Psychedelic plants, culture, and rituals Podcast ExtraPsychedelic plants, culture, and rituals Podcast Extra
All In The Mind
Kathleen Harrison is an ethnobotanist studying the relationship between plants, people, and culture. She's worked throughout Latin America since the 1960s and informed by long relationships with indigenous healers, naturalists, and her own decades of psychedelic curiosity. She co-founded the organisation Botanical Dimensions with Terence McKenna in 1985.
22:00•16 Sept 2018
Psychedelic Plants, Rituals and a Journey to Healing
Episode Overview
- Mazatec ceremonies use wild mushrooms in small, focused groups to understand why a life has fallen out of balance and how to restore it.
- Telling one’s story in detail, across languages and cultures, can itself be part of the medicine and a key step in healing.
- Salvia divinorum is used with strict rules and deep respect, offering powerful visionary experiences such as Kathleen’s heart-healing encounter with La Pastora.
- Indigenous approaches frame depression, illness and conflict within a wider web of spirits, relationships and actions, often prescribing concrete behavioural changes.
- Kathleen advises careful education, discernment and choosing well-trained, conscientious guides rather than relying on trendy or commercial psychedelic circles.
“You don't want to be on your own in a group on a substance you've never taken. If you don't have somebody to help ground you, guide you, cleanse you, well, just hold your hand, whatever.”
Get ready to be moved by real-life accounts of healing that blend plants, story, and spirit in surprising ways. This extra episode from *All In The Mind* follows ethnobotanist Kathleen Harrison as she talks about decades spent working with indigenous healers in Latin America, particularly the Mazatec people of southern Mexico. Kathleen describes intimate mushroom and plant ceremonies held for people whose lives feel off-kilter – "what we might call bad luck" – where the aim is always "finding balance".
A healer, his wife, the client and a family member might spend six hours in a small group, sharing wild mushrooms, chanting, praying and staring at a simple altar, seeking clarity on illness, depression, family conflict or community tension. One of the most striking parts of the conversation is Kathleen’s own account of "narrative medicine" and a heart condition she faced after a period of deep loss.
Before agreeing to work with her, the Mazatec family insisted on hearing her full story, across three languages. When mushrooms weren’t available, they turned to *salvia divinorum*, guiding her through a strict, quiet ritual where she ate the bitter leaves in darkness, facing the mountain.
She recounts an extraordinary vision of a vast forest garden and a towering female presence, La Pastora, "the shepherdess", who gently passes her hand through the "plants" – Kathleen and others – and "my heart just felt like a little door in it opened". After this, Kathleen says she never had the heart problem again. The episode also touches on Western psychedelic use, the rise of medical research, and the risks of chaotic, commercialised approaches without proper guidance or tradition.
Kathleen stresses discernment and self-care: learning about substances, choosing trustworthy guides, and remembering that preparation, context and community are "all part of the medicine". If you’ve ever wondered how ritual, story and psychedelics might reshape ideas about healing, this conversation might spark some fresh questions.
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