At Chacruna: Peyote: Plant Medicine for the Body, Mind and Soul

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Written By

Stacy B. Schaefer, Ph.D

Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) is a small, spineless, mind-altering cactus that, for centuries, has been terribly misunderstood by Western society. It grows naturally in the desert thorn scrub landscape along the Texas border with Mexico down into north-central Mexico and has been used by indigenous peoples for millennia. This unassuming cactus has in the past been vilified by Spanish Catholic priests in the sixteenth –nineteenth centuries and in the twentieth century by Protestant clergy who claimed it to be the “root of the devil.”... continue reading.

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