Maria Sabina

Maria Sabina was a shaman/mystic from the Mazatec village of Huautla de Jimenez, in the Sierra Madre Oriental, of the Oaxaca state of Mexico. She used psilocybin mushrooms to induce connection and host Veladas, or night vigils.

List of Mystics

Mystics > Agehananda Bharati, Alan Watts, Bernard of Clairvaux, Emanuel Swedenborg, Howard Thurman, Ibn al-'Arabi, Julian of Norwich, Maria Sabina, Martin Prechtel, Michael Harner, Oscar Ichazo, Romain Rolland, Shihäb al-Din al-Suhrawardi, Thomas Merton

Notes

Shaman, what the indigenous refer to as a Wise One, in an ancient mushroom cult.

"It was not only the gold and natural riches of Anahuac, the culture and art of Mesoamerica that astonished the Spanish priests and conquistadors who arrived in this land in the sixteenth century: the native medicines (comprising a "marvellous collection" of hallucinogenic plants) were also the objects of attention, study, and condemnation." Hallucinogenic practices were seen as "demoniacal" and the practice was forced underground in most cases, but survived in Huautla, in Sierra Mazatec.

Mushrooms have the power to cure, and also give "the mystical force that creates the elevated, esoteric language of the shaman."

Ate many mushrooms when she was a young child, under fourteen! They brought her closer to god.

"I spoke to God who each time I felt to be more familiar. Closer to me. I felt as if everything that surrounded me was God."

"...Sometime later I knew that the mushrooms were like God. That they gave wisdom, that they cured illnesses, and that our people, since a long time ago, had eaten them. That they had power, that they were the blood of Christ."

Was not shy about claiming her space as wise one. "At bottom I knew that I was a doctor woman. I knew what my destiny was. I felt it deep within me. I felt that I had a great power, a power that awakened in me in the vigils."

Reports Unity Experiences. "I am the daughter of God and elected to be wise....In the vigils I clap and whistle; at that time I am transformed into God."

Refers to Leaves of the Shepherdess (Salvia Divinorum) and "Seeds of the Virgin" as alternatives when psilocybin mushrooms were not available.

"The mushrooms have revealed to me how I was in the days when I was in the womb of my mother: it's a vision in which I see myself turned into a fetus. An illuminated fetus. And I know that at the moment I was born, the PPrincipal Ones were present."

Did not like the hippies: "These young people, blonde and dark-skinned, didn't respect our customs. Never, as far as I remember, were the saint children eaten with such a lack of respect....Whoever does it simply to feel the effects can go crazy and stay that way temporarily. our ancestors always took the saint children at a vigil prsided over by a Wise One."

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