"Mushrooms, Shamanism & Lore Among the Indigenous Mazatecs of Mexico" - An Intimate Talk with Kathleen Harrison

in #ceremony7 years ago

Hey everyone! Last week I attended a talk with Kathleen Harrison called "Mushrooms, Shamanism & Lore Among the Indigenous Mazatecs of Mexico". Kathleen told stories of her journey with the Mazatec people and their culture of shamanism surrounding different plant medicines such as psilocybin mushrooms. "The Mazatec people of Oaxaca, in the mountains of southern Mexico, are renowned for their shamanism, which is inspired in part by various Psilocybe mushroom species, Salvia divinorum, and other plant species." Kathleen described "their animist perception of psilocybin mushrooms, and their inherent roles, in this ancient, spiritual, healing tradition." Source

In this post I've summarized some of Kathleen Harrison's key thoughts that stood out to me. The photos in this post were taken by Jesse Thompson at a festival I attended called Tribal Gathering, which drew together over 60 different indigenous tribes, each sharing their shamanic practices to outsiders.



  • The "underground" is a place where we hide things that we think current culture would destroy, which is why the Mazatec shamans kept mushroom knowledge underground
  • The shamans passed along the knowledge to their offsprings and apprentices but were very careful about sharing with outsiders
  • For a very long time, shamanic knowledge of psilocybin mushrooms was kept secret because they thought, "we've got something so precious that we are just going to sink it underground and hide it"
  • Maria Sabina was the Mazatec healer who introduced shamanism and psilocybin mushrooms to the West
  • The West began to shine light into the underground, and that was when the transition from secret knowledge to exposed knowledge occurred, however this knowledge was used without training and experience
  • The knowledge of plant medicines and the practice of shamanism began to "sporulate"
  • Then there was the hippie invasion in the 60's and 70's that flooded the area of the Mazatec people and exploited and commoditized the cubensis mushroom
  • The West didn't have a sense of ceremony surrounding the mushrooms, it was still riding the LSD revolution of "everything goes"

  • There are 8-10 shamanic plant species in a region, and each shaman specializes in 1 to 3 species
  • For example, morning glory seeds are psychoactive through fungus and are used to find and see loved ones who are lost
  • Salvia is another plant medicine that the shamans work with
  • No 2 species of mushrooms have the same amount of alkaloids, and the alkaloids affect human reactions to the mushrooms
  • Disrespect leads to illness and violence
  • In Mazatec culture, when illness and violence occur a society is out of balance
  • In order to return to balance, they go back to the medicine of psilocybin mushrooms, which is their healing process
  • Mushrooms give them access to the knowledge that is whole and the knowing of the universe that is unseen
  • Mushrooms open the door to talk to the divine

  • The Pajaritos mushroom of the Oaxaca region cannot be cultivated, rather it pops up where lightening has struck
  • The mushrooms carry the wisdom of the flash of energy making contact with the ground, and it is this energy that one takes in when injesting this mushroom
  • If you find the pajaritos mushroom you are meant to take it in ceremony that very night with other community members
  • The ceremony includes communal gratitude and communal grieving, and sometimes there are collective visions

  • Tobacco is one of the main gateways to the spirit world for the Mazatec people
  • They do not smoke it
  • Mostly, they pray to the tobacco plant and grind it up and put it in altars
  • The plant holds a protective energy that the shamans pray for so that they can create a safe space
  • They create this safe space for people in ceremony taking mushrooms, because these people are putting themselves in a vulnerable space when ingesting psilocybin mushrooms
  • A Mazatec shaman specializing in mushroom ceremonies said that he could not do his work if it were not for the tobacco plant

  • Seeing the world as animated and interconnected was a worldview held by many cultures that has been forgotten by us through the industrial revolution
  • We should come into ceremony of plant medicine in order to be a good member in this huge network of beings
  • Can we change our worldview through ingesting another species such as mushrooms?
  • Those of us who have ingested psilocybin mushrooms are becoming like the mycelium network by sharing, expanding, and communicating information
  • A Mazatec shaman believes that destiny is the potential of our life that the universe offers to us, but it is our choice to walk this path or not, and psilocybin mushrooms can help us tune into what our paths offer and can remind us to stay on these paths

  • We have built a road to the Mazatec culture, but roads flow both ways
  • We want mushrooms, we want help and healing, and they wanted other things such as education for their kids
  • The parts of our culture that we have allowed to flow into their culture have been harming - the industrial revolution, diaspora of the young generation, a loss of culture, and a changing of values
  • Does gnosis (knowledge) travel and evolve as it moves?
  • How will this tradition of Mazatec shamanism and plant work continue to evolve?
  • Every village has a knoweldge holder, but these knoweldge holders no longer have anyone from the younger generation to pass knowledge to
  • Instead, they pass the knowledge onto foreigners like Kathleen
  • What can we do with this gift of knowledge and what can we gift back?



This is an amazing video with Kathleen Harrison for those of you who want to dive more in depth into her work and theories!

Sort:  

Very interesting. Thanks for this post!

That was quite the article. Never really knew much about shamans. My Uncle's band is called the shakin' shamans. Makes me wonder what I may not know about him :-)

That's a cool name for a band! Hmm...a great question for the next time you talk to him :-)

I have really enjoyed my experiences with the wild magic mushrooms of the pacific north west. It led me to a much deeper and profound understanding of the power of our minds.

Beautiful, thank you for sharing :-)

It pops up where lightning has struck!? How cool is that!

I learned a lot from this. So sharing some psychedelics with the west was a conscious decision made by certain tribes and individuals with those tribes? They felt the time had come?

I am not very experienced with these kinds of plants or any substance other than the one which has become closer to legalized as of recent. I am very interested in the psychedelic experience though, since I have had a few with said plant, or even just from music and nature. I read the Doors of Perception, never got around to reading any McCenna. I believe that all of the effects that we experience from drugs can be replicated without them with certain thoughts and focus, meditation etc. but I am certain some of these tribes have a deep understanding of reality that we are missing. Are there any fun informative books that you think I might like?

I know, the lightening mushroom is awesome!!
I believe it was a decision made by Maria Sabina to invite the first westerners into ceremony with mushrooms, and a westerner in that ceremony then spread it to others, and attracted others to come to the Mazatec shamans.
I'd recommend The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary and Be Here Now by Ram Dass :-) I loved the opening to Be Here Now because Ram Dass talks about the topic you mention, that state of consciousness that he reached from psychedelics could also be accessed through meditation.

Thanks, I want to learn methods to recreate those experiences without any substances. I can already hold on to a good high for weeks or months after I smoke, and conjure one up from good music in a natural setting, it'd be nice to learn how to navigate a bit further.

I might write about my own experience with this in the future.

I'd love to read a post about your experience with this journey in the future!

Thanks! For now I'm focusing on a series called "Optimism at the End of the World", not sure when and how to fit it in but you are always welcome!

Hello, @anwenbaumeister! I'm a philosopher who loves to write in abstract ways.

I am going to make the second edition of my philosophical challenge, writing about topics that people have given me.

I would like to invite you to participate. ( leaving a reference link to your profile in the post).

If you would like to join in, please leave a reply to this comment with a topic.

Cheers!

Wow, what an amazing story about shamanism. I visited Mexico in past (touristic spots) and only heard about Aztec /Maya people. Are the Mazatec like another tribe?

After reading your post it made me wonder to go back and find out what destiny lies upon me....or which path is best to be taken :) Thank you for this post!

Thanks so much!
Yes, they are the indigenous people of Oaxaca :-)
Good luck on your journey :-)

Ayahuasca ceremonies are unfortunately becoming so mainstream and common (a lot of people who have no business in doing so are performing them and charging for them in "retreats") I hope people do not water its true spiritual ancestry down.

Very interesting information and Mazatec tribes..

My friend also did this Mushroom trip. She said it was amazing.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.18
TRX 0.13
JST 0.029
BTC 56847.11
ETH 2970.63
USDT 1.00
SBD 2.29