The history of San Pedro and its uses for healing, creativity, and conscious evolution

• Includes interviews with practicing San Pedro shamans on their rituals, cactus preparations, and teachings on how San Pedro heals the mind and body

• Contains accounts from people who have been healed by San Pedro

• Includes chapters by Eve Bruce, M.D., and David Luke, Ph.D., on San Pedro’s effects on psychic abilities and its similarities to and differences from ayahuasca

San Pedro, the legendary cactus of vision, has been used by the shamans of Peru for at least 3,500 years. Referring to St. Peter, who holds the keys to Heaven, its name is suggestive of the plant’s visionary power to open the gates between the visible and invisible worlds, allowing passage to an ecstatic realm where miraculous physical and spiritual healings occur, love and enthusiasm for life are rekindled, the future divined, and the soul’s purpose revealed.

Exploring the history and shamanic uses of the San Pedro cactus, Ross Heaven interviews practicing San Pedro shamans about ancient and modern rituals, preparation of the visionary brew, experiences with the healing spirit of San Pedro, and their teachings on how the cactus works on the mind, body, and illness. He investigates the conditions treated by San Pedro as well as how it can enhance creativity, providing case studies from those who have been healed by the cactus and accounts from those who have been artistically and musically inspired through its use. Psychedelic researchers Eve Bruce, M.D., David Luke, Ph.D., and journalist Morgan Maher contribute chapters delving into San Pedro’s effects on conscious evolution and psychic abilities as well as its similarities to and differences from ayahuasca. Exploring plant communication and the vital role of music in San Pedro ceremonies, Heaven explains how healing songs are communicated by the sacred plants to the shamans working with them, much in the same way that other gifts of San Pedro--from healing to inspiration to expanded consciousness--are passed to those who commune with this ancient plant teacher.

Ross Heaven is a psychologist, healer, and workshop facilitator and presenter with extensive training in the shamanic, transpersonal, and psychospiritual traditions. The author of more than 10 books, including Plant Spirit Shamanism, he teaches workshops on shamanism and plant medicines in Spain and England and coordinates trips to Peru to work with indigenous plant shamans. He lives in Spain and the United Kingdom.

Introduction

The Mystery of San Pedro
Ross Heaven

Part 1
San Pedro Shamans and Shamanism

1 Shamanism and Curanderismo
The Approach to Healing in Peru
Ross Heaven

2 Traditions of San Pedro Healing: Ancient and Modern
An Interview with Rubén Orellana
Ross Heaven and La Gringa

3 San Pedro, the “Miracle Healer”
An Interview with La Gringa, an Andean San Pedro Shaman
Ross Heaven

4 Working Practically with San Pedro
Michael Simonato

Part 2
The Western Mind

5 The Anaconda and the Hummingbird
Sacraments of the Lowland Rain Forest and the Highest Mountains
Eve Bruce, M.D.

6 Notes on Getting Cactus Lodged in Your Reducing Valve
San Pedro and Psychic Abilities
David Luke, Ph.D.

7 Heaven and the Hummingbird
Morgan Maher


Part 3
San Pedro Healing

8 San Pedro Healing--An Overview
Ross Heaven

9 San Pedro and the Cure of Addiction
Tracie Thornberry

10 Healing an Abusive Past
Alexia Gidding

11 New Insights, Emotional and Physical Healing
Robyn Silvanen

12 The Universal Heart
Daniel Moler

13 Deciding to Live Not Die
Sonna-Ra

Part 4
San Pedro and Creativity

14 San Pedro in Art and Music
Ross Heaven

15 San Pedro
Inspiration and Art
David “Slocum” Hewson

16 San Pedro and the Healing of the Divine Mother
Peter Sterling

17 The Songs of San Pedro
Ross Heaven

Conclusions
The Gifts of San Pedro
Ross Heaven

Appendix
San Pedro Testimonials

About the Author

Index