Admixtures in San Pedro Brews

[Ishmael Fleishman]

This post will digress from purely plant questions but touch on the broader anthropological and ethnobotanical questions.

 

I have been devouring the Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation podcast Mark Plotkin, Ph.D. so I have been going down a rabbit hole.

 

Allot of this post is vague as I have so little information to work from and is kind of why I am asking.

 

I have been reading up on San Pedro shamanism. One interesting idea that has sparked my interest is Admixtures plants added into the San Pedro brew to modulate the experience, healing and needs of the patients. This idea of adjuncts seems to connected to Dietas, and that the Admixtures do not need to be psychoactive per se but infuse the brew with the spirit of the object.

 

Now that standard gringo neo-shamanic brew is fairly simple - de-thorn, peel leather skin, chop cactus boil with some source acid and your done. The impression I have gotten is that no curandero would use such a basic recipe, and that each tradition has their own secret sauce of Admixtures plants and even crystals, stones, human and animal remains and other holy objects.

 

However I have heard, seen and read about the following:

 

• Tobacco: This has two benefits is said to add more focus to the experience keeping you on the road and not letting you get distracted by things like visuals. Tobacco is also a major spirit protective plant. However its addition to the brew would need to be tightly controlled. I think Tobacco would help to increase purging. Tobacco also seems to used a liquid snuff consistently by San Pedro curandero.
• Datura: This was one of the first ones I ever heard off and it was insinuated to be a practice associate with shamanic abuse and witchcraft. However its addition seems to be widespread - especially with a patients with complex needs. My guess is that it would be used to increase "hyperactive effects and ability to cause stark and dream-like hallucinations." - YES it is dangerous but not impossible if you have single source of Datura you know its potency and dose slowly. So often you watch a curandero prepare a San Pedro brew in his garden and their you can see a Datura in the background. I doubt it is just decoration.
• Powdered bones from powerful shamans: Self evident as to why.
• Powdered bones from animals: Self evident as to why.
• Crystals: are socked in the water to draw the power of crystal into the brew.
• Lime Fruit: This helps with the extraction but it is said to alter the experience how was not explained.
• Yawar panga (Aristolochia didyma) - used as a purgative for drug addiction treatment
• Cacao -  I have not heard of as an adjunct but I would not be surprised if added since it is an ancient master plant of Peru.

• Rose Juice, a plant linked to Femininity (and for Christian curanderos to the Virgin Mary), which works on the opening of the heart and removes thorns from emotional wounds.

 

Then found this list at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimora

 

Quote

Plants and admixtures in the cimora brew

The main ingredient in the brew is the cactus Trichocereus pachanoi, also known as San Pedro, which contains Mescaline, which is responsible for the hallucinogenic effects of cimora. Other plants are commonly included in the mixture such as Neoraimondia arequipensis (syn. N. macrostibas), Brugmansia arborea, Pedilanthus tithymaloides, Datura stramonium and Isotoma longiflora.^[2][6] Other ingredients such as powdered bones, archaeological dust from sacred sites or cemetery dust are added if the illness is thought to be caused by black magic.^[7]

 

Then looked up a bunch of these in Garden Of Eden by Snu-Voogelbreinder - who has detailed notes on many of these plants and there relationship to San Pedro.

 

The only one I could not anything on is Isotoma longiflora.

 

Going back to the Dieta - an idea floated by a gringo shaman was the San Pedro may not be the active component rather that the San Pedro makes you sensitive enough to the adjunct so that you can learn from the adjunct not only from the San Pedro. So in theory chamomile could be an adjunct.

 

Now I have heard of neo-shamanic retreats were gringos come and have some Aya, then smoke weed, drop a few mushrooms and finish their day of traditional shamanic healing with some Bufotenin. Then they discover that they are God and they stick a feather in their nose.

 

It seems common to use cannabis to come down from phenethylamine amongst gringos. Personally could not think of anything worse as I do not like cannabis.

 

In a related topic - I was watching the anthropologist Stacy Schaefer  give a talk about her time with the Wixarika Nation (Huichol) and peyote. She mentions four plants used by the Wixarika to modify the peyote experience. It illustrated the same modulation effect across two distinct cultures using Peyote and San Pedro.

 

• Smoked Nicotiane Rustica - for focus reduces the feeling of being drunk on the peyote
• a plant called maxa kwaxi a type of barrel cactus - this reduces the intensity of the peyote experience "you don't get so high"
• Ariocarpus retusus - what it does she does not explain - however based on Garden Of Eden by Snu-Voogelbreinder -  "A. retusus is regarded by the Huichol as a ‘false peyote’ that produces evil and undesirable effects. When on their annual peyote hunt, the Huichol believe that to any who had not properly purified themselves at the start of the pilgrimage by admitting all of their sexual encounters outside of marriage"
• Mahonia trifoliolata - elevates and raises you up to the god eye view. - Personally this plant looks cool to grow it make a yellow die and make tiny sour fruit.

 

QUESTION - have you any knowledge on this topic - do you know of any adjuncts used with San Pedro or Peyote and why?

 

At the very least it would be beneficial for us not to think of just a singular reductionist isolated compound or singular plant but to start to think of the synergistic relationships between different plants.

 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Ishmael Fleishman

[Strontium Dawg]

Personally, I like 4 datura stramonium seeds per person added to my brew. But I don't do it without people's permission because it's not everyone's preference and some folks are downright scared of tropanes.

But yeah if it's my brew for me, that's how I make cimora.

The thing with making a brew, is you can't do it if you're not in a good headspace. You have to put all the love and good vibes in, sing it songs, blow some incence over it, ring some gongs or tingshas over it...

[Ishmael Fleishman]

1 hour ago, Strontium Dawg said:

Personally, I like 4 datura stramonium seeds per person

 

How does the 4 datura stramonium modulate the experience?

 

Quote

An individual seed contains about 0.1 mg of atropine, and the approximate fatal dose for adult humans is >10 mg atropine or >2–4 mg scopolamine.^[34]

 

I found this on Wiki - this means that a fatal dose would be 100 seeds so a mere 4 seeds should be safe. However Wiki also says

 

Quote

As much as a 20:1 variation can be found between plants, and a given plant's toxicity depends on its age, where it is growing, and the local weather conditions.

 

This means 4 strong seeds could get you in trouble if the potency of the seeds is 20 times normal and you had a low body weight. Probably best not given to children or dainty woman.

 

However the risk must be manageable - otherwise the practice of using datura would have died out.

 

1 hour ago, Strontium Dawg said:

that's how I make cimora.

 

Thanks learned a new word - never through that the brew itself would have a name

 

1 hour ago, Strontium Dawg said:

The thing with making a brew, is you can't do it if you're not in a good headspace. You have to put all the love and good vibes in, sing it songs, blow some incence over it, ring some gongs or tingshas over it...

 

Totally - you spirit must become connected to the plant teacher.

 

 

[Ishmael Fleishman]

I found these 3 pages on the Spanish Wikipedia and ran them trough the translator:

 

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singada

 

Quote

The singada refers to the act of inhaling liquid tobacco macerated by the nose as part of the actions carried out in the healing rituals within the northern table, medicinal tradition of the coast and northern mountains of Peru.^1 2 It differs from the snuff in that the tobacco inhaled by the nose in the singada is in liquid form while in the snuff tobacco is Guayanese shield.^4 5 6

 

Quote

to the tobacco leaves are added: Florida water, cananga water, Taboo perfume,sweet lime juice, cane alcohol, white sugar and boiled san pedro cactus (Echinopsis pachanoi).²⁸

 

This is interesting because they are adding sand pedro to the singada

 

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curanderismo_norteño

 

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purga_de_tabaco

 

Then found these videos about the life of the peruvian healer Eduardo Calderón Palomino are widely used in university-level anthropology courses. On the second video you can see him walk past a Brugmansia.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Ishmael Fleishman

[fyzygy]

20 hours ago, Ishmael Fleishman said:

QUESTION - have you any knowledge on this topic - do you know of any adjuncts used with San Pedro or Peyote and why?

 

I have read that Iresenii herbstii is added to cimora for purposes of "black magic." 

 

Rätsch states that the Pernettya species known as "toro-maique" is used as a fortifying additive to the San Pedro drink. Brugmansia is also mentioned in his Encyclopaedia of Psychoactive Plants. Other additives such as "hornamo" and "condorillo" have not been botanically identified with accuracy, although his book gives references to some research literature. 

[Humboldt]

Edit:

Sorry thought i knew something but was wrong. 

Edited May 7, 2023 by Humboldt

[Ishmael Fleishman]

From An Encyclopedia of Shamanism Volume 2 By Christina Pratt

 

Wachuma cimora admixtures

• Brugmansia aurea
• Brugmansia sanguinea
• Neoraimondia arequipensis
• Iresine herbstii
• Euphorbia tithymaloides
• isotoma longiflora (I have seen this one mention in other sources but a search find no such species)

Plan to make up a detailed list of Wachuma cimora admixtures with notes.

[fyzygy]

Iresine spp., Pedilanthus tithymaloides, and Hippobroma longiflorum 

 

Brugmansia arborea, B. candida, B. sanguinea

 

(Rätsch)

[Strontium Dawg]

On 06/05/2023 at 7:52 PM, Ishmael Fleishman said:

How does the 4 datura stramonium modulate the experience?

It can help reduce some of the nausea, and it adds a slight euphoria.