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San Pedro: The Gateway to Wisdom

Shamanic Plant Medicine

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

The Story of Huachuma

'Those Who Drink its Juice Lose their Senses and are as if Dead'

The Spanish Inquisition reacted with characteristic savagery to anyone who dared to break their laws by eating [San Pedro] ... a great many Indians were flogged and sometimes killed when they persisted

Jim DeKorne, writing about the history of San Pedro

San Pedro (Trichocereus pachanoi) is a tall blue-green cactus reaching heights of 23 feet (7m) or more. It enjoys a tough desert-like environment and grows readily in the highest parts of its native Peru, but can also be found in central and north America and in some Mediterranean countries. In most countries, including the UK, the cactus can be bought openly in garden centers as owning and growing it is not illegal, and even if the weather is not conducive to planting it out (countries like the UK, for example, are too wet and cold to sustain it), it will thrive as a house plant and is easily maintained, putting on maybe 12 inches to 18 inches in height a year if treated well.

Sitting in a plant pot or in a garden border at home, the plant looks attractive, innocent and innocuous. In terms of its spiritual, healing and consciousness-expanding properties, however, it is one of the most powerful teacher plants in the world. This contradiction between appearance and spiritual potency is one of the reasons why, in medicine circles, San Pedro has come to be known as the Cactus of Mystery.

It has other names too among the shamans and healers of the Peruvian Andes, including cardo, chuma, gigantón, hermoso, huando, pene de Dios (literally, 'penis of God'), wachuma and, simply, el remedio: the remedy, the latter referring to its healing powers. One of its Quechua names is punku, which means 'doorway' or 'gateway', since the cactus is also considered able to open a portal into a world beyond illusion so that healing and visions can flow from the spiritual to the physical dimension. Its more common name, San Pedro, has similar connotations. It refers to Saint Peter, who holds the keys to Heaven, and is suggestive of the plant's power to open the gates between the visible and invisible worlds so those who drink it enter a realm where they can heal, know their true natures and find purpose for their lives. Because of these protective and nurturing qualities, others refer to it affectionately as simply Papa or Grandfather.

The Hidden Keys to Heaven: San Pedro in Ancient Times

According to tradition, it was San Cipriano (Saint Cyprian), the patron saint of magicians, the grand exorcist, and the 'soul of the mesa' (the healing altar used during ceremonies by San Pedro shamans) who, acting on instructions from Jesus, hid the keys to Paradise within the cactus, under the care and guardianship of Saint Peter (San Pedro). The legend goes that God was so appalled at the behavior of the Spanish who invaded Peru in search of El Dorado (the fabled city of gold) and was so concerned that they might find these magical keys and use them to storm the gates of Heaven in search of greater riches that he had Cipriano hide them in the one place he knew the Catholic invaders would never look: inside a cactus that had been used as a pagan sacrament for centuries before the coming of the Catholics and Conquistadors.

The point of God's deception was that all seekers must earnestly desire to meet Him with open hearts and minds and in a reverent and dignified manner, and this is something that God did not see in the frenzied desire for gain, which drove the Spanish to destruction and murder. The cactus demanded purity: a return to a first state where true love and faith, not illusions or pretences at love to support an Earthly lust for gold, was the force that dictated their actions. This approach of open heart and mind and an attitude of earnest yet respectful desire for healing and enlightenment is still the requirement of the cactus for those who come seeking the blessings of San Pedro.

God's great deception worked too. When the Spanish began their invasion of the Incan empire from 1532 they brought with them their own understanding of God, a prissy, precious, church-bound angry desert God who would have no truck with or tolerance for the savage heathen rituals they witnessed among the natives. As a result of their own prejudice they completely missed the magic of the cactus and its relationship to the true God. Thus, one 16 century Conquistador described huachuma as a plant used by heathens to 'speak with the devil', while a Spanish missionary decried it as 'a plant with whose aid the devil is able to strengthen the Indians in their idolatry; those who drink its juice lose their senses and are as if dead; they are almost carried away by the drink and dream a thousand unusual things and believe that they are true'.

Rather than trying to understand native customs or explore the potential of huachuma to illuminate their own religion or bring healing and peace to the soul, these 'men of God', the Spanish Inquisition, 'reacted with characteristic savagery to anyone who dared to break their laws by eating it', according to Jim DeKorne in Psychedelic Shamanism.

A great many Indians were flogged and sometimes killed when they persisted in using [huachuma] ... [One man's] eyeballs were said to be gouged out after three days of torture; then the Spaniards cut a crucifix pattern in his belly and turned ravenous dogs loose on his innards.

Throughout all of this persecution, however, the natives never once gave up the secrets of the cactus and the knowledge of God it contained, preferring to be killed or to kill themselves, like the hero Quispe, than to betray the wishes of God. Through their sacrifices they ensured that huachuma remained the Cactus of Mystery.

Cactus Origins

The original name of San Pedro in Peru was huachuma, a Quechua word that simply means 'dizzy'. This is a reference to one of the effects of the cactus medicine and another indicator of the mystery surrounding this plant, since it gives no suggestion of the deeper and more profound spiritual and healing effects that are experienced when drinking it, and which are actually more common than dizziness. The shamans who worked with it were therefore called huachumeros if male or huachumeras if female. The earliest archaeological evidence so far discovered for its use as a sacrament in healing rituals is in the form of a stone carving of a huachumero found at the Jaguar Temple of Chavín de Huantar in northern Peru, which is about 3,500 years old, predating the birth of Christ. Textiles from the same region and period depict the cactus with jaguars and hummingbirds, its guardian spirits, and with stylized spirals representing the visionary experiences given by the plant. A decorated ceramic pot from the Chimú culture of Peru, dating to AD 1200, has also been unearthed, which shows an owl-faced woman holding a cactus. In Peru the owl is a tutelary spirit and the guardian of herbalists so the woman depicted is almost certainly a curandera (healer) and huachumera.

According to Ruben Orellana, a modern-day huachamero working in the Sacred Valley outside of Cusco, but also a PhD historian and one-time curator of the Machu Picchu sacred site, the first huachuma ceremonies were probably predominantly day-time affairs and, certainly at Chavín, which archaeologists now refer to as 'the birthplace of the San Pedro cult', they may well have included a sexual or tantric element since sexual and emotional arousal are other aspects of the huachuma experience and powers therefore available for magical use.

As a result of the persecutions by the Spanish, indigenous practices including the original rituals and ceremonies surrounding the use of huachuma 'undoubtedly were transformed', in the understated words of anthropologist Wade Davis. In fact the use of huachuma was effectively driven underground for hundreds of years, though never completely eradicated, and those ceremonies that survived took on a new form. Firstly, the name of the medicine was changed to San Pedro – Saint Peter – 'guardian of the threshold for the Catholic Paradise ... an apparent strategy of the Indians to placate the Inquisition', according to DeKorne. Secondly, the ceremonies became more secretive night-time events, which incorporated Catholic symbolism, procedures and artifacts into their rituals of healing.

I attended a number of these ceremonies in Peru in the 1990s and in my experience it is fair to say that, in contrast to the original, more joyous day-time ceremonies, the Catholic concepts of suffering to atone for our sins had also become a predominant feature of the new ritual format. Participants were first given an emetic, for example, to make them sick so they could rid themselves of 'sins' and negative energies. This was followed by a singado (tobacco juice snorted into the nostrils), then a bath in cold flower water, naked in the freezing night, completed by a gentle beating with chonta (wooden staffs) before even receiving San Pedro, which in itself was weak and insipid – and even that small gift had to be earned. Thankfully now in Peru there are curanderos who have reverted to the old ways of day-time sunlit ceremonies with strong San Pedro, which they regard as the real healer in contrast to the night-time ceremonies where the shaman and not the plant takes centre stage.

Common Reasons for Attending Ceremonies

Whether ancient or modern, by night or by day, there are fairly common reasons why someone might choose to attend a San Pedro ceremony: to cure illnesses of a spiritual, emotional, mental or physical nature, to know the future through the prophetic and divinatory qualities of the plant, to overcome sorcery or saladera (an inexplicable run of bad luck), to ensure success in one's ventures, to rekindle love and enthusiasm for life, and to restore one's faith or find new meaning by experiencing the world as divine. Wade Davis described a ceremony he attended in 1981, for example, where the people present included a girl who had been paralyzed, members of a family whose cattle had become diseased, a person seeking healing for a relative who had gone mad, a man who had become unstable after seeing his wife with her lover, and a businessman wanting to know who had stolen money from his company. The last reason for attending may appear to bear no similarity to the first, but in the Andean shamanic view bringing order to one's financial and business affairs and so avoiding emotional and physical dis-ease is just as valid in terms of restoring balance to the soul and peace to the mind as relieving the pains of a paralyzed girl. Both are healing in this sense. Other reasons, especially among Westerners who attend my ceremonies nowadays, are to overcome a feeling of separation, aloneness and anxiety by reconnecting with love, bliss, belonging and finding themselves at one once more with God.

San Pedro can heal all of these diseases – and sometimes instantly, with one drink alone – because, in the words of Eduardo Calderon (now deceased, but formerly one of northern Peru's most famous curanderos), it is 'in tune with ... beings that have supernatural powers. Participants [in ceremonies] are set free from matter and engage in flight through cosmic regions ... transported across time and distance in a rapid and safe fashion'.

He also describes the effects of the plant as this healing takes place:

First, a dreamy state ... then great visions, a clearing of all the faculties ... and then detachment, a type of visual force inclusive of the sixth sense, the telepathic state of transmitting oneself across time and matter, like a removal of thoughts to a distant dimension.

Thoughts arise, that's it – often deep thoughts, unencumbered by the limited rational mind, which provide answers to our diseases, dilemmas and dramas. The story behind the disease is revealed and then, in tears or in laughter, it is easy to let it go and choose a new story for ourselves, of power and wellness instead. Sounds simple – and it is, as the accounts in the next chapter show.

Healing in San Pedro (and in shamanism generally) is, incidentally, defined more widely and more usefully than Western medicine uses the term. It means an ultimately beneficial and positive change in the mental, emotional or spiritual dimensions of one's life, as well as a physical cure or change. San Pedro healing is thus more expansive and holistic, encompassing all aspects of the self, instead of dismissing the soul entirely and focusing (sometimes with disastrous results and side-effects) only on the physical symptoms of disease instead of its ultimate cure, as Western medicine does. (Again, see the next chapter for examples.)

Healing with San Pedro always takes place as part of a ceremony with the intention of healing – never lightly and never as a recreational 'drug experience' – and in this the mesa is always central.

The Mesa

The mesa (the word literally means 'table') is an altar, which may be elaborate or simple, depending on the shaman. Most are woven fabrics laid directly on the earth on which are placed power objects called artes ('arts') in the form of artifacts from archaeological or ritual sites to represent the ancestors, herbs and perfumes in ornate or antique bottles, which bring good luck and healing, swords and statues, stones from cemeteries and sacred places, and so on. All are meaningful to the shaman, contain energy in their own right and, more importantly, through the faith he invests in them, confer power to the shaman to do his healing work. Because mesas are personal, anything could be placed there actually. Wade Davis, in Sacred Plants of the San Pedro Cult lists other items he has encountered, such as wooden hardwood staffs, bones, quartz crystals, knives, toy soldiers (for the powers of opposition or victory), deer antlers and boar tusks (for strength in the face of challenges), shells, and paintings of the saints. I have also seen torches (for light), mirrors (for self-reflection or the return of evil magic) and carvings of various animals that are symbolic of particular qualities. Sometimes participants may also place an item of faith personal to them on the altar or make an offering to it.

In the traditional layout of the mesa, there are three 'fields' and where artes are placed in relation to these is significant. The left is the negative or 'extraction' field, while the right is positive and life-giving and the middle is the neutral space or 'command centre'. It is important to qualify these terms, however, since negative and positive have different connotations for us in the West and may suggest a good or evil intent, which is not really present in Andean healing. Most shamans do not consider the two sides of the mesa to be good or bad, per se, for example, and, in a sense they are not even 'sides', but part of a continuum where every field is harmonious and, through their relationship to each other, ensure that the world remains in balance. Even at their extremes, the negative and positive fields complement more than oppose each other. Thus, for example, 'good' and 'bad luck' go hand-in-hand because without each we could not recognize the other.

In one way, then, the mesa can be regarded as a representation of the divine (rather than human) scales of justice where the goal is equilibrium and order and not a weighted outcome in favor of 'light' or 'dark'. This balance is important because, as shamans know, the more good luck we have (right side) the more bad luck (left side) can sometimes result as the same energy manifests in different forms, flowing from one to the other and back again. An example might be a man who has the good fortune to be wealthy and because of this indulges in fine foods and wines to the point that his desires take him over and he becomes gluttonous, ill or addicted as the energy of causality circulates. Another way of understanding the mesa, therefore, despite the linearity of its layout, is as a cosmic circle that brings everything back to its rightful place and represents the circularity of human experience.

Within this framework of understanding, the measure of a truly successful life is not riches or fine food, but a correct attitude, a moderate approach and a harmonious relationship to the physical and spiritual worlds. As if to signify this, in the centre of the mesa is the neutral field: the point of balance on which the world turns. It is also the place of transformation where illness can be cured by finding equilibrium between negative and positive forces. Herbs that bring strength and energy may be placed there, along with, for example, images of the sun (for light, brilliance and regeneration) or reflective materials and lodestones to draw in positive energies and dismiss others so that balance is restored.

Some mesas are huge, as big as a dining table and surrounded by staffs, swords and crosses; others use a different layout, are much simpler and contain fewer power objects. My own is about 12in by 12in and uses the format of a medicine wheel. My partner in San Pedro ceremonies, the Peruvian shaman La Gringa, has an even smaller mesa and her theme for the layout is evolution, moving upward from primal forces (the coiled kundalini-like serpent at the base of the spine) through the body (represented by the puma in Andean cosmology) to the condor or hummingbird, representing ascension to the higher self and the realm of angels.

Once the mesa is assembled the ceremony can begin, with the altar as the point of focus: a portal through which all energies can flow and a visual reminder to participants that the purpose of this meeting is to heal imbalances so that order prevails and the love of God can flow unimpeded. In modern ceremonies, the mesa may be 'opened' (empowered and put to work) with a simple prayer and a statement of intent. In the more traditional, Catholic-influenced ceremonies, however, the opening can be a ritual in itself.

Types of Cactus Ceremonies

According to Richard Cowan, Douglas Sharon and Kay Sharon in Eduardo El Curandero: The Words of a Peruvian Healer, for example, Eduardo Calderón's procedure for charging and opening the mesa at the start of a ceremony involved all of the following actions.

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Excerpted from San Pedro: The Gateway to Wisdom by Ross Heaven. Copyright © 2015 Ross Heaven. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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