Visionary technology

Basic techniques used by shamans to achieve ecstatic states are varied and generally of simultaneous application. These include prolonged ritual diets, the ingestion of visionary plants, long periods of repetitive sound, dancing, chanting, and the creation and manipulation of objects imbued by helpers and allies. It should be stressed that the ecstatic experience is not the ultimate goal of the shaman, rather, it is the means through which specific objectives are attained; it provides a set of tools to understand the world.

Trichocereus Pachanoj (Jill Plugh and Steven F. White©, 2022).

(Foto, Gonzalo Puga).

Shamanic
botany in
America.
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Visionary
plants of
America.
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Shamanic botany in America

The visionary plants commonly employed in American shamanism trigger a series of extreme changes in spatial and temporal perception, thought patterns and mood, simultaneous with profound flights of ideation, without major disturbances of the autonomic nervous system. This is accompanied by enhanced coloration of the visual field, intense patterning, and figurative visionary phenomena. Hundreds of plant species and fungi are used in shamanic preparations.

In America, several of these plants have been used for millennia. Peyote (3700 BC) and cebil (2200 BC), also called yopo or vilca, are the ones with the oldest records both in Mesoamerica and in the Andes. The San Pedro or wachuma cactus is already represented in the art of the Chavín culture of Peru, three thousand years ago. Coca and tobacco, on the other hand, are the most extensively used species in South America, whose first evidence of use dates back to 8,000 and 2,500 years ago, respectively.