Cultural Appropriation in the Path of Poisons

We have already spo­ken about dan­gers in the Path of Poi­sons, the impli­ca­tions of Fear, the threat of Addic­tion, etc. all of those top­ics which, it was con­clud­ed, were caused by great degree of mis­in­for­ma­tion and lack of real or deep con­tact with nature dwelling spir­its. Now, some­thing that comes up to mind is the exis­tence of cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion and whether it is pos­si­ble in the Natural/Spirit world.

A com­pli­cat­ed top­ic, this one. What would we mean when if we spoke about cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion in the Path of Poi­sons? Under this cat­e­go­ry we could con­sid­er, in the first place, the mis­use of cer­tain plants, a devi­a­tion from the customary/ancestral usage of a plant, or not tak­ing the spiritual/folkloric/cultural/territorial con­text into con­sid­er­a­tion when deal­ing with a plant spir­it. Spir­its, as they have char­ac­ter, have also a cul­tur­al lega­cy that must be tak­en into account. This does not mean we can gen­er­al­ize when we talk about Spir­its, and so it would be use­less say­ing “rose­mary was used to cast evil spir­its away, so I use rose­mary to cast evil spir­its away”; but we should under­stand it in a dif­fer­ent way: rose­mary was cus­tom­ar­i­ly used for cast­ing spir­its away in X cul­ture, and this is an assump­tion that we should take into account when approx­i­mat­ing the plant, but of course, the plan­t’s own con­text, growth, loca­tion, astro­log­i­cal sign etc., is the key to its revelation.

Cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion is a tricky ques­tion, because, as we have said in pre­vi­ous arti­cles, the prac­ti­tion­er must dis­cov­er on his/her own the ade­quate usage or help a plant can pro­vide him/her with. So, where is the fron­tier between cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion (mis­us­ing it), and the real­i­ty of the plant towards the prac­ti­tion­er? The answer is clear: a truth­ful expe­ri­ence: a real, mind-blow­ing real­i­sa­tion process, a tan­gi­ble rela­tion­ship with the plant.

Cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion appears when we just copy recipes with­out try­ing things on their own first, when we appear daz­zled and stu­pe­fied by exot­ic flo­ra while dis­re­gard­ing our own, when we ignore the plants spir­its that share the land with us in our dai­ly life, when we do not obey to the cos­mo­log­i­cal con­text that a plant is set­tled in, when we use it in an inap­pro­pri­ate cli­mate, when we pay no heed to what the plant tells us of its ter­ri­to­ry. This is an offense greater and more atro­cious than a cul­tur­al one, it is in fact a spir­i­tu­al offense, a kind of blight­ing, de-sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion, a dis­em­pow­er­ment of Plant Spirits.

The polemic around Ayahuasca

Those who know Occvl­ta will prob­a­bly be famil­iar with our total rage against the wide­spread abuse of ayahuas­ca by West­ern peo­ple. This is a clas­sic exam­ple of mis­use and cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion: ayahuas­ca is nowa­days exploit­ed while being devoid of all mythos; peo­ple with no pre­vi­ous knowl­edge of Ama­zon­ian cul­ture, cos­mol­o­gy and spir­i­tu­al visions go on a kind of “spir­i­tu­al search” for some­thing they could def­i­nite­ly get in their own envi­ron­ment. To some it may sound folk­ish, but there is no polit­i­cal sec­ond read­ing here. If you ignore your local flo­ra and the plant spir­its that have accom­pa­nied you since your child­hood, there is a strong pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing future prob­lems when try­ing to con­join with both local and exot­ic fauna.

Some will say “well, plants have no coun­try, just because I’m not a mem­ber of a cul­ture this does­n’t mean I can­not enjoy the fruits of that cul­ture”. Sure you can, but again, even though plants may have no coun­try bar­ri­er, they have a nat­ur­al habi­tat, they have a species mem­o­ry, their spir­its knows who we are, and where do we come from.

What kind of mes­sage are we giv­ing to the spir­it plant of ayahuas­ca, for exam­ple, when flocks of west­ern­ers (whose ascen­dents spoiled and abused the native land and their peo­ple) invade the Ama­zon­ian for­est, think­ing they know what they’re up to, and while they look for a sort of spir­i­tu­al cleanse, just use the plant for emp­ty pur­pos­es, com­plete­ly neglect­ing and iso­lat­ing it from the spir­it that inhab­its the spec­i­men and the cos­mo­log­i­cal impli­ca­tions it holds?

Obvi­ous­ly, we take ayahuas­ca as an exam­ple, but we have wide­ly done the same thing with myr­i­ads of oth­er appar­ent­ly quo­tid­i­an Spir­its. Per­haps it would be wise to re-eval­u­ate our con­tact with each of the sub­stances we inter­act in a day to day frequency.

A solu­tion

And so, how could we keep coher­ence with this path of devel­op­ment, spir­i­tu­al knowl­edge and exper­i­men­ta­tion such as the Poi­son Path while not offend­ing the spir­its? Does that mean that, in order to be coher­ent, one should stop util­is­ing a plant spir­it (e.g. myrrh, cof­fee, tea, choco­late, datu­ra, you name it) alto­geth­er because it is not nat­u­ral­ly avail­able in an area?

Obvi­ous­ly, focus­ing first on what sur­rounds us is a total­ly log­i­cal and advis­able sug­ges­tion, but there are occa­sions when sub­stances alien to our nat­ur­al sur­round­ings may call us or pro­vide us with what we long for. In such cas­es, it would be wise to approach a sub­stance the same way as if trav­el­ling to a for­eign ter­ri­to­ry: atten­tive, with an open heart, an open mind, and a ful­ly recep­tive spir­it. We should know where a sub­stance comes from, where and how it grows, how was his­tor­i­cal­ly and cus­tom­ar­i­ly used, and what the spir­it demands in order to agree on work­ing with the prac­ti­tion­er, what spir­its it calls, what syn­er­gies may arise in con­junc­tion with others.

Thus, this does not mean we should not restrict our prac­tice to the spir­its that inhab­it our clos­est ter­ri­to­ry, but there is an order that must be fol­lowed when deal­ing with plant spir­its, and mind­less­ly trans­gress­ing it may be poten­tial­ly harm­ful in the long run. In the end, aware­ness (con­scious­ly know­ing) and self-hon­esty (a detailed analy­sis of our fears, needs, vices, and virtues) is the key to all knowledge.

Cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion in the Path of Poi­sons de Júlia Car­reras — Sem­pro­ni­ana Tort està sub­jec­ta a una llicèn­cia de Reconeix­e­ment-NoCom­er­cial-SenseO­braDeriva­da 4.0 Inter­na­cional de Cre­ative Commons
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