consciousness

entheogens

Entheogenic plants have been incorporated in sacred cultural tradition and ceremony around the world for thousands of years, and these traditions continue today. Western biomedical science is just now beginning to catch up with Indigenous wisdom, referred in the scientific literature as Traditional Ecological Knowledge. We are just beginning to learn through a Western scientific lens about the advanced science and technology of Indigenous cultures have known about medicine, healing, ecology, and our relationship with the natural world. 

Thousands of years of empirical evidence that has been gathered by the First People on plant medicines that are still in use today around the world show us how these sacred medicines can heal and restore balance. The importance of protecting and preserving cultural practices and plant medicines cannot be overstated.  

Furthermore, the potential of entheogens to support healing from historical trauma, particularly for Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC), is the focus of my work and that of my colleagues who see the benefit of plant medicine in healing the wounds of racialized trauma. BIPOC individuals have been disproportionately criminalized in the War on Drugs, while psychedelic spaces have been predominantly white. Legalizing entheogens opens routes to healing that Black and brown people have been stripped of over hundreds of years of colonization and racial oppression. Great care is needed in particular to ensure the preservation of Indigenous access to sacred plant medicine, and to protect endangered plants themselves.