Drugs, mental health and pre-Hispanic civilizations: the clash between modern medicine and ancient traditions

The great epidemic of the 21st century is called mental health. I’m not saying it, but the experts who have been warning for years about the increase in cases of depression or anxiety. They may have increased or we externalize it more, but diseases such as anxiety lead us to respond emotionally and in advance to a real or perceived threat, causing deep discomfort. In the discussion to see how to tackle the problem, psychedelic drugs have made a place for themselves.

But a shaman’s bag from the Tiwanaku culture found in Bolivia shows that more than 1,000 years ago these psychedelics were already used to treat certain conditions. And, as modern science explores its therapeutic potential, questions arise about the appropriation of this knowledge without recognizing its indigenous roots.

The shaman’s bag. The use of psychoactives in medicine is not even remotely something new. In 2008, an interesting discovery occurred in the Bolivian Andes when a group of researchers unearthed a very curious object: a leather bag. It was discovered that it had belonged to a shaman of the Tiwanaku civilizationone that flourished 3,500 years ago and collapsed in 1000 AD

Inside the bag were found tools to prepare the “medicines”, as well as traces of the medicines themselves. There were traces of cocaine, ayahuasca components and substances such as psilocin which is present in psychoactive mushrooms. And this is relevant because it points not only to the substances, but also to the fact that civilization had sophisticated mechanisms of use.

Millennial journey. Recent excavations have allowed us to know that drugs were also very present in past civilizations. An example is that of the participants in the Mayan ball game who could play with an altered state of consciousness. This use of psychedelics dates back thousands of years, being common in both American and European civilizations and even in China during the Zhou dynasty, where cannabis was common 2,500 years ago.

Difference of approaches. Their use was not recreational, at least they were not only consumed for entertainment, since the main thing was to encourage the individual to connect with the spiritual. These ancient cultures performed rituals in which drugs enhanced the restoration of balance between humans, nature and the spiritual world.

Yuria Celidwen is an academic at the University of California-Berkeley and commented to BBC that the term “psychedelic” is a modern Western concept. There is a big difference between the traditional indigenous approach, which “not only has to do with rituals and ceremonies, but with everyday practices such as going to the healer if something of value was lost,” and the modern Western one.

“The belief in the West is that they can be used to treat mental health disorders.” This view, according to Celidwen, completely leaves aside the role that “spiritual medicines” played in ancient communities in settings such as rituals, exploration of consciousness, facilitation of creativity, and palliative care.

Images of shamans preparing mixtures are shown in Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I.

Effects found. With this current Western approach focused on the individual and on the treatment for disorders such as anxiety or depression, the industry is pivoting on the chemistry of substances, leaving aside the collective and spiritual context that indigenous cultures considered essential for the substances themselves will work.

According to Celidwen, “in the West we observe a peak of well-being just after the initial exposure to the drug, but it is not maintained because there is no collective context around the hallucinogenic experience. Because of this, there is a risk of creating another addiction.” because people still turn to it to get that feeling of well-being.

cultural appropriation. It is a crucial difference with the objective of cultures such as that of the Wixárikas, who used peyote to “recover their community from anemia after a great wave of malaria that depleted their population and their health more than 500 years ago,” he comments. Ahau Samuel, a practitioner of chichimeca tribe from Guanajuato.

Osiris Sinuhé González Romero, a researcher at the University of Saskatchewan, states that “psychedelic rituals were a way to recover the soul,” and something that the participants in the article share is that current medicine does not contemplate any of that. And, in an industry expected to be worth $7 billion by 2027, people like Celidwen (who is of Mayan descent) are seeking to see indigenous voices recognized in psychedelic drug studies.

Recognition of expertise. According to the researcher, there is no recognition of the fact that many of these substances continue to be considered sacred to some cultures, not to mention the aforementioned economic issue. He denounces that a psychedelic retreat organized from the West can cost several thousand dollars, while indigenous shamans earn between 2 and 150 dollars for performing similar services.

And it’s not just a question of money. Jules Evans is a psychedelic researcher at Queen Mary University of London and comments that shamans “have maps, guides and a deep familiarity with altered states of consciousness. Secular people, in general, do not. As a result, the experience “It can baffle people and confuse them as to how to integrate it into a materialistic worldview. This existential confusion can last for months or years, and the person who comes out on the other side can be very different from the person before.”

Come on, it can do more harm than good, something that has been seen with the star product of Western spiritual sessions: ayahuasca. Perhaps the greatest challenge is learning not only about their medicines, but about the connection they made with the world around them.

Images | Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I, MirreNL

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