Medicine Future

It is a sad truth that despite the medicine’s great potential to steer humanity and the benefits it has granted many people in the past (not to mention its straight-up and barely-believable magic), this art and science is fading fast in its traditional context. Simultaneously we see that it is passing to the West, in a new form of syncretic medicine use that is developing among interested people the world over.

It seems as though as one door starts to close, another opens, and one could reckon that the medicine is moving to where it needs to go, striving to offer people the ultimately satisfying challenge of awakening and becoming a conscious human being.

Despite all this, while the traditional modes of transmission crumble, hope for the future of the medicine tradition comes, ironically, from outside the rainforest; from elements within the very cultures that seem bent on destroying it all. Globally, as more and more people seek reconnection with original nature and their true identity, they are participating in medicine healing ceremonies and/or seeking health through the use of various botanicals from the Amazon rainforest.

The ability of indigenous science and traditional Amazonian medicines to assist people in attaining insight, balance and wellness has been proven on countless occasions. Due to the effectiveness of this medicine, it is inevitable that we will see it gain in popularity, and this will - in ways beyond imagining, as medicine assists people in their personal journeys - help salvage both the medicine traditions and the rainforest environment itself.

In a world governed by corporations and driven by profit margins, even the knowledge of top scientists is not respected, let alone that of feathered masters. Nevertheless there will come a time when indigenous science and modern scientific methods will merge their strengths to help steer humanity back on course. The spirits, deities and immortals revealed through the drinking of medicine want this more than anything else.

Meanwhile this knowledge will continue to help people and communities as it expands beyond the jungle, and I want to believe that nothing can stop it. It is evolution at work, the constructive cycle of the universal energetic flow manifesting itself, gaining momentum and daily getting stronger. More and more sincere Westerners are studying with maestros or joining a type of church that honors this medicine, and more and more books are being written on it.

So despite the loss of much of the original body of knowledge, peripheral forms are being passed along. From these seeds, there can exist a future when the vines again flower, and these arts and ways are respected and able to flourish anew in the rainforest and the world over.