He claimed to be among the two first modern Western men to follow a traditional Velada ritual on psilocybin. I will share my lifelong experience with using Sacred Mushrooms for healing, divination, character development with you. But, it's a work in progress, like everything, like life. The LIttle Saints have a depth to them that opens up awareness of the divine. She was the first healer to accept foreigners in the mushrooms ceremony. I had very little fear entering into it. On the contrary, I am wholly deserving of love, but I no longer need look to external sources to find that love. to save him. lying down, listening to music in muted light to sitting up in a somewhat loosely articulated meditative posture (siddhaasan) in as close to absolute darkness and silence as possible. In your inquiry please answer these questions. The Virgin of Guadalupe is a totally indigenous representation of the World Soul. auspices of a Yaqui Indian shaman he called Don Juan Matus is This strain is gentle, easy on the body, and was relatively modest in the visual department. [citation needed]. During the velada, chants and prayers are intoned. The act of focusing on images that carry the energy of the sacred makes a very big difference in how the experience opens up. https://mycotopia.net/totional-velada-ceremony/, https://mycotopia.net/to5547-cocoa-experiment-1/, https://psychedelicsalonancer-called-chocolate/, https://psychedelicsalon4-the-alchemy-of-cacao/, Salvinorin Chilled Acetone with IPA and Naphtha re-X TEK. Johnson and Weitlaner are the First Modern White People to Witness to Mushroom Healing Ceremony. She thanked Hofmann for the bottle of pills, saying that she would now be able to serve people even when no mushrooms were available. The velada is seen as a purification and a communion with the sacred. I for one am completely dedicated to this project, even if it means I have to be publicly humiliated, tortured, or even killed. When I'm not this or that, and having this or that to maintain, isn't it clear in each moment, without any internal debate, what is my current assignment? Once the story was told in Life Magazine, it quickly escaped the borders of Mexico and became part of the great debate on who we are and where we came from. This is a necessary training of attention which enables one to learn the art of directing the experience and working with what the mushroom presents to the undistracted mind. I am not always terribly successful at maintaining a meditative mindset and posture when I am 100% sober, so you can imagine how it goes while under the influence of psilocybe fungus. Their ceremony is very simple but is famous for being extremely effective. Setting Your Intentions and Surrendering to the Process. My mode of attachment to women reflected my relationship with my elder sister and mother. leftPos=0; She wasnt the first to harness their medicinal power or, in the word of the casual western psilocybin enthusiast, their magic. But she was the first to share their secrets with the west. the Mushroom are the most sacred and powerful medicine, if used with intention its possibilities are endless. Wasson also references the mushroom's development in primitive myth and the worship of the mushroom as a deity (mycolatry). Freeing ourselves from our addictions, breaking the bonds of history, this is the task of our generation, whether we like it or not. [7], In 1958, the French mycologist Roger Heim brought psilocybin tablets to Mara Sabina and the first velada using the active principle of the mushrooms rather than the raw mushrooms themselves took place. The spirits, if effectively contacted, would tell Sabina the nature of the sickness and the way it could . The rituals involved the use of psilocybin (magic mushrooms) or Salvia divinorum[1] to commune with God and experience enlightenment. Wasson's book offers a fascinating account of mushroom use among the primitive peoples of Mesoamerica. I am the shepherdess who is beneath the water, says [citation needed] Academics note that before Wasson's account, there was "little to no evidence" of the medicinal properties of the psilocybin mushrooms in western scientific literature, thus confirming the pivotal role that Sabina and the Mazatec community had in all Western uses of the mushrooms. Los Hongos Alucinantes (in Spanish) by Fernando Benitez dispels many rumors about her life. Vomiting by the afflicted was considered an essential part of the ceremony. Gordon Wasson, then a vice president at J.P. Morgan, had been learning about the use of mushrooms in different cultures, and tracked down a Mazatec healer, or curandera, named Mara Sabina. She is the reason we have psilocybin research right now, says Katherine MacLean, a former research scientist who spent close to half a decade working with psilocybin. The spirits, if effectively contacted, would tell Sabina the nature of the sickness and the . Read on the benefits of these medicines. What an experience the velada was. [3] Her healing sacred mushroom ceremonies, called veladas, were based on the use of psilocybin mushrooms, particularly Psilocybe caerulescens, a sacred mushroom important to the Mazatecs. My sister was very cruel to me, taking every possible opportunity to humiliate and deceive me, which made me very suspicious of women who expressed criticism and negative emotions toward me. i keep you in high vibrations, I guide you. When I go about my day, I know that I'm on the right path if I'm obeying the directives of synchronicities or the call of my own curiosity, or if I'm using my skills in service to others. We present the set and setting of the velada, the Mazatec ritual of divination and healing. He recalled that back in the 1980's/1990's Terence McKenna would wax eloquent about the "5-dried-gram" experience, though he stopped taking it in 1988 after the mushroom started to get real with him. Recorded July 21-22, 1956, by R. Gordon Wasson in Huautla de Jimnez, Oaxaca (Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico, Folkways Records, FR 8975). Is this not true? As the community was besieged by Westerners wanting to experience the mushroom-induced hallucinations, Sabina attracted attention from the Mexican police who believed her to be a drug dealer. The shepherd of psychedelic mushroom research was a woman. trusts the curandero's magickal container and pathway of their altar, 3.) 3) are you taking prescription medication? using hallucinogenic mushrooms in Indigenous healing ceremonies or veladas (Letcher 2008: 78-80). It is sung in a shamanic trance in which, as she recounted, the "saint children" speak through her: Because I can swim in the immense Huautla de Jimenez, in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, passed away in 1985 For sure, Mazatec veladas have a heavy Christian influence inherited through the Spanish invasionhowever this likely applies to all indigenous Mexican Psilocybe using groups now to some degree, in other words it is very unlikely indeed that there are any extant groups anywhere practicing mushroom sessions in a purely pre-Columbian style (with that in mind, no one will have anything remotely approaching detailed knowledge of pre-Columbian mushroom ceremonies, we being pretty much totally reliant on Spanish accounts of the latter). That is correct, the pioneers always suffer the arrows. "Hallucinogens and Shamanism" (. her husband, Jean Bassett Johnson, together with two others, This is the way of the Logos, the way of our Western civilization, to honestly face the suffering in life, meet it in full consciousness and thus transform ourselves in relating with it, awakening our divine qualities of compassion and loving-kindness. [27], Mexican poet and novelist Homero Aridjis has written a novel, Carne de Dios, about Mara Sabina, her life in Huautla and her experience with Westerners who flocked to her home to experience the hallucinogenic effects of the mushrooms. Having done this kind of work now for over 40 years, the Little Saints now fully enter me and lead me to pray and sing in a way that betokens their full presence. i keep you safe from negative energy and entities. When we stop running, the Divine reveals itself. Psychedelics have officially re-entered mainstream consciousness, through clinical research trials at major universities, corporate-sponsored pharmaceutical drug development, and decriminalization efforts in major America cities. More to come People tend not to spontaneously pray when they are celebrating and happy, but only when they encounter suffering. She lived to age 91, I was the family scapegoat, the trash-can for their unconscious projections. There is a spirit in the mushroom, The Little Saints (los Santos Nios) which has much to say. Mazatec mushroom velada. You will be glad you did. He brings everything for the ceremony and stayed with me the whole time and guided me as needed which felt really good and safe. teo-nanacatl [mushrooms] told me: that I should go and look for Mara Sabina, 1894-1985. passing away on November 22, 1985. Angelo is a very gifted and warm guide. After this one I had a searing headache for most of the following day, despite keeping well hydrated. "Pure" psychonauts will probably be the most intrigued by this subject, as they are . This Mexico-related article is a stub. Thank you for your patience Angelo. This ceremony is suffused with the Catholicism of the Spanish invasion. by becoming the first KNOWN white men documented or publicized to I don't have detailed knowledge of pre-Cortsian South-American mushroom ceremonies, but I wouldn't be surprised to find them substantially different from these modern ones, if for no other reason than the clash of religious values, characters, perspectives, and the like. I drove to him and had the ceremony in a nice little cozy shed, decorated and furnished with spiritual items, which made me feel very safe and at ease. Join Katherine as she explores the wild and magical terrain of death, psychedelics and healing, from the clinic at Johns Hopkins to her sister's hospital room and beyond. In addition to profiles on individual . [26], Bolivian singer Luzmila Carpio has recorded a song in honor of Mara Sabina. Enough about me, lets get to the good stuff. And on the first leg of my trip, somewhere between Tucson and Las Vegas, I died." We also have to consider how it is likely molded by half a millennium of systematic, self-righteous, brutal subjugation, leading it to be conducted in deep secret, which likely plays a strong role in the set and setting. the "little saints" to outsiders, her son was murdered and her house Hello My name is Angelo Iam the founder of Ancestral Spirit Traditions, i started A.S.T. The turning point came in 1955, when an American, Gordon Wasson, along with photographer Allan Richardson, participated in a veladaa nighttime mushroom purification ritual. The rituals before the ceremony and prayers for the participants are similar to those recorded by Wasson in his visits during the mid-1950s. I'm a big fan of your posts, Don Shadow, I seek them out. In 1955, American ethnomycologist and banker R. Gordon Wasson, and his wife Valentina, a Russian pediatrician and scientist, as well as a passionate mycology enthusiast, visited Mara Sabina's hometown, where Gordon Wasson participated in a velada with her. Though I was more-or-less cognizant of it before, during my initial velada at the beginning of December, I started to become increasingly aware of my own severe narcissism, and the impact it has had on me and the people I relate with. i play music to invoke the plant spirits. We have much to learn from the Mazatec elders. This seems a more sane way to approach it, in my experience, than trying to medicalize it as a "drug" given by a mental health professional, which, frankly, even the thought of doing it this way I find aversive. Love and light. September 2022, Shaman Angelo is a wonderful gifted healer and knowledgeable, compassionate, and caring. survey a visionary narratives". "On April 15, 2012, I was flying home from a conference. Hofmann had a different interpretation: "activation of the pills, which must dissolve in the stomach, takes place after 30 to 45 minutes. The Little Saints become something that one takes into ones body for healing and transformative purposes. Bernard Bevan and Louise Lacaud, attended a mushroom rite in "We're trying too hard to be what we already are.". Having worked with them now for over 40 years, I am really happy to have connected with the traditional way of using them and am committed to following this path for the remainder of my life. The Mazatec velada setting is usually in the shaman's home, in a room with an altar.