Below are some resources for anyone to learn more about San Pedro or connect with people directly whom I 100% trust to serve the medicine. Feel free to reach out to them if you’re interested in a San Pedro ceremony.

Huachuameros I trust with my life - both in the Sacred Valley, Peru:

Chase Moore at The Spirit Cooperative

Bernhard Karshegan at Ubuntu Ayni

Chase and Bernhard both offer retreats at The Green House Peru here in the Sacred Valley. The Greenhouse is a beautiful, warm space designed to host group retreats. Feel free to reach out to Jyl, the wonderful owner operator there, to get more information.

I’ve addressed a bit of the history and science around San Pedro, but feel free to visit ThirdWave’s page on San Pedro for a more in-depth overview.

History

San Pedro is a cactus native to Peru and surrounding countries. Evidence of its use goes back 3000 years to the Chavin civilization in Northern Peru, where the cactus was ingested (3000-year-old huachuma cigars have been discovered) for healing, religious divination and connecting with the spirit world. When the Spanish and Roman Catholicism arrived, psychoactive plants didn’t jive with Jesus and the lot, so the use of it was banned. Communion with the cactus went underground and someone named it San Pedro, or Saint Peter, the Christian saint who holds the keys to heaven. An apt moniker in my opinion.

Science

There’s been a lot of research done on mescaline, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find any studies on San Pedro specifically. Ayahuasca and mushrooms currently get most of the media and scientific attention. Mescaline acts as one of many phenethylamines found in the cactus, and though we know it acts on certain serotonin and melatonin receptors, and most scientists are looking at the brain here. For me, the heart is where this medicine is working. The heart sends thousands of more signals to our brain than our brain sends to our heart. I don’t know if San Pedro is working with those signals, and I am not saying or implying San Pedro physically alters the heart muscle. It’s perfectly safe for our bodies, though of course anyone with a heart condition should be careful with any psychoactive plant. I just know San Pedro connects me with my emotions in a stronger way. It turns up the volume on my inner compass, giving me a stronger sense of what is good for me, or not, in any given moment.

~If you have any other resources you’d like to share, please email me and I’ll be happy to link out to them as well. Thank You!~