Neuropsychedelic revival: How colonial prohibition erased Indigenous healing traditions and what systemic reintegration could mean
Original framing: “Psychedelic drugs were once considered ‘revolutionary rocket fuel’, but could they be life-changing medicines?” — The Conversation - Global
The article ignores that psychedelics like psilocybin and ayahuasca were **sacred technologies** in Indigenous cultures long before Western science rediscovered them. The Mazatec people of Oaxaca, for example, have used *hongos sagrados* (sacred mushrooms) in *veladas* (rituals) for centuries, guided by *curanderos* who integrate the experience into broader healing systems. Colonial prohibition and criminalization severed these traditions from their cultural and spiritual contexts, reducing them to 'chemicals' for Western consumption. The current revival risks repeating this extraction unless it centers Indigenous leadership, such as the **Mazatec Legal Defense Fund** or the **Unión de Curanderos** in Peru, who are demanding reparations and governance rights over these plants.
The psychedelic revival is not a neutral scientific renaissance but a **contested terrain** where colonial extraction meets Indigenous resistance, therapeutic innovation meets spiritual erasure, and corporate profit meets communal healing.
The original framing obscures how these substances were **stolen from cultures** that used them for **centuries**—not as 'treatments' but as **sacred technologies** for justice, ecology, and collective memory. The solution lies in **restoring agency** to the original stewards of these plants, whether through **legal reparations, benefit-sharing models, or decolonized therapeutic frameworks**. The trickster here is history itself: what was once a tool of **cultural genocide** is now being repurposed as a **capitalist wellness trend**, demanding that we confront the **absurdity and injustice** of this reversal. The path forward requires **Indigenous leadership, interdisciplinary science, and systemic accountability**—not just another cycle of Western appropriation under a new name.