Fire Path Huachuma Retreat in the Sacred Valley

The record starts at Chavin de Huantar, a temple complex in the northern highlands from roughly 900 to 200 BCE. The plant is carved into its stonework, held by a figure at the center of the site, so it was already at the center of religious life there.

In 1532 the Spanish arrived, and at Cajamarca they seized Atahualpa. For the next three centuries the medicine was recorded as heresy and the people who used it were prosecuted. The Peruvian Inquisition ended in 1820, and the practice outlived it.

Part of how it survived is that some priests tried the medicine themselves and came back wanting to reconcile what they found with their own faith. The name San Pedro comes from that time. The practice took on the vocabulary of the people trying to end it and carried on underneath.

We go through what mescaline is and what it does, including what is well established and what is still argued over. Most substances people reach for turn the volume down, and this one turns it up.

Mescaline gets most of the attention because it was isolated early and comes out of the plant easily, but it is one compound among many. There are tyramines too, a long list of others, and fats, sugars and minerals. When five alkaloids are recorded in a cactus, those are the five that could be identified with the methods available, and there may be hundreds.

Huachuma grows slowly from seed and readily from a cutting, and it grows differently depending on where in the Andes it is. We see several varieties growing in one place and learn to tell them apart.

Its spines are too small to protect it from anything. One explanation is that they are left over from an ancestor that needed them. Another, from people who have spent time watching the plant, is that they catch dew and run the water down to the skin.

Demand has grown fast, and wild plants are being cut faster than they grow back. That is the problem the Foundation works on, and we plant some ourselves at the Huachuma Sanctuary.

Huachuma has been used in ceremony in many different ways over three thousand years, and it still is. On the calls we go through how the ceremonies on this retreat are held: where the circle sits and why it sits close enough to touch, and how the day moves from first light to the end.

A stick, a rattle and a feather are passed around the circle. You hold the stick in your left hand and the rattle in your right, crossed over it, with the feather in the fingers of your left. They are an invitation to sing. Nobody has to, and you can pass them on.

Everything moves clockwise. You pass in front of people, not behind them, and you do not point the soles of your feet at the altar. Small rules like these let nine people move around the circle without anyone having to negotiate.

Ceremonies are held in noble silence, which means staying inside your own experience. The urge to speak in the middle of a ceremony is usually an urge to get out of a feeling, and you will learn what to do with it, and what to say if someone speaks to you.

The preparation calls also cover confidentiality, boundaries, asking before you touch someone or offer advice, and how to witness someone without trying to fix them. These are practiced for the whole ten days.