Cactus of Mystery

by Ross Heaven

  Huxley applied Bergson’s theory to mescaline, suggesting that it does in fact override the reducing valve of the brain, bypassing the filters that limit us. He paraphrased this notion by quoting the English poet and mystic William Blake: “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”

  Recently Bergson’s ideas have come back into prominence in modern psychology. David Luke, Ph.D., lecturer in psychology at the University of Greenwich London, is currently undertaking research with mescaline to explore Bergson’s theories, and has provisionally concluded that the mescaline experience does indeed give us access to areas of our brains that we do not ordinarily use but which, when activated, allow us to perceive the cosmic order and know our place within it.

  Luke writes:

  Recent research into the neurochemistry of psychedelics lends some support to [Bergson’s] simple notion. For instance [the researchers] Vollenweider and Geyer propose that information processing in cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) feedback loops [in the brain] is disrupted by psychedelics via 5-HT (serotonin) receptor agonism (specifically 5-HT2A receptors), thereby inhibiting the “gating” of extraneous sensory stimuli and subsequently inhibiting the ability to attend selectively to salient environmental features.20

  In other words, plants like San Pedro do indeed expand our normal brain processes and widen our perception and experience of the world.

  “Furthermore,” he continues:

  psychedelics are also thought to induce presynaptic release of glutamate from thalamic afferents, leading to a simultaneous overload of internal information in the cortex. It is thought that these combined information overload effects are at least partly responsible for the “hallucinogenic” experience with these drugs, which are known to induce greatly altered or amplified incoming sensory information. This disruption of the sensory gating function by psychedelics could also underpin the neurochemistry of ESP . . . elicited with any number of psychedelics such as mescaline.21

  That entheogens like San Pedro have a central role to play in “psi experiences” is also supported, in Luke’s words, by

  a wealth of collectively compelling anecdotal, anthropological, clinical and survey reports, along with a body of preliminary experimental research. . . . Mescaline is one substance in particular that, according to the historical, anthropological, and anecdotal evidence, is known to induce psi experiences. Ever since the use of peyote was first documented in the mid-sixteenth century by the personal physician of King Philip II of Spain, Dr. Francisco Hernández, it has been reputed to have prophetic qualities.22

  It causes those devouring it to be able to foresee and to predict things.

  San Pedro has been used traditionally by the indigenous people of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador for the same type of magico-religious practices, such as divination . . . a sixteenth century Spanish officer stationed in Cusco, Peru, described how the natives take the form they want and go through the air in a short time; and they see what is happening.23

  This literature is backed up by experiential reports from non-indigenous mescaline users, like that of the French researchers who gave mescaline to six subjects, one of whom temporarily developed very detailed and accurate clairvoyant abilities. After his mescaline experiences in 1951, Humphry Osmond also claimed to have successfully transmitted telepathic information to a fellow researcher, Duncan Blewett, who was also under the influence of mescaline, “leading an independent observer to panic at the uncanny event.”

  Luke concludes from the research so far that “mescaline did indeed give rise to reports of telepathy and precognition among those using it,” along with “the perception of auras, the experience of encountering the plant’s spirit, and a sense of unity.”24

  He also refers to research he has conducted with his colleague Marios Kittenis, which found that there are typical “transpersonal” experiences of a mystical or paranormal type that most commonly occur with mescaline-containing cacti such as peyote and San Pedro. The most frequent of these is the experience of perceiving an aura around living things, followed by a sense of the intelligence or spirit of the cactus and a feeling of connection with the universal consciousness of all things. Other experiences include dissolving into energy, powerful and long-lasting religious awakenings, out-of-body experiences, clairvoyance, death and rebirth experiences and/or past life memories, psychokinesis (influencing objects or people with one’s mind), encountering a divine being or a (nonanimal) intelligent entity, and a greater understanding of the interconnections and interrelationships between circumstances and things expressed as a sense of the loss of causality (i.e., that A must always cause B).

  “For scientists, whether or not these experiences are ‘real’ is a matter of on-going debate between those who believe that these phenomena may be possible and those who reject them out of hand because they do not fit within their confined ‘physicalistic’ worldview,” writes Luke. “For the people who experience these phenomena, however, they are often considered ‘more real than real,’ and although they challenge what we think we know about the world, those experiencing these extraordinary events often find it very difficult to reject them as mere hallucinations.”

  On the evidence of this, another gift of San Pedro may be the expansion in awareness it gives us. Through it we may come to understand the bigger picture of the universe, the flows of energy within it, and how we connect to them so we can learn to become the true human; that is, to know what it really means to be alive, to approach our lives accordingly, and to find the balance and healing we need.

  THE SPIRIT OF THIS BOOK

  Bergson’s ideas provide a useful framework for us in understanding how San Pedro may work, and they are certainly compatible with the views of the shamans and participants quoted in this book. They are echoed in the words of the huachumera La Gringa when she tells us that “San Pedro opens our eyes to what is already there”; that is, to a world of miracles that is right before us all the time, but rarely seen because we are simply not looking for it. Her story of “hallucinating” a vision of a stairway of light while drinking San Pedro—which she was able to capture on film—appears in chapter 3 to illustrate the point she is making.

  Bergson’s theories may also be borne out to some extent in Alexia Gidding’s account in part 3, “San Pedro Healing” (chapter 10), of a San Pedro experience where she was shown the truth of her repressed and presumed-dealt-with memories of early abuse. In this example, those memories were still fully present but gated by her mind in order to protect her from them. What she needed was to relive them—at an emotional rather than a rational level—in order to finally be free of her pain. San Pedro enabled this by opening the doors to her personal perception.

  In part 4, “San Pedro and Creativity,” the fine artist David Hewson speaks of the visions he has received from San Pedro and other plants, which have enabled him to win international commissions and express the infinite in his art (chapter 15). This too brings us back to Bergson’s theory that everything is within us—all creativity—and needs only to be released.

  And there will be many other examples, too, that suggest that the infinite is indeed within us. Perhaps this is also what the curandera Isabel meant when she told the author Bonnie Glass-Coffin that “God won’t lie to you . . . He exists. He is a spirit in your heart and in your thoughts. . . . [He is] in your subconscience.”25

  That is for you to decide. In this book I present accounts from San Pedro shamans, from those who have been cured by San Pedro, and those who have been inspired by it. It is my aim to bring this remarkable plant teacher and healer to greater prominence and to make you aware of its benefits. What you choose to do with this information is up to you, although I hope that you will be inspired to try it and receive its blessings as many others have.

  PART ONE

  San Pedro Shamans and Shamanism

  The most representative mystical experience of the archaic societies, that of shamanism, b
etrays the Nostalgia for Paradise, the desire to recover the state of freedom and beatitude before “the Fall.”

  MIRCEA ELIADE

  IT IS ONLY RIGHT that we start with the shamans. They are the ones who are doing the work with San Pedro, who have devoted their lives to it, and who have committed themselves to the healing of others. They are the ones who know.

  In this section we hear from three of the Andes’ most celebrated shamans. Curiously perhaps, two of them are not Peruvian by birth, but in a way that makes them even more dedicated to the work and the medicine. It is a commitment and a true act of faith to leave your homeland and all that is familiar to you because you have been called by the spirit of a plant. Peruvian people recognize this too, and the reputations of these shamans are well-known and respected.

  Rubén Orellana, Ph.D., is an archaeologist and anthropologist trained at the University of Cusco, Peru. Now an external consultant to the National Institute of Culture in Cusco, he was for many years the head of archaeology at Machu Picchu, discovering forty-four new sites of archaeological and historical interest. Alongside his scholarship he is also a shaman who has worked with San Pedro and the healing traditions of the Andes for most of his life, as well as researching the history and methods of these practices and how they influence aspects of life and well-being for Andean people. As a shaman he is also the founding director of the Kamaquen (“source of energy”) Healing Center in the Sacred Valley.

  La Gringa is Rubén Orellana’s most famous apprentice. Her work with San Pedro has featured in several articles and books—including my own—and since 2007 I have drunk her medicine extensively. South African by birth, she first visited Peru in the 1990s and has now lived in Cusco for almost twenty years, working as a healer and huachumera. In 2008, during one of my visits to Peru to work with her, I interviewed La Gringa about her life and experiences with the cactus of vision. Her answers then showed not only the healing potential of this plant, but cast further light on the traditions that surround it and their evolution in the modern world. In 2011, I conducted a second interview with her, delving more deeply into the answers she had given. For those who wish to work with San Pedro, what La Gringa has to say is of great interest, because it shows the nature of shamanic healing with this medicine in the modern world, as well as illustrating the traditions from which it stems. For those who work as healers themselves, what La Gringa has learned from huachuma is also important, because it suggests where illness may come from and how it may be cured, even by those who do not administer San Pedro or drink it themselves.

  Michael Simonato is part of the new wave of San Pedro healers now working in Peru. After a spiritual crisis and awakening of his own, he began a healing quest that eventually landed him in South America—initially, like many others, to drink ayahuasca in search of answers. This in turn led him to San Pedro, a plant he now works with extensively, leading ceremonies of his own in Pisaq after studying and drinking the plant medicine with many different shamans. In his article he relates his own healing story and offers practical advice for preparing and working with San Pedro, its admixtures, and complementary plants and practices.

  To give you a context for understanding the work of these individuals, I first offer an overview of shamanism and curanderismo in Andean Peru that looks at the nature of shamanic beliefs and healing and at the cosmology of the shaman and the spirits he works with. Of course, a study of this kind is “overcomplicated” because the truth of San Pedro is very simple. Ask any of these shamans and they will tell you that it is about love. Just that. Love and compassion. But I hope that what I have to say is useful to you anyway.

  1

  Shamanism and Curanderismo

  The Approach to Healing in Peru

  Ross Heaven

  Shamanism is a not a discrete activity like, say dentistry or aromatherapy, but a body of practices that have the effect of connecting the material and immaterial worlds, the worlds of man and God, matter and energy. These practices are performed by shamans who, by various means and methods (such as the use of San Pedro and ayahuasca in Peru, or a trance state arrived at by drumming in cultures like Mongolia and Siberia) are able to travel between these worlds to obtain solutions from their spirit guides and helpers, and in this way address the problems that are afflicting their patients or the community in general. These solutions may take the form of guidance, counsel, or direct and spirit-driven healing to ameliorate the sicknesses of the soul and restore balance and equilibrium.

  The word shaman is not Peruvian in origin, but comes from the Tungus people of Siberia and arises from the word saman, which has a specific usage there. It literally means “priest of the Ural-Altaic people,” although it is often interpreted more generally as “one who sees” or “one who knows.” It has now come to be used generically for anyone who carries out healing, counseling, or divinatory work in partnership with spirit guides, allies, and helpers, and which normally involves ritual or ceremonial procedures to make these spirits manifest and elicit their help to create beneficial change.

  This way of working is the oldest psychospiritual tradition known to humankind. Shamanic artifacts discovered in the African Rift Valley date back four hundred thousand years, and cave paintings depicting shamanic scenes of shape-shifting (where the shaman takes on nonhuman powers and shifts into animal or plant forms), such as those at Lascaux and Tassili, though not as old as this, certainly date back thousands of years.1

  Compartmentalizing spiritual and healing approaches into various camps and specialties (such as aromatherapy, reiki, massage, herbalism, crystal healing, and so on) is a modern fascination—traditional shamans worked with all of these and more, doing whatever was necessary to provide the right medicine for his or her people. This is still the case in Peru, where San Pedro shamans may also use sound healing during ceremonies, for example, or reiki-like techniques to change the energies of their patients into a new and more positive alignment, or offer herbal preparations and teas to help with particular ailments.

  Many of the theories or working concepts that we now accept as the inventions or discoveries of modern science and psychology are also to be found in much more ancient shamanic belief systems, and are embedded in healing traditions from thousands of years ago. For example, quantum physics now tells us that we live in a “holographic universe” where all things are part of and mirror the whole, where all is composed of energy, and where this energy can be made to change its shape and form (e.g., from a particle to a wave) depending on our interactions with it.2

  Shamans have been saying the same thing for thousands of years. Black Elk, the Sioux medicine man written about by John Niehardt in his book Black Elk Speaks, was quoted two hundred years before quantum physics, remarking that “we are all one” and that all things are part of the whole, the “sacred hoop” of life.3 It is a point that La Gringa and other shamans in this book continue to make: we are all connected and we can shape the world we live in to create any reality we want. The Shuar people of the Columbian Amazon have an expression, “The world is as you dream It,” which means much the same thing.

  THE CRISIS OF SHAMANISM

  How do people become shamans? It begins with a calling—not always in the sense of a “spiritual vocation,” which implies a desire on the part of the shaman-elect to become a healer, like someone who wishes to become a priest might have, but a calling from the spirits themselves who have recognized the natural gifts and skills of that person and have chosen him to become their ambassador on Earth and a partner in their work, sometimes irrespective of his own wishes.

  Often the call begins as a whisper—with an awareness on the part of the shaman-to-be that the world is not quite as he has been taught to view it, that there are signs, subtleties, and shades of meaning out there, not black-and-white scientific or mathematical certainties. He may have “special knowledge”—the ability to see, hear, and know things that others do not—for example, a future-seeing awareness of things yet to happen or an
“active imagination” that sees spirits where others just see common reality.

  If the shaman ignores these signs and does not explore what they might mean, then the whispers of spirit may get louder until they become a roar. If he still ignores them, then typically the shaman-to-be will enter what it known as an initiatory crisis.

  A mysterious illness of a mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual nature—or even all four at once—may suddenly afflict him, for which there is no known cause and often no orthodox cure. Such is the story of Black Elk, who was close to death as a child and could not be saved by medical or shamanic healing, but only by the spirits themselves.

  The classical literature, such as Mircea Eliade’s work Shamanism,4 also describes people being near fatally wounded by wild animals or hit by a mysterious shower of rocks that falls from the sky. Being struck by lightning is also a sure sign of a calling to shamanize, and in fact the highest level of shaman in the Andes of Peru (the altomisayoq) must be struck three times in order to be recognized as a true healer. Puma, one of the shamans I work with in Peru and who features later in this book, has been struck once but comes from a lineage of shamans that included his grandfather who was one of the “lucky” ones to be struck three times. “The first time, you die,” says Puma, “the second time you are taken to the spirit world. To those around you, you just vanish into the air. The third time you are reborn as something new: a healer.”

  All of these events may be literal descriptions of actual occurrences, but they have a symbolic or mythical quality as well. To be struck by lightning means literally to become en-lightened; to be hit by a mysterious shower of rocks means to fall beneath a heavy load, to realize that the everyday world can no longer fully sustain you. Whatever its nature, it is an event that takes the shaman-elect out of ordinary reality, sometimes physically as well as psychologically. He may have to lay in the relative isolation of a hospital bed or a healing room to recover from his injuries, giving him time to ponder the mysteries of his life and circumstances, or he may need to enter the landscape of his mind and personal myths in the case of a mental or emotional crisis. He begins in this way to see beneath the veneer of the “normal” world and more deeply into himself and the nature of its underlying reality.