Vegetalismo

Vegetalismo is a term used to refer to a practice of mestizo shamanism in the Peruvian Amazon in which the shamans – known as vegetalistas – gain their knowledge and power to cure from the vegetables, or plants of the region. Many receive their knowledge from ingesting the hallucinogenic, emetic brew ayahuasca.

The term vegetalismo is used to distinguish vegetalistas from other such healers as oriacionistas (prayer healers) and espiritistas (spiritist healers). The term is used by followers of Brazilian new religious movements to refer to both indigenous and mestizo ayahuasca shamanism in contrast to their practices. However, among mestizos in the Peruvian Amazon, the term vegetalismo is used to distinguish mestizo shamanism from the traditional shamanism practiced by indigenous peoples. Related religious movements include the more formal União do Vegetal and Santo Daime.

The vegetalismo practice combines deep Catholic elements with the animistic religious beliefs common to indigenous tribes throughout the region. Though many vegetalistas declare themselves to be Catholics, they receive their knowledge and power to heal from their special relationship with the spirits of the Amazon rainforest.Vegetalistas maintain relationships with two types of spirits: the spirits of the healing plants, often appearing in human form, and protective spirits, often appearing as powerful animals, birds, or humans. There are other spirit-beings (non-human entities) that exist in the visionary world that can assist the shaman; beings that come from other planets and galaxies, beings that come from infinite labyrinths of crystal rooms, and beings who live in the deep rainforest and beneath the dark waters. In contrast to indigenous shamanism in the upper Amazon, which is based within a rural environment and whose focus is to maintain or restore social balance, mestizo shamanism is based within an urban environment and is focused on individual healing. Many of these mestizo shamans have consultarios (clinics), where they provide consultations and healing ceremonies for patients, as well as other services such as massages and general, simple healing sessions, which usually involve the shaman sucking out the sickness from the patient's body, protecting the body with shacapa and tobacco smoke, and then prescribing an herbal remedy to help the patient in their recovery from the sickness.

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