Psychoactive Plants in Living Traditions Around the World: Cultural Practices, Healing, Ceremony, and Community Knowledge

Psychoactive plants and fungi are presented through 26 living traditions worldwide, with emphasis on anthropological research and the knowledge, practices, and terminology of the communities that use them. The collection compares how traditions understand medicines as teachers or not, how healers are chosen, who takes the medicine, and how healing occurs. Examples include Zapotec and Mazatec mushroom traditions, Koryak fly agaric use, vegetalismo plant diets, kava ceremonies in Vanuatu and Fiji, Piaroa yopo shamanism, Xhosa diviner initiation, Yanomami yãkoana snuff, San Pedro curanderismo, Wixárika hikuri pilgrimage, Bwiti iboga, and several ayahuasca traditions. Across the 26 traditions, healing is the most common purpose, followed by protection from sorcery, communication with spirits, diagnosis, initiation, divination, community life, worship, life guidance, locating what is lost, and political ceremony.