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."

She 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."

"For me sorcery and curing are inferior tasks. The Sorcerers and Curers have their Language as well, but it is different from mine. They ask favours from Chicon Nindo. I ask them from God the Christ, from Saint Peter, from Magdalene and Guadalupe. It's that in me there is no sorcery, there is no anger, there are no lies. Because I don't have garbage, I don't have dust."

"After having eaten the mushrooms, we felt dizzy, as if we were drunk, and we began to cry; but the dizziness passed and then we became very content. Later we felt good. It was like a new hope in our life. That was how it felt. In the days that followed, when we felt hungry, we ate the mushrooms. And not only did we feel our stomachs full, but content in spirit as well. The mushrooms made us ask God not to make us suffer so much....After eating them I heard voices. Voices that came from another world. It was like the voice of a father who gives advice. Tears rolled down our cheeks, abundantly, as if we were crying for the poverty in which we lived."

"Another day we ate the mushrooms...I spoke to God who each time I felt to be more familiar, Closer ot me. I felt as if everything that surrounded me was God."

"Maria Ana and I continued to eat the mushrooms. We ate lots, many times, I don't remember how many....Sometimes grandfather and at other times my mother came to the woods and gathered us up from the ground where we were sprawled or kneeling. 'What have you done?' they asked. They picked us u bodily and carried us home. In their arms we continued laughing, singing, or crying. They never scolded us nor hut us for eating mushrooms. Because they knew that it isn't good to scold a person who has eaten the 'little things because it could cause contrary emotions and it's possible that one might feel one was going crazy."

She tended not to use the little ones when she was married to abusive men.

"Before Wasson, I felt that the saint children elevated me. I don't feel like that anymore. The force has diminished. If Cayetano hadn't brought the foreigners...the saint children would have kept their power...From the moment the foreigners arrived, the saint children lost their purity. They lost their force; the foreigners spoiled them. From now on they won't be any good. There's no remedy for it."

Footnotes

References