San Pedro is one a small handful of master teacher plants used in traditional healing that works on both the mind and body. Like other master teacher plants, the benefits of San Pedro are not limited and will vary from person-to-person based on what the individual needs. Thus, it’s always best to approach working with San Pedro with a completely open mind to the possibilities. Only a few possible benefits are discussed here, primarily for illustration.
The Mind/Body Connection
For most people who grow up in Western societies, there is an inherent understanding of the mind as separate from the body. What we think of as conscious awareness, however, is only around 5% of the mind’s activities. Most of the functions of our mind occur on the subconscious level. This is quite apparent when we consider that we have no conscious control of our beating heart, the function of our internal organs, our digestion, or our immune system. Yet, our mind is controlling these functions in some manner through the subconscious mind.
The subconscious also possesses a memory of every event that has ever happened to us, from the time prior to birth through our present. This is true regardless of whether we have a narrative memory. When an event of our past also involved a strong emotion, the body will store an emotional memory of the event. Many of the conditions that arise as disease in modern societies can be traced to emotional memories in the body that have not been fully felt and integrated.
Thus, one cannot address issues in the body without addressing the mind, nor can one address issues in the mind without addressing the body. With San Pedro, the healing occurs on both levels.
Processing of Emotional Memories in the Body
One way that San Pedro works on the physical body is in helping people to feel fully emotions that have been stuck in the body related to prior emotional events. While these memories may in some cases be accompanied by a narrative (conscious) memory of an event, often they are not, and the memory must be felt and experienced somatically through the body in order to be processed. That is, we cannot talk or think our way through an emotional memory in our bodies, which is one major reason talk therapy is of limited use in addressing emotional wounds. San Pedro works in ways similar to other mind/body medicines such as yoga, bodywork, and somatic experiencing by helping one to connect with the physical memories and to fully experience them during a ceremony.
During a San Pedro hike the movement of the body through a range of physical activities helps to move these types of emotional memories through the body. In ceremonies conducted in a ceremonial space (not as a hike) it is often desirable to move one’s own body during ceremony as the physical sensations of these emotions arise. In either case, people often will feel much lighter after a ceremony and much more open in their bodies after having released unfelt emotional memories.
The Nervous System
San Pedro, like some of the other master teacher plants, also works on the nervous system. Primarily, San Pedro works on the peripheral nervous system, which is that part of the nervous system functioning outside of the brain and the spinal cord. The vagal nerve is of primary importance in this system, because it is part of our “fight or flight” system, and it is one of the nerves affected most readily by San Pedro. The use of sound during the San Pedro experience also helps to stimulate and tone the vagal nerve. After working with San Pedro, people often report better digestion and calmer nerves associated with activation of their parasympathetic nervous system (the “rest and digest” system).
Vision
Though not studied by Western researchers, there is anecdotal evidence of improvements to vision after working with San Pedro, especially in the outdoor context. This may be in part related to the effects of sunlight in the eyes potentiating vision-enhancing effects of the medicine, or it may be due to long-lasting effects on the visual processing centers of the brain. There are many different legends about hunters using San Pedro to aid in their hunting because of its enhancements to the senses, including vision. These effects may also be due to the way San Pedro works on perception as a whole–enhancing one’s ability to see may simply be caused by people actually being fully present after working with San Pedro, rather than by any physical changes.