decided to
apply the term generally cross-culturally. For example, in South America, the
shamanic healers are not usually called shamans, but are called curanderos
(healers) or sometimes paqos (among other names). And even within that title
of curandero, they may have more specific titles based on the specific type of
healing work they do, such as tobaquero, ayahuascaro, wachumero, or vegetalisto
(healing with tobacco, Ayahuasca, Wachuma/San Pedro or plant diet
respectively). In Mexico, the healer might be called a brujo or sorcerer (this term
is used differently in South America to designate someone who uses the dark arts,
but in some places has a positive or neutral connotation). Even though brujos,
tobaqueros, and ayahuascaros all work differently, they share many similarities as
well, and so the term shaman seems fitting as a general term.

For me personally, an issue only arises when people get attached to a specific
idea of what a shaman is. This can be avoided by using shaman as a general and
not a specific term that applies to a type of archetypal figure. For example a
proctologist, urologist and naturopath all use medicine differently, but we still call
all 3 of them doctors. To me, shaman should be used similar to the term doctor
only to designate that the healer uses spiritual and natural means as their
medicine, rather than drugs.

Some people worry that by using a general term like shaman for all the
different unique practices, that the originality and beauty of the indigenous
practices might be lessened or downplayed. I do not think this is the case if
anything, it brings awareness to this type of healing work. It is important to
remember though, that not all shamanic traditions are the same, and that being a
shaman takes a lot of work and time to embody. Many shamans will practice for
a decade or longer before they ever call themselves a shaman, or before they
start their own healing practice. Shamans have to be recognized by the
community as an effective healer and leader before they can be shamans.
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Banging a drum or eating entheogens, or having a spiritual experience does not
make you a shaman. Healing sickness consistently for others and with the help of
spirits is what makes you a shaman (in my opinion).

This guide serves a number of purposes. Mostly, it is a collective of

information about traditional uses of plants in a spiritual context, and new ideas
for updating those traditions to modern life, but we will also touch on working
with other spirits for healing as well (like animal, mineral, or other nature and
guardian spirits). The information is based on personal research as well as
personal experience I try everything personally before writing it (unless I
specifically state otherwise).

This guide will in no way include everything there is to know about plants it
will be based on my personal practice. And as much as my practice has a few
specific traditions it draws heavily from, I would like to express that my practice is
not traditional. It is eclectic, and I use what I can find. I wouldnt call myself an
expert, but more a jack-of-all-trades. My practice does have a lot of influences
and variety, so hopefully there is something here for everyone. We will look into
how to learn and practice abroad and at home because sometimes you might
need to travel to find the right teacher or medicine you need, and at the same
time, it is good to connect with plants near your home as well.

A few of the largest influences on my personal practice have been Amazonian,

Andean, and what is called core shamanism. The Amazonian and Andean
practices are local to each other, and share many similarities, and this is where
most of my experience lies. Core shamanism is based on common practices found
in many cultures, but simplified a little and re-packaged for westerners. We will
also draw on other influences from Arctic, Asian, European, African, and North
American shamanic cultures, but mostly we will work with the types I have the
most experience in (not because these types are better, but just because I prefer
to speak from experience when possible). Sometimes, I may even draw parallels
to western occult, which is another topic I have much experience in, and
sometimes can share many similarities with shamanism, since both practices are
based in Spirit.

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 As you read and work through this guide, please feel free to find what
resonates with you. Question and test what I say, add your own research and
experience, and find your own path to Spirit. There are no rules here, except
maybe to try your best, and to treat yourself and others with kindness.

Many happy journeys to you =)

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 2. A Visit to the Andes and the Amazon, and a Personal Story of How This
Happened

One is nothing but oneself. ~ poet Henri Michaux

Id like to share a brief story of how I found myself studying South American
curanderismo (shamanic healing). Perhaps you will understand my perspectives
and where they come from, as well as see something you can relate to!

When I was 20 years old, I almost drowned in the ocean. I was surfing in Costa
Rica, and a wave ripped my board from me, while an undertow sucked me to the
ocean floor. My body was tossed around the bottom of the ocean like a rag doll,
and I could feel my body losing its life without any air. I struggled and fought, but
as my body tired, I started to realize that I didnt have any reason to live. I had
lost a lot of my passion for life, and was depressed. Since I was so close to the
end, and since I couldnt escape the undertow anyways, I gave up. I stopped
fighting, and accepted my fate. I was going to die in the ocean, and that was
okay.

As soon as I stopped struggling and accepted my fate, my consciousness left

my body and I saw my entire life in review. I saw all my loved ones. I saw them
hearing the news of my death. I realized that I loved them too much to let them
suffer because I gave up and realized that maybe if I couldnt live for myself I
could live for others. Suddenly, I was back in my body, and I felt hands grab me
under the arms and pull me to the surface (despite the undertow, and without me
swimming at all).

When I broke the surface of the water, no one was around, and I had to
struggle against the waves to make it back to shore. I was an atheist at the time,
and believed in absolutely nothing spiritual, but for some reason, it seemed as if a
spirit had saved me from drowning (the hands I felt pull me up). This was too
threatening to my world view however, so I disregarded it, and pretended like it
didnt happen for a while. I told no one about the experience and visions I had
had I didnt even mention almost drowning, because I was so ashamed that I
had given up so easily. I didnt know how to explain the event at all.

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 After a couple months ignoring my experience, I tried psychedelic mushrooms
for the first time. I was expecting to just have fun with my friends, but instead,
time stood still, and I had another vision I was back in the ocean drowning, and I
remembered the spirit who had saved me. The spirit spoke through the vision to
me: We are all One, you are a part of something much bigger, and you have a
purpose. I was surprised and intrigued, and for the first time, I began to believe
in spirits.

At the time, I did not know anyone else having similar experiences, and I didnt
know what the experiences meant. I was a little lost and confused, but also
excited and filled with awe. Somehow a couple books on psychedelics, spiritual
experiences, and shamanism found their way to me, and slowly, the pieces
started to fit together.

Around this time, I found a couple books on Amazonian shamanism. I started

experiencing something strange repeatedly: I would have a vision or dream that
seemed very powerful and important and real, but I wouldnt understand it. It
was always unlike anything I had ever imagined or read about. Every time this
happened, a couple days later I would read about shamans going through a
similar experience often referred to as initiations of some kind. I started
experiencing synchronicities that seemed very meaningful, and often, these
synchronicities would tell me something very personal about myself that I
previously was unaware of. The visions seemed to have some type of practical
benefit in my life they were showing me what really mattered and made me
happy, as well as how to be a better person. My heart and my intuition told me I
needed to learn about shamanism, and specifically, I was very drawn to a
psychoactive healing brew called Ayahuasca in the Amazon. Reading about it sent
shivers down my spine, and seemed to explain many of the experiences and
visions I was having. Not only that, but I read that Ayahuasca shamans were very
effective healers and diviners. I was intrigued.

But I had no idea where to find this brew, and I was very poor. I was afraid
too. I was caught up in what other people told me I should do, and I didnt follow
my heart. I couldnt afford to travel to the Amazon, and had no idea if anyone

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worked with it locally (not to mention it was semi-illegal locally). So, I kept trying
whatever I could find to learn more about spiritual practices. I learned how to
read tarot cards, I learned about Kabbalah and Gnosticism, and I started
meditating daily. At the time I was also experimenting heavily with psychedelics,
because they seemed to provide me very insightful visions that helped me in my
life. Eventually, I decided to go full force into western occult, because it was easy
to find how-to information and local classes. I really wanted to learn about
shamanism, but didnt know who to turn to at the time. Western occult books
were easier to follow at first, and I even found two mystery schools who taught
occult practice. It wasnt exactly what I was looking for, but eventually I got
enticed into ceremonial magic and the occult while leaving shamanism on the
back burner. I quit all psychoactives, and used only my body and mind to
continue studying (meditating and ritual). This phase lasted 3 years.

After 3 years with two western mystery schools, I was disillusioned by the
dogma and related drama, and starting to realize that maybe my path was
elsewhere. I quit the two schools, and started spending my free time in nature
trying to listen to the spirits around me. The spirit world started opening up to
me. I decided to take a couple classes in core shamanism, and started using the
drumming method to enter a trance for journey work. This felt much more
fulfilling then the past 3 years of my practice, but eventually, I started to think
maybe plants should play a role in my practice again. I decided I needed to make
it to the Amazon once and for all, and somehow, the money materialized. My
partner and I went to Peru for 2 months, and after 6 years of researching
Amazonian medicine, I finally realized my dream.

We started in the Andes in Peru first, and worked with a mescaline cactus
called San Pedro or Wachuma (sometimes spelled Huachuma). In ceremony, and
in dreams after, the spirit of the cactus came to us and taught us. I was focusing
on learning, while my partner Tasha focused on healing. The most notable
feature of these ceremonies was the presence and wisdom of the spirit we called
San Pedro very vividly, this spirit spoke to us, and what it taught us was very
personal and practical.

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 After visiting some sacred and ancient ruins in the Sacred Valley near Cusco
and Lake Titikaka, we made our way to the Amazon, and finally drank Ayahuasca.
For two weeks straight, we dieted in isolation in the jungle, and four nights a
week drank Ayahuasca. Besides the restricted diet we followed that was similar
to a fast, we were each assigned a specific plant to diet which we were told would
become our personal ally. They called these plants teacher plants. As we
connected with this plant each day, it also started to speak with us, despite not
being psychoactive in any way. During the Ayahuasca ceremonies, we were also
sung to by the shamans. They sang us icaros magical songs of healing taught to
the shamans by their plant spirit allies after successful dieta. The combination of
diet, plant teacher, ayahuasca, and icaro provided us with deep insight and
healing. We both knew we had found the medicine we had been looking for. We
felt the deep wisdom of the plants inside us.

During our travels in Peru, we met many people who had been healed by plant
medicines and shamanic practices. People who had had cancer, diabetes, or
epilepsy and now were cured. My wife had cured an intense chronic back pain
that had plagued her the previous 3 years. We saw the power of the plants all
around us.

We came home and started working with the plants around us locally a
practice I call localizing vegetalismo (vegetalismo is the shamanic practice of
learning plant medicines, and localizing it refers to using local plants instead of
only the Amazonian classics). We also started saving right away for our second
trip to Peru. We knew what was important to us and put our focus on learning
the plants. We were back in Peru for 2 more months exactly one year after our
first visit.

So, this includes a lot of my personal story, but hopefully you may find
something in which you can relate to. Everyones journey is different, but it is
helpful to hear others experiences while trying to decide what might interest you
personally.

Now, onto the traditions of the Amazon and Andes!

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 3. Andean and Amazonian Shamanism

Looking behind I am filled with gratitude. Looking forward I am filled with vision.
Looking upwards I am filled with strength. Looking within I discover peace. ~
Qero Indian saying

Now back to Amazonian and Andean curanderismo. These practices are very
old, and there is evidence of San Pedro and Ayahuasca use going back thousands
of years (I visited a number of ancient ruins with carvings of snakes and cactuses
on them representing the plants they work with some of these ruins are almost
4000 years old). In some countries, the sacred plants of curanderismo are
protected under religious freedom laws, and in Peru, are even considered to be
National Treasures. Because of Perus legal and protected status, and also
because these practices never disappeared from the area, many people from
outside the area flock here to experience these medicines and find healing.

In the Andes, high up in the mountains, shamans mostly work with a mescaline
cactus called San Pedro. The cactus is named after Saint Peter who holds the keys
to heaven. Ayahuasca is also worked with in the mountains, but San Pedro might
be a little more wide-spread here, and is more traditional for this region (as
Ayahuasca becomes more popular for westerners, more people are offering it in
the Andes for tourists). Most of the cactus is brought in from the coastal desserts
of Peru and Ecuador, but it grows well in the mountains here.

San Pedro shamans often make use of a type of altar called the mesa. These
altars often include images and items of power that the shaman has a personal
connection to. They may have swords, figurines, crystals and rocks, bottles of
herbs and tonics, herbs or tobacco, or anything else important to the shaman.
The mesa works as a sort of control board for the spirits to manifest in the
ritual, and by itself can even be a great tool for healing.

Traditionally, San Pedro rituals usually take place during the night. Rituals may
include snorting tobacco, doing certain dances, singing of medicine songs, energy
work by the shaman, or any number of different things. More recently, some
newer shamans are deciding to hold ceremonies during the day though (this is

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what I personally prefer). Some of these shamans even claim that the real
traditional way is to drink during the day because San Pedro is a cactus which
gets its energy from the sun. They say that maybe Catholic culture pushed the
shamanic ceremonies into the underground for fear of prosecution, and that
night time ceremonies were done out of necessity (this seems plausible, but really
no one knows as this tradition is oral and not a written one).

These days, San Pedro rituals can have a lot of variety some even include
long hikes to magical and healing lakes, exploring ancient temples and ruins with
the plant, or drinking in the traditional style, or during the day time. There is a lot
of variety.

The Amazon has a little different focus for healing with the plants. Some
people still use San Pedro in the jungle, but mostly, people here work with
Ayahuasca, tobacco (known in South America as mapacho), and the practice of
vegetalismo.

Ayahuasca (sometimes called yage, huasca, la madre, Aya, or la purga among

other names) is the name of a jungle vine (scientific name is Banisteriopsis Caapi)
and is also the name of a tea made from the jungle vine and other plants. The tea
itself is the medicine, and is named after the vine. Ayahuasca is a Quechua word
which means vine of the dead or rope of the dead because it helps you to
access the spirit realm, and sometimes you may encounter dead ancestors, or
have a dying experience yourself (where you experience death as an initiation
and lesson during ceremony).

The tea can come in many different varieties, but most often the ingredients
include the vine itself, water, and one or more admixture plants the most
common admixture being chacruna (scientific name is Psychotria Viridis). The tea
can have effects with just water and the vine, but adding the chacruna is usually
considered a vital and important step the union of the chacruna with the
ayahuasca vine is considered a divine marriage that unlocks their true power.

Chacruna has an important chemical within it called dimethyltryptamine (or

DMT) which is an incredibly powerful psychedelic. Just eating chacruna or making

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tea with it will not have any effect though because before you can digest the
DMT, an enzyme in your stomach called Monoamine Oxidase (or MAO) will eat up
and neutralize the DMT. Ayahuasca happens to have other chemicals in it known
as a Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs) which inhibits the MAO enzyme, and
allows the DMT to be orally active (or digested and carried to the brain). When
these two plants are cooked into one tea together, they have the effect of
unlocking the true potential of both plants and providing a powerful visionary and
healing experience.

The vine actually has three different MAOIs in it - harmine, harmaline, and
tetrahydroharmine, all of which are both beta-carboline harmala alkaloids and
MAOIs. When these chemicals were first isolated by German scientists, they
actually named one telepathine because of its ability to seemingly produce
telepathy in those who ingest it. Some people argue that these alkaloids by
themselves cannot provide visionary experience, but more recently, studies have
shown that in higher doses, they can produce some visions, just of a more subtle
nature (not to mention that many tribes traditionally work with caapi alone to
produce visions and healing). The DMT is considered important for getting the
full visionary effect though.

In the west, when Ayahuasca is explained, a lot of the focus is on DMT. There
is a lot of hype around DMT because of a book called DMT: The Spirit Molecule
written by Dr. Rick Strassman and based on his research with DMT. The famous
McKenna brothers who were fundamental in introducing Ayahuasca to the
western world also had a bit of a bias towards DMT, and focused more on the
DMT then the actual Ayahuasca vine itself. The widely used theory regarding
DMT is that it is produced by the pineal gland within our own brains, and that this
may have an important function in dreams or other natural visionary experiences
like near-death experiences. This hasnt been proven yet, but there is good
evidence to support the theory. What we do know is that DMT is found in small
amounts within our brains, blood and urine. It is also found in most animals and
in many plants.

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 Sometimes DMT is smoked by itself to produce a 10 minute visionary state
that is very powerful, but sometimes hard to understand. Many westerners think
of Ayahuasca as orally active DMT assuming that the vine is just there to make
the DMT active through digestion, because normally MAO in the stomach eats up
the DMT, but the MAO-Inhibitor in the vine stops this process allowing the DMT
to be digested. I personally think this is an error based on trying to understand
shamanism from a chemical and western perspective, and not a spiritual
perspective. The traditional perspective is that the spirits of these plants is the
driving force behind the visions, and not only a single chemical reaction.

In the Amazon, the vine itself (which has no DMT) is considered the important
part of the brew. The vine is your teacher, and is also the main source of healing.
The DMT is considered the light that helps you see and understand the visions
better. This would explain why the brew is named after the vine instead of the
leaf. Often though, chacruna is also a teacher of sorts, and these two plants may
take on masculine and feminine roles to aid you in different ways. When brewed
together, there is a divine union which occurs, and these two plants become a
powerful force.

Ayahuasca ceremonies are usually done at night, and usually in complete

darkness. Light can be very distracting when trying to navigate your visions.
Often, participants will sit in a circle within a ceremonial building known as a
maloka. This provides a safe space for the ceremony to take place, as the shaman
protects their clients.

Within ceremony, there are certain key aspects usually associated with
Ayahuasca most noticeably the icaros. Icaros are a type of sacred song learned
through apprenticeship with the plants. The ayahuasqueros (Ayahuasca
shamans) sing these songs to direct the visions and also to offer protection and
guide healing. These songs are considered to be vocalized plant medicine coming
from the mouth of the shamans, and in some cases are considered to be spirits
singing through the shaman. In many rituals, people looking to be healed by the
shaman will not even drink Ayahuasca, but instead will come to be sung to the

15
icaros provide the healing in this case. Sometimes, the shaman may also use a
rattle called a chacapa to accompany their icaros (made out of large leaves).

Besides these two traditions of medicine in Peru, there are also other
medicines and ways of working with the spirits. Some shamans work with coca,
some with mapacho, others with yopo or toad venom. The Qero healers who I
have had the pleasure of working with use predominantly dreams, energy work,
and offerings to find healing and guidance (they do not use any psychoactive
plant, though coca features heavily in their practice). There is a lot of variety. For
this book, I will mostly focus on Ayahuasca and San Pedro, as these are the most
popular, and the traditions I have the most experience in.

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 4. Spiritual Healing

The cure of the part should not be attempted without treatment of the whole.
No attempt should be made to cure the body without the Soul the great error of
our day is that physicians separate the heart from the mind and the mind from the
body. ~ Socrates

Why work with these plants? There are many reasons to work with these
plants, but healing seems to play a central role. Especially in shamanic style
practices, many people work with the plant spirits to help the sick. The physically
sick, the mentally sick, the emotionally sick, AND the spiritually sick.

In the practice of curanderismo, and in most shamanic style practices, illness is

seen as usually having a spiritual cause. For example, chronic pain, cancer, weight
gain, baldness, diabetes these are usually thought of as physical problems, but
in a shamanic perspective this might not be the case. The shaman or healer might
instead point to a lack of connection with spirit guides, or point to intrusive
energy in the client, or repressed emotions and memories. The intrusive energy
would be a spiritual cause, which is then manifested as physical symptoms like
chronic pain, cancer, or anything else.

In my experience, pain and dysfunction often arise, or at least are made worse
by people resisting themselves. Your body can regulate itself much better when
relaxed chi moves more freely, muscles dont cramp, cells receive nutrients and
expel waste more efficiently, and nerves and organs work more effectively (for a
scientific example, compare function of the parasympathetic nervous system to
the sympathetic nervous system the first excelling in healthy cell functioning,
while the second excels at fight or flight and survival situations. If you stay in fight
or flight mode too long, your body becomes rigid and unhealthy leading to illness
caused by stress). If you have something within yourself that you do not want
to acknowledge (repressed emotion or memory, health dysfunction, mental
confusion or need to make decisions ect), your body can create a response to any
repression that occurs. Ignoring problems allows them to grow.

17
 For example, you may have a lot of anger you refuse to let go of. You might
hold this anger in your stomach, which could lead to abdominal clenching. That
clenching can then lead to fascial and muscular restrictions which become more
and more habitual. Those restrictions may lead to mis-positioned organs,
restricted chi, upset stomach and digestion, ulcers and so on. Or instead of anger,
maybe repressing something builds stress which leads you to clench your jaw,
which becomes a TMJ disorder, and leads to headaches and neck pain. Maybe
this pain even disrupts healthy body and cell functioning enough through
inflammation and oxygen depletion that cells reproduce incorrectly and cause
other issues like cancer.

Or maybe resisting the self just impairs immune and energetic functioning
enough that when some negative energy or a bad wind comes by, you arent
prepared to maintain healthy boundaries and relationship to this energy, and the
energy becomes an intrusion which could cause harm. This intrusion could lead
to the same issues as above, and often looks for areas where this type of
dysfunction is already occurring to take advantage of.

This takes on a deeper level too, because the body is incredibly inter-related.
As your body builds resistance to itself, your brain develops and shifts to fit its
most common uses. There is a phenomena called Hebbian Learning which states
that neural nets which fire together wire together, and those that do not fire
together, do not wire together. Basically, this means that neural pathways which
are used often build stronger connections which make them easier to use in the
future, and neural nets which do not get used often start to breakdown and
disappear. Because of this, our brains often find it easier to use the stronger
neural pathways and keep us in a habitual frame of mind. Obviously, this can be
an effective or detrimental function, depending on whether or not that habit is
healthy for you! The largest implication of this phenomena is that your brain can
restructure itself and change the way you experience life. This has huge
implications.

The area that this Hebbian Learning process might have the most noticeable
effect on our health is within the limbic region of the brain. The limbic brain is

18
where we store memories, process emotions, have dreams and sexual desire, and
is also related to our sense of self in the past. Through the autonomic nervous
system, the limbic brain is also connected directly to our tears, laughter,
digestion, vomiting, diarrhea, ect (all the different types of purges - sounds like an
Ayahuasca ceremony!). The limbic region is also open-looped, which means that
it is regulated by your relationships to other people, and this region can become
damaged from critical emotional experiences or difficulty coping with stress.
Limbic revision is the therapeutic alteration of personality residing in the human
limbic region of the brain resulting in greater emotional health, stress coping
abilities, and better choice making in relationships. Limbic revision is basically a
fancy way of saying emotional healing with added insight to the mechanic of
how this healing takes place. Usually, with things like psychotherapy, this process
may take many years, but anecdotally speaking, this process is much, much faster
with plant medicines and shamanic practices.

Limbic Revisioning is also connected to epigenetics, so this process works on

multiple levels. Epigenetics are the coding of your genes, not the actual genes
themselves, and this is highly susceptible to internal revision. Environmental
toxicity, nutritional stress and psychosocial stress can effect genetic expression by
altering epigenetic physiology, leading to numerous different diseases, including
heart disease, diabetes, mental health problems, and auto-immune diseases.
When doctors research childhood traumas, neglected children, and similar cases,
they find that most of the damage seems to be stored in the epigenetics.

But the shaman doesnt see this limbic revisioning and epigenetics, or
necessarily even know about the limbic brain. From the shamans perspective,
they see what they describe as dark energy or spirits, and they fix this by
cleaning the client (I believe this cleaning involves limbic revisioning). If these
energies arent cleaned, then the client often gets sick or has other emotional
problems. So we come into another idea of allostatic burden and load: our
energy system or stress response system is burdened overtime by accumulated
stress. This accumulated dark energy or stress can modify our limbic system or
epigenetics, and our system sometimes becomes over-burdened, resulting in
illness. This is largely documented in science as a potential cause of many health
19
issues, and has long been held as a source of illness within natural medicine and
shamanic healing circles. Short-term stress responses like releasing adrenaline
and cortisol, or putting of problems to be dealt with later, which are helpful in
small doses, can become harmful when they are used too frequently creating
allostatic burden. This burden can have long lasting effects on the functioning of
the autonomic nervous system as well as the immune system creating physical
disease from emotional causes.

So in light of comparing the shamans perspective with the western medical

perspective, it seems like shamanic ceremonies work through a process of
cleaning allostatic burdened and pathologically imprinted epigenetics from our
emotional centers (limbic brain). By the way these centers just happen to be
hard-wired into our tears, yawns, and vomit, which is why crying can be so
healing, and why plant medicines sometimes cause an emotional/physical purge
(rapid limbic revision).

This healing is largely based on the idea that your brain can restructure itself
and change the way you experience life. This restructuring is a more western and
medical based understanding of how shamans heal clients by cleaning negative
energies.

So, if we can return to our more shamanic way of thinking about energy and
balance, we find three main keys to achieving lasting healing, all of which involve
changing our emotional and mental thinking patterns. First, the client must find
faith that a cure is possible, and they must participate in their own healing
process (through ceremony and/or real life action). The client must also find faith
that their mind, spirit and other resources are powerful, and can be used as
effective assets for dealing effectively with lifes problems. Lastly, the client must
gain awareness of the forces around them, as well as their relationship to those
forces so that continuing good health is assured. These lessons must be taken to
heart for true healing to occur.

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 5. Purging

Some people have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the
unknown they prefer suffering that is familiar. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Purging is an important part of healing in the Amazon, and to a lesser extent in

the Andes. Some tribes in the Amazon will ritually purge every single morning
(before or after breakfast) as a way to stay strong and healthy. This seems very
different then our own views of purging in the west, where it is often avoided at
all costs and a sign of being sick. For some of us, it takes a while to change our
views and accept this aspect of the medicine.

Plant medicines can sometimes make you purge. With San Pedro, this is less
common, but still takes place regularly. The cactus is often drunk as a brew of
some form (there are different ways to prepare the drink), and sometimes the
brew itself will upset your stomach and cause a purge. Other times, you may
need to purge out an illness, old habits, negative energy intrusions, or something
else related to your healing. In this case, you are purging out illness, and this is
good!

Purging features prominently in Amazonian medicine, and is a central theme

to working with Ayahuasca. One of her nick-names is la purga because of this.
Some newcomers to Ayahuasca try fancy brewing methods, or attempt to mix in
other herbs to minimize vomiting, but really the vomiting is an important healing
aspect of the plant, and should be welcomed. If you have sickness inside you, the
quickest and easiest way to get it out is by vomiting learning to thank Ayahuasca
for your purge is a good idea.

As you work with the medicine more, you may find that purging happens less
and less. That is because it is mostly associated with healing, and once you get far
enough along in your own healing process and connect deeply enough with the
plants, vomiting occurs less. It may come back on occasion I have seen
experienced shamans purge before. Generally, it happens less as you become
accustomed to the medicine though.

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 Purging doesnt always happen I have met people who drunk many times,
but never had a purge. I have also met people who purge every time. The plants
meet every participant where they are, and it is really an individual process.

Vomiting isnt the only way to purge either. Some people purge through tears,
through breath, through yawning, through fevers through any number of ways.
No matter how the purge shows up, its main purpose is to remove and let go of
energy which no longer serves you. Let it go, and remember to tell la madre
thank you!

Besides purging from San Pedro or Ayahuasca, sometimes there is also purging
involved from other plants. Tobacco, Oje, Pish Pish these are all common
purgatives (there are many more besides these). Often times in Peru or the
Amazon, purgatives are taken before drinking Ayahuasca or San Pedro to cleanse
the body and prepare you for ceremony. For whatever reason, this step seems to
usually be skipped in ceremonies outside of the Amazon or South America.

When you want to receive blessings, you need somewhere in your life for
these blessings to go. You need to have space you cannot fill a cup that is
already full. So, to bring in the new, we must let go of and purge the old which no
longer serves us. When going through this process, you ay find these questions to
be a helpful guide:

Where have I come from? What is your history? What patterns and beliefs do
you carry, and how do they affect you now?

Who am I? How have you been formed by your personal history, and which
parts are aiding you or obstructing your essence? Are you happy with who you
have become?

Where am I going? What path are you on? Is it the path you want to be on?

Who will come with me? Who do you know, or what kind of people do you
need in your community to best serve the ambitions of your soul? Maybe you
need to leave some or meet some new people to be true to yourself. How do you
find these people?

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 6. Dieta

"My experience of fasting has shown me beyond all possible doubt that a
foreign growth of any kind can be absorbed into the circulation by simply
compelling the body to use every unnecessary element contained within it for
food. When a foreign growth has become hardened, sometimes one long fast will
not accomplish the result, but where they are soft, the fast will usually cause them
to be absorbed." ~ Dr. Bernarr Macfadden

Dieta is the Spanish word for diet, but I also use it to refer the practice of
vegetalismo. For working with spirits in general, and especially plant spirits,
sometimes there are dietary restrictions that make the work deeper and more
effective.

When researching Ayahuasca for example, you will encounter lots of talk
about the Ayahuasca diet and foods that are safe or not safe, or just not
desirable for ceremony. Some of these foods are associated with safety concerns,
and some are just recommended for having deeper more pleasant ceremony.
Usually, there is no sugar, caffeine, alcohol, salt, oils, dairy, pork or heavy meats
(chicken and fish are usually okay), and no sex. Dairy can potentially interact
badly with Ayahuasca, and even though it is most likely safe, there is a health
concern there (because of the tyramine which interacts with the MAOI). Other
foods like sugar or heavy meat may just cause stomach ache, headache, or maybe
decrease the vividness of the journey, and for many people, these restrictions are
optional recommendations more than requirements. Following these restrictions
often leads to a deeper experience with the medicine, and is especially
recommended for those new to the medicine. The most dangerous thing to mix
with Aya would be pharmaceuticals some of these could be dangerous with
Ayahuasca, especially anti-depressants and SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake
inhibitors) which could potentially cause something called Serotonin syndrome.
Because pharmaceutical MAOI medications interact dangerously with tyramine,
some people also consider this a danger with Ayahuasca, but Ayahuasca is whats
called a reversible MAOI, which seems to make it safe for normal MAOI food

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contraindications (I have seen people eat high tyramine foods before ceremony
and be fine).

San Pedro on the other hand has fewer restrictions. It can mix with certain
foods easier, and you dont have to worry about tyramine. Mostly, food
restrictions associated with San Pedro are more for having a deep experience, and
making purging less likely. Most people find that when there stomach has less
foods in it, that the medicine sits easier in their stomach with less or no purging.
Because of this, fasting for a few hours before ceremony is usually recommended,
and this is also why some of the longer digesting and fatty foods like dark meat
and oils are recommended to not eat. I have met a few people though, who are
exceptions to the rule, and have a better experience when they eat before hand
so let the medicine guide you in your decision if fasting seems difficult.

Besides restricting diet for ceremony, there is also a practice in itself called
dieta (also known as vegetalismo). This is usually to connect deeply with a
specific plant either for healing, or as a form of apprenticeship (often both). In
this practice, you restrict your diet at least as much as you would for Ayahuasca,
and often times restrict it beyond that. During this period, you connect with your
chosen plant each day often through drinking it as a tea or juice, but sometimes
just by smelling it or bathing in infused water, or some other way. Connecting
with the plant while on this restricted diet allows the plants spirit stronger
influence over your body, and allows the plant to metaphorically grow inside of
you. By inviting this plant in, you allow yourself to benefit from its wisdom and
healing power.

Usually this type of plant dieta is kept from any time between a week to 3
months per plant. For healing purposes, anywhere from a week to a month is
common, and apprentices may diet their plant longer in an attempt to form an
alliance with that plants spirit for future work. Most often, these plants are not
psychedelic in any way, but the restricted diet which can be similar to a fast works
in a way to let you hear these plants speak to you and heal you. You can do this
practice with any plant in the world, though the most common plants are
Amazonian, since this is where the practice originates. Common plants from the

24
Amazon include; Oje, Ajo Sacha, Chiric Sanango, Chuchuwasha, Mucura, Ortega,
Lupuna trees, Mapacho, and many others.

There is no reason this practice needs to be restricted to the Amazon though.

This practice works great with plants anywhere, and more recently, some
students of Amazonian vegetalismo have begun working with plants native to
their own homes in Europe and North America. Oak, Acacia, Cedar, Sage, Cacao,
Tulsi, Nettle all great plants to diet at home. I have even heard of other
indigenous cultures using similar techniques to dieta, without contact to the
Amazon for example, I met an Australian who dieted Strangler Fig as part of a
traditional Aboriginal apprenticeship! This technique probably resembles
practices from many regions and cultures. Because my personal experience is
with learning this practice from the Amazon, and localizing it to my home in North
America, I will talk mostly about working with plants from those regions and
perspectives though.

When the apprentice performs dieta, they usually want something more than
just personal healing they want to learn from the plant how they can help
others heal as well. Usually the diet begins and ends with an Ayahuasca
ceremony. Since Ayahuasca is the mother of all plants, she can teach you greatly
about the plant you are dieting (this is considered one of her most important
roles in the Amazon). By restricting your diet, you also make your body weak, so
that the plants spirit can influence you more easily. You metaphorically become
like a plant so that the spirit can comfortably grow within your body. If you
successfully complete your diet, the plant has accepted you, and will be your spirit
ally from then on you can call on them any time, because they are always with
you. When Ayahuasqueros perform healing and sing icaros, they are often
singing the song of a plant they dieted in the past to call on that plants spirit for
healing the client. The greatest sign of success with a diet is if the plant teaches
you its song.

This diet can often be strict common diets often include potatoes, rice, or
some form of yucca, and green (unripe) plantains. Sometimes, you may also get a
little fish. For longer diets, or specific plants, the diet might even include days of

25
fasting completely. This is a sort of trial which the apprentice must pass if they
want to prove their dedication to the plant and open their body to its spirit.
During the diet, the plant will often test and tempt them, and the apprentice
must learn how to overcome this if they want to work with the spirits for the
benefit of others.

Even though all forms of dieta usually show similarities, there are also
differences. How long an apprentice diets a plant, or how often they perform
dieta may depend on many individual circumstances, including when they have
time available, and when they can afford to pay their teacher for services. While
some apprentices have no teacher and learn only from the spirits, most do have a
teacher who they either work for or pay in exchange for teaching. Some people
focus on dieting all kinds of plants, as they want many allies to help them they
might diet plants for only a week (often followed by a week of post dieting).
Post dieting is a period after you finish your dieta, where you keep some of the
dietary restrictions as you slowly re-introduce foods back to your body (during
this time, you are not drinking your plant anymore just keeping some food
restrictions and still abstaining from sex).

Another style of dieting focuses on just a few plants, but the apprentice gets to
know those allies incredibly deeply. Often the apprentice would diet plants for up
to 3 months each. They might diet for 6 months at a time using this style, which
would be two plants back to back. I have heard of this style of dieting going on as
long as 3 straight years for incredibly intense apprenticeships. Some cultures in
the Amazon often include apprentices setting aside 2-3 years at the beginning of
their training to do an extreme dieta alone in the jungle with just their teacher to
check up on them and bring them food. They often say that if you make it
through the 2+ years, that you will finish your diet as a shaman and healer, but if
you end your diet early, you will emerge a jealous sorcerer who uses their power
to harm people (this could be superstition). I even know of one healer, who had
no teacher, but went by himself into the jungle to diet for 2 years no one
brought him food, and he had no teacher besides the spirits. He is regarded as
one of the most effective and well-known healers in the Amazon (the spirits must
have protected him in order for him to survive such a quest).
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 Even for the students who break their diets up and do them more spaced out
(most do this), 18 months to 2 years is often considered the minimum amount of
time spent dieting to become an effective healer. Many learn some healing skills
before this long, but around 2 years seems to be the ideal time. Usually 2 years
dieting takes many more years to accumulate though (if you dieting 3 months a
year, it would take 8 years to reach 2 years of dieting), and even after so much
dieting, it takes many years of helping all kinds of clients in all types of situations
before you are an expert. The most sought after shamans are the ones with 25+
years experience.

Another commonly held belief associated with dieta is that breaking the diet
early can sometimes be harmful. This is considered a quick way to offend the
spirit of the plant. Sick clients who dont finish their diet sometimes become
more sick, and apprentices who do not finish diets correctly may become brujos
(negative connotation for a sorcerer who harms others) or may become sick, lose
their power, or die. Specific plants are considered especially dangerous to fail
your diet with mostly the more powerful allies like great hardwood trees
(lapuna, oak ect), mapacho, or tohe/datura.

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 7. Localizing Vegitalismo, Personal Dieta, and Micro-dosing

But if Salvia is giving us the gift of insight, what does it get from us? The
answer, I realized, was mobility. Once it is ingested by a human being, Salvia
becomes human. It is then able to move and interact with others. In that way
it can spread its seed of wisdom more widely. Human beings are its
pollinators It is pro-evolution and through movement it can lead more people
onto the path of right direction. ~ author Ross Heaven (I think this applies to
all plants, not just salvia however)

Now that we understand dieta from its traditional stand-point in the

Amazon, lets consider others ways we could use this technique in our own
personal practices. Because most of the people working through this book (as
well as myself) live in a different environment and culture then the traditional
ayahuasquero, it makes sense that slightly different practices might suit our
lifestyle better. Also, it is not wise to hold yourself to a rigid structure or
dogmatic system we want to let Spirit and intuition guide our path.

When dieting plants at home, you most likely do not have a shaman or
teacher to assign you plants, and so must decide for yourself which plants to
diet. You can follow your intuition or guidance from your spirit allies, or you
can use a method as simple as picking your favorite plant, using a plant that
seems easy and widely available, or by looking at the plants medicinal
properties, and choosing it for that. You can also look at myths and stories of
plants connected more to western cultures, or the culture of your family.

For example, if someone has digestion problems, they might like to diet
ginger or mint. For protection, you may choose to diet sage, and for help
sleeping better and staying relaxed you might diet lavender. Or maybe you
notice tons of local nettle or dandelion growing by you, and decide to diet
these plants. Or perhaps you research your ancestry, and using the example of
Norse and Celtic descendants, find that oak was considered a sacred tree so
you decide to diet oak. Maybe you know that local Native Americans revered
the cedar tree, so you diet cedar. Choices can be made for any reason just
follow your intuition and curiosity.
28
 Some plants may be okay with you taking a less strict diet. This can be
helpful, because if you work every day like many people, you may find it hard
to set aside a week or two or longer for fasting and meditating all day. You
have to be careful with this though, and try to feel out the plant to make sure
you are respectful of them. Some plants will get offended by this less strict
type of dieta (like mapacho for example!). Other plants are glad to help make
your connection with them easier, and you may be able to diet them with little
or no lifestyle and food restrictions.

In my experience, many of the plants still ask me to cut out oil and sex. Sex
especially makes sense, because the spirit of this plant is entering your body,
and you are kind of courting them the way you would a partner. Sleeping with
someone else mid-courtship can be a little offensive, and energetically, sex is
very powerful and can over-power the plants influence on you. If you
habitually smoke cannabis, or if you drink, you may find some plants want you
to cut this out for the dieta as well mainly so you can focus on how the plant
in particular affects your consciousness by itself (cannabis and alcohol may
have more noticeable effects that can make it hard to feel the plants spirit).
You may have to experiment and find what works best for you in these
circumstances.

For me personally, I notice that when I perform less strict diets that I
sometimes need to spend a little extra time dieting the plant to make a real
connection. With a strict diet, it might only take me a week to connect with a
plant, but with the less strict version, it may take 2-4 weeks to get the same
results. Sometimes this is easier to fit into your lifestyle though, and if you
arent restricting yourself much, dieting a plant for 2-4 weeks is actually fairly
easy and fun. Just be patient, trust the process, show interest in your plant,
and follow your intuition!

This form of dieting can also be helpful for deepening a relationship with an
entheogens you especially want to work with. For example, you could diet
cyanescen mushrooms, San Pedro, or salvia anywhere from a 3 day diet to a
3 week diet can be used here. And of course, it is wise to follow the plants

29
 instructions on how to diet it maybe you want to ask it in ceremony before
you start the diet, or on the first day of the diet. Especially if doing a longer
than a 3-7 day diet with an entheogens, it might be wise to try micro-dosing.

Micro-dosing is taking really small doses of an entheogens, often so low

that it wont make you high in any way. Instead of 4 grams of salvia for an oral
dose, you might only use 1 or 2 grams for example. Or instead of 100+ grams
of caapi for a close to average Ayahuasca dose, you may only ingest 10-30
grams not enough for a strong visionary effect, but enough to feel the plants
spirit. You can meditate, and feel the subtle effects of the plant, or you can
use this as a way to connect with that plants spirit and start to build a
relationship with them. Especially if you havent worked with a plant before,
this can be a safer and less intimidating way to get to know the plant (this is
especially helpful for more advanced plant medicines such as Ayahuasca).
Micro-dosing can also be an effective method to help you diet a psychoactive
plant like San Pedro or Ayahuasca, without making the diet overly intense.

Some entheogens can also be used to assist dieting other plants. In the
Amazon, diets are often preceded and followed by an Ayahuasca ceremony to
help you consciously connect with the plant, but you could also use San Pedro
or salvia for this purpose if you wanted to. I have personally found salvia to be
very effective at this!

When dieting these plants, realize that you may develop your own system,
and that is okay, as long as it works for you and isnt offensive to the plants!
For example, I met another practitioner who does not restrict their diet or
drink a tea made from the plant, but just adds tons of the plant to their regular
meals. So, if they were dieting nettle or salvia, they would just add a handful
of that plant to their soup, pasta or other dish they have for breakfast, lunch
and dinner. This is one of many examples of how unique different practices
can be!

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 8. The Shamans Role

A medicine man shouldnt be a saint. He should experience and feel all the ups
and downs, all the despairs and joy, the magic and the reality, the courage and
fear of his people. He should be able to sink as low as a bug and soar like an
eagle. You have to be God and the Devil, both of them. Being a good medicine
man means being right in the midst of the turmoil not shielding yourself from it. ~
Lakota Sioux medicine man, John Lame Deer

So now that we see different ways to connect with plants with or without a
shaman, do we really need a shaman? What role does the shaman play?

I want to start off by saying we are all our own shaman. We are all our own
healers. Even when a shaman helps you find healing, the true healing comes from
within, and the shaman is only the guide who shows you the way and protects
you on your journey. So, while the shaman isnt necessary, I would suggest that
any shaman, teacher, or guide is extremely valuable, and especially for anyone in
need of intense healing incredibly valuable. You can learn these practices on
your own, but most likely you will have to experiment and fail a few times before
you really figure things out having a shaman can make the process much safer,
easier, and quicker. While you can study and learn many things about the plants,
some things can only be learned through experience and many shamans have as
much as 20-50 years of experience to share with their clients.

Ayahuasca is a good example to use here, because the shamans have a very
notable role in Ayahuasca shamanism. In Ayahuasca shamanism, Ayahuasca is
only one treatment within a whole scope of a traditional medical system. Just like
Chinese medicine includes many treatments under one philosophy, Ayahuasca
healing includes the Ayahuasca itself, plus dieta with other plants, time alone to
process and think, healing with icaros, plant baths, mapacho cleansings, and many
other factors. Lets assume for this example that you are seeking healing with
Ayahuasca. If you decide to find a shaman, this shaman can provide the right
environment for you to drink in free of distractions, and conducive to the right
mindset for drinking the medicine. Then the shaman can prescribe you the best
plant to diet for aiding your recovery. They can prepare high quality Ayahuasca
31
for you. They can offer you support and guidance. In ceremony, they can protect
the area so you do not get attacked by other shamans or bad spirits, and they can
also sing icaros to guide your experience or to directly work on healing your
illness. If anything goes wrong or even just feels to intense, you also have
someone there to take care of you.

If you drink by yourself, you have to spend time researching how to brew
Ayahuasca. Then you have to make your own, and hope it turns out well (this
may take a few tries). You may or may not know a plant to diet which could help,
and you may or may not have a good environment to drink in. You may not know
how to protect yourself in ceremony. You dont have anyone to sing icaros, so
your experience might be milder, or less focused. If something goes wrong you
are on your own to fix it.

As you can see drinking by yourself requires a bit more work, and a lot more
responsibility and trust in the plants. At the same time, this opens up new
possibilities for anyone who doesnt know any local shamans, or cant afford to
travel for ceremony. It also allows people who like to learn on their own to be
challenged, and it can force you to teach yourself all the important techniques for
a good ceremony instead of taking a back seat and letting the shaman do most of
the work. If you drink on your own, you dont have to rely on teachers or the
experience of others, but instead gain your own experience through personal trial
and error.

The shaman can play a very helpful role as guide and support figure. Healing
experiences can be very difficult and confusing for many reasons, and it is
invaluable to have someone more experienced with you offering advice. I see
two extremes of how a shaman can help and support their clients, with most
shamans probably fitting somewhere in the middle. One extreme is the master
shaman guru who takes a dominant role in your healing process. This type of
shaman might do lots of energy work, sing lots of songs, do lots of cleansings, and
even teach or offer lots of advice. The other extreme is the hands-off shaman
who lets the spirits and plants work directly with the client, while they keep an
eye out just in case you need help.

32
 So every shaman must find a personal balance between these two extremes,
and fit that balance correctly to the situation at hand. Many clients might just
need support, or someone to talk to during ceremony, and sometimes, a hands-
off approach can be good in this situation, because the shaman can just listen
without offering specific advice (but still give you a comforting ear). Other times,
a more difficult client may need someone to crack the whip so to speak, and
point them in a more constructive direction. If you are doing group ceremonies,
this balance becomes even more important, because there is a risk of an out-of-
hand client making the ceremony more difficult for other clients, and needing to
be calmed down.

Besides needing someone to talk to, some clients may need energy work to aid
their process. If you are too rigid being tied to the hands-off approach, you may
be afraid to give them helpful support through energy work, but if you are stuck
on being the all-powerful shaman, you may be over-doing the energy work, and
preventing people from experiencing their own healing. Somewhere in the
middle is the healer who works with clients when they are stuck, and helps them
enough to get past the more difficult obstacles in their path to health.

With plants to, the healer should make sure they dont interfere with the
plants message and healing. Having too much going on during ceremony can
make it difficult for clients to hear the plant speak to them, and at the same time,
if a client gets stuck in a thought pattern or energetically stuck, they can be held
back if the shaman refuses to aid them in jumping difficult hurdles. There are
many different ways that balance can come into play.

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 9. Healing Songs

Small, superlative being you are a miracle And you blaze. ~ Ode to the
Hummingbird by Pablo Neruda

One seemingly universal technique of healing for shamans across the world
seems to be healing with song and music. Sometimes, the song is for aid in
entering trance, and often times, the song itself is the mechanism of healing.
Anywhere in the world, if you see a shaman for help, there is a good chance the
ceremony will include music of some kind.

Even in communities that work with plant medicines, sometimes the clients
wont even drink or eat the plant but will instead come to be sung to by the
shaman. The shaman might ingest the plant to invoke its spirit, but then that
spirits healing power is manifested through the shamans song to the client. This
is actually more common than the clients drinking with the shaman in some of
these cultures.

There are many ways to find healing and empowerment from music, but for
the purposes of this guide, I will focus on songs inspired by plants, and songs that
aid altered-states with plants.

All healing comes from within the client, but often times, we need support to
find the right path for healing, finding the right perspective, or just letting go or
bringing in something important. Even when a surgeon cuts out something nasty
- the client is still participating in that healing process. It isnt just cutting
something away, but returning to balance by getting rid of whatevers creating
the imbalance. Cutting it away doesnt restore immediate balance, but allows the
body the space it needs to get back to that balance.

Songs and other treatments provided by a curandero can be similar. They help
you remove something or find something you needed - and they create the space
and right conditions for you to then finish your healing process of returning to
balance. If the person didnt need any help at all, they wouldnt be looking to
medicine for help. It's okay to need a little help, and just because someone helped
you, that doesnt mean you didnt participate in your own healing as well.
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 Even in the paradigm where westerners drink medicine on their own without a
shaman - well, then the medicine itself is your curandero right? You arent doing
things alone, but with the aid of this wonderful spirit. Some people look at
receiving help from spirits as somehow different then receiving help from a
person but really, help can come in many forms, and we are all spirit!

Icaros are sacred healing songs used by Ayahuasqueros to direct the visions,
heal clients, protect sacred space, and also as a blessing. These songs are
sometimes passed down teacher to student, but most of the time they are
learned from the plants through the process of dieta. After completing a
successful dieta with a plant, the apprentice may be blessed with the gift of that
plants song. Once this song is learned, the shaman can use the song to call on
and direct this plants spirit in the act of healing clients.

Tontos are a similar type of song, but more associated with San Pedro use.
Other plants also have their own songs: salvia, mushrooms, trees, herbs each
plant has its own songs to teach. Often these songs are improvised, and each
time they are sung, they are a little different. This is because they are being sung
for this moment, for this client ect they are not static songs, but living breathing
music that customizes itself to the moment.

Besides songs taught directly from the plants themselves, there are other ways
to use music with plants. You may feel called to write a song to a plant as an act
of worship and admiration. Maybe you want to sing a song you know to call on
other (non-plant) spirits, or maybe you just want to sing a song to set the right
mood. Another option is using repetitive percussion for entering a trance, or
playing an instrument, and letting the spirits play through you.

Repetitive percussion is great for aiding a trance or altered state. You can use
a rattle or a drum to get the best results, but didgeridoos, the voice, stringed
instruments and woodwinds ect are all good for aiding altered states as well. We
will use drums and rattles for the examples, but these ideas could be transferred
easily to other instruments as well.

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 With repetitive percussion, you can not only enter deeper altered states, but
you can also perform a practice sometimes called shamanic journey. These
journeys are similar to astral projection, in that you project your awareness from
your body into the spirit world to interact with your guides and guardians there.
There are many ways to perform shamanic journey and astral projection, but one
of the easiest methods is to use repetitive percussion to enter an altered state,
and ride the drum.

As the skill of shamanic journey and riding the drum can comprise a book all by
itself, I will only touch briefly on this technique. A journey can be used to get
guidance around how and when to best perform a plant ceremony. It can also
connect you with your other spirit guides prior to a plant ceremony, and can also
allow you to communicate with the plant spirit through journey work. Journeying
after a plant ceremony can be useful for getting clarification on anything
confusing from the plant ceremony. When used mid-ceremony, the plant
medicines make journeying more vivid and powerful, and vise-versa.

There is also the technique of being a hollow bone. Basically, you let the
spirits work through you to play music. This is part of how icaros are sung, but
you can also do this with instruments, and this can be a great way to improve
your playing and find new music ideas. If you have some muscle memory
developed, this can work fairly easily, and be very rewarding.

Learn how to sing the visions, and the plants will come alive for you!

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 10.Being Called

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.

But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in the mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror. ~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Why do people find themselves working with plants? There could be many
reasons: curiosity, illness in need of healing, or in some cases, people feel led to
the plants by their intuition. Even people with illness or curiosity may find this
inner feeling of being called to work with the plants.

Being called can happen many different ways. For some, the illness is its own
calling this is often the case, when someone has a problem which cannot be
fixed by modern western medicine, and so they are pushed to trying alternative
treatments like shamanism and plant medicines. Other people may just feel a tug
in their heart and knowing that they need to work with a certain plant. Someone
who already talks to spirits may receive a vision or directions to work with plants
that way.

For others, they may experience synchronicity. I had an experience for a year,
where I kept having visions which seemed important, yet made no sense, and
then I would read an exact description of my vision from a book within a few days
to a week after the vision. This was at the same time I started reading my first
books on shamanism, and I had never heard of these themes before having the
visions and in each case, I had the vision before reading about it. Suddenly
topics I had never heard of in my life surrounded me everywhere I looked the
plants were grabbing my interest through the world around me!

When people are called this way, sometimes it is just for their own healing,
and sometimes it can be because they were meant to be healers themselves.
Most healers find themselves in this role after going through a deep healing
process themselves and wanting to help others in the same position as they were.
Sometimes, the spirits choose you, and youre just along for the ride! Each
persons calling is unique, and we are each in charge of finding out what our own
personal path is.
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 11.The Nature of Visions and Of Reality

Everything is energy and thats all there is to it. Match the frequency of the
reality you want, and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way.
This is not philosophy. This is physics. ~ Albert Einstein

We have been talking a lot about visions in this book, and about entering the
spirit realm. Many people have never experienced either, or if they did
experience this, maybe they didnt understand it, so this is an important topic.
But before we define the spirit realm, and visions, lets make sure we are on the
same page about what many people refer to as reality.

We experience reality as a solid and objective truth. We experience it, so we

know it is real and solid. We even may assume that everyone else around
us agrees about what reality is and isnt sometimes. But when we take a good
hard look at the world around us, we find that seemingly solid objects are made
up of mostly empty space (including our bodies), and even though things look to
be sitting still, they are all vibrating and changing incredibly fast! Even the book in
your hands which you are reading right now has particles within it that are
jumping in and out of existence as we speak!

Then take what we see with our eyes are we really seeing what we think we
are? Well, lets skip the mostly empty space that looks like a solid object to us for
now, and focus on the eyes and how they work with the brain. Our eyes pick up
light, but we dont see that immediate picture as the light hits our eyes. Actually,
that information goes to our brain, where our brain sorts and interprets the
information before creating a vision inside our head, which we perceive as
objective reality. Our brains often will leave out information, or change
information during this process to create visions which make more sense to us.
Beyond that, our brains also tune out information it deems as unimportant (this is
especially true of touch, sound, and smell). So now we are left with an
incomplete, and perception influenced picture which as it turns out isnt very
objective at all!

38
 Well, if our brains can form internal images based on what our eyes see,
then it shouldnt be too surprising to find out that it can create visions based on
other levels of perception. We use our imagination both to make up ideas and
also to see the world around us. This is where visions and experiencing the spirit
realm come in. Now I am not saying at all that all visions can be trusted, or that
all visions are real in the same sense as seeing the world around us, but some of
them are certainly as real as the world we interact with on a daily basis.
Sometimes, or visions can be even more real. Sometimes, they can just be day
dreaming fantasy so discernment is always important, and is a skill you have to
develop over-time.

Often times, people think of the spirit world and the real or mundane
world as two separate things. They are one and the same. In conversation
though, it is sometimes helpful to distinguish the two, so I will often write of them
as two different things always remember they are connected. Everything in the
physical world has a spirit, and is directly affected by that spirit. Anything that
affects the spirit will also have a physical effect eventually (not always right away),
which is why shamans work to cure spiritual illness and imbalance.

But many of us dont see and hear the spirit world the same way we do the
material world. This isnt because it isnt there, but because we arent paying
attention to it. You may be aware of an idea mentioned earlier about selective
perception. Our brains sort and even discard data that the brain decides is
unimportant. This is incredibly helpful in most situations, because otherwise we
would be overloaded with too much sensory information for us to interpret.
However, this process is so habitual and automatic, that it can be hard to access
all the information available in the present moment. Shamans often use altered
states, dreams, or even train their senses differently to be able to access these
other levels of sensory perception. This can sometimes be similar to tuning your
radio to a new station all the channels are always there in the same space, but
how you tune your radio determines which station you pick up. If you are in
between channels, sometimes it sounds a little fuzzy, but you can still make it out,
and the more accurately you tune your radio, the better signal you will get. For
most of us, this takes practice to get good at.
39
 In the spirit world, we are not as limited as when we confine ourselves to our
physical bodies. We can send our consciousness outside of the body to
experience other parts of the spirit realm. This includes other physical locations
around the world or in space, as well as non-physical locations such as the upper
world, lower world, heavens, place of our ancestors ect. Now, I say that these
places arent physical, but remember the physical world itself is an illusion of
sorts, and mostly made up of empty space. The physical and spiritual are
interconnected, and yet can often be experienced as separate by our minds which
put their own context to every experience.

When looking at a faraway star in a telescope, at first the star is blurry. You
cant see it. But then you focus the telescope through a few physical changes to
the lens, and suddenly you can see the star better. At this moment, you wouldnt
think to yourself that the physical changes happened to the star they only
happened to the lens inside the telescope. When a plant or chemical (or
drumming and other techniques for trance) changes your physical lens, it doesnt
mean that that plant created the vision using our above metaphor, it just
brought the vision into focus, allowing you to see something that was otherwise
difficult for your senses to pick up. These spirits are very real which is why the
healing and insight is very real.

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 12.Brujeria

The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and if you know the
words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish. ~
Terrence McKenna

Brujeria is a Spanish word for witchcraft or sorcery. Depending on where

you are, this term can have a completely different context, but in the Amazon
and often in the Andes, this term usually refers to someone practicing black
magic specifically. In other locations, any healer or shaman might be called a
brujo without the negative connotation, but I will stick to the Amazonian and
Andean use of this word and its association to black magic and harming others.

A major component of learning how to help others heal involves learning

what can go wrong with the body, and why it happens the way it does. This
knowledge lets you diagnose illness and make plans for recovery, but sadly can
also be used to cause harm more effectively. Many of the plants or spirits that
can teach you about healing also have the power to teach you about harming
and even killing others or as it is often described in the Amazon: Plants have
a light and a dark side. It is up to the practitioner and their teacher to keep the
student on the path of light and compassion for others.

In the Amazon, there is a lot of competition and jealousy, as well as

animosity towards an invading western view and lifestyle. Because of this, the
Amazonian Ayahuasca scene can sometimes be plagued with brujos and also
fake shamans. These types of predators are what I want to focus on this
chapter, as many readers may find themselves in South America at some
point, and this needs to be acknowledged so people can be safe. I also want
readers to know that the plants will teach them whatever they ask to learn
so be very careful about what you ask to learn, or you may find yourself
traveling a dark road.

Now, the problem of brujeria and fake shamans can often be over-
exaggerated. If you are smart and a little cautious, you should be able to avoid
both most of the time. But you must be aware of them to avoid them!

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 Shamanism is often a business. It isnt a religion, and most people who visit
shamans are not shamans themselves. Visiting a shaman is more like visiting a
doctor then visiting your priest this doctor just focuses more on healing
with plants, spirits and life-style advice instead of medications and surgery.
Many shamans let people pay what they can afford, and in tribal societies,
payment may be in the form of goods or services instead of money. And of
course some shamans also work for free. Some communities share a lot
more of the communal resources, and in this setting, the shaman may not
charge each client, but that is because the shaman is just doing their job, same
as the hunter does their job, and instead of paying each other, they just share.

With westerners though, or even with locals who have adopted a western
lifestyle, payment is often made with money for the sake of convenience.
Because a number of tourists travel to the Amazon and Andes specifically for
shamanic healing, this has actually become a very profitable industry recently,
and the local culture still hasnt fully adapted. Since some shamans do so well
financially by working with high paying tourists, some of them make much
more money than their neighbors who might do physical labor or agricultural
work of some kind, and these neighbors can become quite jealous. Shamans
can sometimes also hold a lot of respect in the community which can be
another point of jealousy. On top of this, some people who are still fixated on
past wrong-doings at the hands of invading Europeans feel it is a crime to
teach westerners indigenous medicine. Because of these reasons and others,
many would-be shamans turn to brujeria, and many people with no training or
experience at all may turn to impersonating a shaman to tourists.

Brujos also develop from tribal warfare, and this has gone on for centuries
or longer. Illness is often blamed on black magic, and tribes at each others
throats may ask shamans to help with attacks or getting information about
enemies location ect. In this style of warfare, shamans might send magic
darts to enemies as a form of attack. When these astral darts enter the
victim, they cause illness or bad luck of some kind, and can only be removed by
another shaman. In some cases, these darts are said to be lethal. When one
shaman attacks another shaman, and the victim retaliates, long lasting feuds
42
 can begin, which go back and forth over generations. Because of this, spiritual
warfare is deeply ingrained in the local culture. With more recent flocks of
western visitors becoming interested in shamanism, and the problems created
by that, the warfare can sometimes transfer to targeting gringos as well.

Fake shamans can also be incredibly dangerous, because they do not know
what they are doing. Some plants can be dangerous if not prepared correctly,
and many plants can be dangerous if mixed with the wrong medications.
Beyond this, fake shamans will most likely not know how to handle clients with
mental illness or with potentially deadly illnesss. And since a shamans power
relies heavily on relationships within the spirit realm, a fake shaman can often
do nothing to help a client, or might even make things worse by being
offensive to the spirits, or inviting in bad energy.

Brujeria and fake shamans are especially found within the Ayahuasca
culture (not so much with San Pedro). A lot of this is because of the tribal
warfare mentioned earlier, and also because of Ayahuasca recent popularity in
western media. There have been cases of death, caused by either mixing
Ayahuasca with SSRI medications (anti-depressants), which can cause
serotonin syndrome and death, or caused by adding large amounts of tohe
(brugmansia) to Ayahuasca without knowing how to use the plant safely. Tohe
is a highly toxic plant that is often considered one of the most powerful plant
teachers around. It is a hard plant to apprentice to, and if not prepared
correctly can be deadly. It does provide colorful visions though, and many
westerners asking to have strong Ayahuasca with visions might find
themselves drinking this plant instead of Ayahuasca prepared by a fake
shaman, this can be deadly.

If you know what to look out for, and can get good recommendations about
which shamans to visit, then brujos and fake shamans are easy to avoid.
Remember to be careful and aware!

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 13.Dangers of Spiritual Tourism

While we may vanish from the Earth at our deaths, our breath never really does
so that everyone who has ever lived leaves some part of themselves in the air.
Every time we inhale, therefore, we may be filling our lungs with fragments from
the last breath of Christ or the sad remonstrations of a dying Caesar. ~ author
Ross Heaven

In the last chapter, we explored some of the consequences of Spiritual

Tourism brought on by westerners seeking shamanic assistance in foreign
countries, but why is the problem prevalent to begin with?

When the Spanish first came to South America, they were vicious. They killed
and enslaved huge portions of the population within a handful of years. They also
immediately went to altering and changing the local culture to fit their desires:
especially regarding religion. Because of this long history of oppression by
Europeans, many locals still have a bad taste in their mouth, and in some cases, a
heavy degree of racism in their hearts.

More recently, westerners have introduced their cultures obsession with

money and material goods into the local culture, which was more focused on
family and community. Many of the locals like this change, and many of them
hold a grudge because of it, and try to distance themselves from this behavior
when possible. Beyond this, western oil companies, logging needs, and desire for
cheap cattle has led to huge deforestation and pollution.

Even when you come to South America with the best of intentions, it is
impossible not to leave at least a small footprint that forever changes the local
culture. Because of this, we start to lose those cultures, as they become
modernized and westernized. When traveling, you cannot help looking different,
behaving and thinking differently, and most importantly: spending money. Young
kids impressed by I-Pods and smart phones may lose interest in their local culture.
Neighbors may become jealous of their friends success with tourists. Peoples
values and interests change, or they get swept into greed for money and material
goods.

44
 There is no way we can stop this process. Many people visit this region now,
and even with all the unwanted changes, there are also new medicines available
and new technologies that can really help the local populace. Some people want
the tourists. Beyond this, we also have media, which locals can access online, or
on TV. We cant stop western culture from entering and changing the local
landscape, but we can try to minimize our footprint so that we preserve these
ancient beautiful cultures as well as possible.

Keep your footprint in mind while you travel. Try to be respectful, dont flash
your money around, and as much as possible, adopt the local culture while
visiting. Tread quietly in these peoples home if you receive some blessing from
their history and way of life, then allow them to survive and bless the lives of
others as well by leaving their home unchanged.

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 14.Churches

And what, after all, is personal history if not a dream? ~ Ram Dass

Traditionally plant medicines have usually been a part of a cultural healing

practice, and while there are some associated beliefs within shamanism, it isnt a
religion in the same sense as what we usually think of as religion. Recently
though, some churches and religious movements have started to incorporate
traditional shamanic practices and medicines into Christian based churches. The
most popular of these churches are both from Brazil originally and have grown
into world-wide churches: the Santo Daime, and the Uniao de Vegital (or UDV for
short). Both are syncretic Ayahuasca Christian churches.

Both of these churches are fairly new. Santo Daimi was founded in the 1930s,
and the UDV was founded in 1961 (though they claim to be much older, there is
no evidence to support this). Both have seen rapid expansion with the rising
popularity of Ayahuasca, and in some cases have even been able to win legal
exemption under religious practice rights in countries where Ayahuasca is illegal.

These churches offer up many new possibilities, as well as potential dangers.

With any organized religion, there is a danger of becoming dogmatic, or corrupt,
though hopefully this tendency can be avoided by these churches. With that risk
though, comes the potential of having a large group sue for religious rights to use
medicinal sacraments like Ayahuasca, and it also allows some people who want to
belong to a larger religious community a way to do that with plant medicines
guiding the process.

Some people may find that traveling to drink plant medicines is too expensive,
but maybe they can find a local church to drink with as an alternative. Other
people may find that they resonate better to the format and overall focus of the
churches compared to healing focused rituals with a shaman. Where a shamans
rituals are often focused on individual healing, Ayahuasca churches may be more
focused on community and connecting to the divine. And of course, others might
not be interested in a church, and prefer to drink with a shaman, or on their own.

46
 The UDV is a mostly private self-dubbed mystery school which I personally
feel a strong aversion to because of central themes in their main doctrine that
suggest racism and homophobia. This church keeps a lot of its beliefs and
practices secret from the public (which is another red flag for me personally).

Santo Daime is a bit more welcoming. They are a little bit closer to what you
would expect from a church, but with the added focus of personal experience
through community Ayahuasca ceremonies. According to the church, they have
no written doctrine, for the doctrine is revealed through the songs they sing
during their ceremonies. They call their ceremonies works, and the name
seems fitting. Each work may have a different focus, and participants may be
called on to dance and/or sing for large portions of the night. The singing and
dancing can be very rigorous. Participants usually dress in all white, and the
ceremonies are brightly lit with many candles, in contrast to traditional
ceremonies which are usually held in complete darkness with only the shaman
singing.

If you feel called to work with the Santo Daime church, you must be
introduced into the church by another member, and sometimes, you may have to
ask multiple times for admittance. This is part of their screening process to make
sure that participants are sincere in their interest and aligned with the churches
goals. This screening process seems to have aided them well in cases where the
church had to sue for religious freedom to use their sacrament.

These churches are very different from the traditional uses of Ayahuasca, but
they do offer a different opportunity for people to connect with plant medicines.
For some people, these churches may offer a more practical or better suited way
to meet Mother Ayahuasca.

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 15.Drinking Alone or With Others

Our entire universe is contained in the mind and in the spirit. We may choose not
to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us
and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability. ~ Alexander Shulgin

Working with plant medicines, whether alone, under the guidance of a

traditionally trained shaman, or in an Ayahuasca church, is not a decision to be
made casually. Some people have the opinion that medicines like San Pedro and
Ayahuasca should never be drunk without the guidance of an experienced
shaman and healer. However, that is not feasible for everyone, and some people
have worked with Ayahuasca or San Pedro on their own, and may have reached
deep healing and spiritual growth through solitary work. Some people begin as
solitary drinkers and move on to guided ceremonies, while others have begun
with guided ceremonies and moved on to solitary work. There are multiple paths
and ways to follow here within both the traditional indigenous paradigm and
the newer western paradigm, people all find the plants on their own terms, and
there isnt a set code or curriculum for learning the medicine except that you
respect the plants.

While these medicines can be reasonably safe to work with by yourself if you
are careful and persistent, they do have some associated risks. Some people feel
safer drinking with a shaman, and some people really want a deeper level of
healing that might be hard for them to find on their own. The decision to drink
alone should not be taken lightly, but hopefully I can give you a good comparison
of the differences when drinking alone compared to with a shaman, as well as
some helpful tips for drinking alone safely if that is something you decide to do.

Drinking with a shaman can add many benefits. Usually, plant medicines
arent quite a healing practice themselves, but are part of a larger healing practice
that may include diet, bodywork, medicine songs, meditation, energy work and
other similar treatments (similar to how acupuncture is one part of the Chinese
medical system). If you visit an Ayahuasquero for example, they dont just usually
give you Ayahuasca, but give you Ayahuasca as one part of a healing process
which also involves time alone in nature, dieta, icaros, flower baths, tobacco
48
smoke cleansings and blessings, discussion with the shaman, secondary plant
medicines (like Ajo Sacha or Chuchuwasha), and potentially energy work or
bodywork. All these elements come together to form a complete healing system,
and you are greatly benefited by the shamans extensive experience (many
shamans have 10-20+ years of experience before they start to become well
known and open their own practice).

Having a shaman around is also great for support during difficult ceremonies,
or for clarification about confusing visions. They can calm you down and give you
reassurance when needed, and can also make sure you work with the medicine
safely. They can also protect you against brujeria and even dark spirits if needed.
They know how to prepare the medicine, and can give you advice on how you
should specifically work with the medicine to best suit your needs.

But for some people, drinking alone can be a great alternative. Some people
may not be able to afford traveling across the whole planet to visit the Amazon,
or might have other reasons for not traveling. Maybe they are scared of the
jungle with the hot humidity, insects, and dangers awaiting there. Some people
may not want to contribute to polluting the Earth by riding airplanes, or
contribute to spiritual tourism with its potential fallbacks. Others may find that
they prefer to learn by themselves the hard way through personal experience.
While having an experienced teacher is incredibly helpful, the only teacher you
really need is the plants and spirits themselves. Even when working with a
shaman the shaman mostly provides advice and protection, while the plants do
the real teaching.

If you decide to brew and drink alone, there are many details to consider.
Where do you get your plants, and how do you order them safely? What are the
legal considerations where you live? Are there any food or medication
contraindications you need to know about? Where will you drink, and how will
you protect your ceremonial space (from intrusive energies as well as intrusive
distractions!)? Who will you drink with? Will you perform any ritual before or
during the ceremony? Do you need a sitter? Are you being safe, and are you
supporting your healing process with your ceremony? What should you expect

49
from your ceremony, what are the physical effects, how long does it last? What
will you do in case of panic? How will you integrate what you learn (what will you
do the next day)?

You should have answers to these questions before considering preparing

medicine for yourself. These would also be great things to know before drinking
with a shaman as well researching ahead of time allows you a little more
comfort sometimes, and helps you stay safe.

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 16.Set and Setting

We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying

adventure, never to return prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as
relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother,
brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again if
you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are
a free man then you are ready for a walk. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The plants and spirits always meet you where you are, so it is important to
create the right environment for the type of experience you want to have. This
environment consists not only of where you happen to be, but also the people
you are with and your internal mental-emotional state. If you are drinking with a
shaman, then it is important to choose the right shaman as your setting.

When you are preparing to do ceremony, there are many details to consider.
How many people will be in the ceremony, and who? If it is your first time
drinking, you may want a sitter someone who does not participate, but is
there to keep an eye out and make sure everyone is safe and comfortable. If you
are planning on a deep ceremony, you may not want to drink with others who are
distracting and might need your assistance during the ceremony either there
should be an experienced leader to handle the group, or everyone should be able
to handle themselves. Also are all participants on the same page for what is
appropriate behavior during ceremony? Things might not work out well if you are
intending to do deep personal healing work, while your friend thought this was a
recreational experience, and wants to talk and drink beer the whole ceremony.
People should agree beforehand on the overall purpose and format of the
ceremony. In all cases, but especially in cases that dont include an experienced
ceremonial facilitator, the groups cohesiveness should also be considered it is
unwise to drink with a group that doesnt get along well, as this could disrupt your
ceremony (unless the intention is to bring a dysfunctional group together with
medicine).

Where will the ceremony be held? The local environment can drastically
change the experience of the ceremony. Will the ceremony be indoors or
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outdoors? Daytime or nighttime? I personally prefer outdoors when possible,
but indoors can be great especially if the environment has a comfortable and
happy feeling. It is important that the location has enough room for people to be
comfortable, and has enough privacy from the public to allow deep inner work (if
someone passes by in the park, this isnt bad, but if you cant find anywhere to
meditate or sing a song comfortably, then this is probably a bad location). You do
not need complete privacy, but having at least a little provides a lot of help.

Sometimes, you may be lucky enough to do ceremony at a place of power.

Somewhere with history, atmosphere, or just great energy and beauty. Keep
aesthetics in mind when picking a location sometimes the world around you will
become part of the ceremony in very meaningful ways. When you drink
medicine, you not only connect with that plants spirit, but you also connect more
easily with the spirits around you in a place of power, this can add a lot to the
ceremony. Maybe you travel to your favorite camping site or hiking trail. Or you
can travel to a powerful body of water: a lake, river, waterfall, hot spring, or the
ocean. Maybe you visit your familys old house or cabin. Maybe you have the
chance to drink at ancient ruins or places of ceremony. One of the benefits of
doing medicine in places like Peru where it is legal is that you can often do
ceremony in ancient temples that have housed healing and mystical experiences
for hundreds or thousands of years.

If you drink indoors, make sure you take time to make your environment
comfortable. Clean up the space beforehand, and arrange the area to suit the
needs of the ceremony. Make comfortable space to sit or lie down (for medicines
like Salvia and Ayahuasca, lying down can be very helpful or even necessary
sometimes). Hopefully the room is also decorated in a way to support the relaxed
spiritual vibe of a ceremony beautiful artwork, altars, plants and crystals can all
add a lot to the environment when drinking indoors. Adding beautiful scents like
flowers, essential oils or incense can also be very helpful. If you decide to play
music think of the music as part of your environment as well, and pick
something that is uplifting, but not too distracting. The music should be
conducive to deep meditation, healing, and introspection.

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 17.Protection

Illness is never a thing that is in us; it is not diabetes or a stroke. It is a belief

we carry: that we must mourn for those we have lost, for example or for
ourselves through a pain or disability that makes our suffering visable. Illness is
a thought-form; a negative pattern we hold onto and reproduce. ~ San Pedro
shaman Lesley Myburgh, La Gringa

Protection is an important consideration for any spiritual practitioner, but

sometimes the nuances can be slightly different when working with plant
medicines. When you drink your plant medicine, you fill your body and spirit with
its spirit and power. You are protected. However, if you abuse or disrespect the
plant, it can turn on you and make you sick sometimes (not all plants do this, but
some will). Also if you are performing dieta during ceremony, you are in effect
weakening your body to allow the plants spirit to have a stronger effect on your
body. While this is good for plant communication and receiving healing, this also
leaves you energetically vulnerable while performing the diet.

The first part of protection is to not make enemies when you can avoid it. This
is some of the best protection around! Sometimes though, if you do this work
you start to attract more attention to yourself energetically especially if you
work with clients. If a client is cursed by someone, and you help the client
remove the negative energy from the curse, whoever cursed them is probably
angry with you. Also, in areas like Peru, you may be targeted by an envious brujo
who doesnt like competition. You can however avoid most enemies by treating
others well, not cursing people, and avoiding people who cause trouble.

Two popular tools for protection are herbs for smudging and some type of
blessed water (often called Agua de Florida or Florida water). Smudging herbs
can include sage, palo santo, and mapacho among others (your smudge should
include at least one of the above, but can have other added plants as well). You
burn the herbs, and use the smoke to clear heavy unwanted energy, and bring in
light and protective energy. Florida water contains alcohol as well as extracted
herbs and perfumes. In Peru, there is a bottled brand that is very popular for
people to buy, but you can also make your own at home, which is my personal
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preference. With the water, some people put a little on their hands to inhale, or
they rub it all over their bodies, some people might spray it from a bottle like a
smudge, or you can also spray it with your mouth for a powerful and dramatic
effect. The plants and herbs in the water both repulse negative energies and
leave a sweet smell to attract the compassionate spirits to work with you.

You can add more force to smudging by calling on the spirits of the plants
used, as well as by adding your own intention and power to the smudge. For
example when you use your breath or feathers to blow the smoke, you add
more elemental force to the smoke. If you have a sacred pipe filled with
mapacho, call on mapachos spirit, and use your breath to smudge with mapacho
while you sing an icaro, then you might be smudging better then someone just
burning mapacho by itself.

Here is a recipe for making your own florida water (Agua de Florida). There
are many different plants you could add into here use the plants that speak to
you, or try different recipes. First, you need high proof alcohol vodka is nice
because it has less smell and flavor than some other alcohols. Add your chosen
herbs to the alcohol, shake it, and then leave it somewhere dark for about 2
weeks (you can shake it once in a while). After two weeks, strain out the plant
material, and if you like you can add essential oils or perfume. At this point you
have your florida water, though I personally recommend watering it down at least
a little especially if you plan on spraying the water from your mouth (too strong
of alcohol can burn your mouth a little). Also you will have stronger effects
from the water if you pray to the plant spirits while making your mixture.

Here is the first florida water recipe that I originally came up with years ago. I
still use it, and find that besides clearing space, it also relaxes and invigorates the
nervous system so that you have a relaxed alertness. In the alcohol, I leave some
fresh sage, mint and lavender, as well as a little palo santo. After 2 weeks when I
take out the plant materials, I add lavindin and peppermint essential oils, as well
as a little bit of a thieves blend (clove, cinnamon, lemon, eucalyptus, &
rosemary oils blended together). The two strongest smells should be
lavender/lavindin and peppermint (with some spicy overtones from the thieves

54
blend). I water my down quite a bit afterwards. This recipe is not only great
energetically, but has lots of anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties, so is great
as a hand sanitizer, counter cleaner, or even a perfume!

Singing sacred song is also a great way to purify space and set up protection.
This can be a song you learned from someone else, or one that came to you from
the spirits. Adding drumming or rattling to your song is also great for clearing
space, as the percussion is helpful for breaking up stagnant energy, and if your
drum has an associated spirit, you can also call in that energy.

Besides the basics of using smudges, blessed water and medicine songs for
protection, there are many different routes you could take for making further
defense. Some people even practice specific banishing rituals or make protective
talismans (talismans can be objects, or paper with sacred symbols). These can be
helpful methods for protection, but I am going to focus more on plant based
protections. Besides smudging and the florida water made from plants, we can
also make floor washes, ritual baths, pussanga, and protection altars, or we can
also defend ourselves by forming relationships with spirit guides or even merging
with those spirit guides by invoking them into your body.

Making floor washes consists of placing herbs and/or essential oils into a
container of water, praying to the spirits of the plants to bless your water, and
then cleaning the house with it. This would be a good example of how to clear a
house of unwanted energy when smudging alone is not enough. You could use
the florida water recipe I listed above or find other recipes online. Another good
way to make recipes is by walking around in nature, and letting plants speak to
you (will we discuss this more when we get to pussangas).

A ritual bath is performed by first taking a quick shower while rubbing a little
salt onto your skin to remove unwanted heavy energy. Rinse of the salt, and then
prepare a bath the same way you would create a floor wash. Also add more salt
to the bath. Relax into the bath deeply, breathe in the herbal vapors, and feel the
heavy energy leave your body into the water. When your bath is finished, watch
all your unwanted energy and stress go straight down the drain! You can add
ritual candles to this process, burning one while you bathe if you like. When
55
choosing salt: Epsom salt works the best energetically, but bath salts and sea salt
also work well.

Pussangas are a style of magical perfume made in Peru (especially in the

Amazon). You start by deciding what the purpose of the perfume is: protection,
romance, business ect. Then you walk around anywhere with plants growing, and
let the plants speak to you about which ones to include in the perfume. You
might choose rose or nettle as a protective plant because of the spikes, or choose
sage because of its long association with protection. You might use roses for
romance because of their long association with romance, or another sweet
smelling flower to bring you sweet love. If a plant has many insects visiting it, it
might be helpful for business (lots of costumers). These signs are called plant
signatures, and it is part of the way that plants let us know their purpose. When
you get a good amount of plant material, you make the pussanga similar to how
we made florida water, but make sure you set your intention to suit your goal.
You can use this perfume on yourself, others, or around your house or business.

If you feel like you need more protection then offered by smudges and baths,
it can be a good idea to set up a constant protective measure through an altar
dedicated specifically for the purpose. If possible, it is also a great idea to either
assign a spirit to be a part of your altar and work through it, or ask for one to
volunteer. Set up your altar with anything that reminds you of protection:
pictures of strong deities, pictures of power animals, statues or figurines that
evoke protection, protective plants, charms or symbols, crystals ect. If you have a
spirit work through your altar, it is helpful to have something that represents
them as well. The spirit may also like a spirit house (a container that seems
suitable and respectful to the spirit to live in). I would also include a holder for
burning incense, so that you can leave offerings to the spirits. Offerings of
incense can be done on a regular basis (like twice a month), or can be done
whenever it feels right. I also like to leave a stick of palo santo or sage on my altar
for the altar to charge when I really want good protection, I will use this smudge
specifically from the altar.

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 The final and perhaps most effective and important defense is having a good
relationship with your spirit guides. This can take time to develop your awareness
of, but believe me; you already are connected to multiple spirits who protect you.
Sometimes though, if we dont consistently connect to our hearts, to nature, and
to the spirit world, we can become out of touch with ourselves and out of touch
with our spirit guides. When we lose touch with ourselves and our guides, we
may be more susceptible to heavy and unwanted energies, or the influences of
others, so it is good to sometimes check in with ourselves and with our spirits to
make sure our connection stays strong.

Some ways to connect with your spirit guides include working with plant
medicines, doing plant dieta, singing medicine songs, letting a spirit dance
through you, praying to your spirit guides, building altars for spirit guides, giving
offerings, remembering to give thank, shamanic style journey (through
meditation, trance or drumming), or by invoking the spirit. Sometimes, it can
even be helpful to write a letter to your spirit guides they will hear it as you
write it! You do not need to do all of these different practices, but any of them
can work well if you put your love and gratitude into it.

Invoking a plant spirit can be a helpful practice sometimes, and can be done in
many different ways. When you drink Ayahuasca or San Pedro, you are invoking
the associated spirit, and likewise, when you perform dieta you are doing an
incredibly powerful form of invocation. But invocation doesnt always have to be
so intense. If you already have a connection with nettle for example, you could
also invoke the plant by making a single cup of tea, and asking nettle to bless the
tea with its spirit as you welcome it into your body. In some cases, you may even
wish to merge with another spirit (plant, animal or another type of spirit) by
going into a trance and opening yourself to this spirit. It involves invoking a
compassionate spirit into your own body to let them work through you - I do this
with power animals and plant spirits, but I think you could do it with any spirit you
felt safe letting into your body. I would at least stick with spirits you know well
and trust.

57
 I originally learned this from one of my teachers who uses core shamanic style
methods of trance work. I think you could alter the method easily, but it might be
easiest to do while in a trance.

Before starting the practice, ask your guides which spirit you should work with
for this type of work, or ask a specific spirit you know if they are okay with
merging. Once you have the spirits permission, you are ready.

This is how I do it:

Call in the directions/winds

Make a prayer/state intent

Then I sing a song or two to get me in the mood, raise my energy, and also
start connecting with the spirits. I think you could easily insert passionate prayer
or a conjuration for this instead of singing, or use a dance to call in the spirit.

Then I either drum, or rattle, or use a drum track to help me go into trance and
let go of my body a little bit. You could do it without this percussion, but the
percussion is helpful for me. I also use the rattles quite often during the trance
for breaking up energy, so they double as a magical tool and trance aid. I will
usually also chant and sway while rattling to enter a good trance - holding the
intention now that I am merging with my power animal.

Eventually, the spirit is connected to you deeply enough to work through you.
Your arms may look like the spirits arms (or claws or wings ect in case of power
animals and leaves in the case of plants), and you may make strange sounds or
speak words you dont know (I make animal sounds sometimes from nowhere, or
sing a song I've never heard before). Do whatever work you came to do, and then
after, tell the spirit you are done, and let them fade away as you calm down from
the trance and also ground yourself in some way (wiggle around, feel your body
again, eat ect). Grounding afterwards is very important, and a little food is very
helpful.

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 If you want, you could banish at this point. I dont banish with these types of
spirits, because they only help me, but if I tried this with a different type of spirit,
maybe I would banish.

Types of work you can do with this method:

- See illness or misplaced energy in someones body

- See astral/spirit world around you through your eyes
- Perform Extraction type work or even exorcisms
- Learn to use new magical tools
- Communicate with the spirit, or with other nearby spirits
- Protection!!!

While you are merged with the spirit, it protects you. This is why I often do
extraction work this way - the energy I am pulling out doesnt ever touch me,
because the spirit is the one doing the work. It provides a powerful shield. Also,
the spirit usually knows what to do better than I do, so it also allows their
expertise to be used fully. My teacher told me you know when you are fully
merged, because there is no fear in you any longer - if you have any fear, it means
you need to keep merging/connecting with the spirit and enter a deeper trance.
Once you are fully merged, you are filled with the power of that spirit (power-
full), and protected.

For using a shamanic tool I recently received, I will ask a spirit to merge with
me to teach me about the tool. This works well for things like feather fans,
phurbas, athames, crystals and rocks, or just about any other tool. This allows
any spirit with expertise with that tool to volunteer. I will go through the same
process of merging with the spirit, then once merged; they will pick up the tool
and just start using it. This is how I learned to use a number of my magical tools.

You can turn to any of these tools and techniques when you are in trouble,
though with protection, it is better to be prepared in advance when possible. Set
up a protection altar before you need one, and get supplies for smudging before
you need them. If you are visiting a shaman, then the shaman is in charge of your
protection while you work with them, but if you are drinking alone, you will need

59
to make your own protection and sacred space. Some people may find that they
do fine with only minimal protection, and others (especially those who are
empathic or who work with clients) may find they need to work harder to protect
themselves.

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 18. Cooking Your Brew and Other Medicinal Preparations

An ally is a power capable of transporting a man beyond the boundaries of

himself to transcend the realm of ordinary reality. ~ Carlos Castaneda, The
Teachings of Don Juan

Depending on which plant medicines you decide to work with, you may need
to cook, dry, juice, or prepare your medicine in some other way. Many plants can
also be eaten as they are, but might be easier to ingest after cooking and
preparation. For example when working with San Pedro, you could eat a whole
foot long piece of cactus (one foot per person is a common dose size), or you
could brew it into a tea so that you only have to drink a small glass. While eating
the cactus is doable, many people find the taste and texture a little difficult, so
drinking a small glass of tea can often be easier.

Each medicine has its own cooking methods, and usually multiple cooking
methods to choose from. Trying to cover every method is beyond the scope of
this book, but I would like to give a couple simple examples of preparation
methods, as well as a few general tips and ideas for making medicines. Beyond
just cooking the medicine, it is helpful to make a ceremony out of cooking as well
as drinking. Put your love, intentions and magic into the medicine. Sing to it, and
appreciate it. Connect with the plant as you pull it apart and process it!

San Pedro Cooking Procedure:

With San Pedro, you should expect to use about a foot long cutting for each
person. Strength of the cactus can vary greatly, but a foot is generally in the area
of either being a small but large enough dose if its on the weaker side, or being a
large but manageable dose if its on the strong side. You can eat, juice, dry or
cook the cactus, with cooking being the most common traditional preparation
method. I will share the common cooking preparation.

There are many guides with pictures or even YouTube videos online to help
you along with this process, but I will give you a general walkthrough of how you
might format your medicine preparation into a ceremony. First, check the cactus
for any mold, and cut that off. If you want, you can also smudge the cuttings with
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mapacho, sage, or palo santo before preparing the cactus. While maintaining a
peaceful and appreciative demeanor, start to cut off the sharp spines of the
cactus first. It is important to keep a positive and loving frame of mind while
preparing the medicine, as you are putting energy into your brew as you handle it.

After taking off the sharp needles and spines, start to skin off the waxy coating
on the outside of the skin. Try to remove as little of the green skin as you can
while removing this waxy outer layer. The waxy layer is not bad for you, but some
say that it can cause a little nausea when drinking. Take the inner-most core out
of the cactus, and then put all the light colored flesh and dark green skin into your
cooking container. The inner-most core can be used for soap or lotion if you like
(similar to Aloe Vera), or it can be discarded (I like to give discarded materials
back to the earth). If you like, you can either cut the flesh and skin into small
pieces, or put it into a blender to make cooking more effective. Once all the flesh
and skin is in the cooking container, add enough water to cover every piece of
cactus, and cook this mixture for 3-24 hours. I also add a pinch of mapacho, and
the juice of one lime to my brew, but this is not necessary. The longer you cook
your cactus, the stronger it will be, and the less nauseous it will make you, so I
highly recommend at least 10 hours of cooking time. A pot or a crockpot both
work well for cooking the cactus (cook for longer in a crockpot 10-24 hours is
great).

When all the material is in the cooking container, I will usually rattle over the
medicine, smudge it with any herb of choice, and sing it a song, or pray to it. I do
this before I turn on the heat, and then I also say a prayer or sing a song each time
I stir the medicine. This helps you remember to keep putting love and good
intentions into your medicine. Smudge as much as you like to.

It is wise to stay close to the brew while it is cooking some say dark spirits
can enter your brew when cooking if you dont keep it protected. If you decide to
go to sleep or leave it unattended for a short while, you can place an altar or
guardian next to the tea to guard it (mesa altars, crystals, magical items ect can all
be guardians). Also, you want to make sure you do not boil over or burn the
brew.

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 When the brew is done cooking, you must strain it with either a cheese-cloth,
an old shirt, or another strainer. I like to discard all plant material in a respectful
way by giving it back to the earth as an offering (not in the garbage!). The left
over liquid is your medicine. You may want to reduce the medicine by boiling
some of it off if it looks like more than a cup-size dose (reducing makes the
medicine stronger and thicker so that you dont have to drink as much volume).
Your medicine is now ready for ceremony!

Ayahuasca Cooking Procedure:

Ayahuasca has a slightly more complicated cooking method, partly because it

often includes more than one plant, but also because of the tough fibrous nature
of the Ayahuasca vine itself. If you are brewing Ayahuasca, the first decision is
whether or not to put in any admixture plants like chacruna or chaliponga. Some
tribes and practitioners will drink Ayahuasca vine in a tea by itself, but many
people will add at least one admixture plant which usually contains DMT to aid
with brighter and clearer visions. There are other reasons to add different plants
to Ayahuasca as well, and there are hundreds of known admixture plants, but
usually only a few plants would be in one brew (the most common number of
plants in Ayahuasca is two). For the purpose of this book, we will look at cooking
Ayahuasca in its most common traditional form: Ayahuasca with chacruna.
Ayahuasca is the vine, the teacher, the force, and chacruna is married to
Ayahuasca in this recipe as the light which aids visions.

In the Amazon, Ayahuasca ingredients are rarely weighed out, but usually just
measured by eye. A common ratio is equal sized parts of beaten Ayahuasca and
chacruna leaves (measured by eye and not weight the Ayahuasca would greatly
outweigh the chacruna in this ratio). This doesnt mean that the ratios weigh the
same, but that they look about the same size. Many westerners will weigh their
ingredients by the gram, and ratios can often be anywhere from 50 grams Aya &
50 grams chacruna, to 150 grams Aya and 15-20 grams chacruna. Sometimes
more vine means you need less of the leaf, so it is important to research dose
sizes if you intend to do something different then mentioned in this book. 150
grams of Ayahuasca for 30 grams of chacruna is probably closer to how the

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medicine is prepared in the jungle, because even though they use equal sized
ratios of both plants, the vine weighs a bit more than the leaves. Some
westerners prefer more light in their brews, which also explains the different
ratios (this may be because westerners often focus more on DMT, while the vine
is seen as more important in the Amazon). By the way these ratios are
specifically for Peruvian chacruna, and Hawaiian chacruna or chaliponga would
have a different ratio (research your recipe before cooking especially if you use
different ingredients then what I list here).

For this example, I will use a common recipe for people who live outside of
Peru and order their plants online. This method focuses on getting the most out
of your limited plant materials, while keeping the method simple and
straightforward. The ratio seems like one many people like to use at home when
introducing themselves to the medicine.

Ingredients: 50 grams B. caapi (Ayahuasca vine) and 50 grams of P. viridis

(Chacruna), white vinegar or cider vinegar, distilled or filtered water, and 2
STAINLESS STEEL or PYREX Ceramic pots (do not use aluminum).

1) Wrap the caapi in a towel and break it up with a hammer until it is

shredded (or buy shredded instead of whole vine).

2) In one pot, put in the chacruna, the caapi, a tablespoon of vinegar, and 2-3
liters of water. Using enough water is extremely important for getting all the
alkaloids extracted properly.

3) Simmer for 2-3 hours or until water level gets low. Some people
recommend boiling, while others avoid the key is too at least have some
bubbles going though, otherwise the vine wont get the alkaloids extracted
sufficiently. The vine is especially hearty, and can take some good heat to get
out all of the alkaloids. Remember to pray, talk, or sing to the brew. Do not
leave it unattended; if you need to do something different, turn off the stove.

4) Pouring off the brew into a second pot or container, keep the plant material
in the original pot. Follow steps 2-4 three times in a row to get all the alkaloids
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 from the plant material. This is similar to making 3 cups of tea from one tea
bag each cup wont be that strong alone, but you will get the most from your
plant material. Put all finished washes (cups of tea) in the second pot
together in preparation for reduction and filtering.

5) Filter through a cheese-cloth or t-shirt. (An excellent method for easy

filtering is to duct tape a t-shirt over an empty pot, allowing you both hands to
pour the brew. the t-shirt will become quickly clogged, so for each filter you
must use a fresh section of cloth.) After you have removed all plant material,
you can then reduce your tea as much as you would like by heating the liquid
to let some boil off. Think about the number of doses you cooked, and try to
reduce the liquid till each dose is the size of a shot glass or so (this makes the
brew easier to drink in a tiny swallow). You may also wish to give the used
plant material back to the earth as an offering.

6) At this point you will have a pot of reduced, drinkable ayahuasca. Each dose
should between the size of a standard shot and a cup. (Less concentrated
brews taste better, but leave you with more to drink.)

Before you do ceremony, make sure to set up your ceremonial space, and start
off with small doses. Ayahuasca can be very intense, and it is good to ease
yourself into working with her. The above dose should be a good starting point
for many people, and if you feel cautious, it is possible to drink half of your dose,
then drink the second half about an hour later. This gives you a more gradual
introduction.

Even though brewing seems fairly straight-forward, there are many issues
people can run into. Not cooking hot or long enough, filtering too much, not
using enough water ect. If you drink the brew and it seems to not work, it could
be an error in brewing technique, or you may need to increase the dosage a little.
Alternately, it could just be that your ceremony was light. Sometimes, Ayahuasca
doesnt create much of an effect in us even though we drank a large enough dose
she gives you the experience she feels you need in that moment. 5 people
could all drink the same brew and same dosage, but maybe only one of them will
feel an effect, or maybe all but one will feel an effect. You can drink the same
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dosage of the same brew two weeks in a row, and have no effect one night, but a
super strong effect the next time. If your brew doesnt work, it could be the
cooking method, but maybe it just wasnt your night always consider this if your
brew seems to not work, because you might have cooked it fine.

Ayahuasca can be prepared a little differently if you want to try micro-dosing.

Micro-dosing is a great way to become closer with the Spirit of Ayahuasca, as well
as a great way for cautious drinkers to introduce her to their body. For micro
dosing, you could brew Ayahuasca alone or with Chacruna using the method
above, and then drink smaller doses, but I would like to also share a different
method shown to me by a friend. The recipe I am going to share is far from
traditional, and some purists would say its nuts. I find this method to be less
intimidating for first timers, and my particular friend who showed this to me has
been using this method for over 10 years with only positive experiences.

This micro-dose recipe uses already shredded or powdered vine. For micro-
dosing, anywhere from 15-30 grams of Ayahuasca is appropriate. In this method,
you mix 15-30 grams of shredded Ayahuasca vine into your choice of milk (raw or
at least organic milk, almond milk, hemp milk any of these are good choices).
You can use any variety of Ayahuasca, but the yellow vine seems to especially
taste better and give a more positive experience in this particular recipe. You can
also add honey and if you want a slight dusting of raw cocoa powder for taste.
Mix this all together, either raw, or slightly heated, and drink! (say a prayer first)
You can use water instead of milk if you like, but the milk and honey seem to
make this taste decent, and some people report better digestion of the medicine
when mixed with a little fat from the milk. Remember this is a micro-dose, so
the effects are much milder and more meditative when compared to regular
Ayahuasca. (note: in this recipe, you dont strain out the vine you can if you
want, or just drink it since it is already shredded/powdered).

This micro-dose method can be used to help introduce you to mother Aya, or
as a way to invite her more deeply into your life similar to doing a dieta in some
ways.

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 Now, we have preparation and cooking methods for San Pedro and Ayahuasca
the two main plants focused on in this book, but I would like to share recipes for
preparing a few other plants as well. All of these plants will have many different
ways to prepare them, and these are just a few. For each plant, I will just share
one or two easy or unique preparation methods.

Amanita Muscaria or Fly Algaric Smoking Procedure:

Amanitas are the iconic red and white polkadot mushroom that can be found
all along the Northern Hemisphere (they may sometimes be yellow as well as
red). Unlike psilocybin mushrooms, the active ingredient in this fungi is muscaria.
You can eat these mushrooms fresh or dried, and you can also make a tea out of
them (research recipes and dose size first). Here we will explore the use of these
mushrooms through smoking. (read the Other Entheogens chapter for more
info on this fungi)

This mushroom is legal in many areas, so you may be able to buy them,
however, I have only wild-harvested my own. If you get a fresh mushroom, the
first step is to peel off the red skin on top of the cap, separating the red skin and
the orange goo underneath. The orange goo is supposedly the most essential
part of this fungus, and we are lowering the amount of smoke needed for a dose
by using the strongest part of the mushroom. If you use dried mushrooms, you
can try to separate this skin and goo, but you may need to just use the whole cap.

After removing the skin, dry it out either next to a heater, in the sun, or in the
oven or stovetop on the lowest heat possible. Dont overheat the mushroom if
you use the oven or stove. When finished, crumble the dried skin pieces, and roll
them alone or with your favorite herbs into a cigarette (I prefer mine with a little
mapacho). Blow a prayer into your cigarette before smoking it (you can also do a
more in depth opening ceremony before starting your ritual with this medicine).

You may need to smoke quite a bit to get the desired level of effect from these
mushrooms. Often times, a single cap may be enough for 1-3 people doing a
deeper ceremony (depending on size and strength), which might be 4-6 cigarettes
worth of smoking. Effects include a light euphoria, a feeling of warmth and

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energy in the body, easier spirit communication, and lucid dreaming. This
method of smoking gives a much lighter experience compared to eating the
mushrooms, and also doesnt include much of the nausea associated with
Amanitas.

Caution: While mild when smoked alone, if you mix this medicine with other
plants or fungi, the effects will multiple in strength, so be careful with dose size.

Salvia Quidding, Alcohol Extraction and Cold-Pressed Tea

Salvia Divinorum, the diviners sage, is an incredibly misunderstood plant

medicine often abused in modern culture. Common usage includes extracting
Salvinorum A, the active ingredient, and putting a concentrated form onto other
leaves, then smoking the concentrated extract. In traditional Mazatec usage, the
herb is never ever smoked, and is never used in a concentrated form, because
smoking the plant is considered a disrespectful taboo. Whether smoking the
plant is disrespectful or effective or not can be up to you to decide for yourself,
but here, we will explore the methods of quidding and making tea or simple
alcohol extractions of Salvia. If you do try smoking, I recommend the plain leaves
rather than the extract that is commonly sold (or at least use a weaker extract).
(read the Other Entheogens chapter for more information on this plant)

All of these methods are for oral consumption. Orally ingested salvia
compared to smoked Salvia is a much different experience. Smoked, the
experience starts right away, lasts about 10 minutes only, is very intense and
often scary or uncomfortable physically, and is usually confusing or easily
forgotten. It is hard to bring back insight and lessons, and if you do bring back
some memories, you may need to interpret them. Oral Salvia on the other hand
comes on slow and gently, lasts about an hour or longer, and spirit
communication is often very easy and natural. Memory retention is usually easier
and more complete, and there is often less need to interpret messages, as
communicating with salvia in this way is much easier. Oral ingestion isnt as
strong though, so there is some technique involved with getting to the deeper
levels of the experience sometimes.

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 Quidding is the most traditional way of ingesting Salvia. A quid is a bundle of
leaves you roll into a cigar like shape to suck on under your tongue. You can do
this with fresh or dried leaves, however, dried leaves should be prepped first with
a little water to make them soft again (just soak them in a tiny bit of water for 3-5
minutes). A micro-dose should use about 1-2 grams, while a full dose should be
2-5 grams (I recommend the beginner starts with 3 grams of leaves). The leaves
do not taste too bad, but are slightly bitter, so if you like, you can add a little
honey to the quid for flavor.

Perform your opening ceremony, and ask Salvia to bless the leaves. Set your
intention Salvia will often only speak to you when you start the conversation
(ask nothing, and you will likely hear nothing). The leaves should be pressed
together, and then placed under the tongue. Here, they should be occasionally
chewed, mostly sucked on, and the liquid should be held under the tongue for a
while, and then very slowly swallowed. Salvia enters the body most effectively
under the tongue, and even more so in the back of the throat, so it helps if you sit
with your head tilted slightly up and back (feel the liquid sit in the back of your
throat as you slowly swallow it). Mastering this technique unlocks much of Salvias
secrets. After about 15-30 minutes, you can either spit out the leaves, or swallow
them, and then sit or lie back and get comfortable! The medicine usually starts
working around 10-15 minutes in (while you are still chewing), and will peak at
around the 20-40 minute mark. It stays at the peak for 30-60 minutes before it
winds down.

After you spit out or swallow the leaves, lie back and get comfortable. You
should have your eyes closed, and be sitting as still as possible (like you are
meditating). The room should be dark, and this medicine usually works better in
complete silence when possible. You have to meet this spirit half way by quidding
properly and also lying still and quiet. If you can lie still and quiet, you will be
rewarded with easy and deep communication which can lead to insight and
healing.

The technique for ingesting the alcohol extraction and cold-pressed tea is the
same (holding in the mouth, and then lying still/quiet), but the preparation of the

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medicine is slightly different. After you prepare your medicine, follow the same
ritual instructions as above.

For alcohol extractions, you can buy already made tinctures online if you want,
or make your own. You can do more thorough alcohol extractions, but I will share
the simplest one I know. First, get an empty bottle or jar, and stuff it full with as
many leaves as possible. Then pour your alcohol of choice over the leaves
(Tequila is traditional, but feel free to use vodka or rum as well), and shake the
bottle up. Let this mixture sit for 15 minutes to a day or longer. If you use the
extracted powder, you can dissolve the powder straight into the alcohol without
steeping it and drink. Before you hold this liquid in your mouth, you may want to
water it down with some water, because holding strong alcohol in your mouth for
that long can sometimes cause irritation or burning if it isnt watered down first.
Remember to especially hold the liquid in the back of your throat and gargle it a
little bit before you swallow. Do the whole dose at once, or slowly sip it (you can
even add a little lemonade for flavor if you like). This extraction works great,
because the alcohol allows the Salvia to cross cell-membranes more easily, and
therefore get into your body quicker.

For a cold-pressed tea, start by either making a paste from the leaves with
water in a mortar and pestle (this is the more involved alchemical route), or blend
your leaves with water for the quicker route. If you make the paste, add more
water to it after wards. Put the leaf and water mixture into a French-press, and
after it has sat 5-15 minutes, strain out the leaves. Your drink is now ready! Cold
water is recommended for this, as heating the water makes a more bitter tea with
Salvia. Drink this the same way as with the alcohol extraction hold it in the back
of your throat while you gargle a little bit, and swish it around good. Sip it slow,
and judge your dose as the feelings slowly come on while sipping. If you like, feel
free to mix in mint or lemonade for flavor. Chamomile also works well.

Caution: Mixing Salvia with any other plant makes the effects of both much
much stronger, and sometimes turns the whole experience into a Salvia
experience. She is a powerful spirit and can sometimes dominate the experience
(which isnt necessarily bad).

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 Making Tea for Dieta

I cannot go too much into specifics here, because all plants are different, and
dieta can involve any plant you like (or even rocks and crystals!). I will share some
general tips though.

Before ingesting any plant, always make sure you research toxicity, and
research which parts of the plants might be edible. If the plant is toxic, then dont
ingest any! You can also diet plants just by being near them, or by smelling them,
or sleeping with some leaves under your pillow. If small amounts of the plant are
safe, you may want to try just drinking the first and last day of your diet, but
otherwise, you can drink every day of the diet.

Different parts of the plant may have different qualities when dieted. For
example, nettle leaves have a feminine quality to me, but the roots of nettle are
very masculine. Some plants may give you specific instructions for dieting as well,
so pay attention to your intuition and stay open to advice from the plants.

All parts of an herb might be used for dieting, but the leaves are the most
common. For trees, people often diet the root bark of the tree. To get the right
root bark, you first remove some of the outermost layer of bark, and you use the
layer just under that (the inner bark). You will need a strong knife or machete to
get this bark most likely, and you will scar the tree. Always make sure you ask the
plants permission before harvesting any of it, and if you feel called, leave an
offering for the plant as well (blowing tobacco smoke on the tree or leaving a
cigarette with a match are both customary). Try to harvest in the least harmful
way possible, and be grateful to the plant for sharing its wisdom and medicine
with you.

Once you have your plant material and determined the safety, make a tea or
juice with the plant material. Set your intention with your cup of medicine, and
drink. Stick to your diet and listen to your plant!

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 19.Making Your Own Ceremony

I say a prayer to open the ceremony and then, as much as possible, I step back
and allow San Pedro to do its work without me getting in its way. ~ San Pedro
shaman Lesley Myburgh, La Gringa

If you feel ready to start working with plants at home, then you will have to
design your own ceremony. You want to make some flexible plans so that you
support the medicine work with your intentions and actions during the ceremony.
It is good to have some plans and ideas beforehand so that you can focus with the
medicine and not have to think of what to do, but also let your plans be flexible so
that the medicine and your instinct can guide the ceremony in some ways. When
designing your ceremony, it is good to take inspiration from other sources, but
you should always follow your intuition and make the ceremony your own.

Follow the guidelines from the set and setting chapter pick yourself a good
environment that supports your healing process, and only drink with others you
feel comfortable with.

Decide how you want to open your ceremony and set your intention. Maybe
you want to do journey work before your ceremony, or give an offering, smudge
yourself and the space, or call in the directions. Maybe you want to start with a
song or smoke some mapacho first. Decide whether one person or multiple
people will perform the opening ceremony.

Make your intention known to the medicine. Pray over the medicine, speak to
it, or blow a prayer into it with your breath or smoke. Tell it you are grateful, and
drink with gratitude.

One thing I recommend is in every ceremony there is time to think quietly or

meditate. This is especially helpful when the medicine is starting and when it is at
its strongest, and this is often when the medicine will speak to you the most. You
can sit outside, lie in bed, or hike quietly while you talk with the plant and learn
about yourself. Without time to be introspective, you may be distracting yourself
too much to really hear the plant and receive healing. You dont have to meditate

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the entire ceremony, but at least some of the time should be reserved for quiet
reflection if possible.

Sometimes, you may wish to plan a special activity for your ceremony, usually
to do sometime after you have already meditated. You can do yoga, make music,
go on a walk, practice energy work or massage, do shamanic journey, perform a
ritual or recite a prayer, have an emotional connecting and sharing time with
others in the group anything that seems related to healing and you think will
resonate with the medicine you work with.

During the ceremony, and especially after releasing heavy energy or negative
emotions and thought patterns, it is a good idea to re-smudge and clear the
energy. If you feel stuck in your head or in your body somewhere, ask the
medicine why you are stuck and how to fix it. If you have trouble getting advice
from the medicine, it may be helpful to change your scenery go for a walk,
change the music, do a different activity, or smudge or sing ect.

You may like to formally close your ritual, or you may feel fine just going to
sleep afterwards this is up to you.

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 20.Contraindications and Safety Precautions

Primum non nocere Latin for First, do no harm. ~ Part of the Hippocratic
Corpus for Medical Professionals

Before working with any plant, you must know if it has a toxicity level. You
must keep yourself safe. If you take any medications, you must know how they
interact with any plant medicines you want to work with. If you want to work
with a shaman, you should also know what is in their medicine. Be responsible.

Most plant medicines are fairly safe to work with. When taken alone, San
Pedro, Ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms and Salvia for example are all safe and
non-toxic. You could drink an insanely huge dose of any of these, and you would
still be fine and healthy (though you may be in for a very difficult ceremony).
However, if you are on the wrong medication, like SSRIs for example, you could
change the plants effects into toxic ones. For example, Ayahuasca mixed with an
SSRI can cause a serotonin overload which could lead to death (this has happened
before). You also must know what is in your brew, because if someone added
tohe for example, the brew could have a different toxicity then you were
expecting (if tohe or similar plants are used incorrectly, they can cause death).
But if you are safe and responsible you can avoid the issue of toxicity and still
work with plant medicines, because most of them alone are not toxic in any way.

Most plants you might want to diet are also non-toxic, although you must
research any plant before ingesting. Certain plants you may only be able to eat
certain parts of, or you may only be able to eat certain amounts of. Some plants
are healthy in small amounts, but not larger. If you find yourself dieting a plant
that is safe in small amounts, but dangerous in larger quantities, you may decide
to perform a diet by only drinking the first and last day of the diet, or drinking
every other day, instead of drinking every single day. Or, you may decide to diet
the plant another way, like sleeping next to it, or by just smelling it. Another
option could be to make a flower essence which would be so diluted that it is no
longer toxic. There are many options for working with different plants.

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 Some of the commonly dieted plants are toxic. Mapacho and tohe for
example are both toxic, but still are popular plants for advanced students.
Mapacho has large quantities of nicotine, and when ingested orally instead of
smoked, you are in greater danger or health problems. It is important to use the
appropriate amount of tobacco and to also have at least a small tolerance
already. Tohe is a very toxic, but very powerful plant teacher. Often this plant is
dieted by sleeping with 3 leaves under your pillow instead of ingesting it directly
(though you can ingest small amounts). These are two plants that could be wise
to diet under the watchful eye of an experienced shaman.

Something else to be wary of is any type of health condition you already have.
If you have diabetes, these medicines are usually safe, but you need to watch
your blood sugar. If you have heart disease, you may want to work in calm
environments and do smaller doses, or perhaps work with an experienced
shaman or even at a center which has a doctor on hand. If you have mental
illness, you may want to make sure the plant is safe with that illness. Most of the
times, plants are very effective at helping to cure mental illness, but in a few cases
(like maybe a serotonin production issue) there could be a risk you want to be
aware of. And since many illnesses require medication you always want to
make sure you have been off contraindicated meds long enough before partaking
of plant medicines.

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 21.Mixing Plants

Ultimately we are free to choose any story we wish, including one that describes
us as unwell or healthy, blessed or cursed because if nothing is real in itself
then all things are possible if we have sufficient faith to create them. ~ author
Ross Heaven

Mixing plant medicines can sometimes be a helpful practice, but it should only
be done after careful consideration. You should research plant interactions
beforehand, and only move forward if your gut tells you it is a good idea. Mixing
plants often makes them much stronger than normal, and can have unexpected
changes to the plants effects. This may help you break through a plateau, or you
may feel led to this by the spirits themselves, but dont let your ego take you
here: more is not always better.

Ayahuasca and Salvia both especially seem to have unique effects when used
with other plants. Just like the Ayahuasca vine potentiates the DMT found in
Chacruna, it also potentiates the psilocybin found in magic mushrooms. It not
only makes the effects of other tryptamines stronger and longer lasting, but it
also adds its own unique personality to the effects of the other plant or fungi it is
used with. Salvia on the other hand, is known to take over whatever plant it is
used with if you are having a strong mushroom or San Pedro journey when you
add in Salvia, it will become a very strong Salvia experience.

Because Ayahuasca and to a certain degree, also Salvia, teach you about other
pants, sometimes it is useful to ingest other plants with these medicines. This is
especially helpful for dieta, and for non-psychoactive plants you want to learn
about. Ayahuasca is known to have hundreds of different admixture plants
because of it being used this way. If you want to learn about a new plant, you can
put a tiny bit in your Ayahuasca, or even just hold it in your lap when you drink
Ayahuasca she will teach you about this plants medicinal properties, and teach
you about the plants spirit and personality.

You may find that these plants are perfect on their own for you, and if so
great! Others may find for example, that they really like Caapi/Aya with San

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Pedro for example (this has been described as having two parents guide you at
once). None of this is wrong if it helps you and others, and if the spirits lead you
here follow their guidance and your intuition.

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 22.Legal Issues

In a free society, how can you commit a crime against yourself? ~ Jesse Ventura

Man is arrogant enough to look at Gods creation, and judge which parts of that
creation are worthy and not worthy. Man is arrogant enough to then apply that
judgment to the people around them, insisting that someone can know what is
right and wrong for all other people. Not surprisingly, most of the people who
want to make certain plants illegal usually have no experience or contact with
that plant ever, and usually the plants they outlaw are not only safe, but
incredibly helpful and important allies for our species.

If you decide to work with plant medicines, it is incredibly important to first

research health and toxicity possibilities, and also to know the local law regarding
that plant. You should always consider the risks and dangers associated with
plant use. Almost all entheogenic plants are safe to use medicinally, but the laws
surrounding them can put you in a lot of trouble and even ruin your life if you get
involved with the law.

While some plants are specifically listed as scheduled or illegal substances,

usually the listed substances are synthetic or isolated alkaloids. For example,
some countries allow buying and selling of San Pedro cactus, but list mescaline as
a scheduled substance. So, you may be able to easily and legally buy and sell the
actual cactus, but it would be illegal to buy or sell or even make and ingest
medicine from the cactus which might have mescaline in it. Chacruna is a
common admixture plant for Ayahuasca brews, and the plant itself is often not
listed, but it does contain DMT which is commonly listed as illegal. This can put
the plant in a sort of grey area legally, where you can probably order or ship the
plant in most cases, but it might get seized if you are unlucky.

Sometimes, these issues can be avoided by traveling. To take the above

examples of San Pedro and Ayahuasca both medicines are illegal in many
countries, but both share a protected status in Peru as National Treasures. So if
either medicine is illegal where you live, you can find some peace of mind if you
can afford to travel and drink the plants in their native environment. These plants

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also share protected status in Brazil, after Brazil launched an in-depth study of the
mental, emotional and physical health of Santo Daime members and found them
to be healthier then the control groups they were compared against (prior to this,
Ayahuasca was illegal in Brazil).

Some countries also offer protection under religious rights acts. In some
countries, this may not be established yet, but could still be granted if the
defendant went to court and demonstrated a sincere spiritual and religious
practice using the medicines as a sacrament. In the USA for example, Santo
Daime and the UDV have both sued for and won rights to import, distribute and
drink their medicine within controlled and documented church ceremonies. No
one has tried to extend this right to individuals yet, but if someone did attempt
this, they could site the precedence of courts ruling in favor of church religious
practices and propose this be extended to sincere individuals as well. Hopefully
the precedent and religious freedom would prevail, but until it is tested, no one
knows.

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 23.Foraging and Gathering

The spirit of mist dwells with them in their receptacle to itself; for its progress
is in splendor, in light and darkness, in winter and summer. Its receptacle is bright,
and an angel is in it. ~ The Book of Enoch

Finding your own medicines locally can not only be a lot of fun, but a great way
to connect with your home and the spirits around you. While dieting a plant and
drinking it every day while you fast is an excellent way to get acquainted with the
plant, there is also something to be said about finding the plant in its natural
environment, learning how to identify it, and being involved in all parts of
processing your medicine.

When gathering plants yourself, you must be certain of their identification.

You can poison yourself if you eat the wrong plant or fungi by mistake. Also,
make sure your foraging does not damage the local population in any way
respect the plants, and harvest sustainably.

When gathering plants for medicine, it is often costmary to speak to the plant
and let it know why you are taking some of it (even if it doesnt talk back). Tell
the plant you are thankful for its blessings in your life, and that you will use the
material you gather to help yourself and others. Let it know that you will respect
its health and life, and only take what you need in a way which wont harm the
plant. If you like, you can leave an offering of liquor, grain (cornmeal, rice,
oatmeal ect) or tobacco for the plants spirit.

If you start working with a plant very often, you may want to give it a gift of
service by spreading its seeds for it. This can be a great action of reciprocity, and
the plants do appreciate it. This also creates a stronger population for you to
gather from in coming years, and allows others to benefit from the plant as well.

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 24.Integrating the Lessons

Paradise is in the plant, but we do not use San Pedro to escape there and turn our
backs on this world. Instead, by absorbing its spirit, we make a Paradise on
Earth. ~ Miguel Silva Guttierres

There are many reasons to work with plant medicines, but a main goal is
usually healing and learning so that you can improve your life, or the lives of those
around you. To really make this practice beneficial for your life and the lives of
others, the lessons learned must become a part of ourselves and of our lives.

More than anything, these plants teach you how to be a good person. They
teach you how to treat yourself well, and how to be respectful and loving towards
others and when you follow these lessons you find greater health and harmony
in your life. Take these lessons to heart.

Sometimes the lessons of the plants are hard to follow: we may be afraid of
change, afraid of failure, or we may want to try and justify our anger, fear or envy
and prove we are right. Usually, you will know the plants advice is really in your
best interest though, because they have the ability to show this to you. You can
see with your own heart the consequences of your own thought patterns and
actions, and know where each path leads. Instead of trying to find another way, I
recommend confronting your fear and listening to the plants otherwise, you are
likely making things harder for yourself in the long run.

Sometimes it may be appropriate to write in a journal during ceremony, and

sometimes it wont be appropriate. It can be helpful to take a few notes after
ceremony if there is anything important you want to remember or do later.
Journals are especially helpful during long retreats or during dietas, where you
may find yourself receiving a large amount of guidance but having to wait till after
the retreat to follow that guidance (for example: it can be hard to have a long
overdue talk with the family if you are finishing a retreat at a center which has no
internet or electricity). If you dont act on the insights received, it is kind of
wasteful and disrespectful to the plants.

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 Sometimes after you have done ceremony, you may feel like one or more
areas you received guidance about could use some clarification. There are
multiple ways to go about this. You can do another plant ceremony, or try
working with a second plant: for example, you could use the grounding straight-
forward personality of San Pedro to help you understand the winding and
sometimes slightly more confusing personality of Ayahuasca. You could use
mapacho or cannabis (if legal) to help you understand any of the plants. You
could write about your experience to see if that helps you understand it better, or
maybe you just need to sleep on it, and it will make sense later. Talking to
someone and describing the experience with words is a great option. You could
also use supportive practices like shamanic journey, meditation, divination.
Sometimes, you may just need to wait for something to make sense.

The plants speak to and through your heart, so when in doubt, go inward and
trust your intuition. The plants are always speaking to us.

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 25.Darkness and Light

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do
all these things. ~ Isaiah 45:7

Have you ever felt that you were both right and wrong, good and bad, blessed
and cursed all at the same time? Do good and evil truly exist? You can decide for
yourself. However, I would like to explore the ideas of light and darkness, heavy
and light energy, and duality.

To me, the world is both dualistic and unified at the same time. We have men
and women which are opposites, yet both are humans, so they are the same. We
have night and day which are opposites, but both are times of day, so they are the
same. We have good and evil, but often, both are relative.

It is easy to point to evil in the world: rape and murder. But rape is sex, and
sex can be a good thing when it is used respectfully. Murder is death but
everything must die, and when we kill for food as an example, it serves a purpose.
To me, evil is misplaced or unbalanced energy force used in the wrong way or at
the wrong time. The same force used in the right way can be a good thing, but
when used wrongly is considered evil. Sex is good for making babies and bringing
couples closer together, but is no good when used for rape (yet both are sex)
this is what I mean by good and evil being relative.

Darkness and light depend on each other to exist. They balance each other.
Light fills the space of darkness, like when a candle is lit and the shadows retreat.
Yet when light leaves, darkness returns to fill the void it leaves. This is both
literal, and a metaphor.

Through my studies, I have found that what is negative energy for one
person might be positive energy for another person. I have also found that
negative energy can often lead to positive things. Because of this, I eventually
decided that these terms were a little bit misleading in some ways, and started
adopting the terms heavy and light to describe negative and positive. One
persons heavy energy might be another persons light energy this being
determined by ones harmony with the energy in question. When we are in
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harmony with sex for example, it is light energy, and when we are out of harmony
with sex, or with the partner engaging in sex with us, then we have heavy energy.
The key then, to letting go of heavy energy is to harmonize yourself with it in
some way: whether that is changing your relationship to it, or even ending your
relationship to it.

When we confront our shadow, it first connects with us as heavy energy

because we are out of harmony with it. Since our shadow is a part of ourselves,
this means we are out of harmony with ourselves. But with plant medicines (or
other healing techniques) we can change our perspective and relationship to the
different aspects of our shadow, transforming that heavy energy into light. We
start to become harmonized with ourselves and the world around us this way.
This is how we heal.

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 26.Being a Good Person

Be careful what you pretend to be because you ARE what you pretend to be. ~
author Kurt Vonnegut

With any spiritual practice, we run into the risk of becoming arrogant,
judgmental, or excessively concerned with the lifestyles of those around us. It is
important to stay humble. It is important to keep a healthy perspective, and to
remember that we are all on different paths, and no one is better or worse than
someone else just because they work with plants or meditate.

To me, the real test of how spiritual a person is isnt whether they meditate
or not, or whether they can talk to spirits: to me, it is all about how well they treat
themselves and other people around them. Being a good person is much more
honorable then being spiritual, but sometimes good people who are on a
spiritual path can become over-proud of their practice, and get their priorities and
perspective backwards.

It is great to share your uplifting experiences with plants with others, but dont
try to ever pressure someone into working with plants. This is something people
should only come to if they feel a calling in their heart. It isnt a bad idea to pray
for someone, that they might find their way to the right medicine for them, but
we should never be so arrogant as to think we know what is best for other
people. Often times, we may not even know what is best for ourselves!

Be the type of person you would want to spend time with. Treat yourself well
you deserve it. Treat others well you just might make the world a little bit
nicer place to live. We are all sharing this planet whether we want to or not
that makes us one big family of brothers and sisters. You may find that you
benefit the most by working towards the higher good of all. When we stop
cutting each other down and trying to be the best, or trying to win, we find that
we have so much to share with each other.

The plants have so much love for us we can destroy the planet, and they still
love us! Even while we destroy the Amazon, Ayahuasca reaches out across the
world to save peoples lives and help them find joy. We need to be like the
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plants. For the sake of ourselves and for the whole planet: we need to be good
people.

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 27.Near Death Experiences and Fright

What if a demon crept after you one day or night in your loneliest solitude and
said to you: This life, as you live it now and have lived it, you will have to live
again and again, times without number, and there will be nothing new in it but
every pain and every joy and thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and
great events in your life must return to you, and everything in the same series and
sequence? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

When working with plants, there is the chance that you may have dying type
experiences, or feel panicked in some way. It is much easier to handle these
experiences if you have some previous knowledge about them.

The first step is to make sure you research and think through everything
beforehand. Know whether or not the plants you are working with are toxic (San
Pedro, Ayahuasca, mushrooms, and salvia are all safe and non-toxic). You should
have made sure you arent on any contraindicated medications, and should also
have a sitter nearby if you dont feel comfortable and experienced with these
plants. If you have a sitter, they should know about any safety concerns or lack of
safety concerns you may need them to remind you the plants you ingested are
safe if you get really scared and confused later (this is very unlikely to happen, but
is possible). You should have also done some soul searching to know deep in your
heart whether or not you want to work with plant medicines. If you do all this
mental prep work, and also make sure you choose a good location and
environment, then you should have nothing to worry about except confronting
your own fears. Since you have been responsible and made sure you are
physically safe, lets focus the rest of this chapter on how to calm down panic in
situations that are scary, but not actually physically dangerous.

When you feel panic arise, remember to take some deep breathes. Remind
yourself about all the researching and soul-searching you did before hand
remind yourself that you thought this process through and not only decided it
was safe, but decided it was something you wanted to do. Remind yourself that
the experience will only last a few hours at the most, and then you will be back to
normal (the only thing that might change is your perspective of yourself and the
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world around you, but you will not be in an altered state any longer). Remember
that you are safe, and that you decided to confront your fears in hopes of finding
healing and insight.

After reminding yourself that you are safe and right where you want to be,
then ask the medicine what it wants to show you, and ask it for courage to help
you confront and move through this fear. It can sometimes help to put on some
uplifting music, sing a song, rattle or drum or play other music, or change your
environment (go for a walk, or go into a different room with a nice atmosphere).
If someone else is close, it might be helpful to talk with them, or have them hold
your hand or rub your back to comfort you (I recommend trying to talk to the
plant first, to see if you can move through it on your own, but there is no shame
in wanting some support). Burn some sage, palo santo, mapacho, or incense
the scent can help raise your spirits, and the smoke will help move out any heavy
energy. Make yourself comfortable, remember you are full of love, and remind
yourself how powerful you can be eventually you will find your way back to
calm.

Sometimes with plant medicines, it is possible for a person to have a near-

death type experience. These experiences can be very intense and scary, but
usually end up being incredibly healing and insightful once they have been
experienced. Many of us have a deep fear of death, and this is one way to
confront that fear. During the experience, you may feel like and even believe that
you are dying this can be very real. This is another reason why it is important to
know plant toxicity levels if you feel like you are dying, you may not want to call
an ambulance if you remember that you are actually safe, and that this is a
visionary experience.

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 28.Other Entheogens

Storytellers clothe the naked body of myth in their own traditions so that listeners
can relate more easily to its deeper meaning. ~ Joan D. Vinge

Here we will very briefly discuss a few of the most popular entheogens and
psychoactive plant medicines. This is just a brief description of each medicine in
case you would like to research them further. This list is in no way definitive, but
may help give you an idea of what medicines are out there, and how they
compare to each other.

San Pedro, Peyote, and other mescaline cactuses:

There are many varieties of cactus with mescaline in them, Peyote and San
Pedro being the most well-known. While Peyote is a small button cactus, many of
these cactuses grow straight and tall more similar to San Pedro. Often times, very
similar cactuses are advertised as San Pedro, because they are so similar. You
may notice a slightly different personality and strength from the different
cactuses, but overall, they have more in common than in contrast, and are all
great to drink.

Compared to some other entheogens, mescaline cactuses can sometimes

be less visual (though not always they can get very visual sometimes). Cactus
medicine is heart medicine it opens you to your feelings and breaks down
emotional barriers, which increases empathy. They are often very heavenly and
positive (not usually dark). Some varieties have been used medicinally for
thousands of years.

Sometimes this cactus can have a more masculine appearance in visions.

The spirit often appears as a cactus, or as an animal of some kind. Many animals
are common, but hummingbirds are especially common. People generally find
insight from cactus medicine to be easy to understand and straightforward. A
cactus ceremony generally lasts 10-15 hours, though you should feel normal the
next day.

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Ayahuasca:

Recently becoming very popular, this is an ancient plant medicine which

originates from the Amazon jungle. The plant is a vine, but often times the vine is
cooked with admixture plants most likely containing DMT to make a brew which
shares its name with the vine. This medicine especially is known for the deep and
powerful purge it can produce, as well as its vivid and colorful visions. Where San
Pedro lets you see our world with the eyes of divinity, Ayahuasca lets your spirit
leave the body to visit other worlds. Sometimes her messages are clear, but she
is known to be very very mysterious in nature, as well as having a very passionate
and wild jungle side to her personality.

Ayahuasca often appears to westerners as very feminine, but in the

Amazon, appearance seems to differ from tribe to tribe whether she is male or
female. She often appears as a beautiful green women, as one or two snakes (the
rainbow boa and the anaconda), or as a jaguar. She can appear in many other
forms as well, but these seem to be the most common.

Ayahuasca has received a lot of press recently for supposed miraculous

healings attributed to its use in ceremony. Ceremonies often last 4-5 hours,
unless participants drink a second cup part way through, in which case they may
last 6-10 hours.

Changa

This smoking blend is a combination of Banisteriopsis Caapi (Ayahuasca)

leaves and a natural extract of DMT basically a smoked version of Ayahuasca
(though the effects of smoking are completely different from the effects of
drinking). The DMT in this blend can come from any source, though each source
would add its own personality. You can use traditional Ayahuasca admixtures like
chacruna or chaliponga, or you could use the more common plant admixture used
for changa: acacia tree. Usually this smoking blend is made by taking caapi leaves
and infusing them with an extracted form of DMT.

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 The effects are more similar to smoking DMT then to drinking Ayahuasca,
but have a little of both worlds. Compared to smoked DMT, changa is mellower
and sometimes longer acting (not always), with a little more of a nurturing and
natural plant feel to it. While DMT can be an intense out of body experience,
many people find changa to be gentler and more insightful.

This is a recently new medicine, invented only a few decades ago in

Australia to make up for hard to get MAOI containing plants like Caapi vine. It has
no known traditional usage.

Psilocybin Mushrooms

While not technically a plant, this fungus deserves mention here because of
its similarity to the plant medicines, and because as a fungus, it is a natural
medicine closely tied to and related to the plants. The psilocybin molecule is very
similar in structure to DMT, and there are some similarities, though they are very
different in some ways too.

This medicine is very visual, and can sometimes be disorienting. It also has
a long history of recorded spiritual and medicinal use, including the Mazatec
culture which introduced it to the modern Western world. There are many
species of mushroom which contain psilocybin, and while they are mostly similar,
they have slightly different personalities (as in more or less visual, easier or harder
to understand, more/less potent ect). For some people, this medicine is less
intimidating then some of the other plants. When the medicine appears, it often
has the form of small mushroom people, or little elves, which is why it is often
called the little children or los ninos.

Recently these mushrooms have received positive press from the medical
community regarding its use to help heal PTSD, depression, and addiction.
Psilocybin has also been found to restructure the brain and even grow new brain
cells in adults.

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Amanita Muscaria

This is another fungus medicine which grows all throughout the northern
hemisphere. It grows into very large mushrooms which usually have a yellow or
bright red cap and white spots on the cap, with a white stem. This mushroom has
a very long history of use across Asia, Europe and North America not only as an
entheogen, but also as a health tonic for working outdoors in cold weather (as
this mushroom brings good heat to your body).

Some people have a hard time working with this mushroom because it can
cause nausea, and may not give the sought after visionary effects unless it is
cured properly. It may also be toxic in larger amounts, although there is some
confusion around this issue due to poor classification methods in which any
psychoactive mushroom or mushroom causing nausea automatically being
categorized as toxic.

Some people have claimed that this fungus was the main ingredient in the
Soma of the Vedic mysteries, and it has a long association with Viking berserkers,
Siberian shaman, and the Gnostic mystery cults. In some of these traditions it has
been noted that if someone eats the fungus and lets a second person drink their
pee, that the second person will also benefit from the effects of this mushroom,
and in fact, the body processes it making the medicine stronger for the second
drinker. It is rumored that the medicine can be passed along this way almost
indefinitely, so that one mushroom could provide medicine for an entire village.

It also has a long history of use where it is either heated or fermented to

remove the psychoactive properties so that it can be used as food. It has a highly
sought after taste, and is known to provide good energy and body heat for
working in cold weather where it grows.

This mushroom is especially effective at teaching about death

metaphorical death as well as literal death. It often appears as a Latin American
style dancing skeleton.

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Salvia Divinorum (The Diviners Sage)

This plant is one of the most mysterious plants out there. Although related
to plants like mint and sage, it is found nowhere in nature, and botanists are
unable to tell which plants could have been crossed to create it its origin is a
mystery. Until recently, it was only found in secret Mazatec gardens, but more
recently a number of people have started growing the plant around their homes
or in their own gardens.

The popular modern method of ingestion is to extract the active ingredient

Salvinorum A, and then add a concentrate to leaves then to smoke this
concentrate. This is in no way traditional, and people seem to have mixed
experiences sometimes insightful, and sometimes horrific. The Mazatec Indians
considered it a taboo to smoke Salvia, and claimed it offended her, so this may be
why smokers have mixed experiences with the extract.

The traditional way to work with Salvia is to either chew the leaves (called
quidding), or to make a water or alcohol extraction which is then drunk.
Supposedly it should be impossible to make a water extraction because
Salvinorum A is not water soluble, but I can say from experience that water
extraction works great. Alcohol extraction may be the most effective way to
ingest the plant, though some purists may claim otherwise.

When smoked, the effects are extremely intense, start almost immediately,
and last for only about 5-10 minutes. Even with the short duration, people have
experienced entire lifetimes, or even many lifetimes within the 10 minute period.
Salvia seems to work outside of regular time and space, and the living through of
entire lives seems to be a common feature. When ingested orally, the effects are
usually softer and more gradual, and last 60-90 minutes.

Salvia can cause a wide range of experiences. Some people may just see
interesting colors and geometries, or they may live out entire lives as another
person. They may have a very mild experience where they just see Salvia and talk
with her for a while, or they may have waking dreams which teach them
metaphorically about their life. Some people see the past or the future, or step

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completely out of time itself. Others become objects: like wallpaper, a zipper, a
rope or piece of clothing, a brick in a wall and they can live entire lifetimes as
that object, forgetting until the experience is over that they ever used to be a
human. These experiences are sometimes very scary, but always have a hidden
meaning related to your life.

Sometimes Salvia can be very metaphorical and symbolic in her

communication, and other times she can be very straight forward and easy to talk
with. She will only teach you about the subject you ask her, so always make sure
you have an intention when working with this plant. She often appears as a
paradox of dualities: a living skeleton, a virgin whore, a happy yet scary ghost.
She is sometimes called the Shepherdess or Ska Maria, and is often associated
with the Virgin Mary.

While most entheogens and even psychedelics work on many different

receptor sites in the brain, Salvia is possibly the only known psychedelic to work
on only one receptor (no other chemical has been found to interact with this
receptor in any way it only exists in your brain to connect with Salvia). This only
adds to her mystery.

Salvia can be used for healing, but is especially great for aiding divination.
She can provide lucid dreams, and lowers anxiety and depression (even in small
micro-doses). She is also the best teacher around for anyone who wants to learn
meditation.

Tabernanthe Iboga

The Iboga tree is the central pillar of the Bwiti spiritual practice in West-
Central Africa, mainly Gabon, Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo, which
uses the alkaloid-containing roots of the plant in a number of ceremonies. It is
taken in massive doses by initiates of this spiritual practice, and on a more regular
basis it is eaten in smaller doses in connection with rituals and tribal dances,
which are usually performed at night time. In lower doses Iboga has a stimulant
effect and is used to maintain alertness while hunting.
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 Recently this plant has been found to be an excellent cure for depression
and addictive behavior especially substance abuse. Many times, addiction
treatment is done with the extracted alkaloid ibogaine, and this treatment is
especially popular for opiate addictions, as the plant can end cravings as well as
stop withdrawal symptoms. Normally, getting free from opiates can take months
of painful withdrawals to fight through, but with Iboga or ibogaine the process is
much quicker and less painful. Patients also report experiencing visions such as
replays of life events that led to their addiction, or therapeutic visions that help
them conquer the fears and negative emotions that might drive their addiction.

Ceremonies with Iboga are known to be extremely intense and draining.

The often last 24 hours, or even longer, with some euphoria lasting days. This
medicine has earned the nickname of the stern father because of its lecturing
and strict attitude. This plant takes no nonsense when helping you correct and
balance your life. This plant is also toxic and can result in death in rare cases, so it
is extremely valuable to attend ceremony with experienced medicine people.

Datura and Brugmansia

These two closely related plants are considered some of the most powerful
as well as most dangerous plant medicines around. Working with this plant
should only be done slowly and gradually with a lot of research and care, or better
yet under the supervision of an experienced curandero. Both plants share the
more common names angel trumpets (brugmansia flowers point down from
heaven) and devils trumpets (datura flowers point upwards) because of their
similar flowers, which are extremely beautiful and mesmerizing.

Datura is a bush which has flowers opening upwards, and has also been
called jimson weed (Jamestown weed), devils weed, witches broom, and many
other names. It grows all over the northern hemisphere, and besides a long
history of use by indigenous cultures, this medicine (or sometimes the similar
Belladonna) was also used in European witches flying ointments. Brugmansia is
a tree with flowers opening downwards, and it grows in South America where it is

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known by the name tohe. Sometimes tohe is worked with alone, or it is often
added to Ayahuasca brews to increase the potency. Sometimes it is even drunk
with San Pedro in a drink called Cimora.

This plant is sometimes known as a plant to only turn to in great

desperation or need because it has the most powerful hallucinations, and can
cause delusional behavior if it is not worked with properly. Unlike other plant
medicines, with datura or tohe, you have hallucinations which you believe to be
real, and you may interact with them as if they were real, which could scare the
people around you! This is known as one of the toughest plants to diet she is
known to harm or even kill apprentices who dont complete the diet correctly.
Belonging to the nightshade family, this plant is toxic, and has been known to
cause deaths especially when brewed improperly with Ayahuasca by a fake
shaman.

With all the associated dangers, you might wonder why someone would
work with this plant. Well, it has a reputation for being exceedingly strong and
powerful. It teaches visionary flight and astral projection, and is powerful for
divination. It is a popular plant among brujos because of its power, and
association with magical attacks and soul flight.

While ingesting the plant can be dangerous, there are safer ways to work
with this plant if you feel called to it. Growing a plant in your garden or
near/inside your house will allow it to start working with you subtly. Smelling the
flowers, or drinking a small amount of wine out of the flower introduces you to its
essence. The most popular way is to put a flower or three leaves of the plant
under your pillow for 3 nights. During this time, the plant will speak to you in
your dreams. If you are lucky, it will show you secrets from your past and future
within these dreams. These are the safest ways to work with plant. You can also
smoke the flowers for a light but noticeable effect, however, this should only be
done sparingly, as too much can sometimes bother the eyes.

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Jurema

Jurema is the name of a specific Acacia species found in Central and South
America known as Mimosa Hostilis. Sometimes people use this tree to make DMT
or as an untraditional admixture for Ayahuasca, but in Central and South America
it is traditionally drunk by itself for medicinal and visionary purposes.

In traditional use Mimosa Hostilis, or Jurema is not used with any MAOI
plant at all (not Caapi or Syrian Rue). It is drunk alone, around 15-30g of mimosa,
mixed with lots of honey to taste. It is not cooked, but cold soaked in water
acidified by lemon or lime. Because of the blood-red color, it is called Jurema
Wine, although there is no wine in the drink. It is a ceremonial drink especially at
weddings.

Because Jurema is active without an MAOI, one must be exceptionally

careful not to overdo the mimosa if you are attempting a non-traditional brew
containing Caapi. If you do this, remember to start very low, as low as 1g with
your Caapi to ensure you don't take too much and get much more than you asked
for or are prepared for. Mimosa with MAOI is very strong medicine and can really
bite hard.

To make this brew traditionally (without any added MAOI), use 25-30g of
bark per person. Grind to a powder with a coffee grinder and place in a glass jar
with a lid. Add 125ml of cold water with a squeeze of lime or lemon. Stir gently
and let sit for 1 hour. Filter out the juice and add another 125ml of water to the
powder, stir gently, let sit for an hour, filter, and then combine the 2 infusions and
2 tablespoons of honey (for flavor). Do not reduce this beverage.

Baby Woodrose and Morning Glories

These two plants share the same active ingredient: LSA. LSA can be used as
a precursor for making LSD, and the effects of these plants can be similar in some
ways to LSD (LSD can also be made from ergot fungus). We will not talk about

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extractions here though, instead I would like to focus on the whole plant
medicine.

While the effects of these two plants are fairly similar, there are some
differences. Most notable is that Hawaiian Baby Woodrose (or HBWR) dose size is
about 8-10 seeds, whereas morning glory dose size is usually around 200-300+
seeds (the seeds are very tiny). HBWR is said to be less visual and more stoning or
sedating. Some people also like the smaller dose size, though many claim that
nausea is similar for both plants. Morning Glory is said to be a little more
energetic and visual. Morning Glories can be especially cheap and easy to buy,
and in many places grow in peoples yards they are a popular ornamental plant.
This might be the cheapest choice for growing your own medicine at home, as
seeds are often sold by the hundreds for as cheap as a dollar.

Bufotenin (Bufo Alvarius toad venom)

This is not a plant medicine, but I thought it was worth mentioning to add
variety, and because it is so similar to many plant medicines. The toad commonly
known as the Colorado River toad secretes a toxic venom from special glands on
its body. This poison is strong enough to kill in large quantities, though most
people would be fine if they only contacted a small amount. Some people will
specifically harvest the venom though, and after letting it dry, scrape the rest of
what remains and use it as medicine (it is no longer toxic at this point). The end
product is usually smoked, and it contains 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin highly
potent tryptamines similar to DMT in their effect.

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 29.Plants for Dieta

The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the
physician must start from nature, with an open mind. ~ Paracelsus

There are so many plants you can potentially diet, there is no way that I could
even list half of them. Here I am only going to list a few that are more popular or
unique in some ways, to give you examples of what you might expect, or to
maybe perk your interest in one or two plants. Some of the plants are traditional
Amazonian teacher plants, and some of them are North American and European
plants which may interest readers who want to localize their practices to the
plants around them. Besides dieting non-psychoactive plants, any of the plants
listed under the entheogen chapter can also be dieted if you wish.

I havent dieted every plant on this list, and some of the plants I have dieted
are not on the list. I designed this list specifically with the reader in mind, and
which plants seem to be most common for people to work with.

Ajo Sacha:

This plant smells and tastes a lot like garlic, and is most often associated with
cleaning and purifying energies. Relieves pain, reduces inflammation, fever, kills
bacteria. It can be ingested or used in baths. It is also great for depressive states,
it repairs the energy in all the body, and offers spiritual protection. This is
supposed to be one of the easiest plants to diet, and is a common plant for new
students to start with.

Jergon Sacha:

Adept at healing HIV/AIDS, cancerous tumors, gastrointestinal problems,

hernias (as a decoction applied topically), hand tremors, heart palpitations, and at
enhance immune function. This plant also cures snake bites from the deadly
Jergon snake, which has scale patterns which match the bark patterns of the
plant. This plant is not only a good representation of the idea of plant
signatures where plants look like the problem they cure, but is also a good
example of pharmaceuticals gone wrong: HIV/AIDS medications are made from

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Jergon Sacha, but are not nearly as effective in treating the disease. When this
plant is combined with Una de Gato (cats claw), it has been known to cure
HIV/AIDS and destroy tumors. Shamanically, this plant is sometimes also used to
remove spiritual poisons and invasive energies.

Bobinzana:

Uses include relieving rheumatism, arthritis, post partum issues, fluid

retention, cold, uterine disorders, and edema. It is said to root the person more
closely to the natural realm, creating a good base to spiritual development,
affording spiritual strength. The spirit of this plant arises from the water and it
presents itself like a mermaid. This is a popular plant for many people to diet,
sometimes near the start of an apprenticeship.

Mucura:

Physically, the plant is restorative and anti-rheumatic. Spiritually, it reduces

fear and bad luck, and is sometimes used for extraction work and removing
witchcraft, or for blessing someones business or other creative projects. This
plant is somewhat similar to Ajo Sacha in its healing properties, as well as garlic
like smell and taste. This plant is toxic to cancerous cells, and is known to kill and
prevent tumors, as well as strengthening regular immune system response.

Oje:

This plants specialty is removing parasites. Many preparation methods exist.

The latex is often fermented with sugar cane, orange juice or aguardiente, and
then taken orally. Spiritual properties include profound cleansing of the lower
charkas. I have sometimes seen this plant used as a pre-dieta or pre-Ayahuasca
purgative, and have seen it assigned to people for dieta in cases of addiction
(especially substance abuse).

Cats Claw (Una de Gato):

Helps the kidneys, the liver, immune system, it is a diuretic for cancer and
AIDS, and aids heart disease. Taken in form of capsules, tea and extractions. This

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plant is especially powerful as a medicine when combined with Jergon Sacha for
treating cancer, tumors or HIV/AIDS.

Chiric Sanango:

Helps heal arthritis rheumatism, stimulates lymphatic system, helps venereal

disease, colds, and snake bites. Aids connection with inner self, makes us
sensitive when we take it, aids reflection, and repairs the energy of the body. The
word Chiric, in Quechua, means itchy or tickling which refers to the sensation
of the brew being swallowed. It is drank to enable the dieter to open up on all
levels to experience inner love. It has been said to help heal a broken heart or
cool down an enraged heart filled with anger and jealousy. Also helps to open up
the sacral chakra and build a higher sense of Self or self-esteem. It has a great
effect on the mind and emotions giving a greater sense of clarity and provides
emotional healing. The dieter can experience dizziness, disorientation, extreme
chills, weakness or fatigue, and deep emotional feelings while the root integrates
and cleanses within the body to release toxins and negative energies.

Chuchuuasi, Chuchuwasha:

Relieves pains, relieves inflammation, arthritis, rheumatism, arthrosis, and

reconstitutes the body. Also increases libido, and because of this is often sold as
an aphrodisiac. This is a spiritual master plant. It balances our masculine and
feminine energies, it gives strength and reflection and awareness.

Mapacho/Tobacco (Nicotiana Rustica):

This species of tobacco has up to nine times the concentration of nicotine

found in North American varieties, as well as somewhat high levels of MAOI beta-
carbolines like Harman and norharmine, which can sometimes give the plant
visionary effects. This tobacco is sometimes smoked, chewed, snuffed, or drank.
The plants spirit is often seen as a black puff of smoke, or sometimes as a
beautiful women dressed in white, or as a part plant part human being. She can
sometimes come across as motherly and loving, but she also demands absolute
adherence to her diet, and the consequences of breaking the diet can be severe.
This is often considered an advanced plant to diet.
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 Tobacco is sometimes used to cure pulmonary disease (lung disease),
breathing problems, and cancer, or to remove spirit intrusions by suffocating the
intrusions with smoke. She also watches over many other spirit allies who she
can introduce you to, some of which have their own healing specialties. This
plants specialty includes all things that have to do with magic and healing.

Rose (white or red):

This spirit often appears as a women who tends the souls of the heart-broken,
or helps those frozen by fear and grief. This is especially a good ally for soul
retrieval type healing. Helpful for treating stress, depression, colds, digestive
ailments, nausea, insomnia, PMS or menopausal symptoms, reduced libido and
eating disorders. Also promotes feelings of wellbeing and purifies the body and
space. Soothes the nervous system.

Poppy:

This plant is mostly known for containing opium, but it is also a helpful plant
ally. Some varieties like Red Poppy have less opium. Aids in healing ancestral
wounds, and this may be its most helpful function as a spirit ally. Helps
respiratory problems, anxiety, and also acts as a sedative.

Cacao (yes, chocolate!):

This spirit sometimes appears as a man with many faces. This is heart
medicine, and gives a strong sense of sorrow melting away. Brings qualities of
optimism, psychic abilities and alertness. This can be a very fun plant to diet, as
each day you get to drink a powerful ceremonial dose of cacao!

Lime:

This is the common lime you probably eat all the time. The sharpness of this
fruit is good for cutting through magic, negativity and the chatter of the rational
mind. It also allows easier lucid dreaming. Very helpful in aiding work with other
plants, and also helpful for treating digestive disorders, improving immune
function, even helps tonsillitis and some eye problems.

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 Stinging Nettle:

This is a very easy and powerful ally that I recommend for anyone trying to
diet local plants. This plant grows all over the place, is easy to identify and gather,
is very healthy as a food source, and has tons of medicinal properties. You can
work with the leaves and the roots of the plants in my experience, they both
have a slightly different personality, and give slightly different perspectives.

Besides teaching you about healing the many ailments nettle is normally used
for, nettle can also teach you about spirit extraction work, comforting yourself
and others, and the roots especially are good for digging deep into old wounds
or traumas you want to heal. You can eat the plant alone or in your food, make
tea, juice it, make topical solutions, or use the sting as a form of medicine.

Oak:

Many cultures revere the oak tree: the druids and Celts, the Norse traditions,
and the ancient Hebrews as well as many more cultures. When Abraham the
patriarch first saw God, it was inside of an oak tree, which he then spent the rest
of his life planting wherever he went.

Oak tree can teach you a lot about grounding and growing. This is a powerful
hardwood plant teacher with a lot to teach. Good advice for this plant is to not
rush a long relationship will be greatly rewarded.

Acacia:

This can be a very interesting plant to diet, as the ancient Egyptians revered it
as the tree of life and the ancient Hebrews even revered it enough to make the
Ark of the Covenant out of Acacia. This is also the burning bush which Moses saw
when he first spoke to God. Many species of this tree are also high in DMT, and
this plant has been used throughout central and South America as its own
entheogen.

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 White Sage:

Since this plant is often used in ceremony, it makes sense to diet it and learn
more about it, as well as bond with its spirit. This plant is especially associated
with cleaning and protecting sacred space, as well as aiding colds, sinus infections,
and mouth infections.

Other local plants that I have heard people have good results dieting include:
Osha, maple, cedar, sycamore, willow, Tulsi basil, lavender, mint, mullein,
hawthorn, redwoods, and just about any plant that speaks to you and calls you.
Think about plants with ceremonial or mythological associations, or plants with
many medicinal qualities, or just plants you feel connected to for whatever
reason. Check toxicity, and diet responsibly, and show gratitude to the plants.

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 30.Final Thoughts

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have
only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.
~ Francis Bacon, SR.

Do you have the desire to meet God? This may seem like a grand ambition,
but really it is not. At some point, everyone must and will make this journey
even if it takes a lifetime and their first step is from their deathbed. We all must
make our peace with God, and the only sadness is when it is not done earlier so
the lives we are blessed with could be different. This meeting with God is a
meeting all shamans and mystics must make, for we cannot heal and grow
properly without knowing our place in Gods plan. When you know this plan, you
can move back to balance and destiny can unfold.

There are some San Pedro shamans who believe Saint Peter hid the keys to
paradise after being appalled at the colonial behavior of the Spanish when they
arrived in South America, so that only those people who renounced violence and
lust for gold would ever find them and truly know God. Saint Peters somewhat
ironic hiding place was the cactus itself a pagan sacrament which existed long
before the arriving Catholics and Conquistadors. Likewise, Gnostic Christians who
found God in the Amanita Muscaria mushroom likened it to the red fruit the
Serpent gave to Eve the fruit which bestowed wisdom and knowledge of good
and evil (Gnostics believe the serpent to be an agent of the true God).

Traditions all over the world are filled with examples of plants imparting
wisdom to anyone open minded enough and brave enough to hear their message.
Abraham the patriarch first met God in a giant oak tree, and Moses first saw God
as a burning Acacia tree (which just happens to contain DMT by the way!). Druids
and Vikings revered oak trees and mistletoe among other plants. The ancient
Egyptians had a deep respect and devotion for acacia and blue water lily. The
Buddha found enlightenment under a bodhi tree, and eastern religions are filled
with references of lotus flowers and other sacred plants. Ancient Greeks
performed ancient mystery rites with some form of ergot beverage (similar to
LSD). Indigenous people all around the world are known to work with many plant
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spirits and entheogens. There is a reason so many cultures and peoples have
turned to plants for guidance in every part of the world and in every age: these
plants are great medicine, teachers and miracle workers.

If you have forgotten who you are, and what you live for the plants are
perhaps the most effective way of finding yourself again. If you have lost your
primal connection to nature, and feel disconnected from Spirit or God in any way
the plants may be the best way for reuniting yourself to the world around you.
The plants show you your own divinity within yourself, the divinity in the world all
around you, and they let you see life and the universe with the eyes of God. This
new perception is fundamentally real, awe inspiring, and life changing.

There are many reasons and many ways to work with plants, but the main key
for success is to trust your heart. Learn to listen to your heart again, learn to hear
the whispers of the trees and plants, and remember the feel of Gods love
embracing you in each moment.

I hope this guide will serve as an aid for anyone searching for greater health or
joy in their life, or especially anyone in search of their own heart and soul. Be
respectful to the plants, and they will return your respect with love. Whenever
you lose your way in life remember, there is always the plants to turn to for aid.

The universe has everything you need in it. You have all the abilities to create a
happy life using what the universe provides.

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 Thus it is said:

The path into light seems dark,

The path forward seems to go back,

The direct path seems long,

True power seems week,

True purity seems tarnished,

True steadfastness seems changeable,

True clarity seems obscure,

The greatest art seems unsophisticated,

The greatest love seems indifferent,

The greatest wisdom seems childish.

The Tao is nowhere to be found.

Yet it nourishes and completes all things.

~ Tao Te Ching 41

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Recommended for further reading on Plant Spirit Medicines, or Amazonian and
Andean curanderismo:

Ross Heavens books are excellent. In particular, I liked "Drinking the Four Winds,"
"Hummingbirds Journey to God," and "Shamanic Quest for the Spirit of Salvia."
His books often detail personal aspects of the authors own practice, and this
practice shares many similarities to my own.

"Jaguar that Roams the Mind" by Tindall - this book is an excellent look at
Ayahuasca shamanism and religion, and is incredible relatable and fun to read.

"Wizard of the Upper Amazon" gives a unique look at the real life story of one
man who was kidnapped by a tribe in the Amazon, and then taught to be their
shaman and chief.

"The Shaman and Ayahuasca" by Don Jose Campos teaches about Ayahuasca
shamanism from the perspective of a well-known Amazonian shaman.

"Singing to the Plants" is another great resource for learning about Ayahuasca
shamanism. Has a great index in the back, and lots of good citations!

"The Secret of the Incas" by William Sullivan is a great academic read focused on a
theory that myth uses specific language to refer to astrology, and serves as a
record keeper for oral traditions using the stars and sky as a time piece. While
focused on the Inca, this book also references cultures from all over the world,
and is suggestive of a deeper meaning to myth and astrology between all the
worlds religions and cultures.

Graham Hancock's "Supernatural" is a more academic look at commonalities

between shamanic visions, and other cultural phenomena that you may have
never knew was related. This book looks at many of the cross-cultural motifs of
shamanism and initiation, as well as archeological evidence and history of humans
and shamanism.

Ross Heaven's book "Medicine for the Soul" is my favorite "how-to" book for
core-shamanism and the drumming method. Lots of good exercises to help you
master the drumming technique for divination and healing.
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About the Author

Travis Bodick is the author of four books, with the most recent work being the Plant Remedy.
All of Travis's books are written to help the reader engage with and encounter their own truth
through direct experience. Travis especially focuses on nature based spiritual healing practices
and helping clients encounter and know their own heart and soul. Helping others to find and
embrace their true passion in life is Travis's greatest joy.

A musician and a writer, Travis has recently finished his fourth book, and enjoys working his
diverse talents to mix healing and ritual with music.

You can find Travis and his other books at SoulRemedy.org

Creating the Universe is Travis's first title and focuses heavily on guiding the reader through the
process of creating their own personal spiritual practice which can be as unique as each
individual reader. It focuses on different styles of ritual and ceremony, and looks at the
underlying mechanics of how magic and energy work.

Experience. Create. LOVE. is the next book, and this takes everything from Creating the
Universe a step further - especially focusing on practice over philosophy. The book follows the
arrangement of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, and by following the exercises in the book, the
reader experiences and travels the entire Tree of Life starting at the Kingdom, and ending with
the Crown. This book is a perfect example of the type of practice which can be created using
methods and philosophy from Creating the Universe.

The Shadow Twin takes the reader down a new road and into the realm of fiction. This book is
based on a dream Travis had in Peru after San Pedro ceremony at the Temple of the Moon, and
is a direct communication from the cactus spirit. The story follows the adventures of a young
boy encountering spirits and ghosts and his own conscience as he finds his own spirit guide -
the Shadow Twin!

The Plant Remedy is Travis's newest work, and the closest example to the authors current
spiritual practice. This book details everything the reader needs to know to work with plant
medicines safely and to contact the spirits of plants for guidance and healing. The methods in
this book are a combination of traditional South American curanderismo and the authors own
methods learned through trial and error, or straight from the spirits themselves. This book is a
must have for anyone interested in plant spirits and plant medicines!

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