The Great Tribe:
On the other hand, humanity is a whole, and everybody – indigenous or not – takes part in human action. Perhaps we are all indigenous. So we, the indigenous peoples of the great tribe of general civilisation, who travel the world, experience different cultures and analyse these experiences, know that the healing potential of Ayahuasca is a psychosomatic process of cure which is in some way catalysed by the plant when it is used in a favourable context and by people who are looking for solutions. We know that the cure is a process, a “gestalt”.
Healing is a phenomenon which arises in the triple intersection between the plant, the person and the intention. Arriving at suitable intentions, ethics, ecology and a definition of virtues – whether they are Socratic, teleological, modern or a renewal of old ideas – is a task for all the indigenous peoples of the world.
Cultivating an expanded consciousness is something which thinking people, philosophers, scientists, academics, “global indians” and practitioners – all of them – need to work on. They are all necessary in order to construct and develop a “holistic empiricism full of synergy”.
It is an empiricism capable of detecting the biological, neural, psychological and sociological connections in the experience of the human being. It is an empiricism which acknowledges and takes into consideration the fact that we are surrounded by the mysterious, the fantastic and the inexplicable, even knowing that specific cases and personal experiences do not make absolute rules.
It is an empiricism which recognises our incapacity to totally understand the infinite; it recognises that we are suspended in the mystery of the essentiality of existence, and the apparent or real essentiality of consciousness.
It is a holistic empiricism which knows how to cultivate the art of living with uncertainty and without dogmas (sunyata). Recognising the beauty, the grandeur and the creativity of transience is the radical cure for insecurity and fear, compulsion and absolutism.
In this vision, the identity and action of shamans are redefined by: knowledge of the potential and limitations inherent in the various states of consciousness; knowledge of the scientific nature of these states of consciousness and how to induce them; understanding of the interaction of Leary’s factors (the personal factor, the environmental factor and the tea) in the realisation of the vision and the experience.
From the primordial definition:
“I am a shaman. I work with supernatural powers catalysed by states of trance; I invoke spiritual entities to carry out cures. I use a powerful plant, an instructive plant, which frees the spirit of the flesh which surrounds it, allowing it to enter into the world of the stars. From there I return with visions, instructions and knowledge to diagnose and neutralise the malignant spirits which cause diseases.”
In search of a newly thought out modern identity:
“I am a therapist and facilitator who has access to psychosomatic technology. I stimulate creative and holistic processes in the search for cures and solutions. I share with others a psychoactive plant which widens sensibility and creativity, frees the mind and the imagination from its habits and from the conditioning which has been imposed upon it, giving it access to new and ultimately mysterious aspects of reality.”
So, we recognise “shamanist” aspects of our activities, because we cultivate the same essential values, but there are also modern aspects to our work. We try to work with these different elements in order to transcend and resolve contradictions, including the “natural/supernatural dichotomy”, as well as cultivating the mystical recognition of oneness – that is, the essential equality of beings.