This interview features Peruvian filmmaker, storyteller, community builder and occasional San Pedro Curandero, Carlo Brescia.
Carlo shares insights into Peruvian culture and the importance of psychoactive cactus. From San Pedro visions at Chavin de Huanatar, to the San Pedro experience of Carlo’s family – his grandmother, great grandmother, great great grandfather, uncles and cousins. Carlo speaks of a historical, cultural shift away from community towards the individual, a balance of opposites evidenced by Quechuan language and architecture, and the possibility of accessing lost cultural knowledge and initiation to psychedelic traditions via dreams.
Carlo also provides some practical practical for people curious about cactus consumption in traditional Peruvian settings, the immense work in serving cactus, the importance of travelling to North Peru and speaking to local people for locating genuine, longstanding cactus traditions.
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This interview features Peruvian filmmaker, storyteller, community builder and occasional San Pedro Curandero, Carlo Brescia.
Carlo shares insights into Peruvian culture and the importance of psychoactive cactus. From San Pedro visions at Chavin de Huanatar, to the San Pedro experience of Carlo’s family – his grandmother, great grandmother, great great grandfather, uncles and cousins. Carlo speaks of a historical, cultural shift away from community towards the individual, a balance of opposites evidenced by Quechuan language and architecture, and the possibility of accessing lost cultural knowledge and initiation to psychedelic traditions via dreams.
Carlo also provides some practical practical for people curious about cactus consumption in traditional Peruvian settings, the immense work in serving cactus, the importance of travelling to North Peru and speaking to local people for locating genuine, longstanding cactus traditions.
This interview features Peruvian filmmaker, storyteller, community builder and occasional San Pedro Curandero, Carlo Brescia.
Carlo shares insights into Peruvian culture and the importance of psychoactive cactus. From San Pedro visions at Chavin de Huanatar, to the San Pedro experience of Carlo’s family – his grandmother, great grandmother, great great grandfather, uncles and cousins. Carlo speaks of a historical, cultural shift away from community towards the individual, a balance of opposites evidenced by Quechuan language and architecture, and the possibility of accessing lost cultural knowledge and initiation to psychedelic traditions via dreams.
Carlo also provides some practical practical for people curious about cactus consumption in traditional Peruvian settings, the immense work in serving cactus, the importance of travelling to North Peru and speaking to local people for locating genuine, longstanding cactus traditions.
In this episode Liam interviews Joey Santore of Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t. Joey has an impressively broad knowledge of ecology, particularly of desert in south Texas where he lives, which is the home of Peyote and many other special cacti.
This episode has a slightly different flavour – to quote Joey “psychoactives are fucking boring” and mescaline is “shitty”. We wouldn’t phrase it quite the same way, but Joey has an important message – all plants are special and play an important role, even if we don’t understand exactly what they’re up to. Kill your lawn and plant the locals.
Humans are interwoven in the living fabric of ecology, but we don’t pay attention to plants unless they clearly benefit us somehow. Joey encourages us to pay attention to all local plants, and to spend less time obsessing over foreign species and cultivar groups.
Once a bright eyed high schooler reading food of the gods and picking blue meanie mushrooms near Nimbin, Darren Williams grew up to spread seeds of exotic species far and wide. From horticultural R & D, to stand out fruits on clumping Trichocereus huasca, to finger lime hybrids and huffing strange psychoactive petals from a bag. This flora fuelled conversation follows Darren’s journey with obscure psychoactive and edible plants, to the magical plant petri dish that Herbalistics is today.
Halcyon is an ecologist and plant explorer curious in breeding San Pedro with medicinal and disease resistant qualities, as well as fragrant flowers and delicious fruits. Halcyon is the co-author of Coke Bottle Tek: A terrarium technique and the Damascus garden catalogue. Amongst growers Halcyon is well known for propagation of the infamous Trichocereus macrogonus ‘Halcyon Beast.’
Huan shares his positive view of psychedelic tourism and stories from his own entheogenic path, ranging from snorting yopo seeds while looking for cactus at the Chavin archaelogical site, to curious strategies for drying fruits and seeds on the go.
Carlos advocates for listing Trichocereus peruvianus in appendix 1 of CITES, in the hopes of protecting this species from wild harvesting for the production and export of San Pedro powder as a source of mescaline.
Liam has a curious chat with the classic psychedelic character and Shaman Australis member, Tony. From microdosing cactus flower tinctures, to psychedelic McDonalds, to a bigfoot sighting that smelled like DMT. Interesting, practical and a healthy dose of weird.
The elusive author and psychonaut Snu Voogelbreinder takes us on a journey through the Australian plantscape. We give special emphasis to two of Snu’s favourite organisms, cacti and Acacia.
Dr Liam Engel interviews ethnobotanist and neuroscientist, Dr Anya Ermakova. They discuss Anya’s fieldwork with Peyote, sustainability, harm reduction and implications of the psychedelic renaissance for mescaline-containing cactus.
This interview features Peruvian filmmaker, storyteller, community builder and occasional San Pedro Curandero, Carlo Brescia.
Carlo shares insights into Peruvian culture and the importance of psychoactive cactus. From San Pedro visions at Chavin de Huanatar, to the San Pedro experience of Carlo’s family – his grandmother, great grandmother, great great grandfather, uncles and cousins. Carlo speaks of a historical, cultural shift away from community towards the individual, a balance of opposites evidenced by Quechuan language and architecture, and the possibility of accessing lost cultural knowledge and initiation to psychedelic traditions via dreams.
Carlo also provides some practical practical for people curious about cactus consumption in traditional Peruvian settings, the immense work in serving cactus, the importance of travelling to North Peru and speaking to local people for locating genuine, longstanding cactus traditions.
