By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.

In the last post we were exploring the complications that can come out of working with psychoactive plants in the wrong setting. There is so much to understand about the way plants’ biochemistry interacts with our own. I am referring not only to psychoactive plants, but even just plants that we use for food. We could spend a lifetime studying these interactions and never fully understand the deeply magical state of interdependence that scientific investigation reveals about the way we live in relation to plants.

Having worked with hundreds of people who have sought assistance in understanding their experience with psychoactive plants, I can point to some very consistent themes regarding how psychoactive plants work with our psyches.

By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.

In Ariel Levy’s article “The Drug of Choice in the Age of Kale,” in the September 12, 2016 edition of The New Yorker, she describes her experience as part of a circle of participants who came together to drink ayahuasca tea at an urban yoga studio. Her report is highly informative and not unlike some of the stories people have brought to me after similar gatherings, where people have been inappropriately exposed to others’ uncontrolled experience of parts of their minds they may have never encountered before.

Ayahuasca is a powerful combination of plants that, like other psychoactive plants, can reveal the inner worlds to those who ingest it, sometimes in very surprising and even difficult ways.

By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.

In the previous blog post, we talked about removing the imprints of past experiences from a location through the shamanic practice of space clearing. We discussed positive effects of space clearing, such as making a workspace more conducive to the productivity and general well being of the people working there or making a home more attractive to potential buyers.

We also talked about how shamanic processes work outside of time, which makes it possible to help people who died many years ago. Similarly, shamanic processes done in one place can affect events at a distance. This aspect of shamanic practice was at work in a clearing the Sacred Stream Space Clearing Society completed last fall.

By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.

Have you ever taken a hotel room and, within an hour or so of being in it, find you are grumpy or fearful and you don’t know why? You might say that the space has “bad vibes.” Conversely, maybe you have found that you really enjoy going to a family member’s or friend’s house because you feel happy just being in their home. You might say something like, “The energy feels really good there.” But what does it mean for a space to have good energy? And how does a space get bad vibes?

By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.

In my previous post, I mentioned giving a lecture on shamanic healing to Integrative Medicine students at the University of California, in Berkeley. Many students had questions about the traditional shamanic use of plants that alter the state of consciousness and offer insights beyond an individual’s normal perceptual capacity. These students had ingested such psychotropic plants “recreationally,” and as they tried to integrate their experience into their everyday life, questions had arisen for which the students did not know how to get answers.