Conclusion: Trance, Healing and Transgression

Psychedelic medical research has revived in the 21st century, showing promise for treating anxiety in terminal cancer patients, addiction, and depression. However, the supposed benefits of psychedelics for recreational and religious purposes remain less clear. The case of Maria Sabina, a Mazatec curandera discovered by ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson in the 1950s, illustrates the problematic cultural extraction that occurred when Wasson publicized her psilocybin rituals in Life magazine, leading to an influx of Western spiritual seekers that she later regretted. This pattern continues with some Western celebrities today.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Medical research in psychedelics in the West has re-emerged in the 21st century after the research in the 1950s and early 1960s had collapsed by 1966 (Pollan 2018, 220). The results of recent research have been promising in the treatment of anxiety in terminal cancer patients and in the treatment of addiction and depression. Even at this early stage, the beneficial effects of psychedelics in medicine seem clear. Less clear, however, are the supposed benefits of psychedelics for recreational and religious purposes. An illustrative case is Maria Sabina, the curandera discovered in the Mazatec region of Mexico by the American author and ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson, while he was investigating psylocibin in the first half of the 20th century (Pollan 2018, 117). A wealthy banker and amateur mycologist, he selffunded visits to her home, the first in 1955, and participated, under her guidance, in rituals which involved the ingestion of psylocibin, recording his experiences. Eventually, Maria Sabina suffered from and regretted the attention given to her by Western seekers of spiritual experiences, when Wasson put her and her village on the map in his ground-breaking article in Life magazine (13 May 1957) (Pollan 2018, 112, 120–121). Today, some Western celebrities perpetuate this dubious cultural industry.