Traditional Mazatec medicine has preserved the ritual use of psilocybin mushrooms as part of its health care systems. Renewed interest in psilocybin's effects on consciousness for therapeutic and recreational purposes often overlooks the historical and cultural background of indigenous peoples and the legitimacy of their practices. Through a case study of a foreign participant in a Mazatec ritual night ceremony (velada), the article argues for a transdisciplinary and intercultural approach to research on psychoactive plants and mushrooms. Such an approach reveals the profound complexity of healing in traditional indigenous contexts and highlights the limits of recreational uses or exclusively neopositivist and clinical approaches.
The diet is a traditional Amazonian practice involving strict rules of isolation, diet, and sexual abstinence, during which 'master plants' or 'doctor plants' are taken for healing and learning. Two types exist: therapeutic/medicinal diets for physical, energetic, and emotional problems, and shamanic diets as part of long-term training to become a healer. The research was conducted at Takiwasi Center in Tarapoto, Peru, a nonprofit treating substance use disorders by combining traditional Amazonian medicine with psychotherapy. Since 1996, over 1,900 people from various countries have participated in eight-day retreats that begin with a purgative plant and an ayahuasca ceremony, which induces both vomiting and an expanded state of consciousness.